Xena

Xena of Amphipolis is a fictional character in the television series Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. She was played by the New Zealand actress Lucy Lawless. She reached #100 on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters behind Monk and Steve Urkel.

Character history
Xena first appeared on the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys television series (in the episode The Warrior Princess airing in March 1995), as a seductive but treacherous warlord. Two more episodes during May sweeps chronicled her evolution from a villain to a friend and ally of Hercules. Interest in her was so strong that shortly afterwards she became the main character of the spin-off series Xena: Warrior Princess. Ironically, although her character was originally obsessed with defeating Hercules and obtaining his title as the greatest living warrior, she never defeated "Zeus' Favorite Son". In fact, Hercules is the one credited with pointing her down the path of redemption when he beats her in combat and shows her that selfishness and greed are not the way to live. In her own series, Xena sets out to redeem her murderous past by fighting against tyranny and evil and protecting the innocent and weak. Many of her adventures prior to the televised stories are subsequently revealed in flashback episodes (although much remained obscure).

Early history
The only daughter of the tavernkeeper Cyrene, Xena grew up in Amphipolis with her two brothers, Toris and Lyceus. Her father Atrius was believed to have left her family when she was a child, but it was subsequently revealed that he was, in fact, killed by Cyrene when he tried to kill seven-year-old Xena as a sacrifice to Ares.

During Xena's mid to late teens, the warlord Cortese attacked the village, which prompted some villagers, including Xena's older brother, Toris, to run for the hills. However, Xena and her younger brother Lyceus convinced the remainder of their fellow villagers to stay and fight. Although Amphipolis was saved, Lyceus and many other villagers were killed in the battle, which formed a rift between Cyrene and her daughter and caused Xena to be ostracized by the town.

The death of her beloved younger brother Lyceus led Xena to leave Amphipolis and begin to build her own army, with her ultimate goal being to take revenge on Cortese. She crossed the seas early on as a pirate, meeting Caesar and a young Gaulish slave-stowaway, M'Lila, who would both profoundly affect the destiny of the Warrior Princess. While onboard Xena's ship, M'Lila taught her several fighting techniques as well as instructing her in the use of pressure points, including what became her signature "pinch" maneuver.

Xena took Caesar as a hostage, and was naively swayed by the young officer to join forces, after beginning an affair with him. She ransomed him back to Rome as they had planned, only to have him come back with his own men and capture her ship. He had her and her men crucified on a nearby beach, watching as his orders to break her legs were carried out.

M'Lila rescued her from the cross and took Xena to a healer named Niklio. They were found by Roman soldiers, who killed the Gaelic woman as she jumped in front of an arrow meant for Xena. After M'Lila died in her arms, Xena fully embraced her dark side and fought the soldiers, killing them (despite her broken legs).

After surviving Caesar's betrayal, a crippled and rage-filled Xena went East where she teamed up with the warlord Borias, who left his wife and son to become her lover. The two terrorized Qin with their joint forces until Xena angered Borias by alienating the powerful Chinese families Ming and Lao. Without his knowledge, Xena kidnapped Ming Tzu's son, Ming T'ien, for ransom. With Borias' help, Ming Tzu captured Xena, intending to kill her for sport. Xena was saved from certain death by Ming T'ien's mother, Lao Ma, a woman of great spiritual power. During their time together, Lao Ma healed Xena's legs and gave her the title of warrior princess. Under Lao Ma's tutelage, Xena briefly left some of her darkness behind until Borias re-entered her life. A rift formed between Xena and Lao Ma when she murdered Ming Tzu, and suggested that they also kill Ming T'ien. With Lao Ma now their enemy, Xena and Borias were forced to leave Qin.

