From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #139 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 Friday, May 23 2003 Volume 03 : Number 139 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Re: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #137 [cr ] [chakram-refugees] Xena mention [mirrordrum ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Xena mention [IfeRae@aol.com] Re: [chakram-refugees] Re: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #137 [IfeRae@aol.co] Re: [chakram-refugees] The Chakram [IfeRae@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] Re: The Chakram ["Cheryl Ande" ] [chakram-refugees] Fw: The Chakram ["Cheryl Ande" ] [chakram-refugees] 2 news books on Xena, Buffy [KLOSSNER9@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] Anyone up for some more Roar? [KLOSSNER9@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] RE: Last of The Centaurs ["Cheryl Ande" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Re: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #137 On Thursday 22 May 2003 01:35, cande@sunlink.net wrote: (Snip of most of post - all of which I agree with) > Now of course you ask a logical question when ask why can Callisto use it > with such deadly force. Remember the orginal chakram is the dark one. It > has an affinity to the darkside. Xena certainly is dark but she has the > strength to use her darkness for good and she has the strength to use the > dark chakram for good. Callisto is of course all dark and so her mastery > of this chakram is natural to her. It will do her evil will because she > can call upon it's darkness. Oh I *like* that. Excellent explanation!!! (If I may stray OT for a moment - I've been listening to the commentaries for early Farscape eps and Ben Browder and Claudia Black (the stars) were commenting on how TPTB never try to explain how anything works - they just leave it unexplained and check on the Net after it's screened and 'the fans will come up with an explanation' :) I should add, though, that their continuity is much better than XWP's. 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, 22 May 2003 19:36:10 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] The Chakram (Massive and gratuitous snippage) On Thursday 22 May 2003 11:48, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > I regard my car as having a personality! But I know, intellectualy, > that it really is inanimate.>> > > A man who really believes his auto to be inanimate? > Bwahahahahaha! Of course I do. I *know* it's inanimate. It just doesn't *feel* inanimate. :) Just like I *know* Xena didn't really exist.... try telling me that just after watching Friend in Need for the first time.... > Yes, but the mere fact that it *broke* suggests there was something > supernatural at work. I agree that it was powerless to prevent Callisto > using it against Xena. That doesn't mean it was immune from suffering > the consequences - and breaking.>> > > Agreed. Again, I simply saw the "supernatural" forces as external to -- > not within -- the chaky. As to its "suffering," when it broke, I gasped > because of what it had been used to do, because Xena was broken. It was a > powerful representation of Xena's "fall," but I didn't cry over the chakram > itself. (Hmmm, I don't think I'm getting into the spirit of the chakram's > ... spiritual ... aspect. Maybe I'll rewatch "Ides" and have a little > memorial service for the chaky. ) That's an idea. I thought it was very symbolic that it broke. Obviously. And even rather sad. But also, I thought that there must be a *reason* it broke at that moment and the reason, equally obviously, was that it had been used to 'destroy' (or betray, or whatever) it's true spiritual owner. (Don't read too much into my exact choice of words, I'm not being that precise). > << So, even if the chacky was used > against its 'will', it could still 'feel' as if it had betrayed its owner > and needed 'redemption'. >> > > Cr? Is that you? If not, who are you and what have you done with my cr?! You should know, I always find some way to disagree with ya :) > << Well, I would originally have preferred it had the chacky been 'just a > weapon'. But it evolved beyond that - the powers it shows - most > notably in 'Coming Home' - are such that that theory became gradually > untenable. It was, at the least, an 'intelligent' weapon, able to hover > around and home in on the Furies. (And, in FIN, able to score a direct > hit on the general even though Gabs had, presumably, no practice at > throwing it and seemed very surprised at the result). >> > > I'll grant that it was a wonderful weapon with much symbolic import. > However, in my mind, it was the "intelligence" of the thrower that gave it > is power. In Gabs' case, it was unconscious, after years of > watching/following Xena. In the WP's case, it was `cause I had to believe > she could do just about anything or I'd've stopped watching when she caught > those arrows in the second ep. I'm sure she'd scoped out that site in > "Coming Home," figured how long it would take for the bit with Ares, for > the Furies to appear in just the right place, and for Gabs to resuscitate > her -- just like she did in "Been There." What's so hard to believe about > that? Well, you see, I find that much harder to believe than that the chacky simply had some sort of magical powers or 'intelligence'. How did Xena know just *where* the Furies would appear? Far simpler to assume that the chacky had some mental link with Xena so it 'knew' to target the Furies as soon as they