XWP 4.08 'Crusader' and 4.18 'The Convert', or a Queer Love Triangle as Character Analysis
I recently rewatched XWP 4.08 'Crusader' and 4.18 'The Convert' together to consider how they work together side-by-side. My analysis below contains spoilers for these episodes and S4 of Xena in particular.
What's interesting off the bat is that these two episodes were not written or directed by the same people, despite both being Najara episodes. To start, 4.08 'Crusader' was written by co-executive producer R.J. Stewart and directed by Paul Lynch, whose XWP creds before this were just, oh, ONE AGAINST [exerts self-control] 3.13 'One Against An Army', arguably one of the best episodes of the entire show. These were Lynch's only two episodes, but what episodes! Stewart is of course credited on every XWP episode but in this case, he is credited as the sole writer.
Although many characters show up repeatedly, Najara noticeably functions as part of the larger S4 arc rather than just the episodes in which she appears in. She also directly engages with S4's core question of whether Xena and Gabrielle's love for each other is worth fighting and dying for, or if they really would be better going their separate ways. This sets her apart from other episode characters like Autolycus or Tara or Salmoneus. Her purpose seems at least two-fold:
1. Offer Gabrielle an alternative life that still involves being with a woman who is attractive and attracted to her, in a time when Gabrielle is struggling with the consequences of S3 and Xena is feeling enough guilt about her vision of her and Gabrielle's shared death that she doesn't fight to keep Gabrielle by her side. Najara explicitly offers Gabrielle a life that fulfills some of her dreams while also love bombing her with lakeside bird walks, and she explicitly affirms Xena's sense of guilt about how a life with her will hurt Gabrielle and lead to her death.
2. Highlight Xena's violence and frame it both as repugnant compared with Najara's approach and in conflict with Gabrielle's desire to resolve disputes peacefully, even though it will turn out that Najara's violence is even more repugnant than Xena's.
Najara is also designed to be spiritually attractive to Gabrielle, as well as in other ways. Gabrielle has a tendency to easily follow those whom she thinks lead peaceful lives, and the show exploits her vulnerability here. She will eventually find Eli, whose message of peace is at least genuine, but Gabrielle is not as skeptical and wary of these emissariesas as she should be by this point, or as Xena is. She's not even as skeptical as she could be after the terrible events leading up to her first kill in 3.04 'The Deliverer'. She and Xena disagree about Xena not trusting Najara initially in 'Crusader', but it's Xena's experience around people who use the ideas of peace to manipulate others that informs her skepticism. Najara is not an Alti...yet. She could be, if she thought the jinn told her it was for their cause.
Najara is also interesting because she combines a few familiar archetypes in the Western canon (while wearing appropriative Eastern costuming). She is clearly a Joan of Arc figure - a woman warrior who hears voices of the jinn, who may or may not be real (I tend to think they're real, given that the show takes place in a world of ancient gods and heroes and because some of her information turns out to be in-canon correct) who give her instructions on how to fight and how to help people. She also takes a very 'Let the jinn/light sort them out' approach to justice which has its parallels in Western models of religious violence. She also dreams of building a hospice where anyone could come to be healed, a dream she shares unprompted with Gabrielle, but it's also the dream of colonizers who want to set themselves up as the beloved savior of their followers.
NAJARA: My men are very grateful for the care you gave them. You both would be very valuable in my hospice.
GABRIELLE: Where is your hospice?
NAJARA: Up here [pointing to her head] It's only a dream, now. It would be a place where anyone could come to be healed Poor and rich alike. We would care for lepers, those too old to tend for themselves, men and women with diseases of the mind as well as the body. It's sole purpose would be to relieve suffering. There's so much good to be done, and so little time to do it.
That's the other thing about Najara: She does seem to have good intentions, and she seems to genuinely like and want Gabrielle to stay with her. She's even willing to fight for her against what she sees as a real threat to Gabrielle's life and safety from Xena at the end, which is not nothing as a character trait. It's understandable that she wants to be with Gabrielle; a lot of people want Gabrielle to stay with them because Gabrielle is often wonderful and appealing and talented. She is also a hot mess in her own way, which Najara barely gets a taste of when Gabrielle lets Xena tie her up over a plank over a bottomless chasm to trick Najara into rescuing her. Okay, girl, was that the whole plan? But between Najara's good intentions and genuinely liking Gabrielle, our original irritating blonde is in for it this episode.
