written by Joel Metzger
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 20
SD: The Norse Trilogy of episodes, “The Rheingold,” “The Ring,” and “The Return Of The Valkyrie,” were very popular.
Joel: Maybe because it gave us a chance to explore new territory while still keeping what the fans like about Xena and Gabrielle. It wasn’t Xena goes to Outer Space. (laughing) It was refreshing and familiar at the same time.
SD: Was it Rob Tapert (executive producer) who wanted to go to the Norse country?
Joel: When I joined the staff, they had already decided they wanted to do a trilogy on Wagner's The Ring. They had a graphic novel that laid out the story in almost script-like beats. That was passed around to give us an idea of what we would be exploring and the overall structure of the myth of the Ring. Because of this research, when I saw the movie The Lord of the Rings, I realized how much Tolkien had used from Norse mythology and Beowulf.
SD: Now, The Ring and Beowulf are separate stories. How did you wind up putting them together?
Joel: That’s Rob being the master chef and saying, “Let’s mix these two spices together.” They’re both Germanic and he wanted elements from both stories. I think they wove together pretty well. The Grindl monster, from Beowulf, worked well in the story and she's not part of The Ring at all.
My only regret was that Beowulf himself didn’t have much of a story of his own. We had Xena, Gabrielle, the Valkyries, the monsters, Odin. There wasn’t enough time to give him a better part. But Grindl was a huge part of the whole arc of the trilogy.
SD: Was it part of the original story of Beowulf that the monster that gets killed turns out to be someone's son?
Joel: It's a classic device to have a false ending where you think the monster is dead. In Beowulf, the whole story is about the monster and when he’s killed, you heave a sigh of relief. The story is over, the day is saved. And then his mother comes out of the cave and they now have to deal with an adult monster, even bigger.
We set it up that you thought we were dealing with the beautiful Valkyrie, Grinhilda, who had been turned into a monster. And then when Xena killed it, she looked at the hand and realized it wasn’t Grinhilda. Now she had an angry mother on her hand.
SD: First Young Xena turns the good Valkyrie, Grinhilda, into a monster. Then she kills Grinhilda’s son.
Joel: I think one of the strongest aspects of Xena is that she has this bad past that she regrets. The most interesting characters were tied in to what Xena had done in her evil warlord days.
SD: Gabrielle was very popular in this episode. Beowulf, Brunnhilda - they both fell in love with her. How did that become part of the story?
Joel: I think the plan was to get some interaction between the characters by using a bit of jealousy and rivalry. We wanted someone obsessed with Gabrielle.
SD: It’s been said over and over that Gabrielle was not a typical sidekick character. An effort was made in every episode to give her character a storyline of her own. In this trilogy, which was based on Xena chasing down her past as well as the monster, you needed to find a part for Gabrielle to play.
Joel: Right. Brunnhilda was blatantly in love with Gabrielle. And I think it worked. It's like a highschool crush taken to extremes. This is a Valkyrie with a sword in her hand! (laughing) Brunnhilda's intentions are good, but Gabrielle couldn't reciprocate her feelings.
Odin had put Brunnhilda into Xena's camp to betray Gabrielle and capture her. And I'm not exactly sure where this strong love came from as she didn't actually have much time with Gabrielle. But there's a speech where Brunnhilda says, “I bring to Valhalla the bravest warriors slain in battle. But your heart has more truth and courage than any that I’ve seen. The beauty inside you burns like a star. You've changed me. You’ve opened my eyes.” Brunnhilda is telling Gabrielle, “I take the best of the best heroes to Valhalla and you have more courage than any of them.”
Brunnhilda has been with Odin and he’s such a bastard. She saw in Gabrielle a truly courageous, brave, loving person. And she was won over. That's all we really had time for to set up the relationship between them.
SD: Hey, it can happen that fast in real life, too.
Joel: It's really about Brunnhilda's belief in honor, valor and courage and she isn't getting that with Odin. She’s living a false life. And here comes someone who epitomizes her beliefs. For that, she turns into an eternal flame for Gabrielle - to embrace what is true.
SD: Young Xena was the one who corrupted Odin too, didn't she?
Joel: Right. It was all young evil Xena’s fault. She corrupted Odin and the Valkyries. That's one of the strongest points of the show. In addition to battling for the greater good, Xena’s always cleaning up messes from her youth. That's why she continues the life she’s leading. I mean, she could retire. (laughing) But she feels guilty about what she did in the past. That's why she’s always putting herself in danger. She’s got a lot of work to do to redeem herself. That's at the core of this episode.
SD: Grindl was a monster because Xena made her that way, yet Xena was trying to kill her. In the last part of the trilogy, Xena actually talks Grindl out of being a monster, but as the story begins, she's out to kill her. It was Xena's fault that she was the way she was.
