In a Time of Ancient Gods: The Xena Podcast
A Xena: Warrior Princess rewatch podcast! Join Justine and Hayley as they research the truth behind myths, histories, and characters we meet in the Xenaverse.
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In a Time of Ancient Gods: The Xena Podcast
Forget Me Not
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Gabby goes on an inner journey and MEMORIES ARE NOT DREAMS! MEANWHILE Justine & Hayley rewatch Xena Season 3's "Forget Me Not" and discuss Mnemosyne , the Goddess of of Memory!
Visit out Patreon for Justine's research on the Rivers of Hades
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Record, we call record, record, record, record, record, record. Do do do do do. Hello! We are in a time of ancient gods, the Xena podcast, and we are re-watching every episode of our favorite TV show, Xena Warrior Princess. And we are researching the myths, the heroes, and the themes we meet in the Xenaverse. I'm Justine, and with me is my co-host with the Mohost. Oh, that's me, Haley. Hi, Haley. Hi. Top of the episode, let's plug our Patreon. Over at our Patreon, we post screenshots for the episodes, our research references for every episode, and little mini sodes with extra research. There's a link in the description of this episode, but you can also go to our website. Oh, what is that, Kim?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I think it's at inatimeofancient gods.com.com.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, over at our website, in a timeofancient gods.com. We have links, descriptions to every episode, info on all the research from every episode, and links to our little shop. We have a little merch shop. We have cups and totes and stickers. Lots of fun stuff.
SPEAKER_00I love stickers. I love stickers. You can stick them anywhere. In fact, I need a new sticker. Mine peeled away, and I've got to re-refresh it. Just the one on a water bottle or something? Uh uh yes, no. It was on my phone.
SPEAKER_03Yes, no, and yes. Oh I thought I don't I forgot that we were even talking about our podcast stickers. And I was like, what sticker could she mean?
SPEAKER_00That's where my head is.
SPEAKER_03What have you been up to, Haley? What have you been doing?
SPEAKER_00Well, just this morning I went to the dentist. Oh my god. I had gone about a month ago. And then about three days later, my filling just popped right off while I was flossing, which is just a nightmare experience in getting older.
SPEAKER_03And um, did you swallow it? I didn't see it. Thank God.
SPEAKER_00It came off in my hand and when I was flossing my teeth. And I was like, This is definitely my filling. And so I called them and they're like, we can see you in three weeks. But luckily it was not painful. So I went back this morning. It was smooth, easy. They told me that happens all the time. And I said, Does it? And then they numbed up my mouth and my nose, which is somehow still numb, and uh told me that my teeth won't hurt anymore. So I'm feeling optimistic. I can't believe you're doing two things in a day.
unknownI know.
SPEAKER_00I even dropped kids off at school.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh, three things.
SPEAKER_00Three more things today. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Count them.
SPEAKER_03I am just so traumatized from dentist appointments. I am uh just hats off to you, sir. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00This is my second time going into a new dentist where they were like, You're gonna need lots of fillings. And I was like, Yes, okay. And then I go in and they're like, We don't have a lot of time to do all your fillings, so just wrap them up quickly. And then one falls out. This has happened to me two times now. Oh my god, you need a different dentist. Two different dentists, but it's all fine. It must be more complicated. I just close my eyes and try to breathe deeply and make it through.
SPEAKER_03My thought was like, I don't know, just never mind. Just keep in trouble. Like, what are you like, what are you like putting out there that all these dentists think they can just push you around?
SPEAKER_00I'm trying to be friendly, approachable, no, not raise their hackles.
SPEAKER_03You gotta be assertive, Haley. I know you don't have the time.
SPEAKER_00I don't have the dime. Last time they were like, We're you really don't need Novocaine for a filling. And I was like, We're not doing that. That's I would like the Novocaine, please. Yeah, I don't care what you think is gonna happen in my mouth. Just for my comfort, I'd like to know that my mouth is gonna be entirely numb. You don't want to feel any of what they're doing. No, I want to be basically asleep. They also have a great like screen that doesn't really play anything. It's like kind of a loop of like a calming background. That's nice. So on one of them it's a beach scene, and on the other one, it's like a cafe. And at the old dentist that we used to go to for my kids, they had like a movie you could play. It's like a whole movie. Yeah. And um, and so they would watch whatever they wanted on the movie. And then here we went with my little one, and he was very good at the entire like teeth cleaning part. And then it was time to go, and he was like, I just want to see what's gonna happen on this beach. Because it's like just waves and like a couple of chairs, the ambience, like yeah, no. I was like that's all that happens, man. That's all it's what it's all about. Just sitting on the beach and relaxing.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I love it. Uh well, this has been um dentist talk.
SPEAKER_00That's that's our dentist hour for the year, hopefully.
SPEAKER_03Um my god, yeah. I hope you don't. I yeah, I cracked a crown like six months ago and I haven't been back.
SPEAKER_00It's not really an emergency with dentistry until it hurts, I feel like. Well, yeah, until yeah, whatever. Whatever. We don't know. We live in this xeniverse where dentists don't exist.
SPEAKER_03No, yeah. We don't need a dentist. Um, if anything happens, Zina will take care of it.
SPEAKER_00She's just gonna take care of it.
SPEAKER_03She's our dentist. That would be great.
SPEAKER_00Zina's the only dentist I trust.
SPEAKER_03Gonna chakram in there and pop a tooth out.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_03Uh I read a really good book lately. Um it was called Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran. It's a horror story that takes place in this all-girls school in England in the 1920s. It was super spooky. The narrator was really great. Uh, she was really angry, which I love an angry narrator. Sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it dealt with like themes of isolation and grief and queer identities and spiritualism, just like all stuff that I love reading about. And it had some really scary moments. Highly recommend.
SPEAKER_00Ooh, I can't wait to check it out. Spoiled milk.
SPEAKER_03Spoiled milk.
SPEAKER_00I've been reading about Napoleon, which is less fun. So I'm gonna check out spoiled milk next. Check out spoiled milk.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was a fun, it was a really quick read. Yeah, it's been nice like peppering the history reading with some uh just fun fiction.
SPEAKER_00Cool. Great. I wish I'd had that playing in my ears today during my dentist appointment to get back to dentist talk.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry, I tried to steer us away, but we we We're always coming back. All right, well, that sounds like a great activity. Okay, I do want to ask though, were you um listening to your own things with a dentist?
SPEAKER_00I thought about it, but I was just listening to the dentist's conversation, which is slightly anxiety creating, but it was fine. It was fine. Okay, okay. We're all okay. We're grounded. We're grounded, we're here, everything's fine. I am clutching in my claws right now my Xena figural mug. And she is slightly warm to the touch.
SPEAKER_03Mine's cool. She's been she was hot like two hours ago, and now she's just uh an oat milk tinted pool.
SPEAKER_00I like that. I have um a kind of like a lukewarm latte in here, which is very comforting. And it's keeping my hands warm while I drink it. So that's getting me really ready for today. Today's uh we're on track. We're on track. We've accomplished some things already, and we're ready to dive into this episode.
SPEAKER_03Let's do it. Who are we? Where are we? We are in season three, Forget Me Not. Right. This was written by Hilary Bader. We've seen her work this season and been there, done that, and the quill is mightier, and we'll see her again this season. Oh. So, like, we we love her take on the Xenaverse, we love her like relationships between Xena and Dami. This was directed by Charlie Haskell, who directed season two's Xena Scrolls, another episode. Uh, and we'll see Charlie again in season six. And uh, I had a little joke where I wrote, Lil ClipEpp Charlie Haskell. That's what they call him. Thought you'd like that his middle name.
SPEAKER_00They call me Lil Clipe. Charlie Haskell.
SPEAKER_03It sounds like just a little rascal, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So this originally aired March 8th, 1998. Okay. And the IMDB description tortured by the things she has done and suffered in the last months, Gabrielle decides to come to the Temple of Nemesene, the goddess of memory, where she could forgive all these memories. However, it has a price. She would also have to renounce the good memories, including Xena. Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00I'd say like B. I definitely got bored somewhere in there. Yeah, no, I gave it a C.
