From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #261 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, September 5 2003 Volume 03 : Number 261 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Alti's Tees ["mirrordrum" ] [chakram-refugees] DEBT 1&2: Water Soft & Raging [IfeRae@aol.com] Re: [chakram-refugees] Friend In Need Part 1 ["H.J.J. Hewitt" ] Re: [chakram-refugees] DEBT 1&2: Water Soft & Raging [cr Subject: [chakram-refugees] Alti's Tees i haven't seen this on here but then i don't seem to get all posts. sorry if this has already been posted. someone posted it to abmxh and i thought i'd pass it along. now if they'd *only* go organic. claire, you go grrrrl! :) http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/09/03/offbeat.shirts.reut/index.html md ========================================================= 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, 4 Sep 2003 03:13:55 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] DEBT 1&2: Water Soft & Raging Since we've been talking about Debt, I thought I'd dig out an old review/commentary I did when the eps aired. Not sure if I feel the same way in retrospect, but maybe it'll fill some space between Cande's reviews of her new DVDs. < g> -- Ife DEBT 1&2: Water Soft & Raging For me, the Debt episodes offered a new context for interpreting the moral ambiguities that pervade the Xenaverse. They explored Eastern philosophies which emphasize the unity, bringing together or tension between opposing forces. These forces don't seem to be inherently good or bad. They simply "are." We deal with them daily, rather than conquer them forever. Ideally, we deal with them through peace and harmony, without using force, but sometimes we cannot. In many ways, these concepts involve deception, particularly when compared with more absolute notions about good *or* evil and eternal salvation *or* damnation. What seems soft is also hard. To submit may mean to conquer. Lao Ma accepts, teaches and practices this yin-yang perspective. She is a master of its deceptiveness. She presents herself as an "insignificant" woman, mucking about in important matters at the bidding of her ailing husband. She delicately offers her hand to Borias, to raise her up from beside the prone Xena, whom she has just flattened with mystical powers as yet unexhibited by any other mortal in the Xenaverse. On the other hand, her "real" power is based on an illusion of her husband's state of being. "You are a strange woman," papa Ming tells her, "soft and hard at the same time." "Like water, soft," she replies, smiling down at the hidden Xena struggling for air beneath Lao Ma's reflection, "yet who can withstand the raging floods?" When Lao Ma first looked into the wild Xena, she saw a potentially good and noble heart. She also saw, and equally appreciated, the strength of the raging floods. Poet Gabrielle and philosopher Lao Ma have noble hearts. They also have courage and pretty good butt-kicking skills. So why do they need Xena? She cleans up the evil that "good" as well as "bad" people leave behind. She does not stop at bumping a few heads or negotiating for good. When she has to, she *kills* for good. It is because - not in spite - of this that Lao Ma sees in Xena the potential for greatness. It is why she wants to reform the two barbarians who invade her land. She herself is expert at "soft" ways to nurture peace, but she sees in her "warrior princess" the "hard" ways to make it happen. Similarly, Lao Ma picks up the piece of wood holding Xena's wild mane and sees more than a "brooch" for adorning hair. She uses it as a dart to puncture a water gourd and restore Xena to consciousness after laying her out cold. In the midst of Xena's enlightenment, Lao demonstrates that it "could be a useful weapon if thrown at the right body part." To Xena's gleeful, "You could use this to kill somebody," Lao Ma responds, "If necessary. I don't like to kill, however." Obviously, Lao Ma prefers nonviolence (though Xena and Borias might argue that being bounced repeatedly off walls is harder on the body than a fist fight). Nor, as others have pointed out, do we ever hear her say that killing is bad or that she herself would never kill (though her husband would probably prefer being dead). She then returns the pin to Xena's hair. And Xena, during that incredible moment when she is floating "emptied of desire," gives the pin to Lao Ma, probably as a simple gift of gratitude, the symbolism of which I doubt she recognizes at the time. Years later, Lao Mao's Warrior Princess returns. She does not come for revenge or blood lust. She comes because of the "profound loyalty" Lao Ma saw in her. She comes to finish what was left undone -- to accomplish what the "weak one" cannot bring herself to do and remove a barrier to the peace that could not be achieved through softness. She is a warrior first, not a poet or