"After you left, I kind of lost my way."
---Xena, SINS OF THE PAST (episode #1)
[1] This paper is based upon the first season of XENA:
WARRIOR PRINCESS (1995-96) and the HERCULES: THE
LEGENDARY JOURNEYS Xena trilogy episodes WARRIOR
PRINCESS (HTLJ #09), THE GAUNTLET (HTLJ #12), and
UNCHAINED HEART (HTLJ #13). As the second season of
XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS unfolds, I may write an update
based upon the new revelations on Xena's past.
[2] In order to determine whether Xena was evil, we
have to define 'evil'. There are several types of
evil. I have defined three below.
1. PURE EVIL.
Pure evil is motivated by greed, hate, and selfishness.
Not only does this type of evil despise 'good' as weak,
but often its practitioners try and make the 'good'
suffer before killing them rather than granting them
quick and painless deaths.
2. EVIL-DOER'S EVIL.
An 'Evil-doer' does an heinous act, but for what they
view as 'the greater good,'; bettering other people as
well as themselves.
3. HUMAN EVIL.
Of course, there is the situation where someone is
forced into doing 'evil' things to protect their life
or that of a loved one.
[3] If we examine the occasions when Xena confronted
evil and determine what kind of evil was encountered,
then we may find the answer to whether Xena was evil.
"Hard times breed hard people--there's no avoiding
that."
----Xena, WARRIOR PRINCESS
Xena and Flora discuss old times in THE BLACK WOLF
[4] In THE BLACK WOLF (episode #11), Xena talked to
Flora about their childhood. Even in her childhood,
Xena pushed others to rely upon themselves by putting
them through lessons that were harsh. As a child, Xena
would trick Flora again and again by offering to help
Flora up into a tree, but then taking her hand away at
the last minute. Furthermore, Flora observed that Xena
seemed to always understand and to know what to say to
people. Thus from the beginning, Xena pushed people
hard to improve and understood how people thought.
"My father was killed in battle and so were all three
of my brothers. I won't be."
---Xena, WARRIOR PRINCESS
[5] Why did Xena become a warrior and form a conquering
army? In DEATH MASK (episode #23) we learned Xena
became a warrior in order to fight the marauding
warlord, Cortese, and consequently she formed an army
to protect her village from subsequent raiders. All
good intentions so far. Then the evil started to creep
in. She used her army to take over the surrounding
villages as a buffer to protect her village. Now she
forced her idea upon people who did not want to become
human shields. Thus began her journey as an evil doer.
"Then somewhere, I don't know where, I changed. I
didn't have time to feel anything."
---Xena, DEATH MASK
[6] Several times Xena referred to the difference in
how she felt now ('good') compared to how she used to
feel. In UNCHAINED HEART, Xena told Hercules that
"I've fought in a hundred battles before, but all I've
ever felt is a cold rage." In DEATH MASK, she said she
had never had time to feel. She was so busy trying to
lead her army, that she never stopped to realize that
to win at 'their game,' she was becoming like the very
raiders she was trying to stop.
"You're talking about a woman who wanted to make
history by killing you."
---Iolaus, UNCHAINED HEART
[7] In the HERCULES' Xena trilogy, we find Xena as a
cruel warlord, trying to use Iolaus to kill Hercules.
Neither Hercules nor Iolaus have heard of her before,
but Xena decides she needs to kill Hercules. Possible
reasons are given, but which one is true?
[8] In WARRIOR PRINCESS, Xena tried to win Iolaus to
her side by saying, "He's selfish, Iolaus, selfish
right down to the bone." When she said this, she was
passionate, whereas she was usually hard and cool when
doing business. This meant that this probably wasn't
the reason, or at least the main reason, why Xena
wanted Hercules dead.
[9] Further, it has been suggested that Xena was simply
a 'government' trying to protect herself from a future
threat. Hercules may not have heard of her yet, but in
THE GAUNTLET he is called on to save a village in his
area from Xena. This means she was moving into
conflict with him. Xena no longer needed to expand to
protect her village, and she was the one moving into
Hercules' territory. She was destroying a future threat
rather than protecting against it. Since she was the
one moving into another's territory, this argument is
not valid.