SPEAKER_03I thought it was like so boring.
SPEAKER_00I was definitely zoning out for like at least three seconds out of that 10-second description.
SPEAKER_03Talking about it and zoning out. It was yeah, I can't. Uh okay, so the TV guide description. Yeah. Haunted by images of the past. Gab goes to the Temple of Nemesis to forget her painful memories.
SPEAKER_00Also not feeling I think it's I was excited about the Gab abbreviation. Yeah, yeah. Same, same, same. I was thinking, ooh, they're taking a excited. But they then did not follow through. I thought they would use that extra word space to give me a little more texture to the ep.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, we're not impressed with TV Guide or IMDB, but they just don't get this episode, man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they don't understand what's going on. There's a lot to go in.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So the big bad. Well. I mean, it's Gabby. I think it's Gabby.
SPEAKER_03100% Gabby. She's up to no good in this episode.
SPEAKER_00She's up to no good. I tried to be gracious though, and I said it's also our inability to face our own dysregulated selves. Yeah, that's okay and the harm that we can cause when we refuse to welcome them in with understanding and love.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it's definitely Gabby, but it's because she's doing this thing that like.
SPEAKER_03But also, I mean, like, if into the nitty-gritty, you can explain away any bad behavior.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So basically Gabby. All right.
SPEAKER_03Um, but this is also okay, but uh to add a little like precursor or whatever to the episode. I this is I I learned so much about Gabby in this episode. There's through this journey, we will have infinite compassion for her. This is not just gonna be a Gabby hating episode for everybody out there. So of course. Okay, so what uh what gods?
SPEAKER_00Well, we see Aries, although he's not truly we'll get into it in the episode. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's we see Aries and we see Nemazine. Nemazine, goddess of memory.
SPEAKER_03Love it.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03We have some villagers, but only in memories, only clips of previous episodes. Clip villagers, which is just a shadow of the village, really.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Ghosts from the past. Ghosts in her shell, actually, of villagers. Exactly. Dr. Zina, I would say a therapist Zina.
SPEAKER_00Therapist Zina, yeah. She's taking on a new specialty. She's in her psych rotation.
SPEAKER_03Uh cult watch. I major cult situation here. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Dungeons. Not really.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, just the ghosts. Yeah. Just Ming Ten Ming Chen's dungeon in the past. We see that. Uh Love Interest. Zena all the way. Yeah, Xena and Gabby. Yeah. With each other. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sorry.
SPEAKER_03I was in Gabby's paint today. We were like, yeah, we we're all in love with Xena, right? It's always Zina. Is that wrong? Okay, so research for today. Uh Haley, what did you research?
SPEAKER_00Oh, today I researched Nemazine and her ritual manifestations. The cult of Nemesine. And I'll bring in a little bit of poetry too. Oh, Tini is tinted.
SPEAKER_03Oh, and I researched the rivers of Hades, this like darkness of the mind. And then I'll be posting that research on Patreon, but talking a little bit about it here. Great. Okay. So we're diving in. I'll take a little sip of my Gatorade.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you have Gatorade and an oat, lukewarm oat milk.
SPEAKER_03And a bottle of water and with a sticker on it. You're ready for the day. I'm I got my three required drinks. Okay. So this is mostly a solo Gabby episode. Lucy Lawless isn't really in it until the end. And confession, I don't think I've ever seen this episode.
SPEAKER_00I agree. I feel like when we had those disc sets, we skipped right past it because it's Gabby centric and clip. And that was us in, you know, give give us a little grace. That was us in like 2004, 2005. We were like Gabby's age at that point. Exactly. You know, so we were making mistakes. Yeah. We were just like Gabby in this episode.
SPEAKER_03And yeah, I think since we've we've done like 63 episodes of this podcast, basically right now, or 63 episodes of the show. Um, and I'm feeling pretty foolish for judging Gabby so much. Yes. And only like now realizing she hates herself more than we ever could. Oh, yeah. Well also like Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's just how essential she is for the show. Like, why was that not in the forefront of our minds?
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_03Because we're blinded by Xena at all times, as so many of us are. I know. Um, and so I hope that all the Xenites out there are just like laughing at us for having completely missed this narrative arc for the last 30 years.
SPEAKER_00We were but children, tiny, small children, forgive us. I'm so glad we're doing this rewatch of the podcast.
SPEAKER_03Uh okay. So we start off in Gabby's trauma dream. She's remembering having to kill her own demon daughter after her demon daughter killed Zina's son. After Zina had told Gabby to kill her demon daughter. Right. Because she's not a daughter, she's a demon. She's a vessel. She's a vessel. We come out of these nightmares. We wake up, we're in the woods. Gabby's sitting on a log and having this like total active trauma response. Right. Tormented, responding to these memories as if they're happening now. And Joxer comes running out of the woods and butts his head on a tree accidentally. He falls over. And the tone juxtaposition of this episode is just like really all over the place.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, he stumbles in, he's kind of goofy, goofy joxer mode. His hair is all mused up, and he just wants to be a goofy friend right now. Yeah. And he stumbles up. And Gabby is totally, yeah, in her own world and distressed.
SPEAKER_03And then he's like asking if she's okay. She's not. She's um talking about how her grief is killing her from the inside. She starts to walk away from him and he stops her and he says, Hey, I don't know what's going on, but maybe I can help.
SPEAKER_00Which is so I loved Joxer in this moment.
SPEAKER_03In this moment, yes. Later he does some questionable things, but I think he's he cares about her.
SPEAKER_00In this moment, it was very relatable. It was like one of those friend moments where you're feeling super guilty or uh like goofy, and then you jump up and your friend is like crying and you're like, oh. It's like when I accidentally was climbing up a slide with a friend in kindergarten and we were using a bungee cord, and I let go of the bungee cord, and then it sliced open her eyebrow. And I thought she was laughing, but she was not laughing. And it was okay because it didn't go to her eye, but it Oh my god, I remember this. Yeah. So traumatic. Who gave you guys a bungee cord? They were just around, and her parents were very responsibly like, oh, we needed to put those in a different spot. They were very nice about it. They were like, did not yell at me somehow. Yeah, that's nice. They my mom came and I just remember them being like, Yeah, I guess bungee cords really aren't for playing. I was like, Yes, I'm not for playing. I cannot play with them ever again.
SPEAKER_03I will never touch another bungee cord.
SPEAKER_00But anyway, that's just I was just like Joxer, and she was just like Gabby in that moment.
SPEAKER_03Okay, well, this is exactly like that. Okay, so we find out Gabby and Joxer are on their way to meet Xina at the Temple of Nemesine, the goddess of memory. And she's I think she's probably also like so activated by being this close to the temple. Yes, absolutely. Um because in like previous episodes it hasn't been this. I mean, it's been building with her, but uh it hasn't been kind of like a linear build.
SPEAKER_00She's probably like very thoroughly compartmentalized as much as she can after the Illusia episode. And she's like, yeah, either the kind of metaphysical proximity to Nemazine's temple or even just the knowledge that she's going there is like making her really anxious.
SPEAKER_03And I think I what I think the show is doing really beautifully, and we'll like keep talking about it throughout the whole episode, is that like healing is not linear and this, yeah, Gabby compartmentalizing um and just like telling herself that she's healed after going to Illusia and doing all of that. But there's no you can't just be healed once. You know, it's never a one and done. It takes so much time, you know. It's uh healing is a lifetime. So she can't sleep, she can't eat, she's just like living in her dark memories. And Joxer's love for her is just bursting out of him, and he's in pain because she's in pain, and she's just like she has to figure out how to fix what she's done. And she's really like mirroring Zina's journey here. You know, she's done all these like horrible things she doesn't know how to live with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh and she doesn't know how, you know, Joxer also is not really fully prepared to help her through that.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_00And she doesn't have any capacity to like tell him how to, like anyone could do that.