philosopher. Her instinct is to use the weapons of her calling. And to kill. Gabrielle's naive, questionable (oh, all right -- stupid, stupid, stupid) betrayal, gives Xena time to think of other means. She smiles slightly at Ming Tien's announcement that she would leave this life and be put to death. For a few precious moments during this near-death experience, she "conquers" herself, "empties" herself, summons Lao Ma's spirit and power, and seems to have found "her way" to make the dragon small without killing him. "As far as I'm concerned," she tells Gabby when they are about to leave Tien buried in his crumbling palace, "this is all over." But Tien refuses to accept his smallness. He calls Xena back. He's going to make himself larger by cutting her down a size. He reminds her of her own guilt in "creating" him. "I've learned to clean up after myselfb&. Is that it?," she hisses contemptuously, turning away. So he belittles the woman who helped create the new Xena. Yes, he knew Lao Ma was his mother, but he's so big and bad he killed her anyway, all by himself. He derides Lao Ma for being too weak to "use her powers to hurt her little boy." And in the midst of this taunting, he pulls out the hair pin, passing it on to Xena like Lao Ma herself. "This belongs to you. Her last request was that it be returned to you." Xena's shock turns to anguish as she lovingly clasps the oft-exchanged, deceptively "insignificant" gift that could be a weapon "if necessary." Sensing a soft spot, Tien, pushes his jibes in deeper: "It turns out that she was just a sentimental fool" - for risking death to achieve peace, for thinking of Xena's hair bobble as she was about to die, for crying as the son she couldn't make small literally rips her heart out. Xena's eyes have become ice as he concludes, "Mother's book of wisdom failed her in the end." Think again, little dragon. Oops, not very easy, huh, with that pin stuck in your mosquito head. So. Do I think Xena failed Lao Ma's class? Nope, with a little "help" (yuck) from Gabby, she passed with flying colors, so to speak. Do I think Xena betrayed her own on-going quest for redemption? Well, I've stopped thinking about it so much in terms of the Judeo-Christian notion of being "saved." I believe she simply wants to "do" good when she can and "clean up" when she and others make a mess. That's practical and "doable" for an enlightened warrior. In this instance, she cleaned up big time. Gabby, on the other hand, wants herself and others to "be" good, which is idealistic, nigh impossible every moment of the day in every situation. Her mistake is in wanting to impose that same standard on Xena, just as Xena mistakenly thinks that Gabby can separate doing from being. Xena has just come through one of the most grueling, self-revealing tests of her life. It is as if she's talking to herself about something she learned, and which may be of some consolation to her guilt-ridden friend, when she says, "You're right, I didn't have to resolve this with murder." I don't think she intends at all to deceive Gabby. It is Gabby who interprets this through her own rose-colored lenses when she says, "You're not killing him made you exactly what Lao Ma wanted to you to *be*." Of course, Xena recognizes that Gabby is saying this without knowing the whole picture, but is simply too tired for further philosophical debate. Similarly, Xena told Gabby she "*did* the right thing," unaware that Gabby hadn't in fact killed Hope. And Gabby, too tired for any more hide-and-seek, lets Xena think what she wants. In truth, neither lies in terms of her own standards and in the larger moral arena where each is waging her own private war. In terms of the more mundane aspects of their relationship, each continues to love the other both for who she is and for what she is pretending to be. Their "lies" center around the practical compromises they have stooped to make between their opposing sensibilities -- and which undermine, as they deceptively prolong, the friendship neither wants to come apart. - --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, 4 Sep 2003 03:28:14 -0500 From: "H.J.J. Hewitt" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Friend In Need Part 1 >> Yes. Though, technically, you're incorrect - when we first saw Xena (that >> is, those of 'us' who watched Herc), she was 100% bad, trying to get Iolaus >> and Herc to kill each other so she could plunder the Pelopponese. > > >She's scheming against two strong warriors. Plain old warlord of the week >stuff. > > >> Though >> she did *look* gorgeous as always, and us guys will forgive any woman who >> looks like that and achieves her evil plans by seducing us in the bath.... >> hrrrrm... anyway, to get back to my point, she was bad but intriguing >> when we first saw her. But by episode two (The Gauntlet) she'd started to >> become heroic in some ways and by episode three (Unchained Heart) she was >> firmly in the hero camp. No, you two, I haven't seen a l-o-t of Herc eps, but enough to have observed that \his/ repetitive opponents weren't so much "warlord of the week's", but rather gorgeous, often (?) supernatural female opponents, generally sicced on him by Hera. And they would end up reformed and in love (and usually in the sack) with Herc, from whom they would reluctantly and sadly part, some also to be heroic. Just like Xena! She was merely one from an ongoing series of females so smitten. BUT \that/ particular stock character as embodied by Lucy, and coming at just the right time for a spin-off, somehow "took"... and the rest, as they say... is history! Glorious history!!! ========================================================= 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, 4 Sep 2003 21:45:52 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Friend In Need Part 1 On Thursday 04 September 2003 20:28, H.J.J. Hewitt wrote: > >> Yes. Though, technically, you're incorrect - when we first saw Xena > >> (that is, those of 'us' who watched Herc), she was 100% bad, trying to > >> get Iolaus and Herc to kill each other so she could plunder the > >> Pelopponese. > > > >She's scheming against two strong warriors. Plain old warlord of the week > >stuff. Yes, but she was still *bad*, wasn't she? > >> Though > >> she did *look* gorgeous as always, and us guys will forgive any woman > >> who looks like that and achieves her evil plans by seducing us in the > >> bath.... hrrrrm... anyway, to get back to my point, she was bad but > >> intriguing when we first saw her. But by episode two (The Gauntlet) > >> she'd started to become heroic in some ways and by episode three > >> (Unchained Heart) she was firmly in the hero camp. > > No, you two, I haven't seen a l-o-t of Herc eps, but enough to have > observed that \his/ repetitive opponents weren't so much "warlord of the > week's", but rather gorgeous, often (?) supernatural female opponents, > generally sicced on him by Hera. Yes, quite true. > And they would end up reformed and in > love (and usually in the sack) with Herc, from whom they would reluctantly > and sadly part, some also to be heroic. Frequently reformed, often in love, but only occasionally in the sack. Herc was actually much more restrained that way than Xena. In later seasons anyway. First he had his wife Deianeira, whom Hera barbecued, that took him quite a while to get over. About two seasons, IIRC. (Well, aside from Xena in Unchained Heart, but then who wouldn't make an exception for someone as dishy as that? Okay, and then there was Lucy Liu in March to Freedom, but they only had a bath in a hot pool together, she had a boyfriend hovering around so I don't think anything came of it. All in all, the dead Deianeira was a pretty good excuse why Herc couldn't seriously fall for any of the dishy females he encountered. Xena was maybe the only one who - umm, scored, until Serena the Golden Hind in Season 3. Herc married her. And Strife killed her. Are we beginning to see a pattern here? ;) And the next one after that was Morrigan, in Season 5. > Just like Xena! She was merely > one from an ongoing series of females so smitten. BUT \that/ particular > stock character as embodied by Lucy, and coming at just the right time for > a spin-off, somehow "took"... and the rest, as they say... is history! > Glorious history!!! Yup. 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, 4 Sep 2003 22:14:25 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] DEBT 1&2: Water Soft & Raging On Thursday 04 September 2003 19:13, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: (massive snippage) > Years later, Lao Mao's Warrior Princess returns. She does not come for > revenge or blood lust. She comes because of the "profound loyalty" Lao Ma > saw > in her. She comes to finish what was left undone -- to accomplish what the > "weak one" cannot bring herself to do and remove a barrier to the peace > that could not be achieved through softness. She is a warrior first, not a > poet or > philosopher. Her instinct is to use the weapons of her calling. And to > kill. > > Gabrielle's naive, questionable (oh, all right -- stupid, stupid, stupid) thank you *so* much ;) > betrayal, gives Xena time to think of other means. She smiles slightly at > Ming Tien's announcement that she would leave this life and be put to > death. For a few precious moments during this near-death experience, she > "conquers" herself, "empties" herself, summons Lao Ma's spirit and power, > and seems to have found "her way" to make the dragon small without killing > him. And didn't she look *cool* doing it? ;) > "As far as > I'm concerned," she tells Gabby when they are about to leave Tien buried in > his crumbling palace, "this is all over." > > But Tien refuses to accept his smallness. He calls Xena back. He's going > to make