You Have an Infection???
A recent post I saw kicked this off, but it was definitely not the first one I’d seen accusing Gabrielle of throwing Ephiny’s precious heirloom staff in the Ganges River.
Friends, this is just not true. And I’m obsessive enough to prove it! So, come with me on a whimsical journey of Gabrielle’s magical staffs. (TL;DR Version)
Below is the one Ephiny’s mother gave to her long ago. Note not only its obvious eagle head up top but also its russet-brown color and black grips.
Gabrielle walks out of “Hooves and Harlots” with Ephiny’s old staff and Terreis’s outfit, neither of which are ever seen again. Three of the next four episodes show Gabrielle without a staff altogether. (Though she does pick up a makeshift chobo and briefly fight a couple of soldiers with it at the end of “The Black Wolf.”) I like to think that she is with the Amazons during the first part of that episode, learning more from them and asking them to hold onto her Amazon gear for safekeeping. Then Gabrielle gets too busy smuggling Xena’s weapons to worry about her own. After that, she skips off to and returns empty-handed from the Athens City Academy before going similarly weaponless throughout “A Fistful of Dinars.” (Remember when she brought a small, fluffy bag to a sword fight? 😂)
Finally, we meet good old main season-one staff. Long, thin, dark brown with a light-colored little pouf up top and metallic center, usually not varnished; this is our staple until season two. …Even though it pretty immediately gets broken in half (its centerpiece, inexplicably fancified) and replaced with a similar but not quite identical one in Troy. Thanks, Perdicas!
But that’s okay! It’s back in action for the next two episodes, only to go missing for “The Royal Couple of Thieves,” in which Gabrielle has to use whatever’s handy. Although the episode’s staff’s overall design is much like that of the one she’ll use for the next three years, it is capped with a giant, stylized blade.
Old trusty returns just in time to be demolished by the wabbit-freezing cart of doom. Yup. No way Gabby’s little stick survives this! (For some reason, Gabrielle flips it upside-down to pole-vault and then turns it invisible, but that is neither here nor there.)
Just kidding! It gets resurrected again and is totally fine for the next two episodes once more. (Except for that brief moment at the beginning of “Altared States” when it looks a bit like her main one again, which is perhaps a birthday present from Xena?)
Gabrielle takes up her main staff for “The Greater Good.” See how special it is, with its beige accent ropes and central part that is very reminiscent of her main outfit’s belt? Ooh, also; it’s collapsible! Model that beauty, GW!
Thanks, love! Now for a little switcheroo in “Callisto,” fave to impending main.
An extra-long staff with that super fancy central piece from BGBG shows up outta nowhere in “Death Mask.” Then we close the season with early fave.
Alrighty; so! Even my obsessions have limits. Since only season one has the benefit of being FLM’d, we’re just gonna skim through seasons two and three, checking in now and again but otherwise trusting that Gabrielle uses the same staff all that time. The following images are from: “Orphan of War,” “The Giant Killer,” “The Execution,” and “A Comedy of Eros” + “The Dirty Half-Dozen” (since the first two episodes of season three are generally considered leftovers from two), “The Quill is Mightier...”, and “Sacrifice II.” Please note that while Gabrielle’s staff can be dressed and/or shined up, even thickened a bit (as seen in the second image of the season two finale and the pic from the third episode of the third season, respectively), it does not change its basic appearance. Read: None of these staffs is Ephiny’s hand-me-down either.
Season four uses the same staff, from “In Sickness and in Hell”—the first time Gabrielle has one this season—up to the last act of “The Way.” While saying goodbye to Eli and Hanuman, Gabrielle is suddenly holding a giant turd*- I mean, very dark staff with nearly indiscernible markings. Then it unexpectedly gains metallic bits and even chains? But that’s OK. It goes back to its nondescript form once it’s in the water. Only to gain some sort of fur outline and roped-off sections in the next shot? I dun even know.
Perhaps we were being shown a montage? ’Cuz it sure seems as if Gabrielle threw more than one staff into the river. I count three, maybe four in the image below. She just got rid of all of ’em, I s’pose.** …Except for her and Ephiny’s first staff, of course. I don’t see that rust-red/brown, eagle-headed one anywhere. Do you?
No? I rest my case. LOL! + Welp, I hope you enjoyed that jaunt down memory lane either way. Thanks (? 😂) to all the people who helped make this happen. Also, friends, if you see any more like ’em, then please direct them here. #GabbyStanForever heheheh Wub yuu, wabbit! And so does Lu. Take it away, Lu!
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*Heh, is that a “HaH” reference? Remember when Xena handed Gabrielle that bag of horse dung back then? 😅 Poor wabbit.
**LOL at Gabrielle thinking she’s Oprah but with significantly less desirable prizes. “You’re going downriver! And you’re going downriver! You’re all going downriver!” 🤣
