#competency

Month of Stability day 3: Competency

My Assistant General Manager Competency! I designed and made the art for it as an entry in the Triangle Agency Fanzine, Haasio did the layout so it matches the book!

and most are a combination of the two based on their situation

Lol, they say this like it's a bad thing.

"Oh, a President who actually reads their briefings, knows what they're talking about, and doesn't just get lead around by the nose by their handlers? Heaven forbid!"

I love how with the male enemies, they’re never strong or intelligent enough to beat Xena, but she has much more of a challenge and struggle with female enemies.

Xena’s female enemies, adversaries or villains tend to have much more competency when it comes to opposing Xena in battle than any male enemies do.

There’s really only a few male ones that present a bit more of the threat and danger to Xena and they happen to be the ones that have an attraction to, fall in love and once had a relationship with her. Like Ares and Caesar.

But they pale in comparison to the likes of Callisto, Najara and Alti - who make Xena really WORK HARD.

I just really love that about the show because it proves it’s truly women-led when both the protagonists and antagonists are only competent when they’re female.

In particular Najara is the one I’m thinking about the most with this because she was attracted to Gabrielle and she literally beat Xena to a bloody pulp over her

and I mean…. Xena lost a good chewing tooth 🦷 ouch.

The only way she could beat her was to play her to the same weakness that she had. The safety of Gabrielle.

You saw the concern on her face that she worried she was too tough. That she couldn’t defeat this enemy because she knew - were it the other way around - absolutely no one would be able to stop her either.

Had they never reduced Najara to a psycho zealot…

I reckon she would have been Xena’s greatest enemy because the most important thing of all was at stake.

Maybe they knew that was very much a possibility, so they decided they had to reduce the character instead to give Xena the counterpoint against her. The final win.

Najara was a very compelling character and narrative until that second episode where they just made her insane. She was a part of the show that informed both Xena and Gabrielle significantly in that first episode because she presented a real dilemma for both of them that could have been a very interesting season-long arc.