Just where will we end up when we leave this life?
Be it the Elysian fields or Tartarus, we scour from the depths of Hell to the heights of Heaven to explore the afterlife.
Death is an inevitable part of life for every living creature. It can happen at any time in life, and is always followed by a great sense of loss from the people left behind.
If your occupation was soldier or warrior or even knight, the odds of your death became that much more certain to happen sooner rather than later. Depending on how nobly said warrior fought during his or her life and for which purposes would decide where you spent your eternity.
For our heroines their encounters with death are many. Indeed each has an unusually high amount of deaths and resurrections to their credit.
Since the beginning of their travels together Xena has warned of the dangers involved in the life they lead. What Gabrielle may have seen as yet another tactic to get her to turn back home could not have been a bigger understatement. Travelling out in the wilderness, being attacked by marauders or thieves is part and parcel to the do-gooder job description. Here we shall see the many dealings with death and the afterlives Xena & Gabrielle have encountered thus far in their adventures together.
It's old home week for Xena when she meets Toxeus and a couple of others whom she expedited to the Underworld. But Atyminius appears and ruins the party. He can smell the scent of life on Xena! A fight breaks, and Xena and Marcus hightail it out of there.
Xena and Marcus head for Hades' high-rent district castle and are attacked by the Harpie security system. Xena cooks one and slices up another. Xena complains to Hades that not only has Atyminius ruined Hades the Underworld, but that he's gone above ground to wreck havoc on the mortals.
Meanwhile, Atyminius pops out of the lake and asks Gabrielle whether, by any chance, she is about to be wed. Gabrielle says no, but Atyminius decides to terrorize her nevertheless. Gabrielle fights back but Atyminius finally wings her, but before he can do any permanent damage, Xena and Marcus run out of the lake and chase him away.
The next day Xena, Marcus, and Gabrielle wind up at a wedding party in a nearby village. Xena talks to the bride's father, brings him up to snuff, and agrees to masquerade as the bride during the ritual bathing, which just happens to be one of Atyminius' favorite times to slice and dice. But Atyminius, being the wily, wascally wabbit that he is, overhears the plan and decides to attack the bride as she sleeps in her room.
But Atyminius has made his false move! Xena out- tricked him! She is actually masquerading as the bride sleeping while the real princess is doing the ritual bathing. Xena throws a blanket over Atyminius, skewers him, and takes his helmet.
Lord of the Underworld. Hades was the son of the titans, Cronus and Rhea. Hades was the god of the dead, and ruled his world with more absolute power and authority than Zeus. Hades was a grim god, not an evil one.
His other name Aïdoneus (Aidoneus) means the "Unseen One". To the Romans, he was known as Pluto (wealth) and Dis Pater or Dis.
Hades was among the children of Cronus, to be swallowed by their father, and later disgorged. Hades was armed with the Helmet of Invisibility, in which he used to aid Zeus in the war against the Titans.
After aiding brothers Zeus and Poseidon, in overthrowing Cronus and sending the other Titans to Tartarus, he received the world of the dead, known as Underworld, as his domain.
The ferryman of the Underworld river. Charon's only duty was to ferry the shades across the Underworld river of Styx. I am not certain if Charon was a minor god, spirit or just an immortal being.
Charon required only fare of one coin (obol) from each shade, to ferry the dead across. It was Greek custom to put a coin in the dead, before burial. The others, who couldn't pay, would wander restlessly for over hundred years before allowed across.
Normally Charon would allow the livings to cross. Psyche paid Charon to ferry her across Styx, as did Theseus and Peirithoüs. Heracles got away from paying Charon, by threatening the ferryman. Orpheus had also got a free ride, because of his enchanting music and voice.
After voluntarily going to Tartarus and returning, Xena almost visits the underworld for the final time after a seemingly ordinary village raid breakup goes horribly wrong.
She doesn't tell Gabrielle she has been hurt, and during a fight with the warlord who is after Lord Seltzer, Xena is almost killed. Fortunately, Gabrielle comes to the rescue, and the bard and Argo haul the wounded Warrior Princess off to the village.
After receiving a verbal dressing down by Gabrielle, Xena hatches a plan to convince Talmadeus that she is really not sick, and in order for this plan to happen, Gabrielle dresses up as Xena.
Xena: "Now Gabrielle, listen carefully. I know you've been in battle before, but this one is different. I want you riding in and out of this quickly."
Gabrielle: "Riding? That would mean Argo. No, she doesn't like me."
Xena: "She doesn't hate you...I thought you had a pony when you were young."
Gabrielle: "I did. His name was Tepany."
Xena: "Did you leave Tepany with your sister?"
Gabrielle: "No. Actually, he got really sick one day. Well, I thought he would get better, but that's just what happens to things you love. Sometimes they just leave you."