[10] Maybe she was trying to make a name for herself,
like Iolaus said in UNCHAINED HEART, and as Petracus
said in WARRIOR PRINCESS, "...she wants everything. If
she kills you, there'll be nothing to stop her."
[11] Either her decision to kill Hercules was a selfish
wish to be known as the warlord that killed Hercules,
or she believed by killing him no one would attack her
or her army again, therefore providing safety to her
charges. The reason Xena decided to kill Hercules only
determined the shade of evil of the act. The true evil
of the act was the way Xena used Iolaus.
"I would have killed you."
---Iolaus, THE WARRIOR PRINCESS
[12] Xena might have felt Hercules as a threat to her,
but Iolaus didn't. Yes, he fought beside Hercules at
times, but not always and never going out and fighting
by himself. Even if he did come to revenge Hercules'
death, if Xena could kill Hercules, then Iolaus would
be an easy target. There was no reason to use Iolaus,
except as a way to kill Hercules in the cruelest way
possible. Xena had even done this before, with
Petracus' son and maybe others. This act in itself
could be called pure evil because she was intentionally
hurting someone she didn't need to just to make
Hercules suffer before he died. The only explanation
to keep this as a border 'pure evil' was that she felt
threatened by Hercules and this was the only way she
could think of that her army could take him on and win.
"He loved her and he wanted to prove it."
---Hercules, WARRIOR PRINCESS
[13] Not only does Xena act cruelly towards strangers,
but she treats her soldiers as play-things to do her
will, rather than as humans. She calls them pathetic,
tells them to act like warriors, and the very men she
gives favors to, she sends on suicide missions to prove
their love. She doesn't use them to do heroic deeds,
but as bait to keep Hercules coming into the trap.
Here she is further losing her ability to see people as
humans instead of targets or weapons.
[14] Xena's code of honor reflects this change in
distinguishing people. The first suicide warrior in
WARRIOR PRINCESS says, "My Commander says you attack
from whatever side suits your purpose." Xena was
teaching that efficiency in getting the job done was
more important than giving the other person a chance to
see his opponent and fight back. When a warrior
questioned Xena's method of killing Hercules, she said,
"A true warrior would understand that you demoralize
and weaken before you destroy." She took strategy and
applied it to a single person, viewing him only as a
target rather than thinking about him as a human.
[15] Xena's honor code was what she lived by, though,
and may be what led her back to good. Iolaus realized
how important it was to her when she told him he was a
true warrior and he said, "If I was anything less, you
wouldn't want me here." When the second suicidal
warrior surrendered to Hercules, Xena killed him saying
she killed "only those who don't follow my code."
[16] True, this was part of the game to get Hercules
back to fight Iolaus, but Iolaus' words and Xena's
general attitude towards her army leads one to think
she really did kill him because he was disobeying her
code.
"It matters to me."
---Xena, THE GAUNTLET
[17] As Xena rode away in WARRIOR PRINCESS, she
promised she'd return...and she did. Since her last
method of getting rid of Hercules didn't work, she
returned with her army bigger, better equipped, and on
the move into Hercules' 'territory.' She changed
methods from suicide warriors, which didn't work last
time, to marching discipline. She wanted her soldiers
to follow her due to loyalty instead of greed or fear.
Xena had shown she understood people by her trap for
Hercules and by her suicide warriors. She took this
further, understanding that loyalty created a great
fanaticism to one leader, whereas anyone can lead greed
or create fear.
[18] Xena's code of honor also showed a change. She
may have originally gotten her code of honor from her
beloved warrior father, but she kept it because it was
smart: take only the food needed so there would be some
left when you needed it later; leave the women and
children to keep up the farming; give the villagers
time to change their minds and opt to have no fight or
let them defend themselves with little battle knowledge
and give her warriors some practice when they needed a
little blood-price.
[19] Her code was no longer twisted, as in WARRIOR
PRINCESS, but was back to it's original intended use.
She was in a setting where she was more honorable.
