CALLISTO
Real Name:
Callisto
Occupation:
Terrorist, assassin, self-styled goddess of hate
Legal Status:
Citizen of the Roman Empire in the First Century BC
Identity: The general populace of Earth is unaware of the existence of Callisto except as a fictional character.
Other Aliases:
Xena
Place of Birth:
Place of Death: an unidentified cave near Poteideia (now part of modern Greece)
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives:
father, mother, brothers, sisters (names unrevealed, deceased)
Group Affiliations: ally of Hope and Ares
Base of Operations:
Mobile
First Appearance: Xena TV Series, Episode: "Callisto"
Final Appearance: (as a living person) Xena TV Series, Episode: "Sacrifice" Part Two, (as a spirit) Xena TV Series, Episode: "Chakram"
History: Callisto was a native of Ancient Greece in the First Century BC in the years before Roman occupation. During this time, the region was overrun by warlords and mercenaries trying to conquer the lands and kingdoms ahead of the Roman Empires in order to have a vested power by time the Roman armies arrived. These warlords knew they could better hold their power with the power of the Roman Empire behind them supporting them, but to gain this advantage, they had to be able to seize power first. Among these warlords was the woman-warrior Xena, whose armies cut a bloody and brutal swath across Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace and southern Gaul and Dacia. Although Xena had vows to never kill women and children, her armies grew more brutal when they attacked Cirra, Callisto's village. Callisto watched as a mysterious fireball claimed the lives of her family. Having lost everything she once loved, she vowed to someday have her revenge and she began practicing skills as an assassin.
Eventually, Callisto discovered that Xena had forsaken her warrior ways and was trying to amend for her past. This realization drove Callisto mad, believing it robbed her of the strength of her vengeance. She could not kill an honorable woman for doing right over killing just another warrior. She recruited an army to follow her and leave destruction by claiming to be Xena and besmirch her name. She hires a would-be warrior named Joxer to distract and kill Gabrielle, Xena's close friend. She then shoots Xena with a poisonous dart so she will be unable to fight. However, things don't go as planned. Joxer realizes his noble intentions and cannot kill Gabrielle with whom has an infatuation with. Even poisoned, Xena still fights Callisto to a standstill and defeats her. Callisto later takes out her hostility by slaying Perdicus, Gabrielle's husband, to draw Xena out to fight her and is imprisoned for the crime.
While in prison, Callisto's hostility for Xena festered even more. According to one account, she approached by Loki, the trickster of the Asgardian gods, on a fruitless attempt to slay Thor, and trigger a war between the gods of Earth in order to create Ragnarok or the Twilight of the Gods. In complying, she became a god, but realized she was being turned into a patsy and released Xena who Loki had frozen to fight in her defense. However, as things disintegrated around him, Loki used the threads of the Fates to reweave time and return Callisto without her godly powers back to prison. It is unsure as to any of these events actually happened or were merely a part of Callisto's hallucinations. Killing her jailer, she escaped prison to once more attack Xena, but she was left to drown in quicksand as Xena watched without trying to save her.
Unable to get the vengeance deserved her, Callisto was sentenced to Hades after death, but she was approached by the god, Ares, hoping to lead Xena back into her degradation. Ares restored Callisto to life in Xena's body, and Xena was trapped in her place in Hades, the Olympian underworld. Exiled to the underworld, Xena persuaded Hades to let her return to Earth in Callisto's body to send her back to the underworld. Returning to Earth, Xena in Callisto's body clashed with Callisto in Xena's body and defeated her. However, despite her success, she was trapped with Callisto's body for a while until Ares in a moment of annoyed generosity finally decided to reverse the condition.
Callisto would have stayed in the underworld if she had not been approached by Hera, the Queen of the Olympian Gods. Hera allows her to have her life back but only on the condition that she kill Hercules, her hated step-son, promising her immortality to terrorize Xena if she succeeded. Her time in the underworld by now had taken a bit of a toll on her life-force, and Callisto was seeing this as a step to regaining the godhood which Loki had given and taken from her. On Earth, Callisto poisoned Hercules mortal friends and relatives. (The accuracy and factual details of these events are inaccurate. By Callisto's lifetime, Hercules was already a god, having lost his mortality around 1250 BC. Either Callisto had poisoned his mortal descendants, or she had been sent back in time to when Hercules was still mortal. Since Hercules knew Callisto by reputation with Xena, these would have to be his mortal descendants than his immediate mortal friends and relatives). To cure his relatives, Hercules begrudgingly promised to lead her to a hidden location of golden apples on earth from which the Olympian gods attained the elixir of eternal life. One bite from a golden apple cure anyone of disease or illness, while an entire apple made one immortal and immune to death. Discovering the apples an an ancient temple, Callisto tasted one to regain her health and sanity then tried to kill Hercules, but he imprisoned her in the temple and took the rest of the apples with him to cure his relatives and friends of the poison.
Trapped underground, Callisto lost her sanity again and would have remained trapped had Xena not released her against her better judgment as an ally against the Amazon princess Velasca, who had acquired ambrosia, the foodstuff of the gods. Having eaten a portion of the ambrosia had made Velasca a god. Callisto went along with Xena to help her, but only to get a hold of the ambrosia herself to regain the godhood she had once held. Fighting Velasca on a rope bridge on a river of lava near Mount Olympus, Callisto acquired the ambrosia and gained godhood to slay Velasca, but then Xena cut the ropes to the bridge and dropped Callisto into the lava, which unable to destroy her kept her imprisoned.