SPEAKER_03So but I think he's doing exactly what um he should. You know, he says, like, I don't know what's going on, but like I'm here. Yeah, right. You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00He's just like a little bit if you need me, and I'm gonna be there for you as you go through this as much as I can.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh so Gabby wanders up to a temple as if drawn by an invisible string. And this is the temple of Nemesisine. And the entrance is guarded by two sentinels who seem like 12 feet. They're very tall.
SPEAKER_00They remind me a lot of the Titans in previous episodes, which is kind of well, it's that it's that forced perspective.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00They're very super tall. The temple is kind of like a Star Wars style, like forest jungle enclosure with like a curved, slate-gray, domed roof with thunderbrush everywhere.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's very, it's uh yeah, sort of disguised like part of the scene. And these sentinels are wearing these like soft buttercream satin robes. They're very stoic, they seem sort of unfeeling, unaffected by the world around them.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And Gabby's trying to get their attention, asking what she's supposed to do, if she's supposed to leave an offering, uh, but they like won't engage with her. And a woman exits the temple. She's so out of it. She's like stumbling into Gabby. She's wearing this beautiful orange dress, and she seems kind of like this, you know, blank slate.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03Right. She's like, Do I know you? Who am I? And Gabby's like, Oh, what's this? Yeah. Am I interested in this?
SPEAKER_00And she's like, she doesn't remember anything. So Gabby's like, Oh, you saw the priestess of Nemesine, didn't you? And your memories. And we can tell they're like totally gone. Like, she's not even knowing who she is at this moment. Or where she is.
SPEAKER_03And as the woman descends the stairs and walks away into the woods, the sentinels speak. The priestess will see you now. And I think these guys, I think, are my scene queens. Like they really stole the show for me. And then Gabby goes in, the door shut behind her, and Joxer's watching from the bushes. Yeah. And, you know, erasing the pain of memory comes with a price, maybe. Is she prepared to lose everything? She says she is. She says she is.
SPEAKER_00And this is where we're getting the hint that she's still in a lot of internal pain that she hasn't been able to deal with through the entire process.
SPEAKER_03And this makes me uh just wonder about like, you know, repressed memories and bodies holding trauma and like total memory erasure if like her body, if I mean, in in the Xenoverse or in any universe, whatever, if the if your memory was totally erased, would your body still hold that pain?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. You've do you kind of well, you do hold a lot of trauma in the way that you feel about moving through the world and things. So sometimes a distinct memory isn't as significant as like a history of experience or something like that. But I don't know. I don't know enough about it. But she's still I mean, she certainly has all of her memories. Memories conscious with her too. And she's holding that along with the kind of bodily anxiety that she has going into the temple.
SPEAKER_03And she's and as Gabby enters the temple, we come to the credits.
SPEAKER_01We do.
SPEAKER_00In a ton of ancient gods. She smiles. We love it. She smiles. We love it. Chris in a safe place. We know Zina's like somewhere in the background. She's gonna take care of it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So it does. Do you want to hear about Nemazine before we get into this entire episode about her?
SPEAKER_03Desperate too. I wish we could have spent so much time in this temple.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. I know. It was a great temple and a great topic. And I, as always, was very impressed with the research that went into this episode. Can't wait. So I'll have a sip of water and then I'm gonna start talking.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I will also sip uh my Gatorade. I'll drain my Gatorade. Drain the gate.
SPEAKER_00Drain the Gate. All right. So I'm gonna start with a poem that came up when I was searching JSTOR for nemazine.
SPEAKER_03Ooh, okay.
SPEAKER_00And it's by Kate Raven. And I think it's very recent, 2025 or 2026. And it's called Nemazine. Ooh. And it goes like this Night Whisperer, your hair's tangled skein of silver brushes our brows, and the past comes crackling back, each jolt of joy or pain as fresh, as strange as when it struck us first. Daughter of thrumming earth and voiceless sky, flame keeping saint, yes, and two timing slutnacle shedding snake and butterfly at once or farmer sowing rose of doubt. To Zeus you bore the nine unparalleled each in her sphere, an icy cool girl click. Like cats, they shift to shadows when they're called, then sidle up, their angle the oblique They take their shine from you, bringer of light, or blinding gloom, silk strong until the clock strikes twelve on winter's shortest night when you disband like winds swept sand once rock. So that's Kate Raven's nemozine.
SPEAKER_03Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00What I like about that is it evokes kind of the motherhood of Nemesine. So she's significant mythologically because she's the mother of the muses, the nine muses. Muse and ass, yeah. And uh she's uh born of uh Uranus and Gia. So she has kind of Titan ancestry or her parentage, and then she kind of incorporates uh many different aspects that I'm gonna talk about a little bit. So she's this Titan goddess, again, daughter of Uranus and Gia, um the goddess of memory. She's attributed as the inventress of language and words, a goddess of time, but also of rote memorization, of preserving history and myth. So she emerges in the literature as all of these figures, as all of these kind of associations.
SPEAKER_03I love her as like the mother of yeah, mother of the muses, mother of all these like creative forces, and thinking of like creativity as holding memory. And because when you do, you know, memorize poetry or memorize anything, you know, we're like activating our minds, activating all these things, and we're holding and carrying like all of humanity with us, and and the times before written word, absolutely. All we had were our memories, man.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, and I do love that her mythology founds that creativity in memory and kind of this connection, and that it's not creativity, isn't flighty in that way. Like these muses are not flighty, they're kind of grounded in memory and narrative and human history that is all of knowledge and language. Oh, I love her. I'm just like tingling her so much. I love her so much. Justine suggested this research to me. I was like, Great. Yes. I was like, you have to research your way up a little. So as the mother of muses, the father is Zeus, as kind of was suggested in the poem. But mostly she comes in as kind of this holder of memory and language and even logic to some degree in mythology and ritual. So in ritual, it seems like she comes into play often as the goddess of narrative or of making a mystical encounter readable.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So listen to this. Um you're gonna love this for this episode, by the way. I'm I'm just guessing electrified right now. So Stephen Ahern Krull wrote in an article about nemazine in Asclepius rituals, in the Asclipii. So these kind of temples are sanctuaries dedicated towards healing and the healing god Asclipius. Um, she is all often part of that ritual. And he argues that Nemazine, who received these offerings of cakes and honey directly before the ritual sleep in these particular sanctuaries, she was there so that people could remember and make sense of their visions. So you would have this kind of mystical vision, but you needed a deity to help you narrate it and incorporate it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And for the ill who came to these sanctuaries for healing, nemazine was there to help them remember their dreams, remember their visions given to them by Asclipius. Oh my god. Which is really interesting. Yeah. And this is a function that found repetition in other rituals. So Pausanias, the second century CE Greek geographer, described Nemesine as part of the ritual in an oracular temple to Trump Trophonius, who I had never heard of, but sounds very cool, also. He was like a hero or a daemon. And according to at least one mythological strand, he was like forgotten. And the oracle at Delphi gave a prophecy to someone that was like, You've got to go honor Trophonius because he's a forgotten hero, and he has this place where you have to go um celebrate him because he's angry that he's been forgotten and he's taking it out on you. Yeah. So he has this very, you'll see with the ritual, very conic oracular ritual around him in Boeotia. So in ancient Greece. So in this shrine, True Trophonius, that Pausanias describes, the supplicant eventually would be taken to two fountains or rivers, the first of Lethe and or Forgetfulness, and the second of Nemazine, which allows you to remember. Oh. And so the ritual begins as I will describe now.
SPEAKER_03Take us there. Take us on the ritual.
