#justwandering

25 to 30 Years Before Series Start

Amphipolis (S01E01) - Xena is born in Amphipolis to an innkeeper named Cyrene and (allegedly) a warrior named Atrius. Her grandparents are farmers (Old Ares Had A Farm, S06E10). She has a younger brother named Lyceus (Remember Nothing, S02E02) and an older brother named Toris (Death Mask, S01E23).

She grows up a wild child, learning swordplay and fishing (Fins Femmes and Gems, S03E17) with her brothers, befriending a young girl named Flora (The Black Wolf, S01E11), presumably fending off the flirtations of Maphias (Remember Nothing, S02E02), etc.

Atrius comes home from war unexpectedly, has a Fury-induced mental breakdown and tries to murder Xena. Cyrene kills him (The Furies, S03E01).

More Than Ten Years Before S01E12

Sparta (Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts, S01E12) - Xena befriends Helen "in Sparta, before the [Trojan] war." The war then lasts for ten years.

In Hercules Trading Card #6 ('Xena'), the unfilmed Xena pilot script, and a Xena comic book entitled 'Plowshares Into Swords,' it is suggested that Xena's father was a Spartan or Mycenean warrior, or perhaps a king. Similarly, a dropped plotline from the first season supposedly involved Xena's search for her father. These factors could account for Xena's presence in the area.

Precisely Eleven Years Before S02E02

Cortese Attacks Amphipolis (Death Mask, S01E23) - A warlord named Cortese threatens to attack Amphipolis. Xena and Lyceus rally the young men of their generation to fight back rather than surrender.

This may be when Xena has her first kill, a man named Termin (Dreamworker, S01E03).

This is also when Lyceus and many of those young men die, leading Cyrene and the villagers to blame Xena for their deaths. Xena leaves Amphipolis under duress, presumably with a small fighting force (Sins of the Past, S01E01).

As Months Pass

Raiding Around Amphipolis (Death Mask, S01E23) - Having lost her brother and her home, emotionally deadened and later saying she "didn't have time to feel anything," Xena starts attacking villages around her hometown in order to create a "buffer zone," protecting Amphipolis against future attack.

She also attacks Stagira (Destiny, S02E12), her hometown's "ancient enemy."

Engagement in Thrace (A Fistful of Dinars, S01E14) - Xena is engaged to a man named Petracles, who later "wins" the seduction game and leaves her. This is the first time that she is betrayed by someone she is romantically entangled with.

She also knows men named Lycus, Klonig, and Thersites. They are looking for the Lost Treasure of Sumeria, which secretly includes the Titan's Key to the Hall of Ambrosia near the fictional Mt Poulis.

Mt Poulis is potentially mentioned as being near Troy (BoGBG, S01E12), in Anatolia, but it is not implied that Xena traveled there at this time.

"Ten Winters" Before S02E12

Neapolitis a.k.a. Kavala (Destiny, S02E12) - Xena's army has taken to the sea. They raid a coastal town and she warns the townspeople that while they're "free to go," she will attack any enemy of Amphipolis.

Xena takes a prisoner named Julius Caesar. She believes that she has successfully seduced him, and that he sees her the way that she sees herself; as an equal. They part ways when his ransom is paid, promising to meet again.

She also has a stowaway named M'Lila, who teaches her the famous "pinch" and also a bit of humility.

Xena never purposely kills non-combatant women or children, but she actively seems to enjoy fighting and looting, and her actions are moving farther and farther from their original stated purpose.

As Months Pass

***Goliath?

*** The Ark-Bearers?

Betrayal on a Beach (Destiny, S02E12) - Caesar returns. As it turns out, he does not see Xena as his equal, but rather as one of "Rome's conquered." He betrays her, kills all of her men and presumably with them her last physical ties to Amphipolis, crucifies her, breaks her legs, and leaves her to die humiliated on the beach. Xena is left realizing for the first time that she's a very small fish in a very big pond.

