For me, the Debt episodes offered a new context for interpreting the moral ambiguities that pervade the Xenaverse. They explored Eastern philosophies which emphasize the unity, bringing together or tension between opposing forces. These forces don't seem to be inherently good or bad. They simply "are." We deal with them daily, rather than conquer them forever. Ideally, we deal with them through peace and harmony, without using force, but sometimes we cannot. In many ways, these concepts involve deception, particularly when compared with more absolute notions about good *or* evil and eternal salvation *or* damnation. What seems soft is also hard. To submit may mean to conquer.

Lao Ma accepts, teaches and practices this yin-yang perspective. She is a master of its deceptiveness. She presents herself as an "insignificant" woman, mucking about in important matters at the bidding of her ailing husband. She delicately offers her hand to Borias, to raise her up from beside the prone Xena, whom she has just flattened with mystical powers as yet unexhibited by any other mortal in the Xenaverse. On the other hand, her "real" power is based on an illusion of her husband's state of being. "You are a strange woman," papa Ming tells her, "soft and hard at the same time." "Like water, soft," she replies, smiling down at the hidden Xena struggling for air beneath Lao Ma's reflection, "yet who can withstand the raging floods?"

When Lao Ma first looked into the wild Xena, she saw a potentially good and noble heart. She also saw, and equally appreciated, the strength of the raging floods. Poet Gabrielle and philosopher Lao Ma have noble hearts. They also have courage and pretty good butt-kicking skills. So why do they need Xena? She cleans up the evil that "good" as well as "bad" people leave behind. She does not stop at bumping a few heads or negotiating for good. When she has to, she *kills* for good. It is because - not in spite - of this that Lao Ma sees in Xena the potential for greatness. It is why she wants to reform the two barbarians who invade her land. She herself is expert at "soft" ways to nurture peace, but she sees in her "warrior princess" the "hard" ways to make it happen.

Similarly, Lao Ma picks up the piece of wood holding Xena's wild mane and sees more than a "brooch" for adorning hair. She uses it as a dart to puncture a water gourd and restore Xena to consciousness after laying her out cold. In the midst of Xena's enlightenment, Lao demonstrates that it "could be a useful weapon if thrown at the right body part." To Xena's gleeful, "You could use this to kill somebody," Lao Ma responds, "If necessary. I don't like to kill, however." Obviously, Lao Ma prefers nonviolence (though Xena and Borias might argue that being bounced repeatedly off walls is harder on the body than a fist fight). Nor, as others have pointed out, do we ever hear her say that killing is bad or that she herself would never kill (though her husband would probably prefer being dead). She then returns the pin to Xena's hair. And Xena, during that incredible moment when she is floating "emptied of desire," gives the pin to Lao Ma, probably as a simple gift