They went further east to Jappa (Japan), where they kidnapped a girl named Akemi for ransom. Xena ended up befriending Akemi, who got Xena to teach her one of her signature techniques, the pinch which cut off the flow of blood to a person's brain, resulting in death. Akemi then used the pinch to kill her abusive and tyrannical father, Yodoshi, and committed seppuku (honorable suicide). A drunk and grieving Xena tried to put Akemi's ashes in her family crypt, but was set upon by a mob of villagers who felt she was desecrating the crypt by putting the ashes of a patricide in it. Defending herself, Xena used a fire-breathing trick she had mastered. The result was a fire that spread through the town and killed 40,000 people.

Back in northern lands (possibly Siberia), Xena and Borias met a shamaness, Alti, who lured Xena toward greater evil with promises that she would become the Destroyer of Nations. She was also befriended by the Amazon queen Cyane, who tried to steer her toward good; but Xena chose Alti's promise of power, and killed Cyane and the Amazon elders at her instigation. By then pregnant with Borias' child, she set out to conquer Corinth. Borias was increasingly troubled by the excesses of her violence, but could do little to stop her: by then, they had split their armies, and Xena's was the bigger of the two. At Corinth, they became mortal enemies after he stopped her from slaughtering the Centaurs with whom he had tried to negotiate an agreement. With Xena about to give birth, Borias tried to get her out of her camp in the hope of rescuing their relationship. He was killed by one of her lieutenants, Dagnine; but the realization that Borias came back for her because he loved her and their unborn child had a strong effect on Xena. It was enough to make her decide to give up her newborn baby to the centaurs, so that he would be raised in safety and away from her dangerous influence.

Xena also traveled to the Norselands, where she spent some time as one of Odin's Valkyries and unsuccessfully tried to obtain supreme power by stealing the Rheingold. These events took place after the death of Borias.

During the largely undocumented period immediately prior to her first appearance in the Hercules series, Xena first obtained her signature weapon, the Chakram of Darkness. It was apparently given to her by Ares, the God of War. Having apparently lost her army at Corinth, she built a new one which cut a path of plunder and conquest through Greece.

Later adventures (televised period)
About ten years after first turning to evil, Xena meets Hercules. Initially, she sets out to kill him. Then, her army turns against her after she stops her lieutenant Darphus from killing a child in a sacked village. She runs a gauntlet, but survives, being the only person ever to survive the gauntlet. She then fights Hercules, in the hope that she will get her army back if she can bring back his head. Xena seems to be getting the upper hand until Hercules' cousin intervenes, giving him the moment to regain composure and defeat her. However, Hercules refuses to kill Xena, telling her that "killing isn't the only way of proving you're a warrior." Touched and inspired by Hercules' integrity and by the fact that he suffered the loss of blood kin as she did and yet chooses to fight in honor of them, she decides to join him and defeat her old army. Hercules tells Xena that there is goodness in her heart, and the two of them share a brief romantic relationship, before Xena decides to leave and start making amends for her past.

However, Xena finds this to be more painful than she thought; and, haunted by her past transgressions, she is about to give up on her life as a warrior completely. As she strips off her armor and weaponry and lays them in the dirt, she witnesses a group of villagers being attacked by a band of warriors. Part of that group is a village girl named Gabrielle (later known as the Battling Bard of Potadeia). Xena saves the villagers and Gabrielle is left in awe of the Warrior Princess' abilities. Gabrielle persuades Xena to let her be her traveling companion, and over time Gabrielle becomes Xena's dearest friend. Xena also reconciles with her mother, Cyrene.

At some point in her journeys Xena ran into Ares, the God of War, who had known her from when she was a warlord and was always obsessed with winning her affections, but was more usually her adversary.