himself larger by cutting her down a size. He reminds her of her > own guilt in "creating" him. "I've learned to clean up after myself". I absolutely *love* that line. It's just so sinister. And understated. > Is > that it?," she hisses contemptuously, turning away. So he belittles the > woman who > helped create the new Xena. Yes, he knew Lao Ma was his mother, but he's > so big and bad he killed her anyway, all by himself. He derides Lao Ma for > being > too weak to "use her powers to hurt her little boy." And in the midst of > this > taunting, he pulls out the hair pin, passing it on to Xena like Lao Ma > herself. "This belongs to you. Her last request was that it be returned > to you." Wasn't that beautifully, incredibly ironic? D'you suppose Lao Ma was sending Xena a message? And if she was, Ming himself made sure he delivered it, special delivery. He just couldn't let it go, could he? He set himself up in every possible way. I do like irony and that whole scene was just perfect. > Xena's shock turns to anguish as she lovingly clasps the oft-exchanged, > deceptively "insignificant" gift that could be a weapon "if necessary." > Sensing a soft spot, Tien, pushes his jibes in deeper: "It turns out that > she > was just a sentimental fool" - for risking death to achieve peace, for > thinking of Xena's hair bobble as she was about to die, for crying as the > son she couldn't make small literally rips her heart out. Xena's eyes have > become > ice as he concludes, "Mother's book of wisdom failed her in the end." > Think again, little dragon. Oops, not very easy, huh, with that pin stuck > in your mosquito head. > > So. Do I think Xena failed Lao Ma's class? Nope, with a little "help" > (yuck) > from Gabby, she passed with flying colors, so to speak. Do I think Xena > betrayed her own on-going quest for redemption? Well, I've stopped > thinking about it so much in terms of the Judeo-Christian notion of being > "saved." I > believe she simply wants to "do" good when she can and "clean up" when she > and > others make a mess. That's practical and "doable" for an enlightened > warrior. In this instance, she cleaned up big time. Nicely put :) I feel the same way (surprised, anybody? ;) Maybe I expect that because of the pedigree of the series. It *is* an 'action' series and the hero has got to take action. It's okay (in fact it makes her more interesting) if she has doubts or mixed feelings about her course of action, as we've noted. It's *not* okay if she lets her doubts paralyse her into being ineffective. Watching an action hero who has become helpless due to guilt or indecision has a Use By date of about 5 minutes. > Gabby, on the other > hand, wants herself and others to "be" good, which is idealistic, nigh > impossible every moment of the day in every situation. Her mistake is in > wanting to impose that same standard on Xena, just as Xena mistakenly > thinks that Gabby can separate doing from being. > > Xena has just come through one of the most grueling, self-revealing tests > of her life. It is as if she's talking to herself about something she > learned, and which may be of some consolation to her guilt-ridden friend, > when she says, "You're right, I didn't have to resolve this with murder." Now that line makes me slightly uneasy. Not because she misled Gabby (I don't think Gabby really had a right to impose her morals on Xena at that point, so wasn't entitled to anything more), but just because we don't often see Xena tell a falsehood. What Gabby thought Xena meant was "I didn't kill him". Technically, splitting hairs like crazy, I suppose we could say Xena was not telling an untruth - there are two 'outs' - "I didn't *have* to kill him" (but I did :) or the other one, of course, is to claim it wasn't 'murder' but justifiable homicide, retribution, whatever. Still, I get exactly the same unease about that line as I did when Xena tricked Ares out of his reward on a technicality in Amphipolis Under Siege. Though, in Debt, it could have been avoided easily just by a re-phrasing, which would not have been possible in AUS. On each occasion, I somehow feel it isn't quite worthy of Xena. > I don't think she intends at all to deceive Gabby. But, what other interpretation of her words is there? I'd like to find one. I don't mind her fooling Gabby at all, but I would have preferred it had she done so more subtly. Does that seem odd? > It is Gabby who > interprets this through her own rose-colored lenses when she says, "You're > not killing him made > you exactly what Lao Ma wanted to you to *be*." Of course, Xena recognizes > that Gabby is saying this without knowing the whole picture, but is simply > too > tired for further philosophical debate. The conclusion of the ep - now that was good. Like the 'alien' noise at the end of the first Alien movie, it tells you there's a landmine buried there, waiting to go off. 