Gabrielle, Xena: Warrior Princess

Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor)

On cult fantasy series Xena: Warrior Princess, Gabrielle was one of the two leading characters of the show, together with Xena. When Gabrielle first met Xena, she was a farm girl living in the rural village of Potidaea. She and her sister, Lila, along with several other village girls, had been kidnapped to be sold as slaves. Xena intervened and rescued them. Awed by her fighting skills, Gabrielle decided that she wanted to become a warrior, too. She also wanted to avoid the marriage that her parents had arranged for her with her childhood friend Perdicus.

Gabrielle insisted on following an initially reluctant Xena on the road. The two women soon developed a strong bond of love and friendship. Her initial naïveté for the first 3 seasons and her talkative nature helped to balance Xena’s pessimistic mentality. While Xena’s character altered subtly through the series, Gabrielle’s character went through substantial development and change, especially in Seasons 3 and 4. Through their friendship/relationship Xena recognized the value of the “greater good” and the sacrifices she must make to accomplish it (a central theme in the series in later seasons).

Subtext

Over the course of the series, Gabrielle evolved from a naive, idealistic young woman into a fully fledged, but deeply conflicted, warrior fighting alongside Xena. Gabrielle had several romantic relationships with men on screen, including a short-lived marriage to Perdicus, before he was killed. Despite multiple relationships with others over the course of the series, Gabrielle and Xena considered themselves soulmates, and referred to each other that way. By the sixth season it was heavily implied that this relationship had become romantic, though the relationship with Gabrielle was only portrayed by subtext. “The studio was so concerned that it would be perceived as a lesbian show that they would not allow us to have Xena and Gabrielle in the same frame of the opening titles.”

Though it was never shown on-screen, the romantic and sexual nature of their relationship has been confirmed by the actors and producers in interviews and series commentary since the series end. In the series finale, they shared an almost-kiss as Gabrielle passes water to an injured Xena with her mouth. After Xena was killed and chose not to be resurrected, it is implied that her spirit remained with Gabrielle as she continued her journey.

In an interview given by Lucy Lawless to Lesbian News magazine in 2003, Lawless stated that after the series finale, in which Gabrielle revives Xena with a mouth-to-mouth water transfer and filmed to look like a full kiss, she had come to believe that Xena’s and Gabrielle’s relationship was “definitely gay… there was always a ‘well, she might be or she might not be’ but when there was that drip of water passing between their lips in the very final scene, that cemented it for me. Now it wasn’t just that Xena was bisexual and kinda liked her gal pal and they kind of fooled around sometimes, it was ‘Nope, they’re married, man’.” Source: Here’s why Xena and Gabrielle never became a couple on Xena: Warrior Princess.

Appearances:

• 134 episodes.

Female love interests:

• Xena 💀 (Lucy Lawless, main cast)

Relationship story arc with a woman: Subtext

Male love interests:

• Perdicus 💀 (Scott Garrison, guest, 2 episodes, husband)
• Iolaus (Michael Hurst, guest, 2 episodes)
• Telus 💀 (Kieren Hutchison, guest, 1 episode)
• Joxer 💀 (Ted Raimi, guest, S1, S6, recurring S2-5)

Relationship story arc with a man: Yes

Filter Relationship Arc:

• Male (Guest)

Storyline during sweeps? No

[1] A relationship story arc is defined as explicit, developed on screen, and lasting more than 3 episodes. It is listed as questionable or subtext if romance is only implied, mentioned instead of shown on screen, part of a dream sequence, or otherwise not explicit for the viewer.
[2] Sweeps episodes air in February, May, July and November, the periods when advertising rates are set. A character is marked as "sweeps" when there is a very limited number of episodes that address their sexuality, all air during sweeps period, and the storyline is otherwise ignore/dropped.