Xena's subsequent life is marred by many tragedies. Her son Solan, who never got to know her as his mother, dies at the hands of Gabrielle's demon child Hope with the help of her then-mortal enemy Callisto, a woman warrior who is obsessed with revenge against Xena because Xena had destroyed her village and her family when she was still evil. She nearly loses Gabrielle more than once, and she and Gabrielle are crucified by the Romans on the Ides of March—the day of Caesar's death —but later revived by a mystic named Eli with the spiritual aid of Callisto, who by that time had become an angel. Eve, the miracle child Xena conceives after her resurrection (again through the efforts of the redeemed Callisto), is prophesied to bring about the Twilight of the Olympian gods. To escape the gods' persecution, Xena and Gabrielle try to fake their deaths. Their plan goes awry when Ares buries them in an ice cave where they sleep for 25 years. During that time, Eve—adopted by the Roman nobleman Octavius—grew up to become Livia, the Champion of Rome, and a ruthless persecutor of Eli's followers. After her return, Xena is able to turn Livia to repentance, and Livia takes back the name Eve and becomes the Messenger of Eli. After Eve's cleansing by baptism, Xena is granted the power to kill gods as long as her daughter lives. In a final confrontation, the Twilight comes to pass when Xena kills most of the gods to save her daughter, and is herself saved by Ares when he gives up his immortality to heal the badly injured and dying Eve and Gabrielle. Xena later helps him regain his godhood.

Xena's quest for redemption ends when she sacrifices her life to right the wrong she had committed many years ago in Japan. Her spirit, however, still very much appears to be with Gabrielle. According to the darsham, Naima, this is only one of many lives Xena will live throughout the ages, but they all have one thing in common: whatever life awaits her next, it will be spent with her Soulmate Gabrielle furthering the cause of good against evil.

Warrior Princess
Xena performs many feats that are considered outside the normal human range and border on that of a demigoddess. She may have been the mightiest purely mortal being ever to live (however, there are occasional hints that her true father is Ares. This thread was generally dropped because of her romantic connection to Ares, which would then have been incest). While Xena does not possess the brute strength of her friend and ally Hercules, she can arm-wrestle warlords, punch through solid ice, kick down doors, and knock out opponents with a single punch. Her greatest feat of strength to this day occurrs when she allows herself to be arrested for a crime she didn't commit. Several men of that town come into her cell, where her hands and feet are chained, and began to beat her. The beating, combined with Ares urging and goading her on, sends Xena into a rage of pure adrenaline. She tears her chains out from where they are rooted and then kicks the thick prison door completely off of its hinges. This is the only time where Xena shows that magnitude of strength, so it can be safely assumed that this is caused by a "fight or flight" like response.

She has the ability to absorb a great deal of pain dispassionately, such as when arrows are removed. She ignores the agony of a dislocated shoulder until reminded by Ephiny, at which point she repairs the injury by deliberately colliding with a wall. When she is in a greatly-weakened state such as during the ordeal of her crucifixion, this ability is not apparent.

Xena honed her body to peak human condition. Combined with her iron will, she became the only warrior to survive the ordeal of the Gauntlet, where she was forced to run without armor or weapons between two lines of soldiers, who beat her with clubs. In the final episode of the series, Xena is hit with a multitude of arrows in different areas of her body and still continues to fight a samurai army singlehandedly.

While technically Xena does not possess godly powers, she has a leaping ability demonstrated by other warriors of a high skill level, notably M'Lila, Callisto and Draco. Xena performs gravity-defying leaps usually in an acrobatic style up to 30 feet. Xena leaps straight up from moat water to the top of a high castle wall and somersaults from her position on the ground to the top of a tall tree where an archer is ambushing her group with arrows. Xena once ran up a ruffian's torso, performed a backflip, and kicked him while still in mid-air. On rare occasions, she is actually able to run on the faces of a surrounding squad of soldiers. This ability could have possibily originated as an Amazon ability before catching on with other warriors, since Xena is asked about her leaping ability and she answers that the Amazons taught her, which would make sense as the Amazons "invented the technique of fighting from trees". In martial arts terms, these abilities can be referred to as Karumijutsu, Tobi Waza and Qing Gong. Karumijutsu, translates literally to “the body lightening art” and Tobi Waza, a.k.a. "leaping or flying techniques". Both involve extensive physical and Qi training. Due to the delayed landing effect of Xena's jumps and flips, it would be accurate to state that these Amazonian techniques that Xena learned are synonymous with the aforementioned Asian fighting techniques.