Doctor Niklio on Mt Nestos (Destiny, S02E12) - M'Lila, who is under zero obligation to be loyal or compassionate to Xena, rescues her from the beach and brings her to a doctor on the fictional Mt Nestos, "north of the Strymon River," likely near the Nestos River.

Caesar's men track them down before Xena's legs can be fully healed. M'Lila, the last person alive from Xena's crew and the last person to show her any kindness, is murdered in front of her.

"A new Xena is born" who has had a very bad day and just wants to kill people.

***Ares?

Traveling East (The Debt, S03E06) - Her entire army dead, Xena, with "shattered legs and crippled soul," leaves Greece for the first time and goes east to "lose myself in vengeance - not against Caesar, but the entire human race."

She falls in with Borias and presumably his army, steals him away from his wife and child (The Last of the Centaurs, S06E17) which he is also obviously to blame for, and they spend a while encouraging each other's worst impulses and being mutually toxic.

Actor Marton Csokas is of Hungarian descent and production confirmed that Borias was of Hunnish origin, but there is no in-universe evidence that Xena met Borias north of Greece in the Hunnic Empire as opposed to east of Greece on the path to China.

Precisely Ten Years Before S02E03

***Goliath in The Levant (The Giant Killer, S02E03) - Xena fights with a friendly giant named Goliath against an evil giant named Gareth. When Xena is injured Goliath saves her, and his family is murdered. They "vowed ten years ago to meet in this place. "This place" is where a young King David and the Israelites are later battling the Philistines, which places it generally in the Levant.

Assuming that "Ten Winters Ago" (Destiny, S02E12) takes place prior to the "ten years ago" mentioned in this episode, this event would have to occur after the raid on Neapolitis.

Also, assuming that Xena and Goliath met near Jerusalem, this encounter would have to take place on the path eastward toward China. This possibly implies that Xena left Greece by ship and landed in the Middle East.

However, this event occurring after Neapolitis does not necessarily mean it also occurs after Caesar's betrayal, as there is a small implied time gap. Similarly, the quote, "We vowed ten years ago to meet in this place," does not mean that Xena and Goliath were in "this place" at the time of the vow. The battle against Gareth could therefore have also happened in Greece, when Xena was still of a disposition to be making friends with strangers and had two uninjured legs to rely on while fighting an evil giant.

***The Ark-Bearers in The Levant 2.0 (A Royal Couple of Thieves, S01E17) - When Xena is "young," she is wounded in battle. She is then fed, healed, and protected by a group of people carrying the Ark of the Covenant.

If both this encounter and Xena's encounter with Goliath took place near Jerusalem, these events could even refer to injuries from the same battle.

Unfortunately, placing both battles post-Caesar but pre-China would beg the question of where Borias was at this time. Perhaps they were briefly separated.

On the flip side, disconnecting the Ark-Bearers from the giants would mean Xena could have met them literally anywhere in Greece at any time when she was "young."

As Months Pass

***Ares?

Chin a.k.a. China (The Debt, S03E06) - The battles get larger, the stakes get higher, they get farther from home, and Xena's ambitions get bigger. She's at her most feral and most wild here, probably has the least self-respect she's ever had, and given that her legs never healed properly, she's also at her least physically powerful.

Xena puts a lot of heads on spikes and starts plotting with Borias against the Ming and the Lao. She kidnaps Ming Tien, the Ming leader's son, without Borias's knowledge or consent.

Borias hands Xena over to the enemy for execution. He is the third and final man romantically involved with Xena to ever betray her.

Lao Ma rescues and heals Xena, nearly pulling her back from the edge. But power, as always, is too tempting. Xena goes back to Borias, to her army, and to her old ways.

Siberia (Adventures in the Sin Trade, S04E01) - Xena and Borias move north to Siberia. Xena discovers that she is pregnant with Solan.

The shamaness Alti is a corrupting influence, telling Xena she could be the "Destroyer of Nations" and encouraging her darkest impulses.

Xena keeps gaining new powers (e.g. from the Northern Amazons) and keeps killing (e.g. the Northern Amazons). At Alti's urging, Cyane, the Amazon queen, is the first person Xena actively betrays and murders on-screen.

