Running Home, Running Away, Running Together

One reason I have such a hard time writing consistently on environmental problems is that it is so bloody depressing. Sometimes I want to throw up my hands in despair and run away screaming. Of course, part of the problem is that there is nowhere to run, and in fact part of how we got where we are was by assuming that we could “externalize” costs and let other people “over there” pay for our wastefulness “here.” And often “over there” is the developing third world and here is the developed first world. Gotta love globalization!

But I was watching the first episode of the TV series Xena, Warrior Princess the other day and it offers some insight about when we can and can’t—and maybe even should and shouldn’t—run away.

The episode opens with Xena (Lucy Lawless) riding through a burned-out village, remembering its destruction. A boy asks her for food. She tells him no one has anything to spare, and asks what happened to his village. He says that Xena the Warrior Princess came down out of the sky on a flaming chariot and destroyed it, killing everyone, including his parents. She drops a package on the ground and rides away. He opens it to see bread and cheese. In the next scene she strips off her leather armor and buries it and her weapons.

But almost immediately a ruckus ensues. A warlord and his minions are gathering villagers to sell as slaves. Dressed only in a linen shift and boots, Xena fights them off, first with her bare hands, then with a sword she takes from a minion, and finally with her weapons that she digs out of the ground. She returns with the people to their village and puts her armor back on while a young villager named Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor) begs her to tell her how she did her fighting moves and Gabrielle’s father insists that Xena move on and not get their village in bigger trouble.

The episode is titled “Sins of the Past” and it is clear that Xena cannot escape hers.

As she prepares to leave, Gabrielle begs to come too, saying, “You’ve got to take me with you and teach me everything you know. You can’t leave me here…. Xena, I’m not cut out for this village life. I was born to do so much more.” Xena refuses and leaves alone, so Gabrielle packs her things and runs away to follow Xena. She uses her wit to elude a Cyclops and get a ride on the cart of a farmer so she doesn’t have to walk all the way to Amphipolis, Xena’s home town.

Back home, Xena faces the people who knew her back in her village-burning days and want nothing to do with her—even her mother. Xena’s former warlord partner, Draco, and his army have started a campaign of burning and pillaging in Xena’s name, so when Xena warns the villagers that slavers are coming and tells them to defend themselves, but they accuse her of building an army that will get their loved ones killed, as she did in the past.

The people of Amphipolis surround Xena, who puts down her sword and offers herself as “one unarmed woman” that they can feel brave enough to attack. But just as they are about to attack, Gabrielle appears and testifies to Xena’s reformed ways, causing the citizens to let her go, just in time for her to save them from the slavers.  

After winning the fight against Draco, Xena declines the reward of the villagers and moves on, but again Gabrielle follows her. She convinces Xena to take her along, saying, “I’m not the little girl that my parents wanted me to be. You wouldn’t understand.”

Xena replies, “It’s not easy proving you're a different person.”

And here we see their similarities and differences. Both perceive themselves to be something their families can’t comprehend or accept. Xena, because of her conversion away from her days as a warlord, is seeking redemption through helping the helpless. Gabrielle, who feels like more than a village girl destined for an arranged marriage, is inspired by seeing Xena who is larger than life. Neither woman can be who she perceives herself to be, not within the social constructs that surround her.

But together? That might be a different matter.

As they move off the next morning, Xena says, “You know, where I’m headed, there’ll be trouble.” Gabrielle responds, “I know.” Xena says, “Then why would you want to go into that with me?”

And Gabrielle give us the answer. “That’s what friends do. They stand by each other when there’s trouble.”

And so they give us the answer to my dilemma too. We can’t do it alone, any of it. It’s too troublesome, dangerous, or, at the very least, depressing. But with a few friends? A small cohort of folks who know what we are deeply concerned about and agree? Maybe we can stand by each other.

Just maybe.