appeared. And, getting back to ordinary kinematics, how on earth did it stay in orbit for five minutes? It's stand-off capability (or maybe, this being a mailing list, we should call it 'lurk mode' ?) is something I just have to put down to magic. > The chaky was arguably as much a "character" in XWP as > Jox-- um, I mean, other regular cast. I loved watching it zip around, so > see nothing wrong with giving it a personality or imagining its thrill when > Xena threw it or disgust when Gabs used it as a backscratcher or kitchen > utensil. I can even give it a "spirit," though I have to work on accepting > the "will" aspect. :-) > > -- Ife Umm, I don't know that it ever had free will. But I'd certainly say it had some sort of 'intelligence', if only on the level of a self-homing guided missile. Well, maybe slightly higher than that, since it could distinguish targets. 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, 22 May 2003 09:46:42 -0400 From: mirrordrum Subject: [chakram-refugees] Xena mention just poking around reading about ari fleischer's resignation and came across this fleeting reference to the wp. being a true xenite, i felt it needed to be posted. fascinating how and where this show keeps cropping up. yours in all things xena, however fleeting and arcane, md Ari Flesicher and the Truth Police November 6, 2001 by Allen Hope Yes, I know. I've heard it all before. Hardly a day goes by without one friend or another telling me that I should drag myself off the couch and get a life. You know, a life that actually involves interacting with real people rather than those folks whose images flicker across my TV screen day and night. And no, I'm not talking about the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Xena, Warrior Princess. I'm way beyond that. I'm referring to the politicians and pundits who inhabit C-SPAN and cable news channels. http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/01/11/06_truth.html ========================================================= 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, 22 May 2003 18:36:01 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Xena mention In a message dated 5/22/03 8:49:23 AM Central Daylight Time, aemoses@comcast.net writes: << Ari Flesicher and the Truth Police November 6, 2001 by Allen Hope Yes, I know. I've heard it all before. Hardly a day goes by without one friend or another telling me that I should drag myself off the couch and get a life. You know, a life that actually involves interacting with real people rather than those folks whose images flicker across my TV screen day and night. And no, I'm not talking about the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Xena, Warrior Princess. I'm way beyond that. I'm referring to the politicians and pundits who inhabit C-SPAN and cable news channels. >> So *that's* what's wrong with some of those folks in Washington! Maybe one of our next charitable acts should be sending `em some XWP eps? Hmmm, we'd better be verrrrry selective in our choices. Which ones should we consider? - -- 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: Thu, 22 May 2003 18:36:06 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Re: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #137 In a message dated 5/22/03 2:29:23 AM Central Daylight Time, cr@orcon.net.nz writes: << (If I may stray OT for a moment - I've been listening to the commentaries for early Farscape eps and Ben Browder and Claudia Black (the stars) were commenting on how TPTB never try to explain how anything works - they just leave it unexplained and check on the Net after it's screened and 'the fans will come up with an explanation' :) I should add, though, that their continuity is much better than XWP's. >> Well, of course! That's why XWP has creative, nitpicky, way too obsessive fans like us to provide continuity. In a sense, they *made* us (evil laugh), just as we helped make sense of them. - -- 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: Thu, 22 May 2003 18:36:05 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] The Chakram In a message dated 5/22/03 2:29:31 AM Central Daylight Time, cr@orcon.net.nz writes: << (Massive and gratuitous snippage) >> Isn't that illegal? Or is that just in the U.S.? > A man who really believes his auto to be inanimate? > Bwahahahahaha! Of course I do. I *know* it's inanimate. It just doesn't *feel* inanimate. :) >> Ah. Amazing what I learn on this list. >Maybe I'll rewatch "Ides" and have a little > memorial service for the chaky. ) That's an idea. I thought it was very symbolic that it broke. Obviously. And even rather sad. >> Oh, all right. I'll admit to feeling a slight tug when those two pieces of the chaky fell in a pitiful heap. It didn't seem right for it to be reduced to such. You and Cheryl happy now? > << So, even if the chacky was used > against its 'will', it could still 'feel' as if it had betrayed its owner > and needed 'redemption'. >> > > Cr? Is that you? If not, who are you and what have you done with my cr?! You should know, I always find some way to disagree with ya :)>> Yeah, but with "logic," not *feelings.