After several attempts and failures, Callisto was losing touch with reality and becoming impatient and reckless to even herself. During her time imprisoned, Gabrielle, Xena's best friend, had been seduced by a demon and gave birth to a half-demon off-spring named Hope. Hope frees Callisto and sends her to try and kill Hercules by going back in time to keep him from being born by killing his mother, but Hercules' best friend, Iolaus, follows along to stop her, possibly casting the time-traveling spell awry. Callisto and Iolaus instead turn up in Cirra at the moment in time when her family is killed and as she tries to warn her family of Xena and kill Iolaus, but in doing so, she discovers that she herself was responsible for killing her own family with fire, trapping her in an endless loop of hatred and malice. To add insult to injury, Iolaus risks his life to rescue Callisto's younger past self. This realization drives Callisto further into despair. Returned back to her own time, she begins contemplating her own destruction to end her own misery. Hope promises to help kill her if she will protect her as she transforms into an adult, a form which resembles Gabrielle herself. While protecting Xena, however, Gabrielle sacrifices herself to kill Hope. Seeing Hope destroyed gives Callisto a chance to remake her life over and pursue another path. Xena, disgusted by her happiness and distraught over losing Gabrielle, slays Callisto with a dagger tipped in the blood of a Cernithian Hind, a stag sacred to Artemis, whose blood is reputedly fatal to the Olympian gods. (In some accounts, Callisto is killed by one of Hercules' arrows tipped in the blood of the Hydra.)
Although deceased, Callisto appears to Xena as a manifestation of her guilt in the mystical realm of Illusia, a region of the dreamscape in astral space formed by the collective consciousness of human beings. This, however, was not the true Callisto. Dead once more, Callisto's spirit is rejected by Hades, considering her more trouble than she was worth. Because of her alliance with Hope, she is condemned to Hell where she becomes a demon herself. She is briefly allowed to return to Earth, but only if she can corrupt Xena into taking her place without hurting her. Callisto instead uses Xena's own chakram to break her spine and leave her vulnerable to the Roman armies. After Xena and Gabrielle are crucified by the Romans, Gabrielle turns up in Hell and Callisto tricks her into eating the food of the dead, causing Gabrielle to become a demon herself. Xena leads the archangels of heaven to rescue her and in order to do so, she has to take Callisto's place in Hell. To rescue Xena, Gabrielle has to forgive Callisto for the murder of Perdicus. In doing so, Callisto finally becomes a pure spirit at peace with herself and her past, devoid of pain and internal torment.
Xena and Gabrielle are
eventually returned to life through the healing powers of Eli, a member of the
Early Christian Church. Callisto appeared to Xena one more time as a ghost on
Earth to apologize one last time for all the torment she created. Having
imparted part of his life-force into Xena to resurrect her, Eli mystically
renders her pregnant with child. The unborn child is Callisto's way of making
amends for Solon's murder. For the unselfish act, Eli renders Callisto's soul
into the child that she will begin her life reincarnated anew as Eve, Xena's
daughter. Later named Livia, Eve has none of Callisto's memories.
Height: 5' 8"
Weight: 125 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Blonde
Strength Level: Unrevealed, Callisto possibly possessed the normal human
strength level of a woman of her size, height and build who engages in extensive
physical activities. (The typical Olympian goddess has superhuman strength enabling her to lift
(press) 25 tons under optimal conditions.)
Known Superhuman Powers: Callisto possessed some but not all of the
conventional physical attributes of the Olympian gods. She was immune to all
Earthly diseases and resistant to conventional injury. If she were somehow
wounded, her godly life force would enable her to recover with superhuman speed.
It would take an injury of such magnitude that it dispersed a major portion of
her bodily molecules to cause her a physical death. Unlike the gods, Callisto
does not seem immortal nor does she possess superhuman strength. Her Olympian
metabolism provides her with far greater than human endurance in all physical
activities. (Olympian flesh and bone is usually about three times as dense as
similar human tissue, contributing to the Olympians' superhuman strength and
weight.)
Callisto also has the ability to channel and manipulate
mystical energy as the Olympian gods do. The form this energy takes usually
taking a form representative of the personality or aspect of the nature of the
Olympian god involved. In Callisto's sake, she can channel and project flame and
sometimes short burst of electro-static energy in the form of small lightning
bolts. While not as powerful or adept in her godly powers as the Olympian gods,
she has been able to best Ares in battle.
Abilities: Callisto is an accomplished warrior on par but not equal to
Xena; enough that she can also hold her own against Hercules.
She is also an accomplished swordswoman.
Limitations: Callisto is schizophrenic and borderline psychotic, capable
of uncontrolled bursts of anger. She also has bouts of depression and malaise.
She is also vulnerable to substances which would be poisonous to the Olympian
gods, such as the blood of the Cernithian Hind (aka Cerynein Hind).
Comments: Callisto was created by Rod Tapert and Sam Raimi; she is not a
mythological character.
Callisto was portrayed by actress Hudson Leick (born 1969).
Although there was a mythological Callisto, the Callisto of the Xena TV-Series bares no connection to that character whatsoever. In addition, the idea that the blood of the Cernithian Hind is poisonous to the Olympian gods is also a modern-day invention. It bares no relation to the actual mythology of the Olympian gods.
Thanks to Galen Blackpool for his contributions to the
accuracy of this profile.
Clarifications: Callisto is not to be
confused with:
Last updated: 02/24/08