Body Versus Spirit in the Xenaverse

In Xena: Warrior Princess, we have seen numerous shows where a spirit is in a different body, or actually invaded another's body, welcome or not. My point is this: whatever body that is doing the action, that body IS the Person whose body it actually belongs to. The residing spirit, even more than one, is just along for the ride. Originally, I thought that in Intimate Stranger, where Ares switches Xena's and Cellist's bodies and minds, the girls were really the ones who did the action....as in Intimate Stranger, the Xena-body killed Theodorus...Callisto's spirit was in it at the time.

BUT, in Day in the Life, we see that even Xena does not believe that. Gabby has her typical "who am I?" guessing game with Xena to pass the time as they walk into another adventure. Gabby asks if it is someone who XENA killed. Xena says "yes"..Okay, Xena admits that SHE did it...not Callisto. At the end of the episode, Gabby cannot stand the not-knowing.Xena says that SHE killed Theodorus. Gabby says "but Callisto did it"...Xena:"Yes, but she was in MY body at the time."

So, the BODY is the determining factor.

Let's face it…Xena cheated while playing Who Am I? With Gabrielle. Gabrielle opens her mouth to protest, but they are interrupted by the noise from outside. Xena could not have been aware that her body was used as the instrument to kill Theodorus unless she was told about it. She wasn't aware of his death. Case in point, Ten Little Warlords, in which Ares tells Xena (in Callisto's body), that he enjoyed having sex with her physical being, even if her spiritual being wasn't involved. Xena's response? "Remind me to take a long bath when we're done here."

Besides that, Xena's very statement "SHE was in my body at the time", says loud and clear to me that Callisto was responsible for Theodorus' death. Xena's body was merely the murder weapon.

Scientifically, Xena (as we all are) is made up of a double-helix of DNA, the building blocks of life. If they had a laboratory as we do today, even though Cal's spirit was in Xena's body, the evidence would show that GENETICALLY Xena is the person...nobody else could have her genetic makeup.

I can't argue with genetics, but I can say, although the DNA may point to Xena, a brain scan would prove differently. A simple personality test would be all it would take to prove that it might be Xena's physical shell, but it's definitely not her spiritual, emotional, or intellectual being.

I have seen in other shows the following:

Xena's spirit was in Autolycus in THE QUEST. She invaded it without his permission, so that he could steal the Ambrosia to bring her back to life. We are never told how Xena or Velasca know where this Ambrosia is.

The location of the ambrosia is pinpointed on the map that Xena insisted Autolycus steal while procuring the dagger of Helios.

She told Gabby that she was "not completely dead"....she was wrong. She WAS dead. Ambrosia, from what the show has told us, makes a LIVING person a GOD, and a dead person ALIVE again.

This is very confusing. Xena's body was dead, for all intents and purposes, but her spirit didn't seem to be. She was apparently wanting to enter the afterlife, but M'Lila convinced her in Destiny that it wasn't yet her time.

This entered Gabby's body in the rope fight against Velasca, too.

But both Gabrielle and Autolycus were not capable of the moves Xena accomplished while in their bodies. In both cases, the host had to allow Xena to take control of their movements, and once they did, Xena was able to adapt her "many skills" to the new temporary body.

She entered the little girl's body,a-la-Aphrodite,in LITTLE PROBLEMS.

She was in the Callisto body in INTIMATE STRANGERS and TEN LITTLE WARLORDS.

In each case, due to DNA evidence, Xena was along for the ride when in Cal, and actually controlled the bodies of Auto, Gabby, and the little girl. We see that more than one spirit can reside in a body.BUT,in each case,Xena was NOT the person she was inside of.

In Cal's body, it was STILL Callisto...Xena's spirit just used it as a vehicle. She had reminded Gabby that Cal was in HER body when Theo was killed.

Other examples: Cal was in Xena's body in Int. Stranger and Warlords.STILL, genetically,the body WAS Callisto.We are what we are made from...the cells,genes, and amino acids make us US.

Once again, the cells and genes may say Callisto, the thought patterns, emotions, and memories are all Xena's. The mannerisms are Xena, the stoicism and calmness. And when Gabrielle demands whoever is in Xena's body to tell her what her dreams about, Xena's body cannot. It takes Callisto's body, with Xena's spirit inside to answer that question. It's the spirit and the mind that makes the person, not the body.

Tataka invades Gabby in Devi...why did Xena try not to kill Gabby then, if the body WAS Tataka? Xena put out the fire so Gabby's feet would not burn on the coals. Even though Gabby's spirit was still in her body, wasn't it still Gabby? If we are to assume the spirit inside IS the person, this position fails.

To me, we're talking about a different kind of "spirit in body" experience here. This is demon possession, which is a documented fact. It DOES exist, and the stronger the demon, the stronger its presence in the host body. Xena putting out the fire was to protect Gabrielle, whose mind and body were still as one piece. Tataka had inhabited Gabrielle's soul though, and was using Gabrielle's body as a vessel in which she could carry out her nefarious plans.