Alti also tells Xena about the powerful Ixion Stone, prompting her to go back to Greece.

***Byblosa a.k.a. Byblos (Blind Faith, S02E18) - Xena invades Byblosa and sets "the oil reserves on fire."

It makes sense if this happens as Xena returns to Greece from the east, but the event being referenced as "a few years ago" also suggests it could be more recent.

Byblos was a city in Lebanon known for its production of olive oil.

***Glaphyra in Anatolia (The Dirty Half Dozen, S03E03) - Returning to Greece, Xena meets a young woman named Glaphyra, who is young and eager to see the world. She later ends up a slaver.

"Glaphyra" is the name of a historical Cappodocian princess, but this also could have happened literally anywhere at any time.

***Ares (The Reckoning, S01E06) - At some point Ares starts whispering in Xena's ear. This most likely, but not provably, takes place both after Caesar and within the borders of Greece.

"Nine Years" Before S02E01

Battle of Corinth (Orphan of War, S02E01) - At war with the centaurs, Xena and Borias lay siege to Corinth, which is in the northeast Peloponnese, toward the south of Greece. Xena wants the power of the Ixion Stone to secure her destiny as Destroyer of Nations. She's a little less wild than she was in China and Siberia, but just as bloodthirsty.

Borias is increasingly worried, but the balance of power has shifted now; the army is generally following Xena's orders, and she's not listening to him anymore either. Borias splits from her for the last time in order to save the centaurs, but Xena is still badly shocked by his death, which was orchestrated without her knowledge by Satrina (Past Imperfect, S04E09).

Xena gives birth to Solan without her son's father. He is the first truly pure thing she's created in a very long time, and in a moment of clarity, Xena knows the best thing she can do for Solan is get him away from her. Xena gives her son to a centaur, who later tells her, "You aren't the woman I faced ten years ago." The same centaur says that, "For nine years Solan has been my son."

???

Now Xena is post-partum, without her son, partner dead, army depleted, battle lost, and the Ixion Stone beyond her grasp.

Thalassa's Village (Locked Up and Tied Down, S04E07) - Thalassa gets eaten by crabs, despite Xena not intending to kill her. Oops!

This could have happened anywhere at any time, but for fun we can place Shark Island at Makronisos Island, the site of an infamous political prison in the 20th century, which lies east of Corinth across the Saronic Gulf. If Thalassa's village was near or in view of Shark Island, this would in turn place it around the archaeological site at Cape Sounion.

In the flashback scenes to this event, Xena has no Chakram. She appears rougher around the edges than during her introduction in Hercules, but arguably seems less wild than during her time in China. She is not wearing the outfit she bore in China, Siberia, or Corinth. Instead, she is wearing the same outfit that she later sports during the Hercules crossover time-travel episode set in Cirra (Armageddon Now: Part 2, HERC S04E14).

Approximately Eight Years Before Season Two

Failed Homecoming in Amphipolis (Sins of the Past, S01E01) - In the pilot, Xena mentions, "I wanted to come home. I thought maybe this time I could get it right."

My unconventional hypothesis here is that Xena, post-partum and struggling with loss, army diminished and at loose ends, possibly even feeling guilt for Thalassa's death, tried to come home to Cyrene and it did not go well.

This is never directly evidenced on-screen, but it works handily as an excuse for Xena to return to Thrace and participate in events there that do not 'fit' her pre-Caesar era.

Specifically, it supports the idea that she rides away from Amphipolis in a particularly careless state of mind due to her fury and emotional turmoil, and her next village raid goes very, very wrong.

***Ares Gives Xena the Chakram?

Cirra a.k.a. Serres (Callisto, S01E22) - Xena raids the village of Cirra. A fire breaks out and destroys everything, killing many women and children, which again was not Xena's intent.

Cirra is located very close to Amphipolis, and this event needs to take place far enough in the past that Callisto has time to grow up.

