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Xena and Gabrielle: Gurkhan’s rape and torture harem.

This was a brutal episode. It is probably the most violent and controversial episode of all, considering it’s supposed to be a family show. But I’ll be damned if it wasn’t also the most romantic. I don’t mean to romanticize any kind of abuse. It’s just when Xena puts her life and freedom on the line, and goes through a beating as severe as the one she did for Gabrielle, just to keep her alive, free, and from doing something that she may end up seriously regretting later. That’s such a beautiful, romantic thing, wouldn’t you say? Tragic romance is absolutely the most romantic and powerful kind of love I’ve ever known. It’s the amount of depth and intensity of pain, violence, cruelty and evil that both will go through in a heartbeat for each other just to make sure the other survives. I just find that an astounding declaration of love at the highest possible level. They’re such an inspiration to me in knowing and understanding what LOVE actually is.

It is clear, from what I can interpret in this show and between these two characters, that love is not a feeling. Or rather, it is not just something that is felt. It’s the core of being of the Self in relation to another. A transparency between two people who absolutely lose themselves in one another. Nowhere have I seen this kind of love illustrated so strongly and powerfully than between Xena and Gabrielle. It’s incredibly inspiring and beautiful to watch. I am completely and utterly in love with their love. They truly are one soul in two bodies.

“Looking back, I can watch these episodes and I just see the love in a whole new profound way that they have for each other. It’s undoubtedly obvious, you know, to me, that these two are obviously together and will be together forever — in any realm, in any reincarnation.”  

- Renee O’Connor

Season one: the one where it goes from ‘f**k i’m gonna regret this’ to ‘f**k i love her’

Season two: the one where xena possesses a man’s body to kiss gabrielle through a magical spirit world don’t ask

Season three: the one where they have marriage problems

Season four: the one where they are soulmates forever and ever

Season five: the one where they become “mum and dad” to a female baby jesus

Parallels in Xena Warrior Princess (1/?)

This is an edit i made to celebrate the 30th anniversary of xena and celebrate 30 years of the groundbreaking romantic relationship of xena and Gabrielle. A relationship helped to change biases about homosexuality and lesbians. A relationship that helped to normalize queer relationships and inspire other show writers to incorporate queer characters and relationships into their shows, like Buffy with Willow and Tara.

Xena and Gabrielle's relationship is an important ship to all LGBT. Xena and Gabrielle weren’t just a ship — they were (and still are) a lifeline, a beacon, and a love story that continues to resonate powerfully with the LGBT community. And there hasn't really been a WLW or just LGBT couple to rival them.

The song 2 Become One from the Spice Girls (a group with queer situation with Ginger and Mel B) fits and matches perfectly with the relationship of xena and Gabrielle.

Quick Xena and Gabrielle edit

Instagram This is where I acquired the scene pack, favcivantos on Instagram.

It's difficult to break away from in female-led media. Buffy had Giles to guide her as a slayer. The Charmed Ones had Leo, who ultimately reported to the Elders. Mulder mentored Scully to an absurd degree in that her skepticism was never allowed to be right. Kara didn't break away from the DEO until she was basically forced to.

But Xena? She never had a group to report to. Her only male mentor was someone who was leading her down the wrong path. She found mentorship in Lao Ma, in a brief interlude that launched her into self-discovery. She found mentorship in Gabrielle, someone who in no sense "outranked" her but who simply brought her a different perspective at a time when she needed it. She feels like an independent person, which is something that seems to get afforded to female characters less often.

@gifevents Love, Platonically | Soulmates ↳ Xena, Gabrielle, and Joxer

I will assert until my dying day that it is S4, not S6, which is the gayest season of XWP, simply because the entire point of this season is to ask whether the love Xena and Gabrielle have for each other is fundamentally good and necessary for them as individuals. And while the season as a whole does an incredible job of examining that question in Gabrielle’s and Xena’s individual arcs where it really has the space to do it, it also brilliantly compresses it in microcosmic format and scatters it throughout the season in the form of The Vision™.  

Because here’s the thing - the focus of Xena’s vision is always on Gabrielle saying “I love you, Xena”, which is honestly the most horrific thing about it. Gabrielle about to be killed with Xena is bad enough, because (in her eyes) it’s already indirectly her fault through her inability to leave Gabrielle or convince her to go. The fact that it’s the Romans - and fucking crucifixion - is worse, because that means it’s probably personal.

But the fact that love is written into every part of Gabrielle’s face and voice as they’re about to hammer in the nails? The fact that, regardless of any action or inaction on Xena’s part, it’s obviously Gabrielle’s love for her that’s led her to this place, with these words on her lips?

Holaayyy fuck.

Now it’s not like it’s anything new for Gabrielle to tell Xena she loves her. It’s actually happened frequently enough onscreen it’s safe to assume it happens offscreen, especially in a post-Family Affair world.

However.

Whenever it does happen onscreen - right up until the end of this season in fact - it’s never, ever something you can take at face value, out of context, or as a throwaway sentiment.

They started exchanging (onscreen) “I love you’s” in S3, and there were two narrative points to it there: 1) first, the contrast between the words with the things they were hiding from each other and/or the ways they were hurting each other, then finally 2) the fact that there wasn’t a contrast anymore because they’d fought for and gotten back their open, honest, beautiful relationship.

And S4 follows in that grand tradition: every time you see Xena’s vision, every time you see future!Gabs say those beautiful, horrible words, Xena can’t hear anything but this is the thing that’s going to get you killed.

Which brings me to one of my favorite scenes of whole show, which is a microcosmic meditation on love: the lofty Platonic idea vs. love: the specific thing binding two people together. Delightfully, it happens while Xena is giving Gabrielle a full body massage. Less delightfully (wait, who am I kidding, even more delightfully), it also happens while she’s 1) bleeding from her nose, and desperately trying to keep it off of Gabrielle, and 2) having the vision, this time envisioning herself driving the stakes into Gabrielle’s feet.

Here is an excerpt of that simple, but incredible, scene:

X:  We’ve come a long way, the two of us […] and you’ve taught me a lot about kindness, and mercy, and love.

G (mumbling, half-asleep): Love.

Because it’s so clear that the love that half-manic Xena, having been interrupted in another attempt to leave Gabrielle behind, is talking about in this moment is the high-minded ideal: the Way of Love. The love that Gabrielle, with Xena’s hands warm and tender on her skin, is dreaming about is Xena’s love for her. 

Which in context of the season - specifically Gabrielle’s following the Way of Love, and Xena being haunted Gabs’ words in the vision - seems like it would be exactly the wrong way around. 

Of course, it isn’t the wrong way around at all. We all know how astonishingly this thing ends, and a lot of people have said a lot of really profoundly beautiful things about The Ides of March that I don’t need to reiterate, so I’m gonna shut up now except to say this one last thing.

When we finally get to the cross, the place we’ve been promised and threatened we’d go all season?