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, 4 Sep 2003 18:54:47 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] DEBT 1&2: Water Soft & Raging In a message dated 9/4/03 5:13:20 AM Central Daylight Time, cr@orcon.net.nz writes: On Thursday 04 September 2003 19:13, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > Gabrielle's naive, questionable (oh, all right -- stupid, stupid, stupid) thank you *so* much ;) > betrayal, gives Xena time to think of other means. >> LOL! Remember, I wrote this back when Gabs was still growing on me. Today, I might be more charitable and characterize Gabs' behavior as ... um .... uh .... Okay, maybe I'd leave off the "stupid" part. At least, one of the "stupids." She smiles slightly at > Ming Tien's announcement that she would leave this life and be put to > death. For a few precious moments during this near-death experience, she > "conquers" herself, "empties" herself, summons Lao Ma's spirit and power, > and seems to have found "her way" to make the dragon small without killing > him. And didn't she look *cool* doing it? ;) >> She looked "cool" for most of that ep, especially at the end -- all grimy and feral and almost operatic with that robe on. He derides Lao Ma for > being > too weak to "use her powers to hurt her little boy." And in the midst of > this > taunting, he pulls out the hair pin, passing it on to Xena like Lao Ma > herself. "This belongs to you. Her last request was that it be returned > to you." Wasn't that beautifully, incredibly ironic? D'you suppose Lao Ma was sending Xena a message? And if she was, Ming himself made sure he delivered it, special delivery. He just couldn't let it go, could he? He set himself up in every possible way. I do like irony and that whole scene was just perfect. >> Absolutely. At the time, I remember fans who thought Xena betrayed Lao Ma's teachings by using the pin so lethally. I vehemently disagreed, as Lao Ma said she "preferred" eschewing viiolence, but was the main one to point out to Xena that even the most beautiful objects could be used to kill (like Xena herself). There's no doubt in my mind that she gave her kid the pin precisely as a message of permission that she knew he'd give to Xena as a taunt. So absolutely delicious, especially since he delivers it as "proof" of his mother's weakness and stupidity. betrayed her own on-going quest for redemption? Well, I've stopped > thinking about it so much in terms of the Judeo-Christian notion of being > "saved." I > believe she simply wants to "do" good when she can and "clean up" when she > and > others make a mess. That's practical and "doable" for an enlightened > warrior. In this instance, she cleaned up big time. Nicely put :) << Thank you. Debt was a turning point for me in terms of simplifying Xena's quest. It helped me keep my focus on her personal goals during all that gods/religious stuff later on. I suppose it's also why I saw AFIN as another example of "cleaning up," regardless of how accidental or minimal her role may have been in making the mess. Debt really made me see things from Xena's perspective, which didn't glorify what to her was an honorable maintenance job required whether there was one spot on the floor or 40,000. > Xena has just come through one of the most grueling, self-revealing tests > of her life. It is as if she's talking to herself about something she > learned, and which may be of some consolation to her guilt-ridden friend, > when she says, "You're right, I didn't have to resolve this with murder." Now that line makes me slightly uneasy. Not because she misled Gabby (I don't think Gabby really had a right to impose her morals on Xena at that point, so wasn't entitled to anything more), but just because we don't often see Xena tell a falsehood. What Gabby thought Xena meant was "I didn't kill him". Technically, splitting hairs like crazy, I suppose we could say Xena was not telling an untruth - there are two 'outs' - "I didn't *have* to kill him" (but I did :) or the other one, of course, is to claim it wasn't 'murder' but justifiable homicide, retribution, whatever. >> I don't think it was a lie. By "resolve this," I think she meant Lao Ma's request to "make him small." I think she'd actually accomplished that mission without murder, by bringing down his reign. As she said to his body, his people wouldn't follow him anymore. This was in contrast to her initial concept of her mission, which was to kill him, so Gabrielle was right in that sense. Xena was satisfied to walk away with dethroning him -- without *having* to kill him for that reason. His admission about killing Lao Ma is what got him dead. I don't know whether Lao Ma figured it would take killing him, even tho I believe she wanted Xena to do that if necessary. But I think Xena murdered him out of her own outrage and need for vengeance (or "justice"), not out of fear that he'd hurt his people anymore. That