Because Gabrielle is sometimes a hot mess! I do think she was attracted to the idea of Najara's hospice, and the dream of settling down somewhere to Do Good(TM) has its own appeal, but I don't think she would give up her life with Xena, that easily or at all. She wants that idyllic-seeming life with Xena, as the show explores a season later in 5.16 'Lifeblood'. That said, in some ways, she lets Najara think she's open to a life with her, and while Gabrielle can sometimes let her belief in the good in people blind her, she's not obtuse. I think she enjoys the attention on some level, much like she enjoys how Joxer puts her on a pedestral while never having any intention of being with him, so it makes sense that when Najara and Xena finally do have their first big fight and Xena loses, Gabrielle dangles the idea of a life with her in front of Najara to save Xena's life. She absolutely knows what she's doing.
GABRIELLE: Put the sword down. Najara, you and I, we'll walk out of here together.
NAJARA: You're just saying that to protect her.
GABRIELLE: Xena's dark side frightens me. I need to move on, but I could never live with someone who killed her. There would be no going back from that.
We get a kind of textual confirmation that Xena's dark side is something Gabrielle has thought about a lot and fears - and with good reason - but its impact on her and its consequences are something she has, time and again, chosen to accept. While I believe Xena's dark side still scares her, it's not enough to make her walk away. She tells Xena she accepted the consequences of their life together "a long time ago" in 3.13 'One Against An Army' and by the end of that season, she chooses to die to save Xena. For all the high stakes, we follow her emotional scene with Xena over their life together at the end of 4.02 'A Family Affair' with the comedy episode of 4.03 'In Sickness and In Hell', in which they are right back to being an old married couple. The takeaway is that Gabrielle has decided to stay with Xena at risk to her own life over and over and over again, consequences and harm to her (including being dragged off a cliff by Xena) be damned.
This isn't to say that Gabrielle's emotions about Xena's dark side follow a linear path and we can cross them off the list as resolved with no asterisk, but Gabrielle only walks away from Xena twice, both long in the past at this point. The first time is in 1.13 'Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards' to be a writer. That was both early in their relationship and a choice that had nothing to do with Xena's dark side and everything to do with Gabrielle wanting to be a bard. The second time is 2.05 'Return of Callisto' when Perdicas returns and she marries him (ahem). That also had nothing to do with Gabrielle leaving Xena for her dark side. Gabrielle will face much worse with Xena after that and none of it leads to her leaving her, unless we count her attempted suicide after Solon's death. That includes 3.05 'Gabrielle's Hope' which ends with Gabrielle staying with Xena even after Xena tries to kill her infant child. She could have left to find Hope, but she doesn't! She stays with Xena, and it's fraught, but she's actually more angry that Xena would leave her right after that and chases her down in Chin. After Hope kills Solon, Gabrielle still stays by Xena's side and tells her she loves her. It's a quality even Najara clocks in 'Crusader' in her conversation when they talk about the possibility of Xena leaving Gabrielle with Najara, when she says "As soon as she realizes you've left her, you know she'll follow you." Gabrielle is the one who won't let go, while Xena does, from time to time, trying to release Gabrielle from being chained to her. Xena's attempts to disappear or get locked up never last long, partly because Gabrielle is the one who won't let her go.
Gabrielle fully knows following the way of love is in direct conflict with her life with Xena, and still, she stays with Xena, which is further explored in 'The Convert'. Even though Gabrielle and Najara are now both followers of Eli, Najara's romantic appeal to Gabrielle is completely gone (while Najara is far from over her). When she has to choose between the way of love and Xena, Gabrielle chooses Xena, and this is a point of frustration for Najara in a way that it is not for Gabrielle. By the time she leaves the way of love in the finale, it doesn't feel like a betrayal of the season but as a fulfillment of what it is exploring. For Gabrielle, the right path is by Xena's side.
