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The Messenger
I'm a long time fan of the show Xena: Warrior Princess, and the character of Callisto, in particular.
To know more about me, you can go to my personal web page, Tara's New Thing.
Or you can check another web site I've put up for the Boise, ID chapter of the Camarilla, Shrouded Arbor.
Or you can e-mail me, if you must.
Other Callisto Sites
The Saga
Callisto
Episode 22
This is our introduction to Callisto, and her quest, to destroy Xena. Not wanting to have just some cheesy sword fight to the death, she decides to start with Xena’s reputation, destroying villages and claiming to be Xena. As a confrontation looms closer, she kidnaps Gabrielle and forces Xena to fight her. In the end, Xena sends her to prison.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- The first appearance of Joxer.
Significant Points:
- Callisto’s Motivation: When Callisto was a young girl, Xena’s army threatened her village. A fire broke out and killed Callisto’s parents, destroying her life.
- Callisto’s Integrity: Callisto has one mission in life, to destroy Xena, and she is willing to dedicate everything she is to that mission.
- Callisto’s Honesty: Even when it might serve her better to lie and pretend to be contrite, she can’t bear it. She wants Xena to suffer the pain of fighting an opponent with integrity.
Return of Callisto
Episode 29
Callisto escapes from prison and heads straight for Xena. She meets up with the newly married Gabrielle and Perdicus on the road, and kills him, knowing that to destroy Gabrielle is to destroy Xena. At the end of the episode, Xena lets her drown in quicksand.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- The return of Perdicus and the resolution of Gabrielle’s feelings for him.
- Xena’s willingness to let Gabrielle go as long as she will be happy.
Significant Points:
- Callisto’s Cunning: Callisto kills Perdicus, knowing that vengeance will kill everything good in Gabrielle, which will ultimately hurt Xena more than simply killing Gabrielle would.
Intimate Stranger
Episode 31
Callisto talks Ares into switching her with Xena. He thinks she’s going to work for him, like he wanted Xena to, but she has her own plan. She tries to corrupt Gabrielle, and to kill Xena’s mother and destroy her village. Xena manages a new switch, but it leaves her still in Callisto’s body, with Callisto, in her body, back in Tartarus.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- Xena’s horse, Argo, knows who Xena is, regardless of what body she’s wearing.
Significant Points:
- Callisto’s First Deal With the . . . War God?: This is Callisto’s first move into the major leagues, dealing directly with the gods. Only she and Caligula (last season villain) manage to get the better of the gods they deal with.
Ten Little Warlords
Episode 32
This isn’t really a Callisto episode, but it is notable because the actress who played Callisto (Hudson Leick) played Xena in Callisto’s body for the whole episode. The actress who played Xena (Lucy Lawless) broke her hip trying to do a stunt for Jay Leno, so they just decided to extend the body switch so they could keep filming.
Xena helps Ares recover his sword so he can be the war god and mortals can control their anger. She gets her body back at the very end.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- This is where it is confirmed that Gabrielle hates Callisto more than anything, even after she managed to move past wanting to kill her.
Hercules Episode - Surprise
Episode 54
Callisto poisons Hercules’ family, and blackmails him into traveling with her to the Tree of Life. She eats from the Tree of Life and becomes immortal, he takes the fruit home to save his family.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- This is the first Hercules episode Callisto shows up in.
Significant Points:
- Callisto and Hera: Callisto makes another deal with another god, and again, comes out further ahead than that god had planned.
A Necessary Evil
Episode 38
Callisto is recruited by Xena to fight Velasca, an Amazon princess-turned-goddess who wants to kill Gabrielle. She eats some ambrosia and becomes a goddess herself, but winds up trapped in lava with Velasca.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- This was the concluding episode of the trilogy that explained how Xena learned her famous neck pinch.
Significant Points:
- Callisto's Ambition: She only agrees to help Xena and Gabrielle in return for a crack at the ambrosia that brings godhood.
- Callisto's Madness: After being trapped in a cave with nothing but rats and darkness, her insanity is its own finely honed weapon.