SPEAKER_00Just imagine yourself. You're walking up the bank of the river Herkaina, and you're coming upon a temple right on the bank where you'll find a maiden holding a goose in her arms. Why not? A maiden and goose. A maiden and a goose. There's no description about why she's there, but Well, I mean, there's always a maiden. Yeah, exactly. So inside you go in and there's an image of Triphonius that looks, it's after the likeness of Asclipius. So again, this association with healing. And even Pausanias is kind of like this is maybe an Asclipian temple, or it may be Triphonius, but they have this overlap. And there's also a sanctuary for Demeter and one for the Zeus rain god out in the open. So once there, you're going to prepare for several days. You're going to bathe only in the river Hercina. You're going to eat meat from the sacrifices to Triphonius and his children. You also make sacrifices to the Olympians and to the Titan Cronus. So again, this kind of Titan link that's connected to Nemazine also. And as you produce these sacrifices, a priest is going to divine from the entrails whether you're going to have a positive or negative reception from Triphonius. So once you are fully prepared, two young youths of citizens in the region take you down to the river Herkina, where you are washed and anointed with oil. Is Herkina the river of forgetfulness?
SPEAKER_03Or is this just a river.
SPEAKER_00Regular old river. Although there I think there's a nymph associated with it, too. Yeah. Of course. Bien sûr. And then so you're anointed and washed, and then you're taken by priests, not immediately to the oracle, but at this point you're taken to two fountains very near to each other. Here, you must drink the water called the water of forgetfulness, so that you may forget all that you had thought of before this. Then you drink of another water, the water of memory, which will cause you to remember what you see after your descent into the oracle. Okay. So it's this kind of forgetfulness and memory that we're going to see in this episode as well, kind of associated with drinking from these waters.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But here we're like, we're stepping, we're going into this trance state. We're stepping into this next layer. So we're having to relieve ourselves and then you know take upon this next, this next level of the existence. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00So you're kind of letting go of your day-to-day memory and awareness and taking on this kind of mystical memory to some degree by drinking from the fountain. Obsessed. So at this point, you're gonna be dressed in a linen tunic, my friends. Oh, okay. You're getting into your cultware, you've got some ribbons around your tunic and some country boots, apparently, or standard dress. And you go into a grove on the mountain. And as you enter into that grove, you're going to see kind of a circular basement made of white marble, about three and a half feet deep, as far as I could tell from the qubit measurement conversion.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00On the basement are spikes, and I'm gonna read this directly because I have no idea you can help me interpret it. On the basement stands spikes, which, like the crosship bars holding them together, are of bronze. While through them has been made a double door. So this may be on top, possibly, of the basement. Within the enclosure is a chasm in the earth, not natural, but artificially constructed after the most accurate masonry. The shape of this structure is like that of a bread oven. And here I think he's thinking of like a barrel cooker style that you can cook flatbread on the sides, because it you have an entry at the top, about six feet wide and twelve feet deep. They have made no way of descent into the bottom, but when a man comes for Trophonius, they bring him a narrow light ladder. After going down, he finds a hole between the floor and the structure, about twenty inches wide and ten inches long, so a little hole at the bottom. Yeah. The descender lies with his back on the ground, holding barley cakes kneaded into honey, and thrusts his feet into the hole and himself follows. So he kind of wiggles into this hole. Oh my god, that's this is terrifying.
SPEAKER_03You're just going into like the mouth of the earth.
SPEAKER_00Wait, holding honey cakes? Holding honey cakes. Uh-huh. You gotta bring the honey cakes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and we're making sure the honey cakes stay clean. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So don't give Trifonious dirty honey cakes. It's not gonna like it. Why is Trifonious in the hole? That's the type of question we ask in a horror movie.
SPEAKER_03We're not gonna get the answer here. Okay, yeah. No, this is a holy place. Okay, he's just and it's just his essence, you know.
SPEAKER_00This is a yeah, well, he's everything's a I mean, he's a forgotten hero from long ago. And so he is still going to this down there. He was really mad that people forgot about him, apparently.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so which makes sense. So then the space that he would be in would reflect his anger, I think. So where it's just this like nasty hole with all these spikes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's not an inviting space. So you thrust your feet into the hole and your whole body follows, trying hard to get his knees into the hole. After his knees, the rest of his body is at once swiftly drawn in, which is also terrifying. Just as the largest and most rapid river will catch a man in its eddy and carry him under. Yikes. After this, those who have entered the shrine learn the future, not in one and the same way all in all cases, but by sight sometimes and other times by hearing. The return upwards is by the same mouth, the feet darting out first. I don't know how that happens. Because I was imagining dropping down, but I'm I'm thinking maybe.
SPEAKER_03I mean, if it's like a bread oven, it would be. I feel like it's not a top-down barrel.
SPEAKER_00It might be, yeah, like you're inserting yourself into the oven. Yeah, it could be. But you have like the cav, you have the basement, then you have the cavern, then you have the little space.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So we're really going deep in the earth.
SPEAKER_03We're going deep in the earth, but also like we there's no way to get this um oracular knowledge without having some kind of test. Yes. Like you have to put yourself through something to get there. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And so after you come out, the inquirer is then taken again by hand by the priests who will sit him on a chair called the chair of memory, and they invoke Nemazine there too. And it's not far from the shrine, and they ask him, when seated there, all that he has seen or learned. And after gaining this information, they then entrust him back to his relatives. These lift him, paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and his surroundings, and carry him to the building where he lodged before with the good fortune and the good spirit. So they kind of carry him out to where he had been preparing. And afterwards, he will recover all his faculties and the power to laugh will return to him.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. I wonder what psychedelics were in those um.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, who knows?
SPEAKER_03Something something was going on.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's certainly it could just be even sensory deprivation, because it's you're down in there, and you know, maybe some of the rivers that you would drink from, which is interesting.
SPEAKER_03It does seem, yeah, like a sensory deprivation tank for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That sounds exactly like what that is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're like fully immersed in darkness. So here we have again this kind of use of memory to decipher the mystical experience. Like the man himself, the supplicant, can't even vocalize what he's been through or what he's seen. But as Ahern Kroll describes in the Asclipia rituals, Nemesine here plays a role not only of like memorization or you know, what we think of rote memory, but of incorporating trauma or the mystical or the supernatural or even nonsensical experience into a narrative.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00She's ordering, she's reasoning, she's healing, in that she allows this creation of a story out of terror. So it's a really fascinating place for memory in ritual life that I think helps us understand also why our memories are so essential, why memory is such an important part of our own creativity and human experience.
SPEAKER_03And then in this world, this just makes you think about AI and how horrifying it is and how we're just actively giving away our humanity and just actively giving away everything that makes us human and makes it worthwhile to be here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, if you think about what this says about deep human understanding of creativity and creative process, it's you can't neglect knowing things. You can't give the knowledge over to something else and expect to have the same creative process.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. The knowledge and the interpretation and the sitting with our own fear and discomfort and uh just how important um the emotional body and the physical body are to memory and are to just what it is to be human. Oh my gosh. Just like Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh kind of makes you want to go in a strange sensory deprivation tank.
SPEAKER_03I want to go to the Temple of Nemesis so bad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know. I'm like, does it does it still exist? I didn't look it up to see if it because I was like, no, had no idea how to find it. But um, if you know where it is, send us a link and we'll we'll share the more research after this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because it's very I mean, it sounds incredibly interesting, this process of descending down into this very distinctive but man-made space. I think it's interesting too that it's like considered a man-made space that's like a bread oven over a hole in the ground, but it's not really a hole because it's like the space between the construction and the ground. And I'm very interested in troplonius? Was that the troflonius? Trophonius. I'll spell it out. Spell it for me. I'm sure there are multiple spellings. Let me find it up here. So that okay. T-R-O, P H O N I U S. Oh, that's how I spelled it.
SPEAKER_03Just my handwriting was scribbly.
SPEAKER_01Okay, great.
SPEAKER_00So that's that's kind, I mean, that gives us a really good sense. I don't know how the writers for this show had enough time for all this stuff. No idea. I have no idea. Did someone just know? They just I was telling my husband about this, and he was like, Who are the writers for this show? I was like, they were great, they just knew everything. Hilary Bader, man.
