There’s something about Solan morphing into Gabrielle at the end of ‘The Bitter Suite’. I think it’s that he is the only other formative influence on Xena to turn good for the sake protecting and defending those that cannot. He has such a profound effect on her development that when faced with that orphaned baby situation in ‘The Gauntlet’ in ‘Hercules The Legendary Journeys’, that’s when she decides to fight for the innocent and to help the helpless. It’s then something she herself tries to teach Marcus in ‘The Path Not Taken’/‘Mortal Beloved’.
Would she have done that if she had never had Solan? Would she have done that had she never met Gabrielle?
As per the metaphor in ‘Dreamworker’: the first stone thrown into the ocean creates a rippling effect. But it’s interesting to me how Xena only views that as negative because she can’t ever see herself as a good person for doing what she’s doing in the moment. Only in her past.
It’s just something I always think about because it’s said that Hercules turned Xena good. But Hercules himself would be the first person to say that isn’t true because he understands doing good for the sake of it. With no selfish motive or with no benefit to one’s self. He is inherently a good person because of that reason and he attempts to tell Xena in ‘Prometheus’ the same. That she is needed because she has the right mindset. But then mixes the message up with his feelings for her which makes Xena think he is only saying it because of that and not because it genuinely is the truth about her which - fortunately - is not something that really comes across with Gabrielle though she is affected by that too.
It’s a series of consistent influences that turns Xena good. But at the end of the day it’s Xena that did it because she chooses to put the greater good first.
So really,… what Gabrielle represents for Xena is not a moral compass. It’s a reminder she already has one because it is so easy for Xena to forget that she is good when all she ever feels inside is the guilt that she is evil.
Yet that is the thing that forces her to turn herself around to begin with. That deep sense of remorse.
And that is a self-destructive pattern for her because it’s all about how it harms or hinders her… that is until she meets and falls in love with Gabrielle. Constantly learning from her way of doing things that Gabrielle herself doesn’t even realize is the right way for her at that point in the show but is following instinctively.
That’s when Xena’s able to see her own worth in the serving of the greater good. That reminder of her own capability of doing good for the sake of doing good.
