Xena: Warrior Princess 2x20 "The Price" Reaction
Added 2021-12-06 11:29:05 +0000 UTC
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‘The Price’ is an episode about understanding what it means to be human and the price you pay if you’re ignorant to the truth because you’re blinded by hatred and anger. Xena and Gabrielle stumble into dangerous waters and come across The Horde. Xena remembers this barbaric tribe from when they annihilated her army sometime after the Battle of Corinth. She doesn’t have any understanding or knowledge on them other than what she knows from her past when she was the Destroyer of Nations, and claims they have no will other than to kill everything and anything they come into awareness with. They pick up a wounded soldier in their canoe and bring him into the Athenian Army battlement camp while the war still rages on. Xena becomes ruthless whenever she has an army around her and something to hate and direct her anger at and Gabrielle never likes or accepts it. While Xena is taking command of the Athenian Army to try to destroy The Horde by any means she can, Gabrielle is tending to the wounded in an old armoury unit where there are no doctors or healers and she takes the initiative to be the lead nurse to care for those who are dying and need help. This is where you come to see that Xena cannot stay on the right path for herself and would easily just as go back to her dark days if not for Gabrielle’s hold on her guilty conscience. Gabrielle argues with Xena that maybe The Horde want something and if they had it, they would leave them alone. Or maybe they could find common ground if they learn to understand their ways first. Gabrielle finds the answer when Xena captures one of them and she’s ladling water right next to the tied up Horde. He was breathlessly repeating “Kaltaka”, which is what all the dying Horde chant endlessly on the battlefield. She previously believed it was the name of their god and it was the clue she needed. It translated to water. They just wanted water because the Athenians poisoned the rivers. They didn’t want to fight anymore, they were just desperate for a way to keep themselves alive. Gabrielle defies Xena and goes out into the battlefield to feed the dying Horde weaponless and The Horde crowd around her but don’t hurt her. They notice she was just trying to help. Through this act of kindness towards the opposing side Xena comes to her senses and realizes she’s wrong about them. She goes back to the captured Horde and experiments with her newfound theory that maybe they have a code of conduct that is in common with her own. A Warrior’s Code. She understands him and releases him. Then she goes out to fight The Horde Leader who is the one causing all the trouble for the tribe and defeats him. As she’s walking away with her back turned to the entire Horde tribe, they raise their bows and arrows and Gabrielle screams out “LOOK OUT!”. They don’t target Xena. They target The Horde Leader who was screaming in anguish at being defeated. Xena was now their leader by defeating their previous leader. That was their Warrior’s Code. No real difference to the Amazons, an indigenous tribe they knew so well and wore just as much war paint. The message is self-explanatory: Don’t judge a person by their race, religion, language, culture, colour, sexuality, gender, or by what you ignorantly think you know about them without getting to know or understand them. You risk losing your humanity.
Girl4Music
2023-11-09 14:03:44 +0000 UTCXena - Struggling between the Dark and the Light. So much can be said from this scene in ‘The Price’. Not only did Xena almost tell Gabrielle that she loves her because she never lets anger and hatred affect her better judgement, but it also shows how much Gabrielle influences Xena’s personality and changes her emotionally because of this factor. Any time Xena is away from Gabrielle and surrounded by others that are not as compassionate as the Bard, she loses her head and reverts back into the Dark. It shows that Xena cannot stay on the path of the Greater Good without Gabrielle’s hold on her conscience. Despite Xena originally teaching her what that is all about, it seems that Gabrielle has a better understanding and finds it easier to follow it even though she goes through a lot that would make her just as conditioned as Xena. It’s something to think about. What is it that Gabrielle has that Xena doesn’t? “What I need, what I think I’ve always needed, is someone strong enough to lead people. I think the key is to find someone who’s learned how to fight but has the discretion not to. Now, there’s something Xena never had.” - Ares, ‘Succession’ Furthermore, I love the way the candlelight flickers on their faces here. Xena’s face is half bathed in Dark, half bathed in Light, which gives off symbolism of her struggles. Oley Sassone directed some great episodes in Season 3… including the highly acclaimed Bitter Suite Musical. Give some credit to him as the director of this episode.
Girl4Music
2023-11-09 03:38:43 +0000 UTCA standout classic. There’s so much to like about this episode that I’d be bound to forget something if I tried to go through it all. Incredible, as you say.
Koz
2021-12-06 16:55:31 +0000 UTCI personally think this is the best episode of the series thus far, probably in the top 5 of the whole series. It was just such an excellent character study both Xena and Gabrielle; either of those character explorations could easily have carried an episode. This is how Gabrielle should always be written, not as a wannabe Xena with worse fighting skills and less experience, but as someone who shares Xena's vision for helping others but is so fundamentally different in what she thinks is the right way to do it. Every time an episode focuses on Gabrielle's ideals clashing with Xena's or Gabrielle struggling to find meaning amidst the atrocities of war, you know that episode is going to be gold! Apart from having a thorough understanding of Gabrielle's character, this particular writer (Steven L Sears, who also wrote other leaps forward in Gabrielle's character like Dreamworker, Hooves and Harlots and The Greater Good) also has a real knack for building a sombre tone through convincing and sharp medieval battle tactics. We are enthralled by Xena's battle savviness here, just like the men, precisely because her ideas sound smart, innovative and ruthless. There is not a sense that Xena commands the plot forward or gathers attention just because she is a main character, it feels earned with how her dialogue is written.
Judson
2021-12-06 12:47:24 +0000 UTC
