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Full Name: David Xanatos
Age: 41
Occupation: Corporate giant, entirely unconventional adversary
Voice: Jonathan Frakes

Son of a modest fisherman, Xanatos fell into a great deal of money. This is certainly not to say that he depends entirely on fortune. Rather the opposite, in fact. The old adage "He makes his own luck" was created for the Xanatoses of the world.

Cool, calculating, and amazingly thorough, Xanatos always has a contingency plan. He is also a great fan of irony, reveling in putting Elisa in a position where she has to protect him, her nemesis, on several occasions. He has found a way to cheat narrative causality to a point, creating plans that actually depend on the inevitability that one unarmed hero will defeat a number of armed villainous lackeys.

While his desire for immortality is a driving force, one never really knows what he actually wants. If you think you do, you haven't seen enough of the series. Some oversimplify his character by claiming that he is purely evil or "all bad." He may seem that way at times, but he has a number of relationships which indicate that, while perhaps not especially nice, he isn't entirely depraved. Owen Burnett, his ever-loyal sidekick, provides him with an odd friendship of sorts, and Xanatos grudgingly reveals that he is capable of love in "Eye of the Beholder," "Vows," and "The Gathering." Petros, his father, provides another interesting view into David's character. Even in "Vows," where the two were on little better than speaking terms, David still very obviously wanted his father's approval. Or, at the very least, his understanding.

Some of my favourite Xanatos scenes (or at least the spoiler-free ones) are the martial arts scene at the beginning of "The Edge," and his interaction with Hudson in "The Price" (and if he hasn’t hit upon the most romantic way to propose, I don't know who has).

Xanatos is quite pleasing to the eye (and not too bad to the ear, I might add... [As Marshall has often pointed out to me, "It always comes back to the voice, doesn't it?" To which I reply, "Well, yeah..." ^_^]) But that isn't his most appealing quality. I don't usually go in for sangfroid, but anyone who, when faced with...some of the things he's faced, can just pop off a sarcastic comment or two and go about his business in finding a way to use it to his advantage gets a few points in my book.

Give my regards to Broadway
Created March 6, 2003