Which is, of course, incredibly queer, but also really means that Najara never stood a chance in this love triangle.
I do enjoy how Najara makes her play for Gabrielle in 4.08 'Crusader', though, even before she learns about Xena's vision of their shared death. She swoops in with these visions of peace and saving the world, takes Gabrielle off to a lake to look for swans, and talks about the life they could (it is heavily implied) have together. Meanwhile, Xena has visions of their shared death and watches Gabrielle and Najara on their lake date from her hiding place in the bushes. It's the most obvious scene of queer jealousy since Star Trek: TOS, maybe. It must be a kind of relief to Xena when she gets to finally fight Najara and that she gets to have a Good Reason to do so (rather than just fighting her for Gabrielle).
XENA: Come on, Gabrielle.
NAJARA: No! Gabrielle has turned to the light. She's my responsibility now. As you said yourself, you hurt her. That's not going to happen again.
GABRIELLE: Najara, don't do this.
XENA: Get out of the way, Gabrielle.
NAJARA: This is between Xena and me! Stay out of it. The light will triumph, Xena.
XENA: Quit preaching and fight.
And Xena actually gets her butt whooped and Gabrielle has to save her by telling Najara they can never be together if she kills Xena (o-kayyyyy). That said, I think Najara is absolutely Gabrielle's type and in another life, she might try to persuade her to stop killing her prisoners in the same way she insisted Xena had changed and that she could fight for the greater good. I think that Xena and Najara differ in important ways, but they have more in common. Xena is at a later point in her development than Najara is, but in another life, one where Xena and Gabrielle never met, maybe Gabrielle would have stayed with Najara and tried to change her. Najara struggles to change, as we see in 'The Convert', but so does Xena, and the show emphasizes again and again that Xena stays on her reformed path because she has Gabrielle by her side helping her use her skills for the greater good, where all previous attempts eventually failed and she reverted to dark!Xena. We glimpse the what-might-have-been between Gabrielle and Najara in their conversation after Najara leaves Xena beaten but alive:
GABRIELLE: You're so close to being this ultimate force for goodness but that little bit makes you so wrong.
NAJARA: What should I do with those slave traders, Gabrielle? What would Xena do?
GABRIELLE: She would make sure they were out of business. She would turn them over to the local government.
NAJARA: But what if the local government supports slavery? Probably not a problem because Xena kills most of them in combat anyway.
GABRIELLE: Xena only kills if it's absolutely necessary.
NAJARA: And I only kill evil people. Why is she better than me?
GABRIELLE:Don't you think those people deserve a fair trial?
NAJARA: But some fool may find them innocent.
GABRIELLE: But with your way, innocent people could die.
NAJARA: You're right, Gabrielle. I'm sure I've made mistakes before, but all I've done is send them to the light. The eternal powers will correct any mistakes I've made.
It's a doozy of a conversation but illustrates that Gabrielle is trying to reason with Najara and get her to change her ways. And in time, she might have! Najara is toxic for sure, but what would you call the start of 'The Bitter Suite' if not toxic? Najara is probably also a little mentally unwell, but...sometimes so is Xena. It would have been interesting to see her referenced once more, perhaps in one of the AUs, to see what the writers thought she would be like under different circumstances. Notably, while Xena has an even stronger mirror in Callisto, Gabrielle treats Callisto as a lost cause from the start and she falls somewhere in between with Najara. She liked what she saw at the start, and again wants to believe she's changed in 'The Convert', but neither Callisto nor Najara really hold a candle to Xena for Gabrielle. And when Xena shows up to rescue her, Gabrielle wants to leave Najara immediately. Her reaction is 100% "Oh, thank goodness, my wife is picking me up from the hostage situation, let's GO." It's Xena who insists on staying and fighting Najara, a fight in which (while acting the part of dark!Xena) she proclaims "If I can't have her [Gabrielle], nobody can have her!" I would look directly at the camera but... the camera is looking back.
