From: davideml@bellsouth.net   
      
               And questions.   
      
           Got to thinking about the Greek gods.  Poseidon was evaporated by a   
   fireball. Appropriate,   
   since he seemed to be made of water.   
           And Hades got burned up, again appropriate. But burned to what? A   
   crispy corpse? Ashes?   
           When Deimos got crushed by the large table, it wasn't Xena's doing but   
   he died anyway. I   
   guess minor gods aren't quite so immortal.   
           And speaking of immortality, I always thought of it as living forever,   
   never dying, can   
   never be killed. Yet the gods could be killed, so their immortality wasn't   
   "true" immortality.   
           Athena died when Xena stabbed her. But since she was a god, I would   
   have thought her body   
   would have dissolved into smoke, or melted into the floor, or simply vanished.   
   But it was just   
   there. Would it remain so forever, never decaying or decomposing?   
           And at the beginning of her battle with Xena, they both launched   
   themselves at each   
   other -- flying through the air. So, we know Xena just jumped, but did Athena   
   jump or did she fly?   
   And what about the other gods - Ares, Hades, Aphrodite, etc.? Could they fly   
   or hover? You'd think   
   gods could pretty much do anything, but as we've seen -- they have their   
   limitations (to paraphrase   
   Dirty Harry, "A god has to know his limitations.").   
           Hades could only allow Marcus twenty four hours of life to help Xena   
   recover his Helmet of   
   Invisibility. What would have happened if he granted him 48 hours, or gave his   
   life back to him?   
   Maybe Zeus would have been displeased?   
           Did Poseidon or Hades ever visit Mt. Olympus?   
           The Roman gods never showed up when the Olympians were running   
   rough-shod all over Rome, so   
   we can assume they were one and the same (Zeus / Jupiter, Ares / Mars,   
   Aphrodite / Venus, etc). So   
   when Xena killed them (and  Hercules killed Zeus) I guess that means the   
   Romans were, basically,   
   worshipping dead gods.   
           Also, the Olympic (Olympian?) gods lived atop Mt. Olympus. Since there   
   doesn't seem to be a   
   special home for the Roman gods, it just (sort of) reinforces my theory they   
   were the same.   
           Now that Hades is dead -- who is taking care of Tartarus?  Possibly   
   Atyminius? (Mortal   
   Beloved)   
           And who is deciding who goes there and who goes to the Elysian   
   Fields?  Maybe Celesta?   
   (Death in Chains, Looking Death in the Eye)   
               Well, that's just about all I can think of for now.   
      
   --   
   David   
   http://geocities.com/daviderl31/xena.htm   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)