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Hmm, but you do read fanfiction in which they are (at least briefly) lovers? I can't imagine reading a story like Vibrations of a Bell without having a strong impulse to hurl if I thought he was her father. Actually, even typing that line just now made me slightly nauseous.

Actually, even as a "doomed relationship", I think that if the reason it was doomed (or part of the reason) was that he's her father, it would lose its appeal for me. Too sick, for one thing. Besides, in that case, what dooms their relationship is not something related to who they are as individuals and to their actions and choices, but to biology. Different strokes and all, of course.

Just wanted to add that I think that by the end of the show, it seems to me that Xena is quite at ease with her attraction to Ares -- she may be resolved not to give in to it for all sorts of reasons (of which I think there are plenty, even when he's mortal -- for one thing, I think she always suspects in the back of her mind that his mortality is a temporary condition), but she doesn't think it's wrong. And that's something I just don't see if, on some level, she "knows" he is her father. Or even thinks that he might be.

As for the leap in The Lost Mariner, I've always thought it was poetic license and nothing more. (Another suggestion I've seen, which is slightly less problematic to me than Xena being half-god, is that the ambrosia she ingests while being revived in The Quest has the effect of somewhat enhancing her natural abilities. If you think about it, that's about when her feats start becoming more and more superhuman.)

Oh, no need for apologies. I don't think there's a shipper romanticism litmus test. And I do agree that it's Xena "resisting the urge to reciprocate" (as Kevin Smith put it in one of his interviews, describing X/A) that makes the relationship so interesting. I love the angsty/twisted side of X/A -- the whole "that sickens me" scene under the crosses is one of my favorite X/A scenes, though again, if I saw incest as the (or even a) reason it sickens her to think of being with Ares at that point, it would be, for me, simultaneously too ordinary (and therefore boring) and too insurmountable. Actually, even in my stories in which they're a couple, she always continues to resist him on some level, at least until the end of the story. And yeah, I can see a VOAB-type setup where Xena and Ares spend one night together after You Are There and then she leaves (but in an open-ended way that doesn't rule out future encounters) -- in fact, I think it fits rather well with the level of intimacy and acceptance between them in Path of Vengeance. (Though I will add that, while VOAB is beautifully written, I have some issues with the characterization -- mainly, I don't see Ares being so hurt and angry at Xena after YAT. If it was right after Amphipolis Under Siege, then yeah.)

Anyway, one thing that occurred to me in thinking about all this is that the concept of Ares as Xena's father simply has no tangible reality to me. Maybe it's because they look the same in age and, as far as we know, he never had any contact with her as a child. (By contrast, Ares/Livia is vaguely squicky because, well -- he did at least volunteer to be her father. And the concept of Gabrielle/Eve, IMO, would be squicky beyond belief because, regardless of how you see the X/G relationship, Gabrielle definitely was Eve's "other mommy," lack of biological connection notwithstanding.) So, even if Ares did take the form of Atrius and knock up Cyrene, his relation to Xena is fairly abstract. I think I could deal with it as long as Ares was unaware of his parentage -- it's not like he's going to remember every warrior's wife whose bed he visited at some point.

As for Xena's superhuman abilities -- I definitely don't see any in Xena's past. She acquires all of her "special" skills by learning from others -- M'Lila, Cyane -- and while Niklio comments on her strong recuperative powers after the crucifixion and leg-breaking, she still requires Lao Ma to fix her broken legs. And she can't even imitate Lao Ma's mental powers.

Hey MstrssKit! Welcome back! Good to see you!

Aw, thank you

Soo .... so far, 46% of us can at least envision shipping X/A even if they are father and daughter.

What does that say about us?