#gabrielle can yell 'I HATE YOU' to xena and it MATTERS

[keyofjetwolf]

I didn’t realize the IMMENSE grin I had on my face as I got these caps until I felt it relax when I came to write the post itself. I AM HAVING JUST AS MUCH FUN AS CALLISTO

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Hudson here, by the way. She walks between these lines with incredible grace and ease, pulling off such casual disinterest and deep, calculated, cruel cunning at the same time.

Once again, Gabrielle walks right the fuck into it. Every word, every gesture, she just can’t keep herself from reacting exactly the way she’s supposed to. Even as the depth of her rage, and willingness to feed it, exceeds Callisto’s expectations (HERE’S THAT WARNING SIGN AGAIN BY THE WAY), she’s still a note on a string that Callisto will never tire of plucking.

A thought occurs to me now, as well. I wonder if some of Gabrielle’s hate and rage toward Callisto isn’t due in some part to how she can never, EVER actually hurt Callisto in return. Not mentally, not emotionally, not even physically. She’s unable to have justice OR revenge (which one would she even truly want, I wonder?), and I think that as much as anything is what’s sunk its teeth into her.

[9r7g5h]

The Huntress and the Sphinx, by Ru Emerson

No one is braver or faster than the legendary huntress, Atalanta. Or so she says. And when Xena and Gabrielle are asked to rescue a group of kidnapped children, Atalanta is the first to volunteer. After all, she is the only one who could possibly be strong enough to succeed. 

But when they find the kidnapper, Xena realizes that o one is strong enough to defeat it. For who can challenge the power and knowledge of the almighty Sphinx?

The second book in the original quartet, it picks back up a few weeks after the first one’s ended, with Xena and Gabrielle arriving in Athens to watch the Women’s Footraces that were discussed at the end of the book. Overall, I would give this book an A-/A. The plot was a lot more coherent then the last one, and between most of the main characters, we got some great characterization, especially with Xena on her thoughts on Gabrielle. However, as I will discuss below the cut, the way they treated one character in particular and the book’s refusal to actually give any details about a certain event could knock it down a peg or two for some readers.

Once again, there will be spoilers all over the place in this review. If you don’t want the entire plot spoiled, then stop it. Right now. This plot is actually a lot more involved then the last one, so the plot summary’s going to be a lot longer. 

Ok, so. Like I said, the plot begins with Xena and Gabrielle having arrived in Athens to watch the Women’s Footraces. Specifically, so Gabrielle can watch Atalanta run. She’s apparently been a huge fan all her life, and this is finally her chance to see her dream race come true. Right off the bat, though, we know Xena hates her. We’re not told why Xena hates Atalanta, but she does. While she doesn’t say specifically to Gabrielle that she hates her, she makes it very, very clear. 

Anyway, the girls are lost, and while Xena stops to ask for directions, Gabrielle accidentally wanders into a bad part of town, where she’s immediately accosted by a group of drunkards. She holds her own with her staff until Xena gets there and runs them off. Side note, this is the first time in the book series we actually see Gabrielle fight someone. The two of them make it to the races, and along the way they run into Homer! He asks if he can join them for the day, and they agree. Once they arrive, Xena is almost immediately pick pocketed by a young boy, who she agrees to pay a few coppers to if he keeps himself and his friends away from her and the others. He agrees, and disappears into the crowd. Remember him, because I’m telling you right now, he’s important later on. 

They get there early, and actually get to meet this one young runner, Nausicaa, and her friend Mitradia. Nausicaa is a blind princess, and Mitradia is her guide. Together the two of them are able to run races, with Mitradia leading Nausicaa with a rope. After their run, Gabrielle decides to go for a walk while the next race is being set up and actually runs into this guard yelling at a young woman. Gabrielle steps in, and it turns out the woman is Arachne, who’s come to give Atalanta a scarf she made. The guard is a man trying to force her to marry him, and is trying to force her to sell the scarf instead. 