Xena possesses incredible speed and reflexes. She is able to catch knives and arrows in midflight and dodge energy blasts from mystical foes. She is able to routinely catch her chakram, a skill only Callisto, Eve and Gabrielle (fully-trained by the end of the series) are able to duplicate. Xena's greatest feats of speed are shown in The Execution and King Con. In one episode, when three arrows were being fired at one of her allies, she caught one in each hand and the third one in her teeth. In another, Xena grabs the conman Rafe's hand and held it in place on the table he was seated at, while jabbing a knife down between the spaces of each finger in a display of incredible reflexes. So fast did she execute this feat that she was able to go over the hand, jabbing between each space, a total of six times in less than a second.

Xena is a master of martial arts. As a young girl, Xena and her brother Lyceus practiced "fighting and swordplay" and even surpassed her brother in certain areas. Later, Xena encountered the Amazon Queen, Cyane, who defeated Xena in their first meeting. Cyane, however, took Xena under her wing and taught her powerful Amazon techniques and fighting styles. This training put Xena on a whole new level of fighting, and later, she attacked and defeated not only Cyane, but her entire Amazon tribe at the same time. It is also suggested that Xena was being trained by Ares between the time of Borias' death and her transformation to good. It should also be noted that Xena has gained more experience and skill with time and with every challenging foe she encounters. Observing her fighting style, Xena has been shown to use different styles ranging from Tae Kwon Do, Aikido and Ju-Jitsu, judo, kung-fu, boxing, eskrima and multiple sword-fighting styles. Xena flows through different techniques effortlessly and fluidly combining them into a virtually unbeatable fighting style. For example, in a typical hand to hand combat, Xena can flow from straight boxing punches to the Chinese style of punches mid-battle before launching into a flurry of tae kwon do and jeet kune do-inspired kicks. In one instance, when Xena awakes in her ice coffin after 25 years of sleep, she executes a vertical punch (without chambering) through the thick block of ice placed over the coffin, demonstrating jeet kune do's famous one inch punch. When she engages with her sword, she can use the more elegant parries of fencing however more often switches with techniques attributed to eskrima arts, or the Asian styles of sword-fighting. As truly awesome in battle as she is on the ground, Xena becomes her opponent's nightmare when she takes to the sky. Most notable is Xena's ability to incorporate her leaping and acrobatic skills in her hand-to-hand combat, utilizing flip-kicks, bicycle kicks and somersaulting great distances out of harm's way.

When the Warrior Princess picks up an object, no matter what it is, it becomes a weapon. Xena can fight with frying pans; use rags as whips, even turning one into a staff after getting it wet and taut. At one point, Xena uses fish hooked on a string in a ball-on-chain fashion. As far as traditional weapons go, Xena is an expert combatant with the following and their derivatives: swords, chobos, staffs, whips, axes, knives, and bows and arrows. In terms of weaponry, Xena usually carries her sword, chakram, a breast dagger kept in her bosom armor, and a whip.

Xena is capable of launching numerous objects into the air as effective projectiles. She can hurl arrows, crossbow bolts, and hair pins through the air with her own hands with enough force to penetrate wood. She is able to spit a diaper pin from her mouth with such force that it penetrated a man's skull. She was able to kick embedded spear blades out of the ground and through the air towards an enemy in one move.

Xena's incredible fighting prowess makes her a match for foes who are otherwise physically superior to her, such as gods, demigods, archangels, and demons. In the trilogy of her debut episodes on Hercules, she faces off against Hercules, and definitely has the upper hand in the beginning part of their fight. After she pummels him with fists and feet, and overwhelms him with her high flying acrobatic maneuvers, Xena takes Hercules to the ground and prepares to strike the killing blow. However, the momentary interference of Hercules' cousin, whom Xena quickly dispatches, gives Hercules enough time to recover and turn the tables on Xena. Later, she engages Ares, the God of War, in a fight in season 3. The fight results in Xena being the victor. In other episodes, Xena is also able to fight Ares and hold her own. One of the Furies even makes a comment to Ares in the guise of Xena after he turns mortal in the season 6 premiere, saying, "You were barely a match for me when you were a God!" Xena also takes on the Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare, Athena (who had defeated Ares in Amphipolis under Siege), and bests her in combat before killing her. Later on, Xena defeats Michael the Archangel and nearly kills him before the God of Eli strips her of her power to kill Angels. However, in spite of this, Xena manages to face off against Odin, The King of the Norse Gods, beating him in order to obtain the Golden Apples. Xena even stands toe to toe against Mephistopheles and Lucifer when they both reigned as the King of Hell.