Instead of acts bordering on pure evil, she was moving
from evil-doer back to human. First she saved
Salmoneous because he made her laugh. This might have
appealed to her army as a warlord's act if it had been
viewed as her laughing at something pitiful, but Darfus
was a threat. Xena saved Salmoneous at a time when
Darfus could use him as an example of weakness in her.
Then she saved the baby to prove she was still the
leader of the army rather than killing Darfus. She
acted to save her code of honor (not killing babies)
over removing a threat while she had a clear chance to
keep her army. The rigid code then took a life of its
own when she had to deal with the baby as a living
thing. This worked to compel Xena to see people as
humans again rather than targets.
[20] Xena's main problem was that Darfus had no code of
honor and was feared deeply by her army. Xena watched
Darfus kill an old man in battle who was begging for
mercy and did not punish him. True, it was an act on
the border of the code she had for her army, but either
she made a mistake and did not realize how great a
threat Darfus was or she had started to depend too much
on her army's loyalty. She usually punished, if not
killed, warriors who showed any sign of breaking her
code. This desire and dependence on loyalty was
another turning point towards 'good.' Instead of
cruelly enforcing her code of honor, she started to
simply expect it.
"There's not a man here who would raise his hand
against me!"
--Xena, THE GAUNTLET
[21] Xena's revised code saved her in the gauntlet.
Her soldiers hit her because they feared Darfus, but
when she survived and Darfus ordered her death, they
obeyed her code and refused to kill her. She was still
lured by the draw of power, though. She did not want
to change her ways, so she attacked Hercules in
desperation, hoping that if she killed him she would
the loyalty of her army back. However, Hercules
defeated her.
"Killing isn't the only way to prove you're a warrior,
Xena. I think you know that."
---Hercules, THE GAUNTLET
Xena almost lost it when she thought she had lost Gabrielle
in IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
[22] Xena never failed before, so she did not know how
to handle defeat. In UNCHAINED HEART, she went after
Darfus to finish the job, even if it would get her
killed. In IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, Xena
refused to let Gabrielle die and kept pounding away.
Hercules defeated Xena, but he also gave her a way to
accept that defeat; he helped her realize that her army
and what they had been doing was not right. She did
not want the army any more because Hercules gave her a
way to say, "They weren't true warriors, they had to be
stopped." It fit in with her code that one had to be a
true warrior or be stopped and gave her a reason for
her army's behavior.
[23] She stopped her old army, but what kept her from
making a new one to start over with? In UNCHAINED
Heart, she needed to stop Darfus again, but this time
she got to see the other side of what she was doing.
This reinforced Hercules' code, which was to help
people (and he did not have an army). Xena had a
chance to feel again, and see not only what she was
doing wrong, but the rewards (Hercules, true
companionship, etc.) of being good. She still wanted
to be a true warrior, but she determined that she had
not really been one before. A true warrior was
fighting against people who were like she was. She
decided to again devote the rest of her life achieving
the goal of being a true warrior, but the actions were
different now.
[24] In SINS OF THE PAST, Gabrielle brought yet more
into the picture. Gabrielle slowly losing her
innocence gave Xena another reason to change. Xena
could see now how much she had changed from what she
originally wanted and questioned how and what she
thought. As many like to say, Gabrielle was Xena's
conscience. However, Xena was not pulled in by power,
which might have trapped her without Gabrielle. Ares
tried to lure Xena with a huge army and all the
warriors she wished in THE RECKONING (episode #06) and
slightly acknowledged the change in her by also
offering fair laws to be passed. Xena had changed
enough to see past the main lure of power to see the
trap, though.
[25] Was Xena ever really evil? She did evil acts from
laming her horse to using Iolaus to kill his best
friend. Without knowing for certain why Xena decided
to use Iolaus to kill Hercules, we cannot know for
sure. She did border on the edge of pure evil with
several acts, but things happened to pull her away
before she permanently landed there. This wavering
between evil-doer and pure evil probably happened
throughout her entire career until Hercules broke her
out of it and Gabrielle kept her out of it. I admit,
this paper is not an answer, but the fun of Xena is you
never quite know why she does things. You can only
hope she did it for the best reasons.
Xena in THE RECKONING
