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 mischiefgoddess |
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Two Star General
Posts: 1646 (05/18/08 12:23 AM) |
But why should he be. There was already too much chaos in the underworld with Ares coming ina nd mixing up teh Callisto thing, why should he allow Xena to come
in and do what she wants.
The God of the Underworld is not meant to be all cuddles and rainbows.
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 LadyKate63 |
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Administrator Moderator Olympian
Posts: 78072 (05/18/08 12:35 AM) Xena Studies Ph.D. |
Well... because Xena shouldn't be there?
I mean, it's kind of like ... let's say a prisoner has managed to knock out a guard, steal her keys and escape. And then they stick the guard in jail saying "Well, we need someone to fill the slot, and besides, you shouldn't have been reckless enough to let her escape!" Of course I suppose you could argue that Xena has committed enough crimes to be eligible for Tartarus anyway, so Hades' behavior could be influenced by that.  
"They have this love/hate, lust/hate relationship." -- Lucy Lawless     
See my artwork and fanfiction at The Muse's Corner * Visit Xena Online Community Keepership and sig script by Nutty, Avatars by Cila |
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CasualFan |
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Three Star General
Posts: 3904 (05/18/08 3:11 AM) Mostly Harmless |
Erik Thompson's Hades certainly wasn't filled with the milk of human (or divine) kindness, but he did have a sense of honor and fair play. His
bureaucratic side was tempted to leave Xena in Tartarus so that the books would balance, but in the end he allowed Xena a chance to get Callisto back where she
belonged. He showed the same fairness to Herc in The Other Side, even though the Big Guy had spent the ep trying to
pry Persephone from his side and take her back to her mother. Steven Lovatt was stuck with playing a one-dimensional bad guy in the Twilight arc - a very
disappointing end to an interesting character.
Speaking of Persephone, I'm sorry she never put in a Xena appearance, even briefly - she was rather a sweet thing who obviously had found something to love in Hades. The worst part about the Twilight arc was seeing all of the character development gods like Heph and Hades had received in H:TLJ ignored - yes, it was a different show and all, but it could have added a lot of depth and complexity to the storyline if those developments had been carried over.
Creator - A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.. - H.L.Mencken
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LadyKate63 |
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Administrator Moderator Olympian
Posts: 78084 (05/18/08 4:10 AM) Xena Studies Ph.D. |
Interesting observations, CF! I"m not sure I'd go quite so far as to credit Hades in IS with "fair play" -- he gives Xena only 24 hours to
try to bring Callsto back (despite the fact that he knows Callisto is being helped by Ares!), and if she doesn't succeed then she's stuck in Tartarus
for eternity in Callisto's place. Fairness aside, not a very nice way to treat someone who helped you out big-time on two separate occasions! And even
then, I got the feeling part of the reason he was willing to give Xena a break was that he was p*ssed off at Ares for messing with his domain. (On a tangent, I
wonder what he means when he says something like, "Ares has really overstepped the bounds this time"; is he referring to The Reckoning, and
Ares bringing those dead villagers back to life?)
However, I fully agree with you that S5 Hades became far too much of a one-dimensional nasty. Admittedly being in fear of one's life can sour anyone's disposition, especially if you've had millenia to get used to the idea of being immortal; and in Looking Death in the Eye Hades was additionally concerned for his sister's welfare. However, there's no reason they couldn't have done all that and preserved more character nuance. The worst part about the Twilight arc was seeing all of the character development gods like Heph and Hades had received in H:TLJ ignored - yes, it was a different show and all, but it could have added a lot of depth and complexity to the storyline if those developments had been carried over. Oh, totally. The only saving grace is that the Twilight Arc gave Zeus and Hera (and Herc, too) a worthy sendoff, and it also gave us the very interesting character of Athena (who evidently received all of the complexity and character development allotted to the gods after GFC!).
"They have this love/hate, lust/hate relationship." -- Lucy Lawless
See my artwork and fanfiction at The Muse's Corner * Visit Xena Online Community Keepership and sig script by Nutty, Avatars by Cila |
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CasualFan |
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Three Star General
Posts: 3906 (05/18/08 4:23 AM) Mostly Harmless |
The 24 hours deal seems to have been standard - Hades did the same thing with Herc. Once again, Hades is a bureaucrat - he can bend the rules, but he
won't break them outright, and the books have to balance by the end of the business day. He's perfectly within his rights to refuse them any chance at
all - it would certainly make his job less complicated. It's a measure of his recognition of the debts he owes Herc and Xena that he gives them the
chances that he does.
