If you ever wanted to know the other popular ship in ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and another reason why they didn’t confirm Xena and Gabrielle as an official couple.
Ares and Xena was also a very popular romantic ship and there were constant ship wars in defence for it.
They kept the romantic tension between the ships because it wasn’t just about romance. But nature.
It was very important to always have that conflict in Xena’s heart because it influenced Xena’s nature.
Plus it was a great bisexual narrative that fully proved that Xena was a bisexual character and not a gay one and that’s a huge reason why I didn’t want the reboot.
So I was all for the love triangle and to this day I think Tapert was right on this and back him up 100% for it.
I think Xena and Ares is toxic as fuck but like with Bangel, I appreciate what the ship brought to the individual characters and how they grew through it.
Besides… Xena and Gabrielle had their toxic moments too and that was also incredibly important to show for exactly the same reasons as it was for Xena and Ares.
And that was basically it. Nobody cares about any other ship in this fandom. Well… maybe Chris Manheim… who ships Gabrielle and Joxer...
Probably the only person that does… 😆😂👌
But yes, in this show it was either Xena and Gabrielle
or Xena and Ares. And it was always important that they went neither way definitively on which it was and Xena was constantly caught up in her heart’s conflict.
And the way the creators handled that was better than most TV shows handle love triangles because it was about far more than romantic interests and desires.
So although we know who truly has Xena’s heart, it was important that they never went one way or the other on confirming it in the text for Ares’ sake too and that was something Tapert was adamant about but if you asked him he would tell you he ships X&G.