Gabrielle rides Argo and attacks the warlord's camp. But the warlord still intends to attack, and follows Gabrielle back to the village. Gabrielle has a fake chakram; Xena convinces them that Gabrielle is the "real" Xena by throwing the real chakram from where she lays ill.
It is here that the meaning behind their travels together is put into words for the first time.
Gabrielle: "Xena, can't you just stop thinking of everyone else for a second. There's got to be something I can do for you."
Xena: "Don't worry about me. What did I tell you? Focus."
Gabrielle: "Xena, are you gonna die?"
Xena: "It's not about me. It's about these people. That's why we're hear. People like this used to be my victims. I keep that in mind every time we come up against a warlord like Talmadeus. It's the greater good. Remember that."
Gabrielle then goes back for another attack on the warlord, where she is captured. Argo saves Gabrielle.
Meanwhile, though, two men come in and attack Xena. She fights them off. But Salmoneus finds Xena prone on the ground ... dead. When Gabrielle returns, she finds her friend covered up.
But Talmadeus is not an honorable man. He rounds up the villagers, and intends to sell them off, not simply take Salmoneus and Xena's body, as he said he would.
He tries to have Xena's "carcass" torn in two, but Argo will not move. When a soldier goes to beat the horse, Xena rises from the dead. She then proceeds to win the battle, having recovered from the toxin in the dart.
Although she did warn Gabrielle that her health would get worse before it got better, Xena did succumb to death briefly before regaining her strength. The emotions displayed by Gabrielle showed how much her friend means to her. Allowing herself to vent her despair on a tree with her staff, Gabrielle then goes back to the problem at hand, resolving to take her friends body back to Amphipolis after the battle.
How did Xena come back from the dead? We’ll never really know but we can suspect that either she didn’t really die and just showed the symptoms or she did die and bartered her life to Hades and once again returned to life. Either way Xena came back just in time to save her horse and her best friend. Throughout the chaos of Talmadeus’ army attacking and her own near death, Xena knew what Gabrielle was doing – knew that she had just stood up to the evil warlord just to keep her promise of taking her body back to her family. The spiritual connection between Xena & Gabrielle therefore must have been there from the very beginning of their relationship and maybe even before either woman was ever born. By knowing what the other is doing beyond the obstacle of death truly is a strong indication that death will never separate them.
However when it comes to coming back from the death the numbers are hardly one sided. When Xena and Gabrielle walk through a forest where a civil war is taking place. Gabrielle suggests they take the southern route, which is safer, because not even Xena can stop a war. But, Xena being Xena, decides that stopping the war sounds like a pretty good idea.
However, Xena and Gabrielle come across Ephiny, who is with child from Phantes, the centaur, but sadly Phantes has been killed.
Xena goes ahead to find a safe place for Ephiny to have her baby; she sees a soldier on a horse go after a foot soldier, pulls out her chakram, and saves the foot soldier. The guy on the horse goes down; Xena takes him and Ephiny to a "healing temple" where Hippocrates is learning to heal from an old man named Galen. Xena turns the temple into a triage unit; Gabrielle plays nurse. At one point Galen tries to have Xena taken away because she's desecrating his temple. Xena saves several people using her healing skills; two men come in at once, and she loses one of them.
A soldier comes in, sees Gabrielle and says his little boy is still outside the temple. Gabrielle goes out of the temple to get him; then we see Gabrielle and a soldier brought in. Gabrielle has wounded the soldier who hurt her, but not mortally; Gabrielle, however, is wounded badly and is having a lot of trouble breathing.
To complicate matters, the fighting descends upon the temple, and the walking-wounded are evacuated. Ephiny finally gives birth -- a breech, and Xena delivers a little centaur. At the same time, Gabrielle starts having convulsions, and then she stops breathing.
Hippocrates: "She's dead."
Xena: "She's not dead. I wouldn't let her. C'mon, Gabrielle, wake up ... C'mon, wake up ... C'mon, wake up ... you're scaring me, wake up ... wake up ... Gabrielle, breathe ... C'mon ... C'mon, breath ... maybe she just needs air ... we need to get air into her lungs ... C'mon, breathe!"
Hippocrates: "Xena, stop it. She's dead now. She's in a much better place."
Xena: "Get out of my way! You don't know anything! Don't you listen to him, Gabrielle ... C'mon, I know you're in there, prove it ... you can show them ... C'mon, wake up and breath ... you never ran from anything in your whole life ... C'mon, fight!"
Marmax: "Xena."
Xena: "Fight!"
Marmax: "Xena! It's time to stop now. Let her cross over peacefully."
Xena: "What do you know, you've killed so many."
Marmax: "So have you. Let it go."
Xena: "No ... no ... C'mon, Gabrielle ... C'mon ... C'mon, don't leave me ... Don't you leave me ... Don't leave me ... Don't leave me ... Wake up ... Wake up ... Wake up ..."