* I'll readjust. This might become a habit of yours. >I'm sure she'd scoped out that site in > "Coming Home," figured how long it would take for the bit with Ares, for > the Furies to appear in just the right place, and for Gabs to resuscitate > her -- just like she did in "Been There." What's so hard to believe about > that? Well, you see, I find that much harder to believe than that the chacky simply had some sort of magical powers or 'intelligence'. How did Xena know just *where* the Furies would appear? Far simpler to assume that the chacky had some mental link with Xena so it 'knew' to target the Furies as soon as they appeared. And, getting back to ordinary kinematics, how on earth did it stay in orbit for five minutes? It's stand-off capability (or maybe, this being a mailing list, we should call it 'lurk mode' ?) is something I just have to put down to magic. >> Yes! Now *there's* my cr! He's baaaack. I assume (as I must, since I don't know for sure) that, as always, you have an excellent scientfic point. We differ in that I prefer to believe that the improbable is probable within the human rather than her weapon. I like that philosophically, but it also doesn't hurt my brain as much as going down your kinematical path. > I can even give it a "spirit," though I have to work on accepting > the "will" aspect. :-) > > -- Ife Umm, I don't know that it ever had free will. But I'd certainly say it had some sort of 'intelligence', if only on the level of a self-homing guided missile. Well, maybe slightly higher than that, since it could distinguish targets. >> If it had self-homing ability, how did it distinguish which targets to hit? If it was pre-programmed, what was the basis? It couldn't have been human vs. thing or "good" person vs. "evil," as it managed to hit or target all of those. Did it "choose" which random targets to hit when thrown by Princess Diana? If it adjusted itself to hit what Xena was aiming at, how did it "know" which target or how many she had in mind? Telepathy? Sensitivity to the wrist motion of the thrower, whoever she was? If you want to say the chaky was like some ancient form of supercomputer, fine. I can accept that the same way I do Xena's super abilities. I could even accept that it had "will," if I'd ever seen it do anything that didn't seem intended by the user or accidental -- except maybe when it broke. Callisto wanted to stop Xena, but I doubt Psycho Babe foresaw the chaky breaking. Certainly hitting Xena's back shouldn't have broken it. I said earlier that it broke because of some diety-like power. But maybe it did break on its own (out of "loyalty" to its guardian), as its first and final act of will. How's that? - -- 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: Thu, 22 May 2003 20:15:47 -0400 From: "Cheryl Ande" Subject: [chakram-refugees] Re: The Chakram > ------------------------------ > > Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 19:48:49 EDT > From: IfeRae@aol.com > Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] The Chakram > > > Why, of course! Hopefully this is more of a dialogue/discussion of multiple > possibilities, than debate about who's "right." Of this is what is fun about this list. There is no right or wrong here. In fact I'm not interested in all at finding a final answer I just want the discussion and as the discussion evolves I get new ideas and you get ideas and we get to bat them around. The fascinating thing about XWP that we can do this and enjoy the series on so many levels - from the metaphysical to the just plan silly and entertaining (of course I find the metaphysical entertaining too). I always loved interupting literature and history and religion. I just have a ball doing it. Someday we'll have a discussion just why God would want the Joan of Arc of defeat the English - my one very literal Catholic friend nutty with that one. As to the evolution of the chaky, I agree it was just a nifty weapon to begin with much as Gabby was just a chatty sidekick who was comic relief. I don't think TPTB had any idea how things would develop. Like life in general one thing lead to another. The chakram and Gabrielle became more than they were meant to be in the larger sceme of things. Cheryl > 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, 22 May 2003 20:19:32 -0400 From: "Cheryl Ande" Subject: [chakram-refugees] Fw: The Chakram - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cheryl Ande" To: ; Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2003 8:15 PM Subject: Re: The Chakram > > > > > ------------------------------ > > > > Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 19:48:49 EDT > > From: IfeRae@aol.com > > Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] The Chakram > > > > > > > Why, of course! Hopefully this is more of a dialogue/discussion of > multiple > > possibilities, than debate about who's "right." > > Of this is what is fun about this list. There is no right or wrong here. > In fact I'm not interested in all at finding a final answer I just want the > discussion and as the discussion evolves I get new ideas and you get ideas > and we get to bat them around. The fascinating thing about XWP that we can > do this and enjoy the series on so many levels - from the metaphysical to > the just plan silly and entertaining (of course I find the metaphysical > entertaining too). I always loved interupting literature and history and > religion. I just have a ball doing it. Someday we'll have a discussion > just why God would want the Joan of Arc of defeat the English - my one very > literal Catholic friend nutty with that one. > > > As to the evolution of the chaky, I agree it was just a nifty weapon to > begin with much as Gabby was just a chatty sidekick who was comic relief. I > don't think TPTB had any idea how things would develop. Like life in > general one thing lead to another. The chakram and Gabrielle became more > than they were meant to be in the larger sceme of things. > > Cheryl > > 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, 22 May 2003 21:24:33 EDT From: KLOSSNER9@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] 2 news books on Xena, Buffy new book-- Athena's Daughters : Television's New Women Warriors / edited by Frances Early and Kathleen Kennedy. Syracuse University Press, 2003. hardback, $39.95. paperback, $19.95. 