Xena's usual combat attire throughout the series consists of a leather slip outlined with light armor to protect her chest, shoulders, and abdomen while leaving her arms and legs free for hand to hand combat, and throughout the series rarely changes from this attire, one of the few times being in the episode The Bitter Suite, where she goes throug a variety of wardrobe changes (including a more feminine and regal beige robe with blue cloak - which she loses to Ares in a most embarrassing fashion).

Mystical and temporary powers
While in Ch'in and on the brink of being tortured to death by Ming Ti'en, Xena is finally able to achieve sufficient inner serenity to master the qi powers of her mentor Lao Ma (a form of psychokinesis that allowed her to deal a powerful "blow" to either a person or an object with spiritual energy, shattering walls and repelling attackers). After this first manifestation, she is unable to recapture this power. However, about two years later, she is able to retain its use for a longer period after intense spiritual training with Kao H'Sin, one of Lao Ma's twin daughters. On that occasion, she is able to use qi powers to turn an entire attacking army to stone.

From Alti, Xena learned the powers of a shaman. She uses them to cross over to the Amazon Land of the Dead to seek out Gabrielle (believing her to be dead), and then to battle Alti in spiritual form on two occasions.

During their travels in India, Xena and Gabrielle encounter a darsham (wise woman) named Naima who enabled them to use the powers of "The Mehndi", activated by Mehndi tattoos on their bodies, to trap and destroy Alti. Xena achieves this by creating chakram constructs made purely out of the Mendhi's supernatural energies as weapons, while Gabrielle binds Alti with what appears to be magical lightning. This is the only time they are ever seen using these abilities, presumably because Naima is the one channelling the power.

Also in India, Xena converses with the Hindu God Krishna who helps her battle Indrajit, the King of Demons; after Indrajit severed her arms, she called Krishna's name, and was filled with his strength and took on the appearance of the Hindu goddess Kali, in order to defeat Indrajit.

In the Norselands, Xena puts on the Rheingold ring and receives god-like abilities which enable her to defeat the combined forces of Odin the King of Norse Gods, The Grendl beast, and Odin's Valkryie army. However, the consequence of this action (as for anyone who had not forsaken love) is the loss of what Xena values most. Her identity and all her memories are erased, though she begins to regain brief flashes of memory a year later and finally recovers her true self after finding Gabrielle (asleep behind a mystical wall of fire conjured by the Valkryie Brunhilda that only Xena could walk through) and kissing her awake.

Probably the most unique and most famous of Xena's temporary powers is the power to kill gods (and apparently other immortals such as angels). While normally a sword or other weapon would go right through a god without drawing blood or inflicting a wound, Xena possesses the ability to pierce this "veil of immortality" and make them bleed or die. She is granted this power by the God of Eli and the Archangel Michael after Eve was cleansed of her sins, in order to protect her daughter from the Olympian gods, and is told that she will have it as long as Eve is alive. During this time, Xena becomes widely known as "Slayer of Gods". She loses this power approximately two years later when she tries to use it to kill the Archangel Michael for trying to manipulate Eve into a suicide mission to bait Xena into killing the insane emperor-turned-God, Caligula.