In the Hercules crossover episode (Armageddon Now: Part 2, HERC S04E14), which may or may not count as canonical, Xena is wearing the same outfit she wore in Thalassa's village. She has already given birth to Solan. Her characterization, while less feral than China-era Xena, is more in line with her Corinth era than it is with her Valkyrie era or Hercules era.

She also has a lieutenant named Darphus, whose only other appearance is in her Hercules introduction episodes, but this scene cannot take place in that era because Callisto needs more time to grow up. We have to assume that Darphus briefly fell in with Xena's army, parted ways with her quickly after Cirra, and they only reunited again many years later. Alternatively, we can hand-wave his inclusion as a mistake.

The attacks on Thalassa's village and on Cirra both feature a loss of control, care, or forethought that lead to unintended casualties, suggesting they may have happened in a transitional period or a time of turmoil in Xena's life. This could even be motivation for Xena, after several years of enthusiastic slaughter and mayhem, to double down on her original promise to never kill civilian women or children.

This could also be, though of course doesn't have to be, her impetus to leave Greece again.

Unfortunately, the Hercules crossover episode also shows Xena in possession of the Chakram in Cirra, even though she did not have it in China, Siberia, Corinth, or Thalassa's village. This means that either Ares gifted the Chakram to her immediately before Cirra, perhaps because he sensed her conviction wavering and wanted to tempt her back into evil with a shiny new toy, or that the Chakram's inclusion needs to be completely hand-waved away as a mistake.

Xena Blinds A Cyclops (Sins of the Past, S01E01) - The blind cyclops introduced in the pilot episode is located somewhere between Potidaea in southern Thrace and Amphipolis in northeastern Thrace.

Assuming that he stayed in the same location since being blinded, and taking into account that blinding a cyclops would be difficult for a young Xena with a fledgling army immediately post-Cortese, this works with the theory that Xena rode north to Thrace again at some point.

It would also be significantly easier to blind a cyclops using a Chakram than it would with a regular weapon.

Approximately Seven Years Before Season Two

The Western Mountains (The Price, S02E20) - Leaving Greece again, Xena encounters the Horde in the "mountains" the "first time my army went west." Half of her army is demolished and she seems genuinely disturbed, perhaps even frightened, to remember this encounter.

Worth noting that the Horde as a design concept is incredibly problematic and has not aged well.

For the sake of having a definitive place to put this on a map, we could use the Dinaric Alps, a chain of mountains that connects Albania to Italy to the northwest of Greece.

Following this rout by the Horde, we are left with a Xena who is traveling west of Greece for the first time in her life, has been robbed of half her army, and is a bit freaked out by the savagery she just witnessed. Alongside Solan's birth, Borias's death, and Cirra, this could easily indicate an ongoing turning point in her life as a warlord.

***Ares?

***Kal's Temple Near Mt Amaro, Italy (Chakram, S05E02) - Ares steals the Dark Chakram from Kal's temple near Mt. Amaro in Italy.

We do not know if Xena was present in the temple, or even in the country, for this event. We also don't know whether she was actively involved in the theft.

However, it makes sense that Xena started using the Chakram as she shifted into a more solo style of travel.

Approximately Six Years Before Season Two

The Norselands (The Rheingold, S06E07) - The next time we see Xena she is traveling solo in northwestern Europe, possesses the Chakram for the first time on-screen (not counting the Hercules depiction of Cirra), and is less feral but just as power-hungry as she was in China.

To save Xena from having to travel too far into Scandanavia, we could perhaps place this in modern-day Denmark.

Apparently Xena came to the Norselands from a land in the east and "she called it Chin," but it is literally impossible that this took place directly after China. She has no Borias, no baby bump, no army, and she has the Chakram. We can assume, therefore, that Xena just happened to mention China after her arrival in the Norselands.

During the Rheingold saga Xena is playing smart, playing nice, and taking the lessons of seduction and betrayal that were taught to her at a younger age and turning them to her advantage. With Odin and the Valkyrie and the Rhein Maidens, she pretends to be their friend or their lover in order to get what she wants.