Ultimately, I think both women hold a similar attraction for Gabrielle, and Najara and Xena both know it, but Xena and Gabrielle's history and Xena's choices matter more than just another woman who is somewhat like her. And Xena, when she's being evil, knows she's being evil. She revels in it, and the violence for violence's sake, but she's under no illusion that she's creating world order or peace, so she can be reached with arguments about the greater good in that state of mind because she doesn't already think she's in service of any such thing. That perspective gives her a humility in the dispensation of justice as well, which Najara doesn't have as jury, judge, and executioner. This brings us to one of my favorite lines from 'Crusader', when Xena is talking to the villagers and her mirror reflection post-first fight with Najara:
XENA: I got my butt whipped, didn't I? Well, it serves me right for trusting someone who talks about being good all the time. You know what? She's a tough girl but she's got a weakness. It's the same one I've got.
O____O
'Crusader' deftly fits into the catalogue of 'That's not queer subtext; it's text! People need to learn how to read media again!' The episode is so explicitly framed as another woman coming to take Gabrielle away from the dangerous Xena that one wonders if Rob Tapert was hypnotizing the studio execs by singing the theme song at them as a distraction while they read the script.
Jumping ten episodes ahead we get to 4.18 'The Convert,' written by XWP veteran Chris Manheim, who by this point had also written 2.11 'Here She Comes..Miss Amphipolis', 2.13 'The Quest', the studio-mandated-queered-down 2.22 'A Comedy of Eros', 3.02 'Been There, Done That' (as executive story editor), 3.12 'The Bitter Suite', and 4.03 'A Family Affair'. Manheim's track record of writing queer episodes and handling queer relationship dynamics while skirting the studio censors was, to put it mildly, consistently reliable. She had also been writing for the show since S1. Manheim had also worked together with Andrew Merrifield on 'Been There, Done That', who directed 4 XWP episodes before this one.
Interestingly, 'The Convert' feels less overtly queer than 'Crusader', despite the writing/directing duo. This is probably in part because the focus of the episode is around Joxer's first kill, and both Xena and Gabrielle recognize Najara for who she is. Gabrielle at least knows who Najara was at the end of 'Crusader', even while she's arguing with Xena that maybe Najara has changed after her conversion by Eli. That said, when Najara reverts back to her old ways, Gabrielle is not so much surprised as accepting that this is who she really is. Still, the old attraction and what-might-have-been connection cannot be ignored:
GABRIELLE: And what have you been doing?
NAJARA: Planting crops, helping harvest, mending clothes. Working towards the day the jinn said would come. The day you and I would meet again. United in a common bond, not even Xena shares.
GABRIELLE: The jinn said that?
NAJARA: We walk the same path, Gabrielle. Our lives are dedicated to defeating evil, by promoting peace. It's our way. The way Eli taught us. A reverence for life. Stray from that path, whatever the reason, the consequences could be devastating for everyone.
In some ways, watching this episode my reaction is "Again, Gabrielle?!" but it also feels very real and true to who she is. She wants to believe people can change, and that belief is also part of what drove her to Xena's side in the first place. I don't think she buys Najara's claim that they share a common bond in the way Najara means, although their bond of walking the path of peace (for now) is shared in a way that Xena does not follow. By this point, however, Gabrielle and Xena have already been through 4.15 'Between the Lines' and seen how their lives are interwoven across millennia. Whatever Gabrielle and Najara share, it's more similar to what Gabrielle and Eli share, to what Gabrielle and Eve later share, and so forth, rather than some transcendent personal bond. Najara even thinks the jinn mean for her and Gabrielle to be together now, which is pretty much a recipe for (more) toxic behavior down the road, but Gabrielle doesn't bite. Najara's comment about how straying from that path (the way of love) being devastating, however, is accurate. As Gabrielle tells Xena in the finale, she had a choice to do nothing or save Xena, and she chose Xena. And that's what she always chooses, time and again.