Role in historical/mythological events
The show credits Xena (or her friends and associates) with a central role in many events in history and mythology. Among other things, she:
 * helped David kill Goliath and defeat the Philistines.
 * defended Troy in the Trojan War, and saved Helen.
 * assisted Ulysses in regaining his kingdom in Ithaca after returning from the Trojan War.
 * single-handedly stopped the invading Persian army at Thermopylae.
 * led a band of pirates in the capture and ransom of Julius Caesar, who then captured them and had them crucified (this story of Caesar and the pirates is based on fact, though Xena was not, of course, the pirate leader).
 * helped Boadicea defeat the Roman invasion led by Julius Caesar (in actual history, Boadicea fought the Romans some 100 years after Caesar's death and was defeated).
 * helped manipulate the power games of the Roman First Triumvirate, taking advantage of the rivalries between Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Pompey first to free the Gaul rebel Vercinix and then to stop the Roman armies from rampaging through Greece.
 * helped engineer the assassination of Caesar by pitting his friend Marcus Junius Brutus against him.
 * posed as Cleopatra VII of Egypt and double-crossed Mark Antony in order to help Octavius Caesar defeat both Brutus and Antony and gain control of the empire (after becoming convinced that Octavius was more honorable than both his rivals).
 * engineered the death of the crazed Roman emperor Caligula.
 * encountered the Virgin Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus; Gabrielle gave them the donkey on which they rode.
 * killed Mephistopheles, the King of Hell, in order to release the trapped soul of her mother.
 * tricked Lucifer into bringing out his "inner demon" and becoming the new king of Hell (the devil).
 * created the Terracotta Army, by turning a living army to stone.

Xena (and occasionally Gabrielle) are also often credited with a variety of discoveries and inventions. For instance:
 * the discovery and naming of The Big Dipper.
 * the harnessing of electricity by tying a metal item to a kite (or "flying parchment")
 * the discovery of cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR (when a wounded Gabrielle goes into cardiac arrest, the grieving Xena bangs her fists on the chest of the seemingly dead Gabrielle, and Gabrielle revives).
 * pioneering the custom of Santa Claus bringing gifts and coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve. In a kingdom where Winter Solstice celebrations are banned, Gabrielle encourages a toymaker named Senticles to sneak into an orphanage through the chimney to hand out toys to children on Solstice Eve; he is wearing a red coat at the time.

Xena also plays a key role in the destruction of the Greek Gods, and the transition to monotheism (the Elijan faith seems to have been the show's version of Christianity). Among the Elijans, Xena is known as "Defender of the Faith." The show seems to have subdivided the roles of central figures in the story of Jesus Christ and early Christianity among several characters, with Xena assigned some of the characteristics of Mary (giving birth to a child conceived without sex) and Jesus (being crucified and rising from the dead), Eli as the main Jesus figure, and Eve as both Jesus (miracle birth intended to herald a new order) and Saul of Tarsus (a persecutor of Christians who sees the light, changes his name, and becomes a champion of the new faith).

Xena's sexuality is a source of much controversy in the fandom. The show often implies, through humorous innuendo as well as ambiguous lines and scenes (the subtext), that Xena and Gabrielle are not only friends, but lovers as well. Their relationship is kept ambiguous throughout the show, though in the last season, they are defined as "soulmates" who are "meant to be together." In an interview with Lesbian News magazine two years after the series ended, Lucy Lawless said that she came to believe the two were lovers after the scene in the last episode when Gabrielle revived Xena with a mouth-to-mouth water transfer, saying "There was always a 'well, she might be or she might not be' but when there was that drip of water passing between their lips in the very final scene, that cemented it for me. Now it wasn't just that Xena was bisexual and kinda liked her gal pal and they kind of fooled around sometimes, it was 'Nope, they're married, man." However, in the interviews and commentaries on the DVDs released in 2003-2005, the actors and producers continued to stress that the question about Xena and Gabrielle's relationship was never answered and is up to each viewer's interpretation.

There are also suggestions of other possible lesbian relationships in Xena's past: with Lao Ma, with a Japanese girl named Akemi whom Xena kidnapped for ransom and to whom she then developed an attachment, and with Alti's apprentice Anokin.

