From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #17 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Saturday, January 18 2003 Volume 03 : Number 017 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [KTL ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [KTL ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [IfeRae@aol.com] Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [IfeRae@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 21:45:40 -0900 (AKST) From: KTL Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena On Mon, 13 Jan 2003, cr wrote: > > > > Ahhhh, that's right--you write alt fanfic--I forget that when talking to > > you about the show. > > Enlighten my ignorance - what's alt fanfic? Alt for "Alternative" I believe. Which are stories written with the view that X&G are lovers. In most fandoms, stories which feature same sex characters as lovers are called "slash". (I believe the origin of this is from those very early mimeographed Star Trek fanzines which had love stories that were listed as Kirk/Spock.) Xenafandom, having a very large contingent of people who were never involved in a cult fandom before, tends to "reinvent the wheel" a lot and comes up with new names for old fandom concepts and conceits. Which I found out from various of my buds who are veterens of many cult fandoms. Gen (General) fanfic has them as best buddies. Then there are PWP (Plot, what plot?) which are nothing but sex scenes. PWPs also come in two flavors, Alt and Gen (Adult). Most everyone puts disclaimers on these to try to shoo the kids away (or to get everybody to read them) so you'll find warnings on stories with notations like f/f m/m f/m (which warns of female/female sex, male/male sex, female/male sex). Since early fandom, there have been Gabrielle/Joxer love stories. Xena/Ares stories were always around but became one of the fastests growing categories by the end of season five, when the show Ares began to express love for Xena. Except for the PWPs which are nothing but sex scenes, both gen and alt short fanfic pieces tend to be the equivalent of one scene from the show--something to illuminate the characters or to have fun with them. Longer gen and alt fanfic pieces are like eps (MOST are like bad eps, unfortunately) with various scenes and a little story line. Then there's "uber" which show the grrls in another time or place with different names--but they still carry X&G's souls and they're still soulmates. Most of these are alt stories and the vast majority of these are like any other classic, typical action adventure stories where the leads are romantically involved--they're just like "The Thin Man" or "Hart to Hart". Many have graphic sex scenes, some fade out to black as the organ music swells. End of fanfic dissertation. > > All she took with her was literally the clothes on her back, her weapons > > and her horse. (And some ratty cheese and bread that she gave away to that > > boy.) She was out to do PENANCE! Some folks assume that that certainly > > explains why she let Gabrielle come along with her. Not me though. > > No? Stop trying to look innocent KT. Of course it was. I've heard it > argued that Xena was suicidal in SOTP.... I don't buy that. But obviously > she decided that suicide was too easy and she needed to suffer more. :) I think she was just burying her warrior persona. She intended to start afresh, drop being a warrior. Yup, she was a-singing to herself, "Ain't gonna study war no more", and then them women of Poteidea came stampeding through and she realized that in order to save them, she'd have to continue to be a warrior. And thus was the main dilemma of the series born--that Xena had to make atonement for being a (bad) warrior while still being a warrior (a good warrior.) > > > > > This is why I figured she'd drop sexual enjoyment also. I still think > > that's what usually held her back from consummating most of her > > sexual interest sparks. > > > > And this is why I see her allowing herself to feel love for Antony as a > > sign of her healing psyche. > > Hmmm, I never saw her (in Seasons 1 and 2) as being consumed by guilt over > her past. This was probably because TPTB themselves, at that time, didn't > see it as other than an interesting little sideline. It wasn't till Season > 3, I think, that they fully realised the potential in Xena's Dark Past for > fascinating stories, and along with all those vivid reasons for Xena to feel > guilty, of course, came an increased sense of guilt for the 'current' Xena. > I don't agree with that. Our very first close-up look at her in Sins of the Past shows her giving food to a boy who is hungry because her army came though. And later her begging forgiveness from her mother for the shame she'd brought upon the family. Chariots of War--as Ife pointed out, she turns away from staying with that family because she has to try to make restitution for her past evil. Dreamworker, she confronts her evil self (literally) and realizes that this is a big problem for her--that she must overcome and control her evil self or she will die. A lesson