- Callisto's Complete Lack of Compassion: When Gabrielle attempts to connect with her by asking her about her family, she answers her honestly and sincerely, and then retaliates by asking how Gabrielle felt after she murdered her husband.
Hercules Episode - Armageddon Now 1
Episode 77
Callisto goes back in time to kill Hercules' mother before he is born. Iolaus follows her.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- Ares hires Callisto again. The man never learns.
Significant Points:
- Callisto kills Strife. While he definitely deserved it, this in a way heralds the end of the Greek gods.
Hercules Episode - Armageddon Now 2
Episode - 78
Callisto goes out of control and winds up killing her own parents in the past. Iolaus fixes time.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- We get a good look at Xena before Hercules turned her to good. Mmmmm, nasty.
- This is one of the best Iolaus episodes. One man, just a regular mortal, saving the universe from the gods.
Significant Points:
- Again, Callisto never takes a job from the (other) gods without something in it for herself. This time, she plans to save her younger self, and when that goes awry, she tries to kill her younger self. It doesn't work.
Maternal Instincts
Episode 57
Hope, the daughter of Gabrielle and Dahak, frees Callisto to help her in her quest for domination. Callisto helps her engineer things so that she can kill Xena's son. At the end of the episode, Xena and Gabrielle are no longer friends.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- This is where Gabrielle's big lie about killing her daughter comes out.
- This is truly where Dahak gets rolling.
Significant Points:
- Callisto Vengeance Falls Flat: When Xena finds her son and screams, we cut to Callisto. Her triumphant look falls flat as she realizes that harming Xena won't deaden her own pain.
- The Tide Turns: After this episode, Callisto's focus turns from Xena to suicide. She has harmed Xena more than anyone can, but it still didn't help.
The Bitter Suite
Episode 58
Xena tries to kill Gabrielle, but they instead wind up in Illusia, brought there by Solan to resolve their differences.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- This is where Xena's big lie about not killing Ming Tien comes out.
- This is also the famous musical episode. 'Nuff said.
Significant Points:
- Callisto as Spirit Guide: At the beginning, before they go to Illusia, Callisto appears to Gabrielle in the Amazon sweat lodge. It's been debated: was she really there, or was she just an aspect of Gabrielle's vision? And why would Callisto come to Gabrielle anyway? Renee O'Connor said in an interview that Callisto has never lied to Gabrielle, and with lies and their terrible consequences as a major theme of this season, Gabrielle seeing someone who never lies would be ideal.
- Callisto's Place in the Tarot: This was not really a Callisto episode, except in the symbolism. Why is Callisto the Holy Fool and Guide in Illusia? See above for some analysis.
Sacrifice 1
Episode 67
Hope is not dead. She is cocooning until a sacrifice can bring her back. An old friend of Gabrielle's has volunteered to be that sacrifice, and Callisto has agreed to protect Hope, in return for death. In addition, if Xena kills Hope, the Fates will cut her lifeline.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- We meet another person from Gabrielle's villager past, Seraphin the sacrifice.
- Hope looks just like Gabrielle.
- Ares is now making deals, just like Callisto.
Significant Points:
- Callisto and Dahak: Dahak is the third god Callisto has made a deal with, but her first bodyguard job.
- Callisto wants oblivion as her reward.
Sacrifice 2
Episode 68
Callisto joins Xena because Hope won't kill her. Xena works a caper with Joxer so no one knows where the Hind's blood dagger is until it's too late. Xena tries to kill Hope, but Gabrielle rushes past her and knocks herself and Hope into a lava pit. Callisto laughs and says life has meaning, and Xena kills her.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- Joxer pulls it together to be the key figure holding the operation together.
- Gabrielle's harsh comment, when Hope is trying to reconnect with her: "Hope, when I poisoned you. . ." "Yes, Mother?" "I wish it had worked." Ouch, Mom!
Significant Points:
- When Callisto laughs and then Xena kills her: I can't bring myself to take that at face value. What if she was just provoking Xena to make sure she got her death? She seemed surprised, but not angry, as she died. I wonder.