Gabrielle gets involved, smacks down the guard, and he runs off. Gabrielle invites Arachne to come sit with her, Xena, and Homer, and she accepts. Meanwhile, Homer actually gets caught up again and continues to talk to Nausicaa and Mitradia, telling them stories of Odysseus, who Nausicaa has a huge crush on (her father was friends with him when they were young, and so has told her all these stories about their exploits. She thinks of Odysseus as a young man still, instead of an old king). When Nausicaa’s elderly maid demands they come sit with her, Homer goes with them to keep telling stories. 

Finally it’s the adult woman races, and Gabrielle gets to fulfill her dream of seeing Atalanta run. The day continues on like this, switching between child and adult runners, until the final race happens. While Atalanta is running and everyone’s watching, a group of men show up and kidnap six girls, two of which are Nausicaa and Mitradia. Atalanta immediately goes after them, Xena hot on her heels, and Gabrielle follows on Argo after getting some information. However, she’s also forced to bring Homer, because Nausicaa and Mitradia’s maid claims that he’s part of the kidnapping. 

From here the plot gets pretty simple, now that everything’s been set up. Atalanta tracks, Xena follows after her, the tracks get lost, Atalanta has to spend some time refinding them, and then they continue on. Gabrielle and Homer eventually catch up, and while they wait for Atalanta to find the tracks each time, they tell each other various riddles. They’ve been telling each other riddles the entire book, but it finally becomes important, because it turns out the girls were, originally, never in any danger. Because Atalanta had them kidnapped. 

Yep. Atalanta, who’s super insecure and actually has an eating disorder, apparently goes around and ropes her two fathers into setting up “trial” for her to complete, since she believes she could never be a true hero even after doing truly heroic things. She needs more fame, more glory, and doesn’t care how she gets it. Anyway, the plan was for her fathers (she does have two, a couple who were together for 35 years, who found her in the forest and raised her as their own. Casual gay couple adopting foundlings for the win) to leave the girls in a cave on the mountain and Atalanta to save them. No one’s hurt, and everything’s good. 

However, the group was found by the Sphinx and her men, and hearing Atalanta was on her way, the Sphinx killed one of her fathers and kidnapped the girls, saying that if she wanted them alive, Atalanta would have to beat her riddles. 

Of course, Xena immediately turns on Atalanta after finding out she set this all up, removes her weapons, and forces her and her father to start going towards he Sphinx, because they’re going to get the girls back, “no matter the cost to yourself.” They hike on up, and meet the Sphinx’s guards, who are two people from Xena and Gabrielle’s past. 

The first is the Cyclops we see in season 1, episode 1. The blind one. Well, his name is actually Flyer, and after Gabrielle (or “the chatty food”) runs off, he decides to enter himself into the service of the Sphinx. The other person is an almost bard named Mannius, who Xena was “quite fond of” during her warlording days, before she was kicked out of her own army. Side note, bard kink confirmed. Anyway, they talk, and Mannius revealed that he’s gotten Flyer to stop eating humans. The Sphinx, however, is no where near as advanced as Flyer’s gotten, and will eat them all the moment the riddle’s failed. Mannius and Xena chat for a while, and part with a kiss. 

The group continues on after them, and eventually find the Sphinx- who’s huge. And immortal. No way will Xena be able to fight her. While Xena’s talking to Atalanta and her father about what they’re going to do, Gabrielle, in all her wisdom, goes up to the Sphinx and challenges her herself, pointing out that a runner would be awful at riddles, but two incredibly talented, famous, and well known around the world bards? They’ve be a great sport. 

And offers herself to be eaten if she fails. 

Homer goes too. Sphinx immediately has a crush. It gets weird. 

So basically a challenge is set up for the next morning. The Sphinx will give three riddles, Gabrielle and Homer will give three riddles, and if they win, they get the girls and get to keep their lives. However, if the Sphinx wins, then she gets to eat one of them, and the other runs off to tell stories of how amazing the Sphinx is. 

It’s quickly very clear that Gab’s is getting eaten if they lose. Something Xena is NOT pleased about when she hears about this deal, but it’s too late, so they have to deal. 