she takes from that dreamscape with her to the waking world. Season three and after, we got specifics of just how how bad she was. But I feel that from season one, she was dedicated to working for the greater good in order to redeem her soul. I think guilt and shame were a large part of the character right from the gitgo. KT > cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 22:26:10 -0900 (AKST) From: KTL Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 IfeRae@aol.com wrote: Snip snip snip > > > Wait a minute. I misunderstood you above. It appears we're both saying > > we're looking at X&G from two perspectives. We do. I enjoy both views of X&G--incredibly bonded best friends and also version two wherein they're lovers. To quote an old post on Xenaverse, "Are they gay tonight or are they straight tonight?" I do tend to have to have some of the subtext pointed out to me though. > << This is why I figured she'd drop sexual enjoyment also. I still think > that's what usually held her back from consummating most of her > sexual interest sparks.>> > > Again, that goes a bit far for me, mainly because I saw as much suggestion > that she would do so if she had a mind to. Well, you sure found lots of examples for me to mull over. And you know what I've realized--that even when Xena was evil Xena, she was still a one person type of gal. When she was with Borias, she was with Borias. When she was interested in Petracles, they actually got engaged to be married because they were serious about each other. We don't know about Marcus, if he was her only love/sexual partner when they were together. We know she wasn't involved with anyone when she got interested in Caesar. We've never seen Xena in a triangle I guess is what I'm saying. (Though Lucy apparently saw Xena heading into a triangle in FIN.) And I believe that it's only Odin whom Evil Xena sleeps with just to get something from him rather than being attracted to him--and again, she's not with anybody else when she runs across him hanging in that tree. You know what--I just give up. Xena's motivation, interest and involvment in sexual relationships is just too HARD to tease out, too complex to define, too ambiguously presented to really figure out. I just give up. > > Others we didn't see. Ooooooooooooo,>> > > Sure, why not? Reformed Xena and that guy in Chariots might've go it on > while his three kids were asleep. ARGH! ARGH! WHY didn't she? ARGH ARGH ARGH. No, I just give up. Like I said elsewhere, she definitely > rolled around with Herc, could be assumed to have done so with Marcus and > Ulysses, and looked on the verge with the con guy and Antony. Who knows what > nice fellows the "best friends" might've run across at one of those inns? > > > LOL! No, I list (Draco) because of the sexual tension I saw between them in > > Sins. The way Xena brushed his cheek and talked to him suggested a genuine > > former bond and regret that things between them had soured. I thought it > > significant that this element was in the first ep and that a variation was > > played out later with Marcus. It gave me my initial perception of Xena > as a > > fully sensual being in the past, who was now dedicated to working against > > (betraying) people she'd once shared a life with in the most intimate of > > ways. That made her reformation a lot more meaningful to me, in terms of > the > > pain involved in her new path. > > > > Hmmmm. Yeah--this is a motif, you're right. BUT she only betrays them as > don't want to change for the better. Or who feel they *can't*.>> > > True, but I don't think that lessens the pain of an honorable person who must > turn against someone she once had feelings for and who weren't prepared for > her to become someone else. Oh absolutely. It's very HARD for her to do this. Look at her grief and pain over Goliath. That they're now on opposite sides and WORSE that Xena now has to protect the people she sees as being oppressed because of her new found quest to fight for the greater good, even if it means fighting against someone she owes a big favor to. And again, it's a case where her friend is also stuck in the situation he's in because he gave his word to help the folks he's working for and he's a person of integrity. Sticky dilemma, this trying to be a different person. I don't see her as having to judge them as "bad" > people, just because they don't follow her example or to rationalize what she > has to do to them because she's trying to be "good." > Whoops, no, I didn't mean to imply that. I don't think she thinks she's worthy to judge others. (grin) I hadn't really thought about how she had to work against her old buddies in the first few seasons. And yeah, I don't think she needs to rationalize what she does to anyone and certainly not to herself. Being Xena, she just about always picks the right side. (Or ALWAYS against Rome side...) > > > > By "switched roles" in S4, I don't mean that Gabs became the "parent" or > > "taught" Xena directly. I mean that Xena was positioned more as following > > Gabs' quest, observing and assessing Gabs' "lessons," supporting her, and > > learning about herself in the process. > > > > > I think she assessed Gab's lessons right away and realized it was a > hopeless situation.