Creator - A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.. - H.L.Mencken
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Daughter of Tiaran |
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Administrator Moderator Three Star General
Posts: 3332 (05/18/08 9:44 AM) Caesar's Ghost |
I"m not sure I'd go quite so far as to credit Hades in IS with "fair play" -- he gives Xena only 24 hours to try to bring Callsto back (despite the fact that he knows Callisto is being helped by Ares!), and if she doesn't succeed then she's stuck in Tartarus for eternity in Callisto's place. I considered that as TPTB pretty clearly attempting to introduce a "race against the clock" element and using Hades as the mechanism to do it, so I didn't really hold it against him. As for Hades being a bureaucrat--I agree, but OTOH, when you've got hundreds to thousands of dead coming in per day to deal with (more when Xena was in her active warlord phase  ) it sort of makes sense to me that he'd be that way.
In general I agree with athenasword.
"Sometimes a thing gets broke, can't be fixed."
--Kaylee, Firefly 
Last Edited By: Daughter of Tiaran
05/18/08 9:48 AM.
Edited 1 times.
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LadyKate63 |
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Administrator Moderator Olympian
Posts: 78111 (05/18/08 5:41 PM) Xena Studies Ph.D. |
You know, it may be that there is some kind of law of nature which the gods are powerless to alter that allows the dead only a limited time back on earth in
the flesh. In Mortal Beloved when it's certainly in Hades' interest to have Atyminius captured and the situation in his domain fixed, and when
Xena asks him to give Marcus his life back, Hades says something like, "All I can manage is 48 hours."
So maybe the "norm" is 24 hours and it takes a special effort for Hades to manage even 48. 
I guess I won't hold it against him then. Although he still seems pretty unsympathetic to me in IS -- he blames Xena for allowing Callisto to get to her in dreams, and he seems uninterested in making any other effort to reverse the swap. At the very least even if he couldn't bring Xena back to life, he could have given her a new judgment rather than have her serve Callisto's sentence. I mean, yeah, I know he's got thousands of dead people coming through every day, but Xena's sort of a special case given she bailed out his a$s twice. I don't think his behavior in IS makes him a bad guy, it
just doesn't (IMO) qualify him for any special praise.
"They have this love/hate, lust/hate relationship." -- Lucy Lawless
See my artwork and fanfiction at The Muse's Corner * Visit Xena Online Community Keepership and sig script by Nutty, Avatars by Cila |
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toxic64 |
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One Star General
Posts: 950 (05/18/08 8:54 PM) |
"At the very least, you'd think that in AITST Hades would have tipped Xena off to the fact that her kid had chosen to be in Tartarus. Though
admittedly at that point, TPTB themselves didn't know about it yet."--LK Is that what was supposed to have happened? I thought Hades manipulated Solan
into going to Tartarus during the Twilight to use that as a bargaining chip against Xena.
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ChakramGoddess |
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Four Star General
Posts: 4254 (05/18/08 9:08 PM) |
"At the very least, you'd think that in AITST Hades would have tipped Xena off to the fact that her kid had chosen to be in Tartarus. Though admittedly at that point, TPTB themselves didn't know about it yet."--LK Is that what was supposed to have happened? I thought Hades manipulated Solan into going to Tartarus during the Twilight to use that as a bargaining chip against Xena.No, Solan chose to be in Tartarus so he wouldn't lose his memories of Xena. I guess it's possible that Hades lied to him about having to relive the same day over and over in the Elysian Fields, though. |
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LadyKate63 |
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Administrator Moderator Olympian
Posts: 78115 (05/18/08 10:03 PM) Xena Studies Ph.D. |
No, Solan chose to be in Tartarus so he wouldn't lose his memories of Xena. I guess it's possible that Hades lied to him about having to relive the same day over and over in the Elysian Fields, though. Hmm, but why would he? There is actually a theory that it was Hades who allowed Solan to create Illusia -- because otherwise where would a dead kid get the power to do that, except with help from a god. I don't know if I buy that... I kind of like the fact that Illusia is unexplained. Oh and there's also a theory that Hades is Xena's father. In view of S5, I sure hope not! 
"They have this love/hate, lust/hate relationship." -- Lucy Lawless
See my artwork and fanfiction at The Muse's Corner * Visit Xena Online Community Keepership and sig script by Nutty, Avatars by Cila |
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