The Ides of March
Episode 89
Callisto has gone to Hell. She makes a deal, and spends most of the episode making deals or trying to make deals, until the very end. As Xena tries to rescue Gabrielle from a Roman prison, she tempts Xena with an end to violence. When that doesn't work, she alerts the guards. When it looks like Xena and Gabrielle might escape, she throws Xena's chakram at her so hard, both the chakram and Xena's back break. Gabrielle abandons her pacifist ways in a futile attempt to save Xena, and they wind up crucified and dead.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- Caesar gets ganked by Brutus.
Significant Points:
- This is Callisto's fourth deal, with an unnamed presence. The Devil is implied.
- This is the first time Callisto out-and-out defeats Xena.
Fallen Angel
Episode 91
Xena and Gabrielle, now dead, wind up right in the middle of the war in Heaven. Callisto starts out as a champion of Hell, but becomes an angel when Xena gives up her grace for her. At the end of the episode, she helps Eli resurrect Xena and Gabrielle.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- This episode had more than its share of side characters, with Joxer, Amarice, Eli, and Michael.
Significant Points:
- Callisto the Angel: Now we see what Callisto might have been like if pain hadn't ruled her life. Strangely, she is still very vibrant and proactive, unlike most nice people.
- Callisto working for herself: Callisto the Angel does what she wants, when she wants to do, and doesn't bother merc-ing out to higher powers.
Seeds of Faith
Episode 99
Callisto shows up as Eli's Patron Angel. She guides him, Xena, and Gabrielle to his destiny. Afterwards, she goes into Xena to be reborn as Xena's child.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- The conflict between Ares and Eli: necessary, but a little forced.
Significant Points:
- Callisto, the Messenger of Eli: Callisto's training as an angel is all just prep-work for her real destiny as Eve, the Messenger of Eli. But that's in Season 6.
Livia
Episode 110
After 25 years of icy sleep, Xena and Gabrielle awake and search for Eve. Finding that Eve is now Livia, the Bitch of Rome, Xena determines to separate her from Ares to give her a fighting chance at her own life.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- Ares never changes. In the absence of Xena, Callisto, and Hope, he attaches to Livia to be his champion and lover.
- This is the beginning of a long saga about Eve.
Significant Points:
- Uncanny Similarities: Livia is so much like Callisto and Xena it hurts. And she even got the attention of Ares on her own.
Eve
Episode 111
After losing her chance to be Empress of Rome, and being upstaged by her long lost mother, Xena, Livia goes on a murderous rampage, crucifying followers of Eli left and right. She tries to kill Gabrielle, but Joxer throws himself in the way, and she kills him instead. The episode climaxes with a fight between her and Xena that Xena cannot bring herself to win. As Xena lies waiting for Livia to finish her off, she asks Eli to save her daughter because she couldn't. A light comes down and Livia sees visions of the love she had as a baby.
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- This is Joxer's heroic death. Even people who hated the character had to admit that dying for a friend is enough to redeem him.
Significant Points:
- Livia is worse than both Xena and Callisto. Callisto was driven by madness and pain, Livia by petulance and thwarted ambition. Xena could be reformed by the example of Hercules, Livia required divinely-inspired visions. This tale of redemption is the closing of Callisto's circle.
Motherhood
Episode 112
This one gets complicated. The Furies torment Gabrielle until she attacks Eve, inviting a retaliatory attack from Xena. Xena drags them both, dying, up to Olympus to make a deal, which the gods won't do. Xena mows through a bunch of the gods until she gets to Athena, when she realizes she can't kill her. This means that Eve is dead, but she keeps fighting anyway. She keeps fighting Athena until she kills her. We find out that Ares healed Gabrielle and Eve, but since he did it without Athena's permission, he forfeits his godhood. The only two Greek gods left are Ares (mortal) and Aphrodite (upset).
Other Things of Note in This Episode:
- The Greek gods are way in character. The sheer stupidity of refusing to just lay low until Eve dies of natural causes is just like they were in myth.
- This is the first time Ares does something that genuinely shows love for Xena.
Significant Points:
- Eve doesn't do much but die during this episode, but during the beginning we see her attempting to be a good person.