Xena & Hercules Articles Archive

The Heart of Darkness

"I want to tap into the heart of darkness; the sheer, naked will behind all craving, hatred and violence. I'll become the face of death itself, capable of destroying not only a person's body, but their soul."--- Alti, Adventures in the Sin Trade

Although she appears in just four episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, Alti plays a crucial role in both the show's storyline and in the life of Xena herself. Alti is the only mortal whose conflict with Xena extends from her past through to her present and into a future life. She meets Xena at a critical time in her life: a time when the Light is calling to her. Lao Ma has shown her the way of the Light, and Borias and Cyan each ask Xena to turn towards good with them.

Alti is drawn to Xena because she needs the power of Xena's army and the power of Xena's soul. Torn between the two paths, Xena is all too easy to seduce to Alti's side. Still angry and uncontrolled, Xena remains hungry for power of any kind, whether it's the fighting techniques of the Amazons or the spiritual forces Alti commands. Alti promises her an imperial destiny, to become the "destroyer of nations" - the absolute ruler of the Earth.

Those who can work in the spiritual realm are inherently more powerful than people limited to the material world. Alti uses these spiritual powers only for domination. She herself says that her powers are not based on self-sacrifice like those of Lao Ma. Nor are they based on courage or love, from which the Amazons and Xena draw their power. Alti draws her power by preying on the pain of others, whether by showing her adversaries the most agonising moments of their past or future, or by taking the blood of a dying Amazon, or by enslaving the souls of the dead. Alti is, as Xena tells the Amazons, a parasite who lives off the strength stolen from those she has in her power.

Not only does Alti cause torment to get power - a characteristic of all bullies and tyrants - but she finds pleasure in it. She smiles and even laughs as she draws fear from her victims, or makes them feel the torment of their death. The more it hurts them, the more she laughs - not so much because she is sadistic in enjoying the pain of others, but because she gets such a thrill from the surge of power their pain gives her. She feels invincible and finds it intoxicating.

In theory, Alti could enslave the souls of any group of people, to use for a source of power. But part of Alti's lust for power is the desire to control those who have defeated her in the past. So Alti, banished by the Amazons when she was just beginning to gather her dark powers and defeated by Cyan in a spiritual duel, feels compelled to destroy the Amazons. Her use of Xena to destroy them turns Xena back to the path of violence and costs her the chance to make a life with Borias and Solan. In a sense, Alti is responsible for most of the harm Xena has done in the past 10 years.

When Xena meets Alti in a future life, Alti has discovered a new and seemingly endless source of power: the karmic cycle. Every soul has hundreds of lives, and she can draw off the pain and fear of every life. She uses this power the same way she used the old shamanistic powers - to make herself invincible. And as she gloats over the fear and pain of her victims, her incessant smile shows that her greatest pleasure is still the feeling of power she gets from making someone suffer.

One has to admire Alti's self-confidence. Each time she sets her sights on taking someone's power, she genuinely believes she will win. When she encounters a strong soul, like Cyane or Xena, her only thought is to conquer that soul and take its strength. Even when she meets Naiyima, the holy one whose power is greater than any she has ever seen, all she can think of is how strong she will become if she can get Naiyima's power. It never enters her mind that Naiyima, Xena and Gabrielle working together might be able to destroy her.

Alti's weakness is that she doesn't understand the power of love. She believes that seeing Gabrielle suffer will make Xena weaker when, in actual fact, the opposite happens. Xena's love for Gabrielle gives her the strength to defeat Alti and realise that Gabrielle is still alive in Adventures in the Sin Trade, and enables Xena to push through her own pain to free Gabrielle from Alti's clutches in Between the Lines.

Alti makes her most important contribution to the plot with her vision of the crucifixion, which provides the major foreshadowing of Xena's fourth season. When Xena first sees this vision, its primary purpose is to tell her that Gabrielle is still alive. As the season unfolds, however, the vision becomes a critical character motivation and a source of conflict between Xena and Gabrielle, as Xena tries to find ways to protect Gabrielle from a future that she believes is her fault. Alti's return in Between the Lines brings back the vision with a vengeance when Alti makes Gabrielle experience it.

Despite her great spiritual powers, Alti's perspective is limited. The power of domination is only useful in the material realm, so when Xena kills her in Between the Lines, her only desire is to find her way back to life. She wants a body to inhabit, and because of her need to control those who have defeated her, she chooses Xena's baby as her target. Even as a spirit, she still has the same lust for power, and she still makes the same mistake.

"Motherhood makes you weak," Alti tells Xena. And once again, she is wrong. Just as Xena's love for Gabrielle gives her the strength to pull Gabrielle back alive from the spirit realm, Xena's love for her unborn baby gives her the strength to defend her child at any cost, in any realm.

"I'd kill myself before I'd let your soul replace my child's," she says, and she's not kidding. Fierce as a mother tiger defending her cub, Xena smashes Alti to pieces. In the destruction of her soul, Alti makes one final contribution to the plot: she provides Xena with the motivation to go to China in search of Lao Ma's book, so that she will have one more way to protect her unborn child.

Hayes, Stoddard. "The Heart of Darkness." Official Xena Magazine. Issue #8 July 2000: pp 37-38.