From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #290 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 Thursday, October 2 2003 Volume 03 : Number 290 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] RE: Lost Mariner and Ulysses [IfeRae@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 00:56:34 EDT From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] RE: Lost Mariner and Ulysses In a message dated 9/30/2003 8:25:03 PM Central Daylight Time, cande@sunlink.net writes: > IfeRae Wrote: > > "You know, in a funny way you two are actually convincing me that they cast > the right actor after all. There was a boyish quality about his emotions -- > a > superficiality perhaps borne of Ulysses leaving Ithaca and his wife as a > teenager, returning 10 years later with perhaps the same notion of love, > without > having "grown" in that way." > > So as I understand it you see Ulysses as a case of arrested development. > Well > you are probably right. He left his wife as a very young man and he still > probably does have very romantic notions about love. Also Xena is probably > the first "normal" woman he has met - remember he has encounted nymphs and > witches according to legend-so perhaps it is understandable that he would be > attracted to her.>> Yes, my thoughts exactly. I like "arrested development." > > "Xena kind of treats him as tho she is years older -- with a certain > delicacy > on one > hand and "tough love" on the other. Her adult-adult conversation with him > about responsibility at the end is like teacher to student. She still has > to > say, "go back to your wife." > > I hadn't thought of that but Xena does treat him very much like an > adolescent > who has crush on her. At lest she does once she realizes that he has a wife > waiting for him. Perhaps it is Ulysses boyish enthusiasm is what attracts > her > in the first place.>> Heh. Keep in mind Xena hasn't exactly been dealing with prime male candidates herself. Ulysses was head and shoulders above the slimeballs and twerps we usually saw. > > "I think we were dealing more with infatuation in LM, not deep "soulmate" > love." > Do you mean LM or Ulysses. I think when Cecrops speaks of his lost love it > is real deep love.>> Oh, yes, I meant infatuation in "Ulysses." > > "Todd exudes too much depth, experience and wisdom for that. His decision > about his wife might've been more tortured, lending a "heaviness" the ep > didn't > need." > > I suspect of Todd was to play Ulysses this would have been a very different > episode and I doubt if you would have had such a cavalier attitude towards > Pennelope that Ulysses seemed to have. I suspect you would have had a story > about Ulysses wanting to be with his wife and Xena helping him. Of course > now > I am rewriting the epsiode.>> LOL! And I don't think that's the story they wanted to tell, which is why I think the actor chosen was more suitable. > > "Some fans thought D'Aquino (?) wasn't "all that" in terms of > portraying a love interest for Xena. But the more I think about it, the > more > appropriate I think the shallowness we saw in the actor we got -- the > somewhat > boyish > charm and self-centeredness that required Xena to make the choice he > should've > made himself." > > The problem was of course that D'Aquino was playing one of the great mythic > heroes so we had expectation about how he should act. Ulysses was a bit > shallow but he was larger than life and that is where D'Aquino failed. >> But, see, that also lends itself to XWP's treatment of "legends." He wasn't "mythic" back then. He's given the usual human flaws that might've been possible under the circumstances, which in this case are related to someone who had to fight like a man but may still have the emotional depth and romanticism of the teenager who left home. Oh but> > one more thing someone, perhaps you, pointed out that Ulysses couldn't bend > the bow because of his wound, I never thouht of that so I now have > reappraise > my opinion that he was whimpy too.>> Yes, I initially hadn't picked up on that, but realized it later. This ends up being another way that Xena helped him become the mythic hero *we* know needed a little help in the responsibility department. I believe now that this was an important aspect of the story TPTB wanted to tell, rather than of an emotionally mature and selfless man who merely needed Xena's assistance physically because of his wound. Besides, that wouldn't have highlighted as much Xena's own sense of honor. > > Just as she later recogized the ruthlessness in Antony, she > chose the "right" decision over her own feelings -- which turned out to be > "right" for her in terms of suitability for someone with her own depth, > values > and > sense of honor. There was no real "match" for her, other than Gabrielle > (subtext or not). > > Now we agree there. Gabrielle, for whatever her faults, was as honorable as > Xena and as committed to Xena as was humanly possible.>> Yes. I'm not sure of the exact reasons, but Xena's best suitors lacked or had an undeveloped key trait that Xena valued. The way things evolved, Gabs seemed Xena's only true "partner" in any way one chooses to define the concept. What I hadn't recalled, until I saw the ep again the other day, was that Xena first quotes Gabs' idea about soulmates, which Ulysses then uses to define his feelings for Xena. But the ep shows he had a rather limited idea of what "soulmate" meant to Gabs. Maybe initially Xena didn't realize that, but she did once Ulysses was willing to turn his back on the woman who'd managed to be "true" to him all those years under great duress, as well as on the homeland that needed him. All of that reinforces my newfound respect for TPTB's choice of Ulysses' portrayal. It also reinforces my feeling that Gabs understood the true depth of her partnership with Xena long before Xena did. Each time Xena thinks she sees that potential in one of her love interests, she learns what's missing from her own concept of it, only to see it right there beside her in Gabrielle. At first she thinks it's enough to have Gabs there as sort of an auxiliary, as she seems to suggest when she says "the three of us could do a lot of good" in reference to Ulysses. But she gradually sees that the one person she needs at her side is Gabs, with anyone else being a nice -- but not necessary -- auxiliary. The "red shirts" don't threaten that notion; they support it. I don't know how intentional that was. Nor am I arguing that this was the major purpose. I'm simply saying that Ulysses' shallowness would certainly be in keeping with the string of ultimately unworthy love interests. - -- 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 #290 **************************************