Amazingly Gabrielle gasps back to life into the arms of her best friend. The desperation and unwillingness of Xena to let her companion leave her is an echo of Gabrielle's anger and grief when she thought the warrior princess had passed on.
Choosing to return to Xena's side out of sheer will alone, Gabrielle cemented the fact that love can conquer death itself.
Hades is the ruler of the three aspects of the Underworld. First is the Elysian Fields (Or otherwise known as Elysia or Elysium). Some claim this is where the souls of hero’s go when they die. Other’s claim it’s not just for hero’s but for all souls who have lived good lives. Either way it is the best place in the Greek Afterlife. It has its own sun, it’s own world for that matter. A world of never ending happiness and beauty…
Next is the Asphodel Meadows. This is a place akin to limbo. It’s not the Elysian Fields but it sure beats the heck out of Tartarus. In the Asphodel Meadows you always have enough to eat and drink. You may find some loved ones there or make new friends. You may even have fun once in a while, but that is hard to do for it’s a bleak and unpleasant place for the most part.
Tartarus was the deepest region of the Underworld that it was said that it took nine days and nine nights for an anvil to fall from the earth surface to the very bottom of Tartarus. Tartarus was the area where the Zeus and the Olympians had confined Cronus and the other male Titans.
Originally Uranus had confined the Hundred-Handed and the Cyclopes in Tartarus, but Zeus had freed them, during the war against the Titans. They were instrumental to Zeus' victory. With the Titans confined in Tartarus, the Hundred-Handed guarded the prison as warders. It was described that Tartarus was surrounded by bronze fence with iron gates.
Hades rules them all. However, as we have seen already, sometimes the inmates really do run the asylum.
When the evil soul of Atyminius steals his most useful tool in managing the darker areas of the Underworld: The Helmet Of Invisibility. With it Atyminius can move between the different sections of the Underworld and the land of the Living.
Fortunatly Atyminius was subdued and everything return to normal in the Underworld.
Though he rules his kingdom with an iron fist - so much so that any other god entering his domain loses their powers. Indeed Hades is the Lord of the Underworld, but when two kingdoms overlap - as in the case of the Underworld and the Dreamworld, things can get quite messy.
Xena is having nightmares about Callisto and Ares; her guilt and the part she played in Callisto's death is taking it's toll. In dreams within dreams, Xena sees her mother, Ares, and Gabrielle all blaming her for Callisto's death. Gabrielle even seems to turn on Xena, saying that maybe there was some good to be mined there, but so what ... and then she points out that if Hercules had treated Xena like Xena treated Callisto, then Xena would be dead. Xena is dreaming this, of course, but to her it's a very real and upsetting dream.
There is a thin line between dreams and the underworld ... and the dead can play upon deep guilt. Callisto and Ares have been plotting, invading Xena's dreams, and now she's in a dreamscaped Tartarus, but really with Callisto and Ares. Xena finally admits her guilt and actions in Callisto's death, and she's whirled into a rock. She is now in Callisto's body.
Then Callisto/Xena tells Gabrielle that her guilt about Callisto's death will not allow her to kill her a second time; Gabrielle will have to do it, and should have done it the first time.
Callisto: "Gabrielle, I have something to tell you. You should have killed Callisto."
Gabrielle: "What?"
Callisto: "I was wrong. You had every right to, not me. For me, it was murder, and the guilt is going to destroy me. I don't think I can do it again."
Gabrielle: "It's up to me? Is that what you're saying?"
Callisto: "No, Gabrielle. But, she's going to try to kill my mother."
Gabrielle: "She has to be stopped."
Callisto: "I can do that. But, what then? I've never felt so...helpless."
So Callisto/Xena teaches Gabrielle how to kill with the staff, taunting her until Gabrielle actually punches Callisto/Xena in the stomach. Callisto/Xena then ties a knife to the end of Gabrielle's staff, and tells Gabrielle to go on ahead, she's going to tend to Argo.
Xena/Callisto catches up to Callisto/Xena, and with no Gabrielle in sight Xena/Callisto expresses major concern. Callisto/Xena taunts her, saying she's already killed her. Then they fight, and finally Xena/Callisto ends up on top, but suddenly Gabrielle is at her back, with her pointed staff at Xena/Callisto's neck. But Xena/Callisto is able to convince Gabrielle that she is really Xena trapped in Callisto's body; but Callisto/Xena gets away. Gabrielle is upset that she almost killed Xena/Callisto and takes the knife off of her staff.
Callisto/Xena finds her army, and they throw down their weapons. Theodorus says that as long as they do nothing to upset Xena, she won't harm them because of some code she lives by now. But Callisto/Xena goes to Theodorus and slits his throat. She then asks the others if they will follow "Xena" and of course they say yes. She tells them to go to Amphipolis and kidnap the entire town. Bring them back to the cave.