SPEAKER_03Hilary Bader knows everything, she's our queen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So it's very cool. So in this episode, we're gonna see a lot of these themes recur. And I love also this idea of memory and healing that they're bringing to the forefront in this episode and in Xena in general.
SPEAKER_03In general. And uh, we're just we're obsessed with the show, if you didn't know.
unknownYou couldn't tell.
SPEAKER_03So now in the Xenoverse, yeah. That was our universe. Thank you so much, Haley. That was amazing. You're welcome. And now we're going into the Xenoverse, into that temple. We're in this giant room, not a lot of natural light. No, it's kind of blue lavender silks cascading from the ceiling, lit candles everywhere. It feels very airy and watery, very next to it.
SPEAKER_00It's like lapis lazuli stones on the ground across everything. There's like an indigo altar. There's an interesting like lots of ceramic bowls lining the altar and some candles. And I noticed that the candles are dangerously close to some diaphanous curtains. They're just unconcerned about it. Unconcerned. There's enough like watery atmosphere that they know it's gonna be safe.
SPEAKER_03Okay, fine. Gabby walks along to the center pathway towards the altar at the back of the room, emanating this light. She drops to her knees and dresses Nemesine. And we hear this like disembodied voice respond. And the voice knows Gabby. It knows that she's haunted by her memories, and that Gabby wants to understand why she can't let this go. And the priestess steps out of the shadows. She's been there the whole time. Oh my gosh. And she is beautiful. She's lovely. She's wearing these like flowing, rich cerulean blue dress, a matching silk veil has been like sewn into the back of her hair. Yes. And the priestess explains that when people enter the temple, their memories become nemes and by extension belong to the priestess. And she's speaking in metaphors, very poetic, about memories being like a body of water. So it's inside a memory, we're in all of it. And she walks over to the altar and is talking about these bowls and how these bowls are holding all these memories. And we see some acolytes appear with a vessel. And then, unlike in King Khan, we're seeing all these acolytes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're here. The ones in King Khan were hiding. These ones are out and about. They're kind of a little bit bored, a little bit anxious, and they're kind of perfectly enacting like the awkwardness of being a young support person in a public-facing position.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. It was really fantastic. Obsessed with them. And we learn that there's one bowl filled with every memories of every person who's coming. And Gabby's going to take a journey through her memories. And then once she finds her answers, she'll have to decide whether to keep her past or lose it all. So the bowl will hold her memories while she's deciding. And if it's emptied, her memories will be lost. Yep. And she's, you know, Gabby's adventured through dreamscapes before. We've gone through the subconscious. But the priestess assures her this is nothing like dreams. Yeah. And we really feel for her. We've been that young person whose heart hurts so much we wish we could cut it out. But time and love are the real healers, Gabby. We'll see if you know what we learn here. So Joxer's outside the temple trying to get in. Uh the guards are not into his jokes. He's just like cracking them left and right. And one tells him, You can see her when she comes out. She's with the priestess of Nemesis now. And Joxar says, Oh yeah, well, um, I got news for you. I'll be back. You're both on my list, and I'm not taking names. He laughed.
unknownMade me laugh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the guards are like the guards of Buckingham Palace. They don't crack a smile. We don't even know if they have names. They're part of this nemesine cult. Who knows what their background is?
SPEAKER_03No idea. Uh so joxer climbs up a tree to see what he can see. Uh, we go back inside the temple. The priestesses are chanting, and oh, did I love this scene? They're like high priestesses holding her hands out over Gabby as the acolytes are bathing her in oils. We're imagining sandalwood, patchouli, vetiver. Everyone smells amazing. We see Joxar up in his tree. He can see into the temple and he sees them like working this ritual around Gabby.
SPEAKER_00It looks very relaxing, quite honestly. There's like a lovely music. Oh, really? I was like, oh, that looks relaxing.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I was like, oh, they're like they're preparing, they're building the energy. Where is Gabby gonna go? They're like preparing her soul to leave her body. Joxer.
SPEAKER_00Joxer was also getting an intense read on this situation. He's very concerned.
SPEAKER_03I was concerned too. He's desperate to save her. He calls out to her and then falls out of the tree, runs back to the guards, and he does this like misdirecting bit. And then when they're distracted, he throws sand in their eyes, which was a really good tactic. I was very impressed.
SPEAKER_00He says, I will destroy you with the ultimate power. And he throws the sand in their faces.
SPEAKER_03So good. So he runs past them, makes it inside, right as Gabby falls to the ground. You know, and I'm imagining Joxer's terror. Yeah. You know, Zina's nowhere around. He knows he's like not Xena level capable. Yeah. Uh and it's up to him to save Gabby. And there's no one else to do it.
SPEAKER_00Zina's, I mean, he loves Gabby, and he also knows Zina's gonna be back very soon. And like is not gonna be happy about Gabby being just totally out of it, at least in his estimation of Reed of the Room.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Zina's not gonna be happy about this. No one's happy about it. But she's Gabby has left her body. Yeah. Her body is just an empty shell. Joxar's mad at everyone here who isn't Gabby, he scoops her up. And since he's in the temple, the priestess has access to his memories too. And she knows that he loves Gabby and is saying, like, if he loves her, he'll let her have the chance to let go of pain. And it's just like, ugh, it's just super icky. And he's just yelling at everyone. Yeah. No one tries to stop him, and he just carries Gabby out of the temple. And he says, Well, I can make her forget. I'm a very forgettable person. Uh and the tone, it's just all over the place. The tone's really wild in this episode.
SPEAKER_00I like we don't really know why Joxer's doing this. Like we kind of do. I guess because he knows she can get pulled into cults, but like she seems kind of fine besides like being totally out of it. She's dead. I mean, at this point, she's passed out. Like he seems like she's like she's mid-ritual. But he carries her out of there.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I see why Joxer's doing it. I think it's like he knew his friend was in complete distress. That's true. Yeah. And then these like people he doesn't know have taken her soul.
SPEAKER_00I guess that's a little bit distressing.
SPEAKER_03All right, I'm not that. So we cut to the vision quest. Gabby's in a cave. Oh, yeah. So Vision Quest Gabby is in a cave. She's wearing the sheet from the bittersweet when Zina dragged her out of the Amazon village and tried to kill her. There's like kind of uh smoke descending from the ceiling. We're in like a very atmospheric cave. And as she's poking around, she comes to a little river and she starts to dip her hand towards the water, and who pops in warning her not to do that? It's Aries. It's been so long. It's been so long. It's been so long since he's been in an episode. He has like long curly hair, a studded vest, and just, you know, our uh in a time of ancient gods, obligatory Aries disclaimer. Haley and I know that there are a lot of Aries haters out there. We respect you. Uh we know he's done awful things. Uh, and we know our love for complicated and cruel men is problematic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But I mean, the charisma is just undeniable. It's undeniable.
SPEAKER_03It's like the most charismatic. Um, and also at this time, I'm wondering, it's been 11 minutes and 11 seconds into this episode. Uh, and no Xena.
SPEAKER_00No Zena. And we're like, I don't know what's happening. Thank God Ares is here, because that means Zina is not far behind.
