Xena: Warrior Princess: 5x02 "Chakram" Reaction
Added 2022-08-14 23:13:04 +0000 UTC
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*gets wistful after Joxer leaves* ….”Of course you could just kiss the girl.” Yep. Always the best course of action isn’t it Xena? 😏
Girl4Music
2023-11-24 14:51:23 +0000 UTC“It’s like at this moment she’s already fulfilled the way of the warrior and moved on to the mother of peace.” No because she’s lost the wisdom she’s gained from those darker experiences. So it’s as if she never became a warrior in the first place. She actually kinda acts like Gabrielle from Season 1. Naive, idealistic, … inexperienced. Childish, as Amarice said.
Girl4Music
2023-11-24 14:43:25 +0000 UTCXena’s balance - Reconciling the Dark and the Light. If there is one thing Gabrielle is good at, it is keeping Xena away from her dark side. But when she realized that both Xena’s light and dark side are needed for her to stay balanced in who she is and doing all she was capable of as a warrior fighting for the ‘Greater Good’, she dropped the thought of pulling Xena away from her dark side and did what was best for her. She pointed her back to it. Probably something she thought she would never need to do since she was always scared of Xena’s dark side. In that sense, Gabrielle was her way of staying balanced. I would even go as far as to say that she was her balance. As Lucy said, Gabrielle is what made Xena make sense due to them being opposites. Contradictory, yet complementary, which is the very definition of ‘Yin-yang’. So in a way, the Yin-yang chakram represents both Xena and Gabrielle. It is greater than the sum of its parts because the Dark and Light principles have reconciled and now work together as one balanced force. It is THEIR chakram, as it represents the both of them as one whole being. Gabrielle understands that Xena needs her Dark just as much as she needs her Light to be the Warrior Princess we all know and love! This is explained more in-depth in my character study thesis for Xena and Gabrielle. It presents a case study for them being, what I call, ‘the human representation of Yin-yang’, and therefore, one soul in two bodies.
Girl4Music
2023-11-24 14:34:32 +0000 UTCGabrielle’s coins her “way” - “the way of friendship.” In the episode ‘Chakram’ from season 5, Gabrielle continued abandoning the “the way of love.” At the cost of disappointing Eli, she made a very strong statement by choosing, what she coined, “the way of friendship”, because it also meant she was choosing “the way of the protector and defender.” “The way of love”, or rather “the way of pacifism”, worked for the most part for Gabrielle, but she couldn’t accept it in a dire situation because it meant she couldn’t act and help people left vulnerable in battle. It meant doing nothing to save them when they were at risk of being killed. In this episode, Gabrielle had to take the lead because Xena lost her sense-of-self, and she was in danger of getting hurt because she didn’t have the knowledge, nor the skill, of a warrior anymore. Gabrielle felt she had to be the one to fight to protect her. So, she put what she learned from Xena and the Amazons to good use and never looked back again. As we know from season 4, episode ‘Between The Lines’, this was her karma in the next life. To be the hero. To be the one to protect and defend through violence. While Xena’s karma was to be the peacemaker that couldn’t pick up a weapon to protect or defend anyone. So, the question remains... was this Gabrielle’s true “way” all along? I’ve asked this question in many posts before about Gabrielle’s evolution. There is a lot to consider in really making up my mind about it because it’s always bothered me how seemingly out-of-character and hypocritical she became in season 5 and 6 with changing her mentality on all of this. I’m sure I’ll change my mind again at some point, but for now, I would say it was right for her to become a warrior because it was inevitable she would. She immediately took to her new role without any hesitation! “Gabrielle was, in one very important sense, the true hero of the entire series. Gabrielle came from light and chose to walk freely into the dark. That’s truly a heroic thing to do, especially doing it for the right reasons.” - Steven L. Sears
Girl4Music
2023-11-24 14:30:52 +0000 UTC‘Chakram’ goes back to the Yin and Yang representation of the show. They use it as the main plotline of the episode in that there is a Light and Dark chakram and the plot was to retrieve the chakram of Light from the temple of the Tao because Xena has always had the Dark chakram and it broke earlier in the show. It’s one of the many episodes in the entire show where the character Ares: The God Of War represents Xena’s Dark side and Gabrielle Xena’s Light side. But this time with a little bit of a twist, as it is Gabrielle that directs Xena back to her Dark side again due to Xena having lost her sense-of-self and the memories of who she was in her past after the both of them were crucified at the end of Season 4 and were brought back to life again through another new character in the show, Eli, at the start of Season 5. This episode means a lot to me because it really clarifies how important it is to have balance in your life and in yourself. A balance of Light and Dark to really understand both and be whole with everything you are as a soul. All that makes you you. There is a really great scene in the episode, that’s probably my favourite scene, where Xena is praying to some kind of deity, most likely the ‘One God’ of Eli’s religion. It is never revealed who or what exactly she’s praying to but Gabrielle notices and is concerned about her because Xena won’t defend herself when she is attacked anymore, nor does she remember anything violent or negative about herself and her past. Xena questions her whether they’re doing the right thing in restoring her darkness and how that could even be a good thing to do. Gabrielle replies in such a way that is very philosophical and wise that you don’t hear from her in quite awhile in the show. She says “I think it’s vital. I know that sounds strange, coming from me. I think you have to know the darkest part of yourself to be whole.” Xena exclaims back “But this way, I harm no one!” Gabrielle counters “But Xena, what about the people who harm others? Xena, you have this balance of lightness and darkness. Without both of those, the very best in you is defenceless.“ That scene and that dialogue helped me to realize something amazing about myself and the way I look at everything negative I do as something that takes away from who I am as a soul. But really it’s just giving the way to the rise of something much more positive and helping me to understand myself better and recognize the importance of polarity and the teachings of Yin and Yang. It’s a meaningful and motivating episode to me because it represents what I call ‘The Grey Area’ in the best way that I could never explain myself. Also, Xena gets a cool new and improved chakram with the Yin-Yang design when she neutralises the Light and Dark chakrams together, which brings her back to her former self again, so that was awesome too. I love the way they did this episode so much. I especially love that both lead characters evolved because of the need to be there for each other. The need to protect and defend one another. That’s precisely what their relationship is fundamentally about and they hit it on the nail with this episode. Who said Season 5 didn’t show the love between them? Look deeper. The love is there, it’s just not in the way that you expect. It’s in the themes represented. It’s in the fundamental message that someone that cares about you has to put aside what scares them about you and do what’s best for you.
Girl4Music
2023-11-24 14:28:04 +0000 UTCWell there we go. As Eli said last episode, "The Way of Love was not the way for Gabrielle." It seems like the whole series, especially last season's spiritual quests, has built up to Gabrielle choosing the Way of the Warrior, just like Xena. She does seem to kill now, though at a lower rate than Xena. She killed just the one in this episode by throwing a sword into his chest. Just like the balance the 'yin-yang' chakram represents, the sais Gabrielle uses in this episode are lethal but defensive weapons. You can obviously kill people with the pointy ends, but unlike a sword, you also have the option to non-lethally punch people with the butt or trap their weapons with the prongs. I have to say... out of all the weapons and fighting styles on the show, Gabrielle's staff is still my favourite, but second is Gabrielle's sais. Renee O'Connor has really mastered the stunts and fight choreography.
Judson
2022-08-15 02:14:52 +0000 UTC