In MOTHERHOOD, we see the three Furies enter Gabby's body...now there are four spirits in there. Which one is Gabby? Isn't it HER BODY which is Gabby? It is not each of the Furies...they cannot claim genetically to BE Gabrielle.

Once again, it is a case of possession. In this case, the spirits aren't speaking to the people around them; instead, they are influencing the person whose body they inhabit. I don't for a moment think Gabrielle is responsible for the attempt on Eve's life. It is the Furies making her see things and convincing her that she is doing the right thing. In this case, Gabrielle is being used as a puppet.

We say that Xena was "in" Cal's body and Cal was "in" Xena's body: That means that they were NOT the person, which by biological makeup could not be the person the spirit is.

Another weird composition is in SUCCESSION when Mavigan fights both Gabby and Xena per Ares' orders in another dimension. We see now that two bodies can be merged, with the spirits either in them or not.

Darkness has Gabby look like herself...Xena is a day-person. Physically speaking, we are to ignore that the mass of two bodies into one is not a problem. The body then would have to weigh around 300 pounds, right? Meanwhile, how can Xena or Gab's spirits be isolated in the cave watching a screen of what is going on in the fights with Mavigan? How does this happen if the are merged? When day and night change, the body is seen to re-mold itself to appear as Gab or Xena.With the actual mass and weight as a factor, how do they move, and why are the spirits separated?

Y'got me on how this situation worked, although, I don't really think it had anything to do with spirit sharing necessarily. It was more a case of only one body being in Mavican's world at any one time. It seems to me that it more of a case of how Ares was able to accomplish transposing the bodies so easily. Yes, the bodies seemingly morphed into one another, but was there really a question that when the black-haired one was fighting it was Xena, and if it was a blonde, it was Gabrielle?

If the spirit IS the body, which I disagree with, there are more examples:

Ephiny,in LAST OF THE CENTAURS asks Gabby's permission to appear to her son,Xenan.ASKS...Xena just went ahead and went into bodies at will. Was it still Gabby then or was it Ephiny? What happened to Gabby if this is true?

Who sang the Amazon lullaby to Xenan? Gabrielle or Ephiny? I say it's Ephiny, but Gabrielle's spirit was in Gabrielle's body the whole time. I guess I'd say Gabrielle was being used as a puppet once again, albeit this time the ventriloquist was a friendly one.

Multiple spirits cannot be the SAME person, because of the DNA.We are all unique(discounting twins).

There is also Xena's nemesis, Alti. Alti takes Xena's baby's "life force" or Spirit.it seems to be used interchangeably. She reached into Xena's body in the spirit world and took the ball of light which was to become Eve, and swallowed it. Why didn't Eve die then...we have seen that when a spirit leaves a body(as in Ides of March) that person is DEAD.

Not necessarily…if the spirit doesn't enter some form of afterlife, then I don't think it's too late for it to reunite with its body. That's how Xena's spirit was able to come back in The Quest.

Aphrodite, in Little Problems, takes Xena's spirit and puts it into the little girl's body. Why didn't Xena, and her baby, die then? The SPIRIT IS OUT OF THE BODY....death!But,no...a slip-up in the show.

True, Xena was locked up in Tartarus in Intimate Stranger and Ten Little Warlords, but was she dead? No. Her body's state took the place of Daphne's in Little Problems, that is, it entered a coma. However, due to Aphrodite's ineptness, Xena's spirit didn't enter the coma, instead, it was put in Daphne's body…in a sense, it was another form of possession. It was a very WEAK premise, at best.

Xena has to ask the girl to let her do certain stunts, when in the past, Xena just takes over.

I respectfully disagree. She asked Autolycus to let her have control over his body…they reached an agreement. And she probably didn't have to ask Gabrielle, but if so choosing, Gabrielle could have put up a struggle and Xena controlling her movements.

Was Xena then the girl, because her spirit was in there? Where do the invaded bodies' spirits go when someone else usurps their bodies? Is there an infinite capacity for spirits to be in bodies not their own?

In conclusion, we have seen that spirits move in and out of other bodies, BUT DO NOT BECOME that person they invaded. Multiple spirits in one body is a confusing thing, and when Cal and Xena's bodies/spirits are switched by Ares, GENETICALLY they are the same, in other words, Cal is still Cal,tho Xena is IN the body. DNA evidence shows us this. Our spirits may make us a personality, but as Xena had said about killing Theodorus,"she was in MY body at the time". Xena's body is her physical-chemical makeup. In Send in the Clones, even a strand of hair MADE IT EITHER XENA OR GABBY. There was no spirit in them at the time. They were jolted electronically and shown film clips to refresh memories, but even WITHOUT a spirit inside, as they were formed, they WERE their old original selves, genetically.

This episode never clearly states whether or not the Xena and Gabrielle that appear in modern times were the real deal, or merely clones. It would make more sense that they were clones, as the modern day counterparts are apparently Annie and Mattie. Clones would open up a whole other can of worms, but I maintain that Alti's Xena and Gabrielle are not the real Warrior Princess and Bard.

Point/Counterpoint
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