| Steve Sears Convention Notes |
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| The whole subject of Gabrielle's blood innocence led to another conversation about her development as a warrior. Gabrielle never became the kind of warrior Xena was. In fact, Mr. Sears said that if in the finale Gabrielle did become the same sort of warrior that Xena was, it would be a betrayal of their joint missions. Gabrielle was meant to lead with compassion and never kill unnecessarily. |
| In "The Price," if Gabrielle had her way, everyone would have died. If Xena had her way, maybe Xena and Gabrielle would have gotten out of it, but everyone else would have died. Yet they weren't working together; they were actually at odds with each other. Xena had retreated to evil commander mode because that was what was familiar to her, and Gabrielle couldn't believe what she was seeing in Xena. And when it was all over, they had become afraid of each other. It was another milestone in their relationship. Xena and Gabrielle's different values and communication styles became apparent in "Orphan of War," when they disagreed on whether or not Xena should tell Solan he was her son. Gabrielle had a point, that Solan was old enough (and family loyalty was strong enough) that Solan deserved the truth--but Xena wasn't willing to take away the childhood that she'd given Solan by giving him to the centaurs. During the last scene, you don't know what Xena is going to do--whether she'll tell him or not. She doesn't, and she walks away with that single tear going down her cheek. Mr. Sears said that was more important than a parent/child relationship: liking each other, as friends. He said that when he'd built a relationship with his father that went beyond father/son roles, where they liked each other for who they were, that was the most important part of their real-life relationship. Xena and Solan mirrored that. Whether or when Solan knew Xena was his mother wasn't important; the fact that they loved and trusted each other as friends, was very important. |
| * "I'm standing here, as a single man, at a convention with 300 women hanging on my every word, and I don't have a shot with any of you!" * Why did we never find out where Xena and Gabrielle got their money? It's a good question, but it would have been clumsy to answer it in any way, so the writers toyed with the idea but never did it. * Re: fanfiction: Fanfiction for the Xenaverse has taken on a life of its own. There's an uber genre, with characters like Xena but not Xena. "Someone can take my work and grow on it--I find that so flattering." * Re: "A Good Day" (one of my (Alicia's) top-ten favorite episodes): "In the attempts to bring it down to size, the heart was ripped out. I managed to get it to a size I liked, but you never saw everything we had in mind." * "There was never a point when we decided to write the subtext. The gay/lesbian community is a disenfranchised group in the United States. The chemistry between Lucy and Renee was pouring off the screen, and it added to what we were writing. There were two characters who were heading toward their destiny together, who obviously cared for one another...There are fans who think of it as close to a sister relationship as it could have been, and that works. There are fans who are subtexters/maintexters, and it works. It's up to you." * "The Socrates Episode" never got made, because Socrates killed himself. Xena would have wanted to save him. Xena doesn't have to be right, but she has to be noble. * Re: The Xenastaff: "We're like a dysfunctional family; we fight a lot, but we get the job done and we work well together. Without Rob Tapert and the way he fought for the show, we wouldn't be here." * "Lucy didn't just play a role. She'd give an interpretation that did exactly what we wanted it to and something more, so we'd challenge the actors, and there would be a snowball." * "We were going toward blatant comedy in the third and fourth seasons. It wasn't planned that way, and it was like working on two different shows. The episodes were really dark starting in season 3. You can't make a nice little smiling joke after someone has been responsible for someone's child being killed." * "The Bitter Suite" was meant to scrape away the anger and hatred so Xena and Gabrielle could rebuild. * "Thank goodness we have a fan base who can say, 'okay, we're being silly this week!'" |
| Mr. Sears' envisioned ending to Xena: Warrior Princess At one time, there was this great battle of the City of Corinth. That's how the Amazons and the Centaurs came to be. There would be a battle like that again. But, Xena had realized by that point that the true light, the true savior of the world, was Gabrielle. Xena would die in that battle protecting Gabrielle. At the end, everyone would be looking to Gabrielle for her to tell them what to do. You would see this misty, indistinct figure with her hand on Gabrielle's shoulder. |