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Oh, I'm curious, XWp...if you'd care to elaborate, I'm all ears!

athenasword:

Throughout the series I kept asking why, if she felt she could never atone, did she bother fighting for good? What gives her the right to walk freely in the world swinging a sword against the same people she used to ride with?

Good answer, LK:

I don't think she doesn't want forgiveness so much as she knows she can't really have it -- most of her victims are dead, and while in the Xenaverse that's not necessarily final, chances are they're not in a position to ever forgive her.

I'd just like to add that I also think it goes back to different types of forgiveness. My example again is, what if I wreck Dad's car and end up making payments on it for the next twenty years (or, the rest of my life, if we extend the fantasy to say he had an extremely nice car). In one sense, I'm forgiven--since I'm still his daughter, he still loves me, and our relationship is intact. In another sense, I'll never be forgiven, since I owe a financial debt I'll never be able to repay, and thus will be bound by that the rest of my life. But it's okay...because I think it's the first one that really matters. In the same way, I think Xena showed us what it is to struggle for one's entire life under the burden of consequences she could never entirely get rid of--but yet she was forgiven (not going to hell, good way to point that out), and also, her life in this world as a good person was worth it for its own sake. Good question, what gave her the right to switch sides... but there, the message I took away was that anyone has the right to switch to the right side, at any time--like Xena told Tara: do good, then you'll be a good person. (That presupposes an objective good and evil, but I think that objective good and evil did exist in the Xenaverse, regardless of your beliefs on the matter in real life.)

Regarding the India arc...yeah, I think we all see slightly different things in it (just like with a lot of other aspects of X:WP). It puzzles me sometimes, though, why the way you see it seems so strong, LK...elaborate any time you feel like it? I didn't like the India arc as much as I liked almost everything else about season 4. But it doesn't provoke a strong enough reaction in me that I need to wipe it out of the series (it's part of my personal canon, in a way that the future flash-episodes aren't). (Oh, dear, it seems like lately I've been having debates about authorial intent all over the place.) I don't like talking about the message of a given story so much as the intentions of the characters and the possible consequences, because once we take that step back and think about the message, that's thinking about the intent the authors put into it, rather than the way the story is. (Did that make any sense at all?) I think what Meaurel was saying was that the way that Gabrielle at first chose the Way of Love (in pacifist terms), and then found out it was wrong and made the right decision, showed her that it's possible in life to do something that might be wrong, but is still a stepping stone toward what you're supposed to be doing. In other words, the exact opposite of "one way don't leave it" --the idea that we try every single thing, and even the wrong decisions contribute to what we were supposed to be doing.

I think the biggest thing I have to twist around in my head is the idea that Xena chose to stay on the way of the warrior for selfish reasons--in IOM, she never gives Callisto a good reason why she has to remain a warrior (and a better afterlife for Xena, personally, is something I don't buy). But on the other hand, she also turns down Callisto's offer of "peace," ...so, argh, I'm twisting myself in knots. I wish she'd told us her true reasons for saying "no." The message I took away from the whole India arc was, that it's important to try a lot of things, that the higher powers don't know everything (at least in the Xenaverse--therefore you obey when necessary but also keep your eyes open), that different people are made for different tasks, that the world is a complicated and beautiful place, and that X&G will eventually be rewarded for all the hard work they did in staying together and accomplishing the things they did--that there's a chance for their relationship to go on and on.

Ah, I'll get off my soapbox now, though! I hope you have a great day.