Xena/Callisto, Gabrielle and Joxer go to save them; Xena/Callisto knows that Callisto/Xena wants to burn the people. So she has Gabrielle throw oil at the army, and they have to put out the torches. Xena/Callisto and Callisto/Xena then have another fight, but for some reason Xena/Callisto starts to fade (time?). Before she fades, though, she throws a dart at Callisto/Xena,
putting her to sleep.
So Callisto/Xena and Xena/Callisto end up in the dreamworld area of Tartarus again. Xena/Callisto plays on Callisto/Xena's guilt, even though she says she has none. After all, the dead can hear your thoughts. Callisto's mother appears, and then soon she is surrounded by all of her victims. The Callisto/Xena body smashes into the same rock that Xena did before.
Cut to the cave where the townspeople and Gabrielle are watching where Xena's body had fallen. Callisto's body returns, apparently with Xena still in it. And this is where the show ends, with Xena saying she's trapped in this body, and if Gabrielle can't live with that she certainly understands.
So, how did Hades deal with this blatant act of disrespect from his nephew Ares? He makes a deal with Sisyphus - the same Sisyphus who kidnapped Hades' sister Celesta.
“Send me 10 of the worlds worst warlords” he says, and he will give Sisyphus Ares’ sword and with it, Ares’ place as the god of War in revenge for Ares’ invasion of his kingdom and taking Callisto’s soul from her rightful place in Tartarus.
After this lesson, Ares stays far away from the Kingdom of his uncle and after retrieving his sword and mantle of god of war, restores Xena back into her own body. Since this incident, Hades apparently tightened the Underworld's security as there were no more problems with rebel forces from Tartarus.
Whilst never having visited the Asphodel meadows, Xena has experienced time in limbo. A place very much like the meadows but for those who were not yet meant to die, those who have a different fate….
Xena and Gabrielle are looking over a valley and the village of Cirra. Cirra is the home of Callisto, Xena's archenemy, and the village burned during one of Xena's army's raids many years ago. Gabrielle tells Xena not to keep tormenting herself about Callisto. Xena says she has to understand why she is who she is, and what happened to her. Xena rides Argo down into the village, but the memories of the fire, and of a little girl watching her family burn, are too strong for her.
She rides back up the hill, but Gabrielle is gone. Her staff rests beside a skull. Xena grabs it and heads into the woods. Gabrielle and villagers have been captured by a group of men who worship the Lord of the Moon. Xena appears, beats them up, and sets every one free. However, the men continue to fight. One man sees that a trap set prior to Xena's arrival will get Xena and a small girl. Xena sees a huge tree coming toward her and a small girl with a necklace on (in a familiar design that keeps Xena riveted). Xena throws the girl aside and is hit by the tree and then tossed into another tree, where she lies unconscious. One of the men comes to finish Xena off; Gabrielle fights him off, but she is stabbed in the leg.
Gabrielle pleads with Xena to wake up. There is blood everywhere. Gabrielle's hands become covered with Xena's blood as it comes from her ears, nose, etc. Xena murmurs to Gabrielle and asks her to take her to Mt. Nessus. Gabrielle at first stutters, but Xena whispers "Please" and Gabrielle whistles for Argo. Xena's next word is "Amphipolis."
With Gabrielle struggling to get Xena to Mt. Nessus, it is cold and snowing, and Xena is growing worse. Argo keeps the two moving.
Gabrielle: "Help my friend."
Nicklio: "You I can help. Xena can wait."
Gabrielle: "What do you mean?"
Xena's vital signs grow fainter and fainter, until she passes away. Her spirit leaves her body and Xena finds herself on a cross, in burning fires. M'Lila's spirit comes to her and tells her she has to choose her destiny. Xena replies that she did: she chose evil. M'Lila replies that because Xena knew evil, she can fight evil. Then M'Lila tells Xena that the dead can hear the thoughts of the living, and asks Xena to listen:
Xena: "You should have left me to die back there on that beach."
M'Lila: "You have a Destiny, Xena, but you have to chose it."
Xena: "I did chose it. I chose Evil."
M'Lila: "Now that you know Evil, were Evil, you can fight Evil. When the living think of the dead, the dead can hear their thoughts. Listen ..."
Xena listens to Gabrielle's words while clips of intimate moments between them flash across the limbo plain.
Gabrielle: "Xena, I know you can hear me wherever you are. I know you always told me to be strong. But I can't be, not now. You can't leave me. I know it's not your time. I can feel it in my heart. I feel this emptiness that I have never felt before and it scares me. Above all, just remember to fight. Fight to come back. This world needs you. I need you."
"I have to go back," Xena replies.