SPEAKER_03We're we're untethered, we're stressed. So Aries is taunting Gabby about having anxiety and depression and claims he's there to protect her on her journey. He's like, I like you after all. And remembering like the last time we saw them together, uh, they had that bonding moment in the Quilla's Mightier when they were realizing they were both so in love with Zina and they were like talking about how cool she was. Yeah. We loved that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We're like, okay, you both love Zina. All right, great. But Gabby's not convinced by Aries' like assertions that he's there to help.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_00And she's a little out of it, but she's not that out of it. And she's like, I think you're here for your own reasons, not here to help me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, and but he tells her that this water feature river she's come upon is called the River of Wailing, the first river she'll meet. And so uh I researched these rivers. It's gonna be over on Patreon, and they correspond with the mythic rivers of Hades.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_03So if you're interested in learning more about these metaphoric rivers of the depths of the heart and mind, you can check out our mini episode. There's a link at InatIme of Ancient Gods.com. Oh, great. So Gabby steps into this river, and as she descends into it, we hear screams and wailing. They're getting louder, and then we hear these sounds are layered with um positive Zina singing these funeral deer to stuff, and it's just haunting. Totally. Aries sort of disappears. Gabby's in it now. She dips her hands into the river, splashes her face, she's remembering. And we go to her memories of the deliverer episode where Gabby's like losing her blood innocence. And then her memories take her to when she made that choice of letting Crassus die and when in Rome. And she's just like, Who have I become? You know, by my hand, so many have perished.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she's feeling super guilty. And meanwhile, like the water looks very dirty and boiling. We're very concerned about walking through this water because it does not look safe.
SPEAKER_03No, it's yeah, it's nasty. It's uh, you know, a physical manifestation of grief and screams. Like anger. Totally. She makes her way out of the river of whaling, pulls herself to the opposite riverbank, drenched in blood. Uh, she screams and falls to the ground.
SPEAKER_00Commercial break, go get your snacks. Pick up a little snack, snack pack.
SPEAKER_03And we come back, Gabby's wandering through a new set of ice caves. She's no longer covered in blood, but she's freezing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's like snow caking, the stalactites and stalagmites. They're just very, very chilly looking, to say the least.
SPEAKER_03And we come to this next river, river number two, which is the river of woe. Uh, and then we check back in with Joxer and the Gabby who's forgotten everything. They're walking through the woods, and this Gabby is present, kind of dreamy, doesn't remember anything of her life, uh, but she can walk and talk, and she keeps calling him Jerkster instead of Joxer.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Like my mom would love that joke.
unknownJoxer.
SPEAKER_03Uh, he tries to remind her of who she is. He's like, This is your staff. Here are your scrolls. Yeah. He's goofing around, trying to get her to remember their relationship. Right. And decides to read her her good memories back to her from the scrolls, kind of avoiding the bad stuff. And so he pulls out Sins of the Past scroll, number one. And he's like getting pretty concerned when Gabby doesn't even recognize her hometown, Podotia. Right.
SPEAKER_00And at this point, Joxer is offering like basically the same thing as Cave Aries, which is like just forget the bad stuff. Good point. Good point. Remember the good stuff. And that's all the processing you have to do. You don't have to do anything else. So we're not getting a lot of like successful solutions from either of these men in the episode at this point.
SPEAKER_03No. Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. So we go, yeah. So we cut back to Gabby and the world of her mind trying to cross an ice bridge. We can hear it cracking. Aries pops in and he's just like hella condescending, going, Wow, doing great. And he and he's seeing the analogy for what it is that the water, you know, representing our torments. The ice is this thin layer of control that we'd like to believe we have over ourselves. But what happens if the ice cracks, Gabby? She tumbles into her memories of the debt, where she betrayed Zina in China. And we're reminded of Zina promising Lao Ma she would kill uh Lao Ma's son, Ming Tian, and Gabby betraying Zina with her decision to stop her. And Gabby remembers Zina talking about her and Lao Ma's love. Yeah. They could fly together. Lao Ma was magic and taught Zina to believe in herself and what love and kindness could be. And in this episode, I'm like really seeing uh that whole storyline from Gabby's young person perspective. You know, her feelings of betrayal that Zina would throw away their entire relationship for her memory of another woman, like this dead woman who Gabby couldn't, who never met, couldn't meet, could never compare to. It's like very Daphne de Maria's Rebecca.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. Absolutely. And also like that, that she's just learning about this relationship at this point, too, where she's been feeling like she was doing all of that work and not recognizing, or Zina not letting her know that she's been through something similar before, that level of betrayal, too.
SPEAKER_03So dark. And Gabby's like just punishing Zina for this, punishing her for um like not loving Gabby with her whole heart and being like the only true love she ever had. Um, but not consciously, but it's definitely there. Yeah. So Gabby pulls herself out of the water, Aries helps her, then he zaps a little fire pit for her to warm up by. He's laughing, loving it, yelling about how pain is just nature's way of saying, hey, you're alive, accept it. Mm-hmm. And then Gabby thought she had come to terms with her betrayal. Right. Getting Xina thrown into Ming Chan's prison. She hadn't realized it fully and she'd let herself believe that she'd come to terms. And Aries is like, you're a smart little girl, but being super infantalizing and awful. And then he's trying to convince her to turn around and go home. Yeah. He says he's there to save her if anything happens, but only if it doesn't bother her to owe a favor to the god of war. So we're thinking about this.
SPEAKER_00Um giving some little hints, trying to kind of trigger a memory. Yeah. And uh she's trying to figure out a way out. So she's like, I think I think I dealt with it. I think when I visited Xena, I was able to like see, and now I know that I can deal with my problems. I'm gonna try to go back.
SPEAKER_03And so she falls into the water, tries to turn back, but her memories aren't there anymore. And then she's freezing. This is like Titanic style.
SPEAKER_00Is anyone alive? Is anyone alive? Yeah, she's getting trapped under the ice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, very dangerous. And now she's tormented again, pulled under, and the ice reforms over her and seals her in as Aries laughs. She breaks free, gets back on land, and she's absolutely frozen. And then Aries is just like, cool, great, whatever, stay here forever, die, then disappears.
SPEAKER_00Just trying to help.
SPEAKER_03Classic. Back in the woods, Joxer and Shell, the person Gabby, are talking again. She's still calling him Jerkster. Uh and Joxer's on task. He's explaining Gabby's life to her, how she and Xena wander around helping people. Joxer's, and he's trying to manipulate her into loving him, too. So he's like had this opportunity. He's retelling the Callisto episode where they first met, but making it seem like he was the hero. Right. Uh, and she asks him to sing the Joxer the Mighty song again, and he's like, but you hate it. No, wait, you love it. And she like leans her head against him, and Joxer is like happy and sad. Yeah. It's a bittersweet moment. And it's like riding that consent line that feels, you know, very troublesome. Yeah. But in 1998, I think this was supposed to read as romantic, but it's kind of hard romantic and sad.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's hard because she's not really present the entire way, but yeah, it's also fairly. I mean, for those of you who may not have watched the episode recently, it doesn't feel like icky and disgusting or something. It's kind of like childish more than anything.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, it feels, I mean, the thing about often with this show is like since the female characters are so strong, there like isn't that power dynamic of being like coerced into anything really? Like we know that they're always going to keep themselves safe. Um, so it's physically safe, except in certain situations. But um, I don't know. It's yeah, it's just it doesn't read like that so much. Okay, so we go back to Gabby's inner dimensions and we come to the third river, a river of flames. She's crossed through the icy halls, and we've entered the room of fire. She's calling out to Aries, uh, and he's playing devil's advocate. He's asking if this is all worth it, if the quest for knowledge is worth the pain. And it has to be worth it, because otherwise, what's the point of living? It's true. So Aries says, like, there is no point. That's why you're in so much pain. Nothing matters. Gabby thinks something has to matter. So she and Xena were lost, but they went to Illusia and Solon guided them back to themselves, and we're transported to our memories of Illusia.
SPEAKER_00I mean, if you've been guided by Solon to Illusia, it's hard to think that nothing matters at that point.
SPEAKER_03You right? I guess, but then you know, when you kind of move past that and then she's still like having a hand in killing people, I think that's also like adds to the layer of like when you have come to these like monumental conclusions and you think you found the meaning of life, but then you have to just keep living and stuff keeps happening. That's true. It's yeah, like, oh, you just gotta keep learning it. So we sing, we sing the hatred ghost song again, which is not the song I would have chosen. Very long. They do the whole thing.
unknownThey should.
SPEAKER_00I'm like, we're gonna include all three minutes and 50 seconds in this song or whatever it is. I know.
