Beware another of my long analytical posts. It's a lot to read, but I believe it's worth it.
Two questions bugging me for a long time that I want your opinion of, and maybe we can come to some speculative conclusion as fans.
#1. What is the origin of the Amazons?
#2. Who or what caused the great schism that segregated the Amazons into various scattered world tribes?
Neither had a definitive answer, at least on Xena, and the Hercules eps I saw didn't give a clue either.
Question 1 - Origin
Two conflicting statements are given on the show:
A) The Lifeblood Amazon High clips. A visit to the Northern Amazons in Siberia shows the history of the Tretomlec nation whose men were killed by the cannibalistic Varanas. Assumption concludes that if the pilot had gone to series, Cyane and Kor could have been the progenitors of the future daughters of the Amazon race, giving the sons to be raised by Varanas or some other male group.
B) In Path of Vengeance, the Amazon reunion in Greece takes place in a valley where, according to Gwyn-Teir of the Celtic Amazons, Artemis created the Amazons. The other queens agree with her.
Arguments for A:
- Amazon High pilot, being worked into the fabric of a Xena episode, is to be taken as fact in the Xenaverse. It gives the definitive answers to the recurring name Cyane, the bestowing of the title Amazon, why a group chose to exist as all-female, and why some Amazons bear hostility to men. It gives a much more detailed explanation than statement B.
- Unlike statement B, statement A exists within a definitive timeframe. Rob Tapert and Michael Hurst in the Lifeblood commentary both agree that it takes place during the Stone Age. This makes the legacy of the Amazons far older than civilized Greece itself, when the Xena series takes place. The Northern Amazons are therefore the oldest tribe, the mothers of all the future Amazons of the various world tribes.
Arguments against A:
- That Lifeblood takes place with the Northern Amazons makes the Amazon High clips specific to the history of that tribe only. No other tribe in the world passes on the name Cyane, and only the Northerns practice the shamanism that we first saw in Sin Trade.
- The Tretomlec tribe originally contained men before the women decided to become Amazons for the first time under Cyane. This implies that the mixed-gender tribe could not have been part of a larger race of all-female Amazons before the schism.
Arguments for B:
- Artemis gives every Amazon from Alti to Melosa to Kanae a definitive ancestor in Greece, and every tribe owes its history to her, no matter where in the world they are. The Greek tribe (Melosa-Varia) would also have been the only group of women not to migrate following the schism.
- Despite spending untold generations apart in different geographic locations, all of the Amazon queens agree to stay their tribes in Greece, owing a legacy to Artemis, and restoring their old ways in their original home.
Arguments against B:
- Artemis as the common ancestor inhibits the larger development of independent cultural identities such as the Siberian shamanism that was unique to the Northern Amazons. The idea of an overarching Mother Goddess to every tribe in the world is plausible, but unlikely in that Xena would have been practicing Siberian shamanism to a goddess, and a Greek goddess at that, in whom she put no faith even while in Greece.
Question 2 - Schism
All of the Amazons speak of a cataclysmic time or event where the large group was splintered into tribes and forced to scatter across the world, where they settled into the independent pockets of Amazons encountered throughout the series. However the series never explicitly stated what had caused this schism that had fractured hundreds of united Amazon warriors into tribes scraping for survival.
Not Xena
While it may be easy to conclude that Evil Xena was responsible during her days of conquest, the majority of information suggests that it was not her:
- Xena's oldest affiliation with Amazons of any kind was with the Northern Amazons during her tenure with Alti and Cyane. She was responsible for killing that tribe's leaders and rendering their women helpless against Alti's manipulation. Alti's vengeance was not taken out against the other tribes, whose souls were able to pass freely into Eternity. Therefore the schism had already occurred when Xena arrived in Siberia, and Amazons had existed for generations before Xena was born.
- Melosa, the first Greek queen encountered, treats Xena as a stranger upon first meeting. It is only when she learns her name that she recalls her tribe hearing about the failed siege of Corinth, even praising Xena for the size of her old army.
- When Xena defends Eve at her trial, the queens make no mention of any atrocities Xena committed against them in her past, which would only have strengthened their argument for Livia's crimes. On the contrary, they praise Xena and Gabrielle for the work they'd done for them since Xena turned good. It is even Cyane, the current queen of the Northern Amazons whose leaders Xena had formerly slaughtered, who makes this remark.