Gaul (The Deliverer, S03E04) - Traveling south from the Norselands and still in western Europe, Xena encounters Boudica in Gaul and pretends to be her friend in order to take her army.

For funsies we could place this in Alesia, in modern-day France, the site of the most famous battle between the Gallic tribes and the Roman Empire.

***Torrence?

Approximately Five Years Before Season Two

Returning to Eastern Europe (The Dirty Half Dozen, S03E03) - Traveling eastward back toward Greece, Xena trains a man named Walsim, who she would eventually introduce to Thersites, to be an assassin. This is the first time we see her acting as a sort of mentor-type figure.

Massalia was an ancient Greek colony in southern France, so we can place this there.

"Walsin" is the name of a French historical figure who was in service to a Hungarian royal family, so we can label Walsim the assassin as being of ambiguously European, non-Greek origin.

***Torrence?

Marcus in Italy 2.0 (The Path Not Taken, S01E05) - Xena meets a mercenary named Marcus, who has a Roman name and is therefore potentially also from the Italian Peninsula.

While Marcus later asks after Xena's mother and assumes she won't kill innocent people, suggesting they may have first been acquainted very early on in her warlord journey and much closer to Amphipolis, he fits better into the timeline and the geography here. Perhaps during this time period Xena has mellowed slightly.

Marcus may be the first (living) pre-series lover of Xena's who she is genuinely still fond of.

Darnelle in Italy (The Dirty Half Dozen, S03E03) - Still traveling east, Xena continues down the Italian peninsula. She meets Darnelle in a "small village" and trains him to be a gladiator.

Sicily (The Path Not Taken, S01E05) - Xena steals weapons from someone named Aescalus.

This scheme is mentioned later by the warlord Mezentius, whom Marcus is then working for, making it plausible that Marcus witnessed it first-hand and was the one to tell Mezentius the story.

Historically, Aeschylus was a Greek poet and Persian War veteran.

For fun, we can place this in Sicily where the historical Aeschylus passed away, and assume it was Xena's last stop before continuing east to Greece.

We can also assume that she brings Walsim, Darnelle, Marcus, and several others back to Greece with her. She may also still be leading Boudica's old army.

Increasingly, Xena is doing less straight-up rampaging and more trickery or manipulation.

Approximately Four Years Before Season Two

Return to Greece (The Path Not Taken, S01E05) - Xena returns to central Greece and starts the last "arc" of her pre-Hercules backstory. She has been gone from the area for several years and has evolved notably since then.

***The Battle of Torrence (Judgment Day, HERC S03E15) - Ares considers the Battle of Torrence one of his "greatest triumphs." Apparently "ten thousand corpses littered the battlefield" after Xena "led her army through the opponent's infantry like flies. Limbs were scattered everywhere. It was beautiful."

There is no ancient Greek city called Torrence.

The name 'Torrence' is of Scottish origin. Xena has never been to Scotland, though admittedly she has been to Gaul, and it's possible that in Xena-verse there was a Scottish settlement called Torrence in Gaul, but just trying to parse that possibility is making my brain crazy.

The name may also be referring to Turin in Italy or Tiryns in the Peloponnesian Peninsula in southern Greece, or may be made up wholesale.

It's hard to imagine that Xena could participate in a Greek battle with ten thousand casualties and still being a no-name to Hercules when he first meets her.

However, a battle of this size would provide us with a convenient opportunity to start paring down the size of Xena's army.

Riding with Zagreas (A Day In The Life, S02E15) - Xena "used to ride with Zagreas. He has nerves of mush and wouldn't trust his own grandmother."

Gregan tells Draco, who Xena has been flirting with under Cupid's influence (A Comedy of Eros, S02E22), that Xena "played the same sort of mind games with Zagreas. She tricked him into losing his whole army." This could be a reference to the recent events with Zagreas and Gareth, but those mind games involved zero flirting, so I choose to interpret this as a separate incident.