Najara's impact is less powerful in 'The Convert' than her intro episode, but I think both episodes serve to provide a contrast with Xena and Gabrielle with where they are on their journey. In 'Crusader', Najara and Xena are more similar than they are dissimilar, and in 'The Convert', Najara has moved closer to Gabrielle's current position - though she can't fully commit to the way of love either, and she still thinks she's on a mission from the jinn. It's through Najara and her character shift that we see how stable Xena and Gabrielle are with each other, even as Gabrielle is trying to walk a new path, and that while Gabrielle questions her path, that questioning keeps her honest to herself and what she wants more than leaving her in more and more doubt about what she wants and who she wants to be with. Both episodes serve to push Gabrielle further along her path of choosing Xena, and both episodes illustrate that while Xena has her dark side, there are much worse things that she could be - and chooses not to be with Gabrielle by her side.
NAJARA: “They also talk about that hospice we were gonna start. Remember?"
GABRIELLE: "Yeah, I remember. A place whose only purpose is to ease suffering. It was a good idea."
NAJARA: “It still is."
GABRIELLE: “Najara, I think what you're doing is wonderful. Giving up fighting, working through peace and starting a hospice would be good for you. But it's not for me. My place is with Xena."
NAJARA: “I know and it always will be… until her continuing violence finally makes her do something even you can't excuse."
GABRIELLE: “That's not going to happen."
NAJARA: “It has to. And then you will have to choose - not between me and Xena - but between Xena and your own soul."
Watching ‘The Convert’. This conversation really struck me this time around knowing what happens going forward and knowing what they just discovered. Najara argues that Gabrielle being with Xena is not good for her. Claiming that continuing travelling with her will tear at her soul and she’ll have to choose to either stay or separate. But what Najara doesn’t know but Xena and Gabrielle do at this point is that Gabrielle’s soul IS Xena’s soul as they’re one soul inhabiting two bodies. So if Gabrielle were to separate from Xena to choose her own soul… it would still tear at her soul anyway because her soul cosmically belongs to both of them.
It wouldn’t be a solution. It would just make things worse. They’re better off being and staying together because at least they’re able to face the violence and the pain with the strength of two people. Not just one.
But then I suppose Najara thinks Gabrielle wouldn’t be worse off because she’d somehow find a way to worm her way into her life again even if Gabrielle doesn’t want her. Even if she has no interest in finding a new partner. Even if Xena is all that will ever be good enough for her.
And to every love interest that comes into the narrative from this point onwards she says this. Literally says that Xena is her partner and nothing will change that - separated or not. it’s just a very poignant interaction that tells you that Gabrielle still had so many options - many different paths to take or different ways to follow.
And yet she still chose Xena every single time to the point where it wasn’t Xena’s continued violence that made the difference. It was falling back into her own.
For Xena. Because her love for her mattered more than the continuing cycle of violence that teared at her soul.
You see everything is a lot more complicated now that they know that they’re literal soulmates for all eternity. It’s a serious narrative. It’s not something they just throw in for the sake of it pleasing the pink audience. They really grapple with the implications of what it means for them to be cosmically intertwined in this way. To share the same soul and all karmic lifetimes - obviously including the one they’re currently living.
I mean what do you do when you discover that you’re soulmates with someone you live with and are in love with? That the Universe itself won’t let you separate. That regardless of what your choices are, you’re all in on a fundamental level because your soul says it’s so.
I mean Gabrielle literally says that to Brunhilda in ‘The Ring’. She says neither herself or Xena made it this way. It just is the way it is and they just had to accept and embrace that because it was never going to change. Even after their lives ended - that was just how it was. I mean what else can you do about it but stay together?
But the question is - if Najara had known what Xena and Gabrielle knew, would she have relented? Would she have stopped trying to hurt and sabotage their strong relationship? Or did “The Light” and her philosophy only matter to her when it was about herself and what she wanted or chose to do? Was she really adherent to her philosophy or was that only as it was useful to her?
A battle-hardened life would always tear at Gabrielle’s soul. But part of the reason why it would is because she was never meant to be the peace loving farm life wife but she was much more accustomed to that way of life. Xena walked into it and completely upended everything but that was not totally on Xena. She made her choices.
And her choices were:
Season 1 - Xena.
Season 2 - Xena.
Season 3 - Xena.
Season 4 - Xena.
After that it was only second nature to her. Instinct. The soulmate scenario was merely just a “just in case…” 😝