Centaurs
The next plausible enemy responsible is the Centaurs.
They are much more likely than Xena, being creations of the gods and sharing a common ancestor, Ixion. The real Ixion myth states that Ixion's deformed son Centauros was cast out and spent his life among mares, coupling with them and creating the centaur race.
The Xenized myth states that Ixion created the centaurs as a noble race but had an evil embodiment captured in the Stone that Xena and Dagnine sought.
I argue that the evil Ixion centaur was responsible for destroying the Amazons' power and sending them across the world.
For:
- The fact that Dagnine was transformed into the evil centaur implies that it may have existed simultaneously with the creation of the good centaurs. It may have been unleashed before in the past and massacred the Amazon nation before it was sealed in the Stone. Helpless in so few numbers, the Amazons turned on the good centaurs, declared them enemies, and fled. This made them easy prey for other warlords and made their numbers dwindle further.
Against
- The centaurs are a uniquely Greek race and are not mentioned in any Amazon context outside of it. Going with the Ixion theory implies that Statement B in Question 1 must be true, that the large group of original Amazons had existed in Greece and spread out from Greece following the schism. Statements A and B are not factual and hold weight only by opinion.
Ares
Slimmer facts than the Centaurs suggest that Ares may have been the one who scattered the Amazons.
For:
Ares heard rumours that the Amazons had a hidden cache of ambrosia but was unable to find it, and decimated the large Amazon nation in the hopes of finding it. While he didn't, he caused the segregration and limited the Greek tribe's power while the others fled.
The Amazons as a large, cohesive nation posed a threat to Ares' desire for a world of war of chaos.
Upon segregating the Amazons, he used Varia generations later as a tool for his own ends, to reshape the newly unified Amazons into a force for his own gain. Xena intervened.
Against
The Amazons never displayed open hostility towards Ares until his army attacked them in Season 6, well after the schism.
Ares has never had practical reason to bear hostility toward Artemis or any of the Amazons; Livia was enough to massacre them.
I'd love Steven Sears or RJ to read this, but in the meantime, give your opinions of the statements. Maybe we can come to a fans' conclusion.
Two questions bugging me for a long time that I want your opinion of, and maybe we can come to some speculative conclusion as fans.
#1. What is the origin of the Amazons?
#2. Who or what caused the great schism that segregated the Amazons into various scattered world tribes?
Neither had a definitive answer, at least on Xena, and the Hercules eps I saw didn't give a clue either.
Question 1 - Origin
Two conflicting statements are given on the show:
A) The Lifeblood Amazon High clips. A visit to the Northern Amazons in Siberia shows the history of the Tretomlec nation whose men were killed by the cannibalistic Varanas. Assumption concludes that if the pilot had gone to series, Cyane and Kor could have been the progenitors of the future daughters of the Amazon race, giving the sons to be raised by Varanas or some other male group.
B) In Path of Vengeance, the Amazon reunion in Greece takes place in a valley where, according to Gwyn-Teir of the Celtic Amazons, Artemis created the Amazons. The other queens agree with her.
Arguments for A:
- Amazon High pilot, being worked into the fabric of a Xena episode, is to be taken as fact in the Xenaverse. It gives the definitive answers to the recurring name Cyane, the bestowing of the title Amazon, why a group chose to exist as all-female, and why some Amazons bear hostility to men. It gives a much more detailed explanation than statement B.
- Unlike statement B, statement A exists within a definitive timeframe. Rob Tapert and Michael Hurst in the Lifeblood commentary both agree that it takes place during the Stone Age. This makes the legacy of the Amazons far older than civilized Greece itself, when the Xena series takes place. The Northern Amazons are therefore the oldest tribe, the mothers of all the future Amazons of the various world tribes.
Arguments against A:
- That Lifeblood takes place with the Northern Amazons makes the Amazon High clips specific to the history of that tribe only. No other tribe in the world passes on the name Cyane, and only the Northerns practice the shamanism that we first saw in Sin Trade.
- The Tretomlec tribe originally contained men before the women decided to become Amazons for the first time under Cyane. This implies that the mixed-gender tribe could not have been part of a larger race of all-female Amazons before the schism.