If Xena lost a lot of men on a battlefield in Torrence, and/or on a battlefield fighting Bacchus, she would need to get a new army from somewhere.

The Bacchae (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, S02E04) - Xena fights against Bacchus and tries to save Eurydice, who is trapped between their armies and had previously tried to befriend Xena. Eurydice dies and Orpheus blames Xena for her death.

This accidental death of another innocent woman, during a fight against a monstrous deity, may lead Xena to again re-affirm the principles she espouses during her Hercules trilogy; they do not kill non-combatant women or children.

She's still not a good person. As is the ongoing issue with Xena, she genuinely enjoys the thrill of a fight and she genuinely wants power. She's had a dozen chances to change her ways, but there has always been an army for her to go back to, more power to grasp for, and more reason to keep digging herself downward.

This battle may or may not take place in the same Bacchae Forest that appears during the second season. Bacchus was from Thebes, which is where Hercules' mother may have lived, meaning this could lead us into the events of those episodes.

On the flip side, the myth states that Eurydice died in the valley of the River Pineios in Thessaly, central Greece, so we could place this event there as well.

It also gives us another reason for Xena to have lost a lot of men, bringing us closer to the minor numbers that we see when she first meets Hercules.

Parting Ways (The Path Not Taken, S01E05) - Marcus loses track of Xena "after the raid on Symbius," which may also be spelled "Sympius" or "Semples" or "Semplese" or "Simpius" or refer to aquatic animals attached to the mouthparts of cold-water lobsters.

They may have parted ways sooner after reaching Greece, but it's fun to suppose that when Marcus discussed Xena not wanting innocent people to die, he was partially referring to Eurydice.

Approximately Three Years Before Season Two

Continued Warlording (Sins of the Past, S01E01) - Xena meets up with a warlord named Draco who wants to be with her "in love or in battle," but she won't give him "the satisfaction of either." He picks "the wrong woman to get rough with" and she gives him a scar on his cheek.

They may or may not have been romantically linked during this time period. Notably, while Xena is happy to get down with the bad boys and use sex to get what she wants, she hasn't been romantically under anyone's thumb in a very long time.

During this period Xena likely re-establishes her connections in Greece and becomes more friendly with the hometown warlord crowd. She still wants to rule Greece, still is happy to slaughter her way across the countryside, but for whatever reason news of her major exploits in Corinth and 'Torrence' have still not reached Hercules. None of her original army or Borias's army and little of Boudica's army remain.

It's unlikely that Xena was warlording with Draco and Marcus simultaneously.

Fighting in Nespa (Death in Chains, S01E09) - A man named Toxeus saw Xena "fight in Nespa a while back."

There is no ancient Greek city called Nespa.

Nespa was also the location of a Hercules episode featuring a centaur named Nemis. Nemis is a mythological figure whose brother Nessus was the ferryman for the River Evinos, and the River Evinos is right at the entryway between central Greece and the Peloponnesian Peninsula to the south. We can place this event there and use it as a marker for Xena heading south into the peninsula.

Shelter for Wounded Men (Altared States, S01E19) - Xena uses some caves as shelter for her wounded men.

This could be literally anywhere at any time, but for funsies I've put it in the Kastria Cave Lakes in the northern Peloponnese.

Warrior Princess of the Kalmai a.k.a. Kalamata (The Price, S02E20) - An Athenian soldier calls Xena the "warrior princess of the Kalmai" and then that word is never mentioned ever again.

Kalamai is an older name for the city of Kalamata, which is on the southwestern coast of the Peloponnese.

Apparently something happens here that one Athenian will remember years down the line but that Hercules will not have heard of any time before then. Idk.

***Torrence?

Approximately Two Years Before Season Two

Arcadia in the Peloponnese (The Warrior Princess, HERC S01E09) - Xena is hell-bent on "conquering Arcadia" in the central Peloponnese.

Hercules now has a pretty firmly established foothold as a powerful protector of people in Greece, and Xena decides it's time to go after him in order to clear that particular blockade from the playing field. She may even believe what she says later in the episode - that Hercules is not a real hero, but just another selfish warlord out for his own interests.