darkly satisfied look on her face at the very end suggested to me that what she did was personal -- paying a past debt -- not to resolve a current political situation. <> I agree that deceiving Gabs and Ares wasn't exactly "above board" in terms of Xena's usual "here's the deal, take it or leave it" approach. In the first case, it made Gabs' feel better. In the second, it saved her kid and her independence from Ares. I didn't feel any queasier about that, than her switching Vircinix with Whosits in "When in Rome." Xena did a lot of things that weren't "nice." > I don't think she intends at all to deceive Gabby. But, what other interpretation of her words is there? I'd like to find one. I don't mind her fooling Gabby at all, but I would have preferred it had she done so more subtly. Does that seem odd? >> When I first saw Debt, I thought maybe Xena had put him in a kind of a paralyzed state, suggested a little by the actor's slight eye movement (which I found out later was not intended). I loved the delicious irony of his being like Lao Ma's husband -- conscious of what was happening, but unable to do anything about it. I didn't see any reason for Xena to know Gabs would come back, so I thought Xena was just rubbing it in to him about how Lao Ma had won after all. Even after I accepted that he was (as one person wrote) "dead dead dead," I was surprised that Xena went through the charade of propping his body up just to fool Gabs. I stil prefer the paralyzed scenario, but I agree now that Xena probably intended for Gabs to interpret the "didn't have to murder" line as she did. - -- 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, 4 Sep 2003 22:37:51 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] DEBT 1&2: Water Soft & Raging Since we've been talking about Debt, I thought I'd dig out an old review/commentary I did when the eps aired. Not sure if I feel the same way in retrospect, but maybe it'll fill some space between Cande's reviews of her new DVDs. < g> -- Ife DEBT 1&2: Water Soft & Raging For me, the Debt episodes offered a new context for interpreting the moral ambiguities that pervade the Xenaverse. They explored Eastern philosophies which emphasize the unity, bringing together or tension between opposing forces. These forces don't seem to be inherently good or bad. They simply "are." We deal with them daily, rather than conquer them forever. Ideally, we deal with them through peace and harmony, without using force, but sometimes we cannot. In many ways, these concepts involve deception, particularly when compared with more absolute notions about good *or* evil and eternal salvation *or* damnation. What seems soft is also hard. To submit may mean to conquer. Lao Ma accepts, teaches and practices this yin-yang perspective. She is a master of its deceptiveness. She presents herself as an "insignificant" woman, mucking about in important matters at the bidding of her ailing husband. She delicately offers her hand to Borias, to raise her up from beside the prone Xena, whom she has just flattened with mystical powers as yet unexhibited by any other mortal in the Xenaverse. On the other hand, her "real" power is based on an illusion of her husband's state of being. "You are a strange woman," papa Ming tells her, "soft and hard at the same time." "Like water, soft," she replies, smiling down at the hidden Xena struggling for air beneath Lao Ma's reflection, "yet who can withstand the raging floods?" When Lao Ma first looked into the wild Xena, she saw a potentially good and noble heart. She also saw, and equally appreciated, the strength of the raging floods. Poet Gabrielle and philosopher Lao Ma have noble hearts. They also have courage and pretty good butt-kicking skills. So why do they need Xena? She cleans up the evil that "good" as well as "bad" people leave behind. She does not stop at bumping a few heads or negotiating for good. When she has to, she *kills* for good. It is because - not in spite - of this that Lao Ma sees in Xena the potential for greatness. It is why she wants to reform the two barbarians who invade her land. She herself is expert at "soft" ways to nurture peace, but she sees in her "warrior princess" the "hard" ways to make it happen. Similarly, Lao Ma picks up the piece of wood holding Xena's wild mane and sees more than a "brooch" for adorning hair. She uses it as a dart to puncture a water gourd and restore Xena to consciousness after laying her out cold. In the midst of Xena's enlightenment, Lao demonstrates that it "could be a useful weapon if thrown at the right body part." To Xena's gleeful, "You could use this to kill somebody," Lao Ma responds, "If necessary. I don't like to kill, however." Obviously, Lao Ma prefers nonviolence (though Xena and Borias might argue that being bounced repeatedly off walls is harder on the body than a fist fight). Nor, as others have pointed out, do