175 p. Contents --The baby, the mother, and the empire: Xena as ancient hero / by Alison Futrell -- Tall, dark, and dangerous: Xena, the quest, and the wielding of sexual violence in Xena on-line fan fiction / by Helen Caudill - -- Love is the battlefield: the making and the unmaking of the just warrior in Xena, Warrior Princess / by Kathleen Kennedy -- The female just warrior reimagined: from Boudicca to Buffy / by Frances Early -- "If you're not enjoying it, you're doing something wrong": textual and viewer constructions of Faith, the Vampire Slayer / by Sue Tjardes - "Action, chicks, everything": on-line interviews with male fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer / by Lee Parpart -- Buffy? she's like me, she's not like --she's Rad / by Vivian Chin --"The most powerful weapon you have": warriors and gender in La femme Nikita / by Laura Ng -- We who are Borg, are we Borg? / by Edrie Sobstyl. That's 3 essays on Xena, 4 on Buffy and one each on Nikita and Star Trek: Voyager. That's about the same ratio as their standing with critics. Library Journal, May 15, 2003, p. 91, has this review -- In recent shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, Star Trek Voyager and La Femme Nikita, we have seen capable and proactive female characters rise up and dominate. This work, a critical study of those shows and their female lead characters, examines just what makes the woman warrior different from her male counterpart. Both historians, editors Early (Mount St. Vincent Univ., Nova Scotia) and Kennedy (Western Washington Univ.) have gathered penetrating essays on these shows from a range of women commentators, whose subjects range from feminism and TV series violence to how popular culture treats women. Separating itself from episode guides and "making-of" books, this study succeeds admirably in its aim to give credence to women action heroes as a valid area of popular culture study and to show that these series deserve scholarly attention. Dawn Heinecken's forthcoming The Warrior Women of Television: A Feminist Cultural Analysis of the New Female Body in Popular Media deals with much the same subject. Recommended for libraries focusing on media and popular culture studies. -- David M. Lisa, West Long Branch Public Library, N.J.-- reviewer. The Heinecken book mentioned in the review is to come out in July from P. Lang publishers. No other information currently available. Boeotian Sobstyl. ========================================================= 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, 22 May 2003 22:24:57 EDT From: KLOSSNER9@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] Anyone up for some more Roar? Yesterday I saw an episode of Roar on Sci-Fi. I thought I had seen all the episodes, but I hadn't seen this one. They said that they would have an "all-new" episode next Wednesday. Apparently Roar was cancelled so fast they had episodes filmed that were never shown and Sci-Fi has picked them up. (Probably everybody knows this but me.) Sci-Fi might not have picked up Roar if Heath Ledger hadn't been the star. The show was bigger-budget than such Xena rip-offs as Beastmaster and Conan and tried to be more serious than Xena, but it was never as good as Xena or Hercules. Roar was cancelled fast because it tried to make it on a network (Fox). It died faster than the cheaper series like Beastmaster, which survived in the less competitve syndicated market. Boeotian ========================================================= 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, 22 May 2003 22:32:36 -0400 From: "Cheryl Ande" Subject: [chakram-refugees] RE: Last of The Centaurs > ------------------------------ > > From: KLOSSNER9@aol.com > > On the question of forgiving the villain in Last of the Centaurs, remember > that Xena was also ready to let the villain in the Helicon episode live. > Yes you are right and that wasn't the first time she attempted to save some one she wronged. In Callisto she thought about letting Callisto go so that she might reform. Gabrielle strongly objected as did Callisto for that matter. In The Debt Xena might have been willing to let Ming Tien live if he hadn't decide to spill the beans about mom. The problem with Belach was that I felt that Xena spared him for the wrong reason. She spared him because he finally became reconciled to his father. Belach deserved forgiveness because he finally recognized what a good man Borias was and was reconciled with his daughter. The centaurs and their near extinction were forgotten. The crime here isn't that Belach dislikes a father who abandoned him, which is actually not a bad reason to habor a grudge, or that he was an oblivious parent but that he murders in fit a pique. Perhaps he did think he was wronged by the centaursit still doesn't excuse the whole sale slaughter of a species. That is the crime and Belach never says he is sorry or expresses any regrets about it. If he was wracked with guilt and remorse then I would say he deserved forgiveness but I certainly never saw it. CherylA ========================================================= 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 #139 **************************************