Xena picks up Hercules' best friend Iolaus (possibly near Hercules' mother's residence around Thebes) and goes the seduction/betrayal route with the pair of them, rather than the blunt force route. It almost works, but she ends up fleeing.

Again, notably, Hercules doesn't know who Xena is at the beginning of these events. Realistically this is an inconsistency, but for the purposes of this exercise it forces us to acknowledge either that Xena was not well-known in Greece or that Hercules doesn't know shit about fuck.

Tripolis a.k.a. Tripoli (One Against An Army, S03E13) - Xena stockpiles a bunch of weapons in Tripolis, which would be in the general area of Tripoli in ancient Arcadia within the Peloponnese.

It makes sense that she would do this either after fleeing Hercules or later after losing her army one final time.

Parthus and the Parthian Province a.k.a. Patras (The Gauntlet, HERC S01E12) - Xena has reunited with Darphus and is warlording around "the peninsula" again.

Notably, she tells Darphus that they are "warriors, not barbarians." It's possible that she is slowly starting to remember the reason she got into the warlord business in the first place, though she's clearly not ready for a thorough self-examination.

"Parthus" is in Albania and "the Parthian Province" is in Iran, so this possibly means Patras in the northern Peloponnese.

When Darphus destroys that one town, slaughtering everyone and burning the whole thing to the ground, it's a type of destruction that Xena has only ever wrought by accident. And when Darphus essentially puts a sword to the neck of that baby, he's crossing one of the only lines she's constantly refused to cross. Arguably, Xena's defense of an innocent isn't just about that baby. It's about Solan and it's about Lyceus and Cirra and Eurydice and Thalassa and it's about, possibly, the last inch of integrity she has.

It's probably been a while since Xena has run into someone a lot worse than she is, morally speaking. The Horde is another example of this, marking another turning point in her life of sorts, and she doesn't seem to like what that mirror shows.

It's also been a long time since Xena was successfully betrayed by someone, but this time her and Darphus aren't romantically linked and she doesn't exactly trust him; she just doesn't think he has the brains or the guts to do anything rash.

The gauntlet is like the bookend to Caesar crucifying her on that beach; a betrayal resulting in the loss of her army and a horrifying physical injury, but this time she walks away. She does it with her dignity intact and even with the respect of the army she's just lost, because they all refuse to kill her after she survives the beating.

Xena then loses a fair fight - to Hercules, if fighting anyone after running a gauntlet could be called fair - for the first time in a good while, just like she once did to M'Lila and to Lao Ma and to Cyane, so that also probably gets the cogs turning.

And now, just like a decade prior surrounded by dead men in Niklios's cabin, Xena has to make a choice about who she wants to be.

Importantly, she also has no army to go back to. She has a moment for murder sobriety to catch.

It also probably helps that Ares, like a scorned ex, clearly senses her change in intent because he drops her like a hot potato and immediately starts supporting a resurrected Darphus.

So Xena has Hercules as a pseudo sponsor, after he shows her a kindness he is under no obligation to and spares her life. He is there to demonstrate a better path forward for her.

But it's not just about Hercules. It's Lao Ma and it's M'Lila and it's Boudica and it's Eurydice and it's Cyane and it's Marcus and it's Goliath and it's Borias and it's that one family with the Ark of the Covenant or whatever and it's everyone who ever showed Xena kindness when she didn't deserve it and told her she could be something better.

And it's finally, finally, enough.

Approximately One Year Before Season Two

Elysia a.k.a. Elis (Unchained Heart, HERC S01E13) - After an unknown amount of time traveling together, Xena goes with Hercules, Iolaus, and Salmoneus to stop Darphus and Ares in Elysia.

This could refer to Elis, also known as Illia, in the Peloponnese.

Home (Sins of the Past, S01E01) - Xena puts on new armor, acquires Argo, and goes north to reunite with her mother in Amphipolis.

Corkboards of Locations

Chalkboard of Timelines