SPEAKER_03And we learn to move through hate and we learn to love again. And you know, the big message of this episode is that healing is iterative, not linear. Gabby's gotta give herself grace for relapsing into her pain and trauma. You can't just go on a metaphysical inner soul journey and like snap, you'll be cured. Right. Yeah. Uh you have to go on a lot of metaphysical inner soul journey.
SPEAKER_00You gotta do that hate song like at least three or four times. You do you're not gonna love it after time one for sure. I mean, the thing is, uh, you do.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So Gabby's still struggling with whether or not the pain is worth it. Intellectually, she knows it, she's unsure, blah, blah, blah. Um, so she steps into the fire river. We're transported to Gabby's memories of Zena saying goodbye on her way to China. And that moment, Zina said she would throw away all her time with Gabby for what she owes Laoma. And a memory is revealed to us we have not seen before. When Gabby left the dock and Zina sailed away, Aries appeared to Gabby. What did they discuss? What has she forgotten or repressed? She's tormented, burning, engulfed in flame. She can't even look at this memory. And she has to walk through the fire. Yep. She makes it to the other side, not ready to reveal the rest of it. She slams her fist on the ground, shooting flames from her body and the earth, and she recognizes this Aries for like what he actually is now. He's just a part of her psyche.
SPEAKER_00Which is so fascinating that she's manifesting Aries in this particular form as part of her. Oh, it just makes so much sense.
SPEAKER_03I don't know. This episode is so good. Yeah. And he's like, Yeah, maybe I am just a part of your psyche, but you can't defeat your own guilt. And then she summons her staff out of nowhere and fights him, screaming. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Uh, and then we go back into Gabby's memory. Yep. Zina has sailed off to China. Aries is in the little fishing village, chatting Gabby up, telling her she's second best. Zina doesn't care about her. How does it feel to be second fiddled to a dead woman? And Gabby's like acting empathetic, saying it's Zina's choice. She can't make her do anything. She's her own person. And Aries has like clearly realized that the way to punish Zina for not loving him is through using Gabby to execute his will. So they're all just living in this horrible cycle of pain and punishment for oh, it's so good. Yeah. And he's convincing Gabby that Zina wouldn't go through all of this for her. Gabby gave up her family, her home, her blood innocence, her baby, all for Xina. And it's not enough to be number one in Zina's heart. And Zina, oh God. And then Gabby makes a deal with Aries.
SPEAKER_00She does. He offers to get her there faster than Zina. Because we all were like, how did Gabby get there so fast? And make a deal with Mingtian before Zina could even arrive.
SPEAKER_03Ugh. And Gabby comes to terms with what she did and why. And she wanted to betray Zina. She hated Xina for loving someone else, wanted her to hurt. Uh, and then her hatred and jealousy almost killed her. And this like young Ian parts work archetypal projection Ares stands up, turns to her, and she's like, There's your answer. Uh, you know, you made the choice on your own, made a deal with Aries against Zina. Can she live with it? But did has Ares ever called in the debt? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00I don't think so. Well, I we'll have to think. Well, we haven't really seen him that much lately. I don't think we've well, of course we haven't. He hasn't, because we haven't seen this memory yet.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_03But we'll keep it. But for like yeah, for Gabrielle, this like you know, peacekeeping bard to owe something to the god of war. Absolutely. That is soul crushing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh and also like Xena's enemy. So now she's we know that she's like harboring this guilty debt. It's a second.
SPEAKER_03Gabby and lover. Oh god. Yeah.
unknownIt's just so good.
SPEAKER_03Um okay, so the bowl of Gabby's memories appears on the little plinth. And Aries picks it up and offers it to her. So she has the choice of drinking her memories from the bowl, memories of everything, her family, her loves, the betrayal, all of it. She could drink it or she could just dump it out. And Aries says, Bottom line, Gabrielle, you won't miss what you never knew. And she takes the bowl, kneeling before the river of fire. And the imagery in this episode is just really top-notch. We cut back to Joxer and the shell of Gabby in the woods. He's finished up telling her about her own life. I mean, he's clearly made a lot of it up. The shell of Gabby is convinced she's in love with Joxer, says she wants to remember her life. She jumps on him, they start making out, uh, but he stops her before it goes too far because he clearly feels a lot of guilt and confesses he's elaborated and lied to her, even though she doesn't even know what a lie is. Uh and he confesses that he'd basically written himself as Xina in all the stories. And which is just like Gabby and Zina are so in love. Uh and Joxer very sadly realizes he wasn't a part of her happy memories. But that's a big part of it. Like he loves her being mad at him and giving him a hard time, and that's their relationship. Right. He doesn't want Gabby like this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. He wants an authentic person, not his made-up, you know, pygmalion. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03Uh so he stands up, takes a few steps away from her, telling her to forget everything he told her, except how that she used to dance in the nude in the rain. And she walks up to him and twists his ear because Gabby's back. She drank the ball of her mind. Yay, Gabby. Uh, and then she kind of like three stooges, grabs his nose, furious about his like dancing naked in the rain comment. And he says, Gabby, you're back. And I think this is the maybe the only time someone's called her Gabby.
SPEAKER_00Oh, really? I think we'll have to drunk it now. TV Guide called her Gab. Oh now.
SPEAKER_03Maybe they were inspired. They're like a doxer, did it? We hear a voice like a rainbow off the New Zealand coastline. Oh my gosh. Yes, she is.
SPEAKER_00Oh, finally. Zita fast. Oh my gosh. She was just waiting in the wings. She knew Gabby had to go through this on her own. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03And she figured Aries had helped her out, helped her get to China so fast because Gabby talked in her sleep about it. I was like, Zina. I know. And then Zina starts to cry. Gabby starts to cry. Zina's so glad Gabby came back and chose her life. And she's not even mad about any of it because Zena is the best.
SPEAKER_00The best. And it is all in the past. I mean, that is like, you know, our memory of Xena time like 10 years ago. Time is meaningless in this universe, but it feels like an eon ago. They've been through so much since then.
SPEAKER_03So time is meaningless all the time. Am I right? You're right. And Gabby's like, if I didn't have the painful memories, I wouldn't know what the good ones were. Uh I couldn't let go, Xena, no matter what the pain. And Joxer says, Hey, aren't you forgetting about me? And Zina says, No, Joxer. Not even Nemesine could help her with that. And they smack him and clean up their scrolls. I'm glad they clean up the scroll. Yeah, I was worried.
SPEAKER_00He was a pretty good friend this episode. I mean, I think the manipulative memory thing was regrettable, but in general, I liked the way that he took a break and paid attention when it was clear that Gabby wasn't doing well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think Joxer can see what's really going on in situations.
SPEAKER_00And and I mean he got her out of there.
SPEAKER_03He did. Did what he could. He just did what he could, and he didn't put himself in danger.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And we're so happy Zina's back. And we're so intrigued by her listening into this entire dreamscape and her sleep Gabby's dreams.
SPEAKER_03I know. Oh my gosh. I'm just yeah, and it was it was very um just evocative imagining them like sleeping next to each other and then Zina just like quietly listening to Gabby while she's sleeping and sleep talking, and just the pain in Zina's heart and her coming up with this whole plan to take her to the temple.
SPEAKER_00I know it's great. Zina. And also, like one thing that's nice about the like joxer manipulative retelling storyline is that we get a hint of like how deeply, as you were kind of saying, Gabby and Zina were in love. And yeah, like clearly, even though this is a clip episode, it like evokes a very rich subtext for their relationship in love.
SPEAKER_03Completely. Yeah. And in 1998, I think it was a like beautiful way to just layer their romantic love by showing the like kind of foolish version that Joxer was trying to have. It was really beautiful. What did Zina learn?
SPEAKER_00Um, she learned that Gabby betrayed her on purpose, is what I wrote down.
SPEAKER_03I was kinder. I just wrote what's up with Gabby. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03She learned the full story there. She learned the full story. Um, what did Zina teach us?