we ever hear her say that killing is bad or that she herself would never kill (though her husband would probably prefer being dead). She then returns the pin to Xena's hair. And Xena, during that incredible moment when she is floating "emptied of desire," gives the pin to Lao Ma, probably as a simple gift of gratitude, the symbolism of which I doubt she recognizes at the time. Years later, Lao Mao's Warrior Princess returns. She does not come for revenge or blood lust. She comes because of the "profound loyalty" Lao Ma saw in her. She comes to finish what was left undone -- to accomplish what the "weak one" cannot bring herself to do and remove a barrier to the peace that could not be achieved through softness. She is a warrior first, not a poet or philosopher. Her instinct is to use the weapons of her calling. And to kill. Gabrielle's naive, questionable (oh, all right -- stupid, stupid, stupid) betrayal, gives Xena time to think of other means. She smiles slightly at Ming Tien's announcement that she would leave this life and be put to death. For a few precious moments during this near-death experience, she "conquers" herself, "empties" herself, summons Lao Ma's spirit and power, and seems to have found "her way" to make the dragon small without killing him. "As far as I'm concerned," she tells Gabby when they are about to leave Tien buried in his crumbling palace, "this is all over." But Tien refuses to accept his smallness. He calls Xena back. He's going to make himself larger by cutting her down a size. He reminds her of her own guilt in "creating" him. "I've learned to clean up after myselfb&. Is that it?," she hisses contemptuously, turning away. So he belittles the woman who helped create the new Xena. Yes, he knew Lao Ma was his mother, but he's so big and bad he killed her anyway, all by himself. He derides Lao Ma for being too weak to "use her powers to hurt her little boy." And in the midst of this taunting, he pulls out the hair pin, passing it on to Xena like Lao Ma herself. "This belongs to you. Her last request was that it be returned to you." Xena's shock turns to anguish as she lovingly clasps the oft-exchanged, deceptively "insignificant" gift that could be a weapon "if necessary." Sensing a soft spot, Tien, pushes his jibes in deeper: "It turns out that she was just a sentimental fool" - for risking death to achieve peace, for thinking of Xena's hair bobble as she was about to die, for crying as the son she couldn't make small literally rips her heart out. Xena's eyes have become ice as he concludes, "Mother's book of wisdom failed her in the end." Think again, little dragon. Oops, not very easy, huh, with that pin stuck in your mosquito head. So. Do I think Xena failed Lao Ma's class? Nope, with a little "help" (yuck) from Gabby, she passed with flying colors, so to speak. Do I think Xena betrayed her own on-going quest for redemption? Well, I've stopped thinking about it so much in terms of the Judeo-Christian notion of being "saved." I believe she simply wants to "do" good when she can and "clean up" when she and others make a mess. That's practical and "doable" for an enlightened warrior. In this instance, she cleaned up big time. Gabby, on the other hand, wants herself and others to "be" good, which is idealistic, nigh impossible every moment of the day in every situation. Her mistake is in wanting to impose that same standard on Xena, just as Xena mistakenly thinks that Gabby can separate doing from being. Xena has just come through one of the most grueling, self-revealing tests of her life. It is as if she's talking to herself about something she learned, and which may be of some consolation to her guilt-ridden friend, when she says, "You're right, I didn't have to resolve this with murder." I don't think she intends at all to deceive Gabby. It is Gabby who interprets this through her own rose-colored lenses when she says, "You're not killing him made you exactly what Lao Ma wanted to you to *be*." Of course, Xena recognizes that Gabby is saying this without knowing the whole picture, but is simply too tired for further philosophical debate. Similarly, Xena told Gabby she "*did* the right thing," unaware that Gabby hadn't in fact killed Hope. And Gabby, too tired for any more hide-and-seek, lets Xena think what she wants. In truth, neither lies in terms of her own standards and in the larger moral arena where each is waging her own private war. In terms of the more mundane aspects of their relationship, each continues to love the other both for who she is and for what she is pretending to be. Their "lies" center around the practical compromises they have stooped to make between their opposing sensibilities -- and which undermine, as they deceptively prolong, the friendship neither wants to come apart. - --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 #261 **************************************