Both in the past and in the present, Xena also had numerous male love interests. At one point, probably shortly after she left Amphipolis, Xena was engaged to the warrior (and later warlord) Petracles. She has a brief affair with Caesar before being crucified by him, and then a stormy relationship with Borias that lasted over a year and resulted in the birth of a child. She also appears to have been Odin's lover. It is also suggested that during this period, she became a protegee of Ares', and that the two had a sexually charged relationship that may or may not have included sex. She may also have had a relationship with warlord Draco.

In the Xena trilogy on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, in which the character first appears, it is implied that Xena had sexual relations with a number of men in her army. She seduces Iolaus in order to pit him against Hercules. After Xena changes her ways and joins forces with Hercules, she and Hercules have a brief romantic relationship as well, though remain only friends thereafter.

Early in her travels with Gabrielle, Xena meets Marcus, a warrior who had been a friend and a lover when she was a warlord. Under her influence, he gave his life to save a kidnapped woman from being killed. Subsequently, he is briefly allowed to return from the dead, teaming up with Xena to help recapture Hades' helmet of invisibility and return an escaped villain to the underworld. While on this mission, Marcus and Xena spent a night together, and at least for a while, she considered him her one true love.

About a year later, Xena meets Ulysses in her travels and has a romance with him (apparently not consummated physically). However, after they return to Ithaca and learn that Ulysses' wife Penelope is alive, she encourages him to return to his wife.

While posing as Cleopatra and seducing Antony, Xena seems to develop genuine feelings for him, but eventually she has to kill him when she realizes that he is a threat.

Shortly after the birth of Eve, Ares, who has previously tried to woo Xena to his side as a warrior, declares his love for her and offers to protect her and her child from the other gods. Xena spurns his offer, believing it to be a trick, but on one occasion uses Ares' help to defeat Athena. After he sacrifices his godhood to help her, Xena, in turn, helped him as a mortal. In the Season 6 premiere, the two share a tender kiss, but Xena tells Ares that they cannot be together: "You always got to me. But you were bad for me, Ares; you still are". Eventually Xena restores Ares to godhood and they return to an adversarial relationship when he tries to start a war between the Amazons and the Romans—a plan Xena thwarts—but also seems to have a new level of understanding. In the DVD interview for the 6th season episode Coming Home, Renee O'Connor, who played Gabrielle, said that "If there was ever going to be one man in Xena's life, it would be Ares."

In popular culture
The show is mentioned in the last ever (first of a two part) episode of Seinfeld "The Finale, Part 1" when the main character Jerry phones his parents to tell them that his show which is also entitled Jerry is finally being made. Jerry's father tells him "it's all crap on TV; the only thing I watch is Xena, the Warrior Princess. She must be about 6&prime; 6&Prime;.  Jerry, did ya ever watch that?" to which Jerry replies "yea, it's pretty good."

Xena is also mentioned on the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the episode entitled "Halloween," where all the residents of Sunnydale turn into whatever they chose as their Halloween costumes. Buffy turns into a weak and feeble noblewoman, and her friend Willow quips during the ensuing crisis, "She couldn't have dressed up like Xena?". Writers of Xena made the hommage back in 4th season episode "The Play's the Thing", in which the play "Buffus the Bacchae Slayer" is cited.

The show Dark Angel stars a lesbian character called Original Cindy who is a Xena fan. She is shown numerous times in front of her Xena posters and once excuses herself with "Oops, Xena's on"

On a The Simpsons Halloween episode, Lucy Lawless appears at a Xena convention only to be kidnapped by The Collector and saved by Stretch Dude and Clobber Girl.

In a play on the "WWJD" ("What Would Jesus Do?") bracelets and necklaces worn by young people, "WWXD" ("What Would Xena Do?") items were sold (bracelets, necklaces, bumper stickers, etc.), which were especially popular with fans.

In the South Park episode Fourth Grade the science nerd have a Lena poster on their wall which is an obvious parody of Xena.