>> > > Hopeless? How so? That Gabrielle cannot be a pacifist and continue to travel with Xena. > > << This is why Xena kept trying to leave Gabrielle behind in season four. > She was willing to leave her with Najara, with Aiden, tried to send her > off with Eli on Mt. Aetna. To allow her the room to be what she thought > she wanted to be but also to try to keep her from dying on the cross with > her. None of it worked. Season four is just so inexorable a season in > plodding ever onward to those horrific crosses in the snow.>> > > But neither G or X accepted the situation as hopeless (and I'm not assuming > that's what you meant above). Indeed, had it not been for Callisto's > prohibited otherworldly interference, they were well on their way to avoiding > the vision. Were they really or was Callisto always part of the plan? To me, that's why they *earned* a second chance to live on as > they had faith in themselves to do. > > -- Ife Hmmmmm. But it was good Callisto who brought them back. If she hadn't been sent to hell again, become a demon warrior, been saved by Xena then she wouldn't have had the power to restore X&G. Coincidence? Or master planning? Or a hangover while dreaming up Fallen Angel? KT ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 09:49:44 +0000 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena On Friday 17 January 2003 06:45, KTL wrote: > On Mon, 13 Jan 2003, cr wrote: > > > Ahhhh, that's right--you write alt fanfic--I forget that when talking > > > to you about the show. > > > > Enlighten my ignorance - what's alt fanfic? > (snippo of KT's enlightening fanfic dissertation) > > End of fanfic dissertation. Hmmm... so nobody writes fanfic with just *Xena* in it? ;-) (snips) > > Hmmm, I never saw her (in Seasons 1 and 2) as being consumed by guilt > > over her past. This was probably because TPTB themselves, at that time, > > didn't see it as other than an interesting little sideline. It wasn't > > till Season 3, I think, that they fully realised the potential in Xena's > > Dark Past for fascinating stories, and along with all those vivid reasons > > for Xena to feel guilty, of course, came an increased sense of guilt for > > the 'current' Xena. > > I don't agree with that. Our very first close-up look at her in Sins of > the Past shows her giving food to a boy who is hungry because her army > came though. And later her begging forgiveness from her mother for the > shame she'd brought upon the family. Chariots of War--as Ife pointed out, > she turns away from staying with that family because she has to try to > make restitution for her past evil. Dreamworker, she confronts her evil > self (literally) and realizes that this is a big problem for her--that she > must overcome and control her evil self or she will die. A lesson she > takes from that dreamscape with her to the waking world. > > Season three and after, we got specifics of just how how bad she was. But > I feel that from season one, she was dedicated to working for the greater > good in order to redeem her soul. I think guilt and shame were a large > part of the character right from the gitgo. > > KT Well, I stand by my original opinion, I think. In the first couple of seasons, IMO, Xena's guilt complex was something akin to a plot device - a nominal motivation for her actions. It wasn't till Season 3 that, as I said, TPTB realised her Dark Past could be made such an integral part of the series. That is, of course, IMO. :) cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:38:26 EST From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena In a message dated 1/17/03 12:47:03 AM Central Standard Time, fsktl@aurora.uaf.edu writes: << I think she was just burying her warrior persona. She intended to start afresh, drop being a warrior. Yup, she was a-singing to herself, "Ain't gonna study war no more", and then them women of Poteidea came stampeding through and she realized that in order to save them, she'd have to continue to be a warrior. And thus was the main dilemma of the series born--that Xena had to make atonement for being a (bad) warrior while still being a warrior (a good warrior.)>> I'm not as sure as KT about Xena's motives in burying her weapons. I've always liked the ambiguity. To me, she was on the edge between "There's no amount of bread and cheese I can toss to my former victims that will make up for what I've done" vs. I'll bury that part of me that symbolizes the evil of my darkness" vs. "Maybe I can use that 'dark' part of me for good." Lucy's nearly expressionless portrayal allowed for any number of interpretations, which I feel is realistic, given that Xena may not have thought much beyond burying her "old" self. Even if she'd planned to go home all along, it was her encounter with Gabrielle that seemed to give Xena the courage to face her kinfolk bearing the "sins" and trappings of her "old" self. CR said: Hmmm, I never saw her (in Seasons 1 and 2) as being