Paternity Theories

The nomination phase of The Century Awards has closed. If you didn't get your nominations in, sorry you missed the boat. You can still get in on the fun, however! The final round, where we pit the top four nominees head to head to determine the winner is under way, and runs until early January. Head on over to the official Century Awards website at http://www.geocities.com/xenavote to cast your vote for the best of Xena's one hundred episodes!

Also, we are now halfway through the final episodes of Hercules and they have been pretty good, for the most part. I will have more in depth commentary on the final episodes in a later installment, so stay tuned!

With that out of the way, we now delve into the mystery of Season Five -- the paternity of Xena's child. The fact that Xena was "up the duff" was revealed in episode 94, Animal Attractions. Naturally, speculation has been running wild both on and off line about how the Warrior Princess (who described herself as a "love free zone") managed to get into this situation.

The theories have run the gamut of sublime to outright bizarre. Being the persevering sort, I have slogged through the morass of rumor and speculation to cull what I consider the three most likely possibilities.

The first theory is that Xena became pregnant when Callisto touched her at the end of Fallen Angel (Episode 91). This idea would follow much of the Christian imagery from the episode -- a bit of supernatural conception. There is currently nothing to directly counteract this belief. Indeed, a comment made in the November issue of Titan Publsihing's monthly Xena magazine says the storyline started in the season premiere. Of course, the magazine also claimed that City of the Dead was going to be the Hercules season premiere, so I wouldn't put too much stock in what they say.

The second theory is that when Ares merged Xena and Gabrielle into one body in Succession (Episode 93), Xena wound up pregnant. This idea is supported by the fact that comments made by folks involved with the show (I'd say who but to be honest I can't remember at the moment) that the revelation of who the father was would satisfy both the subtexters and the non-subtexters. On the plus side, if the child is Xena and Gabrielle's, then speculation about the child's gender is easily resolved -- it would have to be a girl. Of course, the Xenaverse being what it is, I'm sure the powers that be could come up with some way for Xena to have a boy as a result of this kind of union.

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