Wagner, Beowulf, and Xena: Three Great Tastes...

Meanwhile, on Logo, the Queer Channel (check your local cable or satellite company for channel number), my TiVo's Filters of Norsey Goodness caught an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess.

Where Xena, back during her Bad Old Days, was running around doing Bad Things, but talked Odin off the Tree by waking his bloodlust, in return for which he made her a Valkyrie. These are the Bad Old Days, which Xena proves by goading five young warriors to die hopelessly, but gloriously.

But she gave all that up to nick the Rheingold, having already forsaken love, and forge the expected ring with the expected curse, to which I can only say...dammit, they shoulda paid for the rights to the Right and Proper Soundtrack! I want my nineteen tuned anvils! My Tubas of Great Power! My...right, I forgot we have no budget.

Now, during her Good New Days, she's teamed up with Siegfried Beowulf to kill Fafnir Grendel, although actually there are two, and one is his mum, formerly a Valkyrie named Grinhild.

I'm really rather annoyed, though, as I recorded only one part...of three.

Fansites to the rescue!

The second part gets the Beowulfbits that couldn't be well-mixed with the Ringbits: Amnesiac!Xena gets rescued by Beowulf from certain marriage to Hrothgar. Eh, whatever. Back to the Ring!

By the end of the three-parter, Siegfried₂ Xena goes through a ring of fire (which was formerly a Valkyrie named Brunnhilde) to wake Brunnhilde₂ Gabrielle. Gabi's in the fire because Xena put the Ring during her Good New Days without forsaking love, which also gave Xena amnesia, because we had to get that in there somewhere since the Gibichungs have been clomped over the head and tossed into the same ditch with the Nibelungs and, probably, Tom Bombadil.

But this was all a ploy for Odin to get the One Ring of the Nibelungs, which fails, because Xena talks Grendel's Mum back into being Grinhild, who Odin really loved all along (Frigga, presumably, being over in the ditch with the Gibichungs, Nibelungs, and Tom Bombadil).

It's all burnt, and then the Rhine floods and drowns the flames... The Rhinemaidens get their Shiny back, Gabrielle and Xena reaffirm themselves as the Not-Very-Ambiguously Lesbian Duo.

Snark aside, though, this was well-written by... R.J. Stewart. I want the three-parter on DVD for Cheesy Viking Movie Night! Wah!

-- Lorrie