consumed by guilt over > her past. This was probably because TPTB themselves, at that time, didn't > see it as other than an interesting little sideline. It wasn't till Season > 3, I think, that they fully realised the potential in Xena's Dark Past for > fascinating stories, and along with all those vivid reasons for Xena to feel > guilty, of course, came an increased sense of guilt for the 'current' Xena. > KT said: << I don't agree with that. Our very first close-up look at her in Sins of the Past shows her giving food to a boy who is hungry because her army came though. And later her begging forgiveness from her mother for the shame she'd brought upon the family. Chariots of War--as Ife pointed out, she turns away from staying with that family because she has to try to make restitution for her past evil. Dreamworker, she confronts her evil self (literally) and realizes that this is a big problem for her--that she must overcome and control her evil self or she will die. A lesson she takes from that dreamscape with her to the waking world. Season three and after, we got specifics of just how how bad she was. But I feel that from season one, she was dedicated to working for the greater good in order to redeem her soul. I think guilt and shame were a large part of the character right from the gitgo. >> As to the theme of guilt, I totally agree with KT. To me, it was far more than a little sideline. It was the dominant motivation for Xena and what made her such a poignant hero. It wasn't until later that I felt she became motivated more by understanding the good she could do (regardless if the situation had anything to do with her past), more than guilt over the bad she'd done in the past. And that change in perspective is what said to me that maybe one day she could -- if not forgive herself -- at least be more at peace with who she had become. Without the guilt, she'd have been any other hero doing good deeds "just because." We might not have seen the personal growth or wondered why or when her self-respect would triumph. - -- Ife ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 15:46:32 EST From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena In a message dated 1/17/03 1:26:46 AM Central Standard Time, fsktl@aurora.uaf.edu writes: << You know what--I just give up. Xena's motivation, interest and involvment in sexual relationships is just too HARD to tease out, too complex to define, too ambiguously presented to really figure out. I just give up.>> LOL! Exactly! "Come to the Twi-Light/Dawn of Ambiguity. It will set you free." > > Others we didn't see. Ooooooooooooo,>> > > Sure, why not? Reformed Xena and that guy in Chariots might've go it on > while his three kids were asleep. ARGH! ARGH! WHY didn't she? ARGH ARGH ARGH.>> That's my point. Who's to say she didn't? <> That's also my point. You don't have to give up. Accept the ambiguity and you can have it both ways. > I think she assessed Gab's lessons right away and realized it was a > hopeless situation.>> > > Hopeless? How so? That Gabrielle cannot be a pacifist and continue to travel with Xena.>> Ah. I agree she had her doubts, but if not for the vision, I think she was committed to making it work. What did she say at the end of Convert? Something about Gabs not having to worry about that, as long as she had Xena. > Indeed, had it not been for Callisto's > prohibited otherworldly interference, they were well on their way to avoiding > the vision. Were they really or was Callisto always part of the plan?>> Whose plan? Her "master's" (presumably Satan)? I don't think so. There was a certain logical ethics to his instructions to entice Xena with her own guilt or desires (similarly to how Xena let Lucifer trap himself). Her "master" needed Xena to come to him willingly, in order to claim victory. True, restoring Gabs and Xena ultimately helped Michael & Co. Maybe they were observing, but I didn't see where they had any prior involvement. To me, that's why they *earned* a second chance to live on as > they had faith in themselves to do. > > -- Ife Hmmmmm. But it was good Callisto who brought them back. If she hadn't been sent to hell again, become a demon warrior, been saved by Xena then she wouldn't have had the power to restore X&G. Coincidence? Or master planning? Or a hangover while dreaming up Fallen Angel? >> Methinks the hangover. Again, I love that it was Callisto's unquenchable hatred of Xena that made her hurl that chakram, even at the risk of offending her new "master." Whatever hopes any hellish or heavenly body might've had, I think it was Cally's own nature and decision to deny Xena victory. It was Xena's choice to save Cally, even at the risk of losing the peace offered to her. We saw a lot of temptations and godly interference, but the way that was portrayed always said to me that individuals still had the choice to say "yea" or "nay." So, if there was some "master plan" (destiny, fate) for X&G, it depended on their will for implementation. - -- Ife ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V3 #17 *************************************