Joel: The trilogy started with Xena caging Grindl and we find out, via flashback in my episode, how it all came about. Maybe Xena should have cornered the monster and tried to talk her out of it sooner. But I think Xena's plan was that she had created this monster who's now gone berserk killing people and destroying whole towns and the only thing to do was to slay the beast. Xena also didn't know how much of Grinhilda was left inside the monster.
And, at the end, Xena risks her own life trying to talk Grinhilda back into her humanity. That's part of Xena's arc. Beowulf comes and tells her what’s going on and her first instinct is to kill the monster because innocents are dying.
We talked about that at length in the story meetings - does she kill the monster or cure it? We decided it’s riskier and more gratifying if she tries to reach the heart inside Grinhilda.
SD: The end, with Xena screaming into the night, was gut-wrenching.
Joel: We had to decide, how do you fade out on Xena losing her memory? How do you dramatize that? Does she look in a pond and doesn't recognize herself? Rob said, “Have her scream.” And it worked.
SD: Rob knows what Lucy’s capable of delivering in a scream - the anguish. She’s really good at that.
Joel: Another great moment was when Xena picked up the chakram and cut herself on it. She's lost who she is and she doesn't know how to pick up her own chakram without hurting herself. The director added that. I had written the moment of her not knowing what it was, but it was a beautiful touch that she cuts herself on the weapon that is so symbolic of her.
SD: And the scream at the end wasn’t just of not knowing who she was, it was the loss of what she loved most - Gabrielle.
Joel: That’s what the Ring stole from Xena. We went round and round about how the Ring would affect her. What would she lose? We decided it had to be Gabrielle and the humanity Gabrielle gave her. Once she lost her memory, she lost what Gabrielle brought to her life. The essence of the original Ring is that it gives you all this power, but then it corrupts, destroys everything you love.
We had to come up with rules for it. Like how long the power lasts. I remember one scene at the end where Xena and Odin are facing off and Odin starts rattling off subparagraph “A” of the Rules of the Ring. (laughing) “It’ll give me power.” “Yes, but if you read the fine print...” It was really hard because there were certain things we wanted to achieve in the story and the rules had to support our goals.
SD: And you couldn’t assume that everyone was going to see the three episodes in order.
Joel: Exactly! Especially in the long term. Someone might come upon the story in the middle and we had to make sure we made certain points in all three episodes. I remember R.J. (Stewart, executive producer) reminding us about that. It was a good point. (laughing)
SD: Do you have a favorite scene in the episode?
Joel: It’s the moment when Brunnhilda turns into a ring of fire. Brunnhilda realizes Gabrielle is all the things she used to be before she was corrupted. At the end, Gabrielle’s influence on her is so profound, Brunnhilda sacrifices herself as an eternal flame to protect Gabrielle. That was so cool. I just loved that moment. It really touched me.
Long after the show had aired, I was on a fan website and they talked about that exact moment and how much it meant to them. It felt so good that they understood what I was trying to say. It meant so much to me that I touched someone I don’t even know. I'll always remember that.
SD: The choice Xena had to make was giving up her love of Gabrielle to keep Odin from gaining such a powerful weapon.
Joel: I think Xena would probably tear the universe apart if it meant saving Gabrielle. Here, in doing what is clearly the right thing, look at the terrible price she paid. She could have kept Gabrielle with her, but then the world would be at Odin's mercy. She knew what Gabrielle would have wanted her to do here - for the greater good.
That was a dilemma we used a lot. Obviously Xena would pay any price to keep Gabrielle safe. But sometimes, if Xena made the choice she wanted to make, she knew she wouldn't be the woman Gabrielle loved. I think Xena learned a lot more from Gabrielle than the other way around.
SD: Not your typical sidekick.
Joel: It’s the reverse of the traditional sidekick role. In the world of superheroes, the sidekick is the teenage boy reading a comic book. Batman pulls Robin aside and teaches him how to be a hero and teaches him about life. I think that's one of the great things about this show. Xena learned so much from Gabrielle.
When the series started, Gabrielle was learning many things from Xena - the wisdom of how to get along in the world outside Gabrielle's village. But their roles began to reverse as far as who was teaching who.
In a lot of emotional ways, Gabrielle is much stronger than Xena. I think Gabrielle would sacrifice her own life and Xena's to save the day. I don’t think Xena would sacrifice Gabrielle for anything.
SD: Speaking of that flame - it also provided Gabrielle with a change of clothing?
Joel: We tried to figure out what would happen during that moment. Was Gabrielle just going to pass out wearing her regular clothes? There’s no logical reason why Gabrielle’s clothing would turn into a diaphanous gown. But you can’t have a Sleeping Beauty without it. We all agreed, if you’re having a sleeping princess, there’s gotta be a diaphanous gown. (laughing)