SPEAKER_00She taught me that if you never sleep, you can hear your friends' secrets.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's true. I wrote that there are some battles we have to fight ourselves. And life and love aren't just about happy memories. We gotta be honest with the people we love. True. You can really appreciate. Do you ever talk? Do you talk in your sleep ever? I've never heard anyone say that I talk in my sleep. I used to talk in my sleep, but I don't think I do anything. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, you did. Well, just chat boxing. I can imagine it though. I swear I haven't been listening. I haven't been listening.
unknownBoo.
SPEAKER_03Okay, who's your extra Oscar?
SPEAKER_00Ooh, uh, the Acolytes.
SPEAKER_03Same. Yeah. Yeah. Chanting, preparing. The chant was really cool too. I rewatched the episode this morning and I was like, I gotta remember this chant, and then I couldn't remember it. But it was like some a language I couldn't quite recognize. It didn't sound Greek. But they were just like chanting chant chant Sybil Award for the Xeniverse recurring actor.
SPEAKER_00Do we see any? Well, besides the clip. I was just waiting for you as if I didn't have it written in front of me.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry. Totally rely on you for the Sybil Award.
unknownSorry. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So um, Jan, it's not as exciting, but I I think it's exciting to us. Okay, Jan Hellrigal as Priestess Nemesine. We've met her before, says IMDB, as Hesha earlier in the season in Warrior Princess Tramp, but Hesha was the goddess. So I'll have to like rewatch and figure out exactly what they mean.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And so this I think will be our vote. Mark Webley was one of the guards. Yes. And we met him before as guard number one in season two is a necessary easy. Oh, great.
SPEAKER_00He's a guard guy. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, call him back in. We got some guards. We know him.
SPEAKER_03Uh so I feel like he's a double, he's a heavy hitter in this episode. Yeah. Because also Scene Queens for me was the guards. Yeah, I'd say so. They would have stolen the show even if like we had more cast members.
SPEAKER_00I mean, just the fact that they are on the clip in the preview for the show. You took the words right out of my mouth. I mean, that's all we need to recognize what episode this is. You base there's basically no other like extras or other people who come into the episode.
SPEAKER_03So but it's the Xeniverse, and they hit every Xeniverse note that Haley and I needed. Oh yeah. Absolutely.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03Were they on Star Trek? Our girl Hillary Bader wrote for Star Trek, DS9, TNG, and Voyager. Oh, I just love her. Uh were they in Lord of the Rings? No one beyond the like usual suspects, nothing super exciting. Uh, but Gabby moments. Weird Gabby moments.
SPEAKER_00I uh I just love that her dark side took the shape of Aries.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh I think I liked in the end when she recognized her dark side. Because I think we've seen part of what we've gotten frustrated with with Gabby in the past is her kind of willingness to like her seeming naivety.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's refreshing in this episode to see her be like, actually, sometimes I can be petty also. And I need to like recognize that those moments exist and are part of like my history and my expression in the world, and that I can deal with that. I can have that be part of me without hating myself.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. That's such a huge part of growing up, is recognizing like what we hate in others was like what we hate in ourselves. You know, like it's always be don't be quick to judge because you might be the one doing it. Yeah. I really loved her like breaking free from the rivers of ice and fire, love being inside her inner world of crisis and salvation. Yeah, loved her using Aries as personification of her own self-loathing, and how she still owes him something that's weighing on her. And oh, and I I loved just I just loved all the dynamics. I love that Aries playing second fiddle to Gabby, you know, making sense that she would conjure him in kind of the spurned lover headspace because she's like seen that play out between Zina and him. Love this like 30 years later gift that you and I had never seen this episode. Yeah. Um I love, I love that it was a really great therapy episode. I think it's um such a great example of caring for your own mental health and how we can support people who you know, can support people we care about on their own mental health journeys. Uh, like we can't ever fight the fight for them, uh, but we can make space for them and their journeys and be there on the other side with open arms, just like Selena. Yeah. And I think it is such a beautiful lesson. Like, where do you see this on TV? This like metaphoric journey to the soul.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Especially with like the mythological undertones and overtones that you can kind of connect with a deeper history.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And like, and that's what myths are for, you know, myths and storytelling are for telling this human experience and telling us how to get through these dark nights of the soul.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it's makes me think so much about AI stuff. And like, you know, I think like AI is a tool and it has a place. Uh, but when we're using it to replace creativity and replace our own memory and replacing um just any kind of simple recall or editing or anything is just really dangerous. Yeah. Because we need these stories.
SPEAKER_00Well, it is kind of like Gabby, as a storyteller, has told all of those scrolls or her memory that she was relying on a memory, like a narrative that cut out this crucial moment in her and Xena's history. Yeah. And to heal, she had to bring that back into the story and kind of rewrite the story so that she can fully trace the line instead of having an absence and kind of this neglect there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And it's and also a part of her stepping into like being this you know main character in her own life and being a hero and a major player in this healing of the world, or healing healing of this universe, is her having to not be an unreliable narrator and actually take ownership of what she's doing and see herself for what she really is. And she's not just a step apart observing everyone and documenting everything. She's actually, you know, all of her actions have consequences on her and the greater world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think that's what makes this like an episode where we see Gabby as the villain in the episode, but also an episode where we like sympathize really deeply with her. Because I think also part of the, as I was mentioning before, part of like the animosity that we probably felt towards her watching these episodes the first time around when we were like 12 and 13, is we didn't recognize the character development in Gabby. I at least I think I missed it as a young kid. Yeah, I completely missed it. And so, like here we get to, especially because we skipped over this episode.
SPEAKER_03Um stupid like there's no way we would have understood it.
SPEAKER_00No, we would not have understood it as little kids, whatever, maybe teenagers. But like here you get to see her depth of character, too, that you don't get to see in every episode.
SPEAKER_03And so, you know, like it's hard to appreciate Renee O'Connor, so talented. Yeah. It's just her ability to just, I mean, every single emotion, she just nails it. Every action, she nails it. She's just such a such a force. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was a great episode and very yeah, very meaningful for our moment, but also just for the general place of memory in our lives. Go memorize a poem. It makes me want to memorize my second poem in my life.
SPEAKER_03The best one I have is a jabberwocky. Great one. Yeah. Should I do it?
SPEAKER_00You can do it. There's no time limit. There's no time limit. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Twas brillig and the slyly toes did gyre and gimbal in the wave. All mimsy were the bore groves and the moam wraths outgrave. Beware the jabberwock, my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch, beware the jubjub bird, and shun the frumiest banders snatch. He took his vorpal sword in hand, long time the man's own foe he sought. So rested he by the tumtum tree, and stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, the jabberwalk with eyes of flame came whiffling through the bulgy wood, and burbled as it came. One two, one two, and through and through his vorpal blade went snicker-snatch, he left it dead, and with its head he went galumping back. And hast thou slain the jabberwalk? Come to my arms, my beamish boy, O frabueus day. Kalu, Kalay, he chortled in his joy. Twas brillig and the slithy toaves did gyre and gimbal in the wave. All mimsy were the borough groves and the moamrath's outgrabe. Don't memorize a poem, everybody. Don't memorize a poem. Isn't that delightful? Oh, so fun. Uh, so if you like what we're doing here, give us a review. Share episodes with your friends, check out our website in a timeofancientodds.com for links for our Patreon, merch on Teespring. And uh stay tuned for our next episode, or it's gonna be goofy. Finns, Femmes, and Gems.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. All right. That's why we skipped this episode. I know. We're like, we just gotta get to Finns, Femmes, and Gems.
SPEAKER_03That's our favorite. Oh my gosh. Okay, thank you all so much for listening. You're all amazing. We really appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00We love you. We love you. We love Xena. We love that we get to share this with all of the Xenites.
SPEAKER_03So nice. So great. All right, until next time.
SPEAKER_00My filling just popped right off while I was glossing, which is just a nightmare experience in getting older.