Arguments for B:
- Artemis gives every Amazon from Alti to Melosa to Kanae a definitive ancestor in Greece, and every tribe owes its history to her, no matter where in the world they are. The Greek tribe (Melosa-Varia) would also have been the only group of women not to migrate following the schism.
- Despite spending untold generations apart in different geographic locations, all of the Amazon queens agree to stay their tribes in Greece, owing a legacy to Artemis, and restoring their old ways in their original home.
Arguments against B:
- Artemis as the common ancestor inhibits the larger development of independent cultural identities such as the Siberian shamanism that was unique to the Northern Amazons. The idea of an overarching Mother Goddess to every tribe in the world is plausible, but unlikely in that Xena would have been practicing Siberian shamanism to a goddess, and a Greek goddess at that, in whom she put no faith even while in Greece.
Question 2 - Schism
All of the Amazons speak of a cataclysmic time or event where the large group was splintered into tribes and forced to scatter across the world, where they settled into the independent pockets of Amazons encountered throughout the series. However the series never explicitly stated what had caused this schism that had fractured hundreds of united Amazon warriors into tribes scraping for survival.
Not Xena
While it may be easy to conclude that Evil Xena was responsible during her days of conquest, the majority of information suggests that it was not her:
- Xena's oldest affiliation with Amazons of any kind was with the Northern Amazons during her tenure with Alti and Cyane. She was responsible for killing that tribe's leaders and rendering their women helpless against Alti's manipulation. Alti's vengeance was not taken out against the other tribes, whose souls were able to pass freely into Eternity. Therefore the schism had already occurred when Xena arrived in Siberia, and Amazons had existed for generations before Xena was born.
- Melosa, the first Greek queen encountered, treats Xena as a stranger upon first meeting. It is only when she learns her name that she recalls her tribe hearing about the failed siege of Corinth, even praising Xena for the size of her old army.
- When Xena defends Eve at her trial, the queens make no mention of any atrocities Xena committed against them in her past, which would only have strengthened their argument for Livia's crimes. On the contrary, they praise Xena and Gabrielle for the work they'd done for them since Xena turned good. It is even Cyane, the current queen of the Northern Amazons whose leaders Xena had formerly slaughtered, who makes this remark.
Centaurs
The next plausible enemy responsible is the Centaurs.
They are much more likely than Xena, being creations of the gods and sharing a common ancestor, Ixion. The real Ixion myth states that Ixion's deformed son Centauros was cast out and spent his life among mares, coupling with them and creating the centaur race.
The Xenized myth states that Ixion created the centaurs as a noble race but had an evil embodiment captured in the Stone that Xena and Dagnine sought.
I argue that the evil Ixion centaur was responsible for destroying the Amazons' power and sending them across the world.
For:
- The fact that Dagnine was transformed into the evil centaur implies that it may have existed simultaneously with the creation of the good centaurs. It may have been unleashed before in the past and massacred the Amazon nation before it was sealed in the Stone. Helpless in so few numbers, the Amazons turned on the good centaurs, declared them enemies, and fled. This made them easy prey for other warlords and made their numbers dwindle further.
Against
- The centaurs are a uniquely Greek race and are not mentioned in any Amazon context outside of it. Going with the Ixion theory implies that Statement B in Question 1 must be true, that the large group of original Amazons had existed in Greece and spread out from Greece following the schism. Statements A and B are not factual and hold weight only by opinion.
Ares
Slimmer facts than the Centaurs suggest that Ares may have been the one who scattered the Amazons.
For:
Ares heard rumours that the Amazons had a hidden cache of ambrosia but was unable to find it, and decimated the large Amazon nation in the hopes of finding it. While he didn't, he caused the segregration and limited the Greek tribe's power while the others fled.
The Amazons as a large, cohesive nation posed a threat to Ares' desire for a world of war of chaos.
Upon segregating the Amazons, he used Varia generations later as a tool for his own ends, to reshape the newly unified Amazons into a force for his own gain. Xena intervened.
Against
The Amazons never displayed open hostility towards Ares until his army attacked them in Season 6, well after the schism.
Ares has never had practical reason to bear hostility toward Artemis or any of the Amazons; Livia was enough to massacre them.
I'd love Steven Sears or RJ to read this, but in the meantime, give your opinions of the statements. Maybe we can come to a fans' conclusion.
) Keep on analyzing. 
DoT!
I remember reading this chat before, it was good to refresh my memory.