So now, Gabrielle and Homer start thinking about riddles to ask, and they realize the Sphinx is pretty sheltered, and can use that to their advantage with their riddles. Xena, meanwhile, gets caught up in two different events. The first is a former soldier of hers who she maimed and almost killed many years ago. He wants revenge. Xena fights him with one arm tied behind her back, wins, and he’s sent scurrying. The other events is an in depth discussion with Atalanta about her eating disorder, her fear of being fat, and how she’s probably going to die soon if she doesn’t start taking care of herself. 

Xena, who also’s been claiming this entire book that she’s no good at riddle (surprise, Xena’s actually very good at riddles, if she’s given a moment or two to think), gives Homer and Gabrielle their final riddle, one that will be sure to stump the Sphinx. 

The next morning, Gabrielle and Homer go off to challenge the Sphinx, and Xena and Atalanta and Atalanta’s father go to kidnap the girls back. Just in case. Gabrielle and Homer go back and forward with the Sphinx, asking more and more difficult riddles, while Atalanta (because Xena ‘disappears’ aka she hides two feet away in case Atalanta needs help but doesn’t get involved) saves the girls from their captors all by herself, proving that she can, in fact, be a hero. 

The final riddle, given by Gabrielle and Homer, is about Troy. Realizing that the Sphinx is so sheltered she wouldn’t have heard about the war, they defeat her at her own game, and because they made a sacred vow (and because Homer kept flirting with her), she lets them all go. 

They get back to the city, deliver the children, and Atalanta decides she needs to go out into the world on her own and find real people to help. Remember Arachne? She finally gets to give Atalanta her scarf, and the two part as friends. Xena and Atalanta part on decent terms as well, and Gabrielle and Homer say their own goodbyes. This book ends with Xena and Gabrielle going to get some food. 

Except there is an epilogue that starts up a year later, where Nausicaa finally get to meet her crush. As he comes out of the ocean, naked, while she and her friends are hanging out on the beach.  

A lot more in depth, coherent plot this time. It was honestly more enjoyable for me to read this book then the last, because everything meshed really well. We got action, a good amount of characterization for everyone, got to see Gabrielle actually in charge once and Xena trusting her to not get them all killed, and it was just very well done overall, I feel. However, I do want to talk about Atalanta. 

Sadly, it seemed as if Atalanta fell into the “mean girl” trope. The only reason she was anything resembling nice to Gabrielle and Homer was because A) Xena threatened her multiple times to be nice to Gabrielle (Homer was thrown in as an after thought once) and B) because they were bards who could tell bad stories about her. She was greedy af, always wanting more and more, and because of that, six girls were traumatized and one of her fathers was killed. And she kept playing the “oh, my life has been so hard from the very beginning, no one’s ever had it harder then me in all the history of mankind, I’m just trying to climb my way up in the world.” 

To which I say “boo fucking hoo.” Something Gabrielle also says, just much nicer then I did. 

It takes her saving the girls for her to realize “wow, I could actually help people without being the reason they’re in danger in the first place.” Which, considering she’s supposed to be this great hero, is just really annoying. Overall, that’s kind of how she was. She was an interesting character, but I just felt like she was poorly done. The writer could have done a ton of other things with her, taken her in many different directions, and the fact that she’s the way she is just...meh. 

There’s also the fact that this book LOVED to tease us with what happened the last time Xena and Atalanta met. Over and over and over again, we’re told that something went down that made these two women absolutely hate each other with a passion never before seen. Like, it’s a hatred that runs deep. If Gabrielle hadn’t been such a fan, Xena would have avoided Atalanta like the plague. Or killed her, one of the two. But then they never tell us what happened. Never. At all. It’s incredibly annoying, waiting for this big reveal of why these two hate each other, and nothing comes from it. It might in a future book, and I’ll let you know if it does, but just for now, the constant fighting between the two seems to have no purpose. It’s just there. 

So again, while overall the book is an A-/A, because the plot was much better and we did get some really cute scenes, like more of the friendship between Gabrielle and Homer, some bonding time between Xena and Homer over how much they both care for Gabrielle, some more about Xena’s past, and Atalanta does go through quite a bit of character development, it could have been better. 

Still really worth a read, especially if you like a ton of really creative riddles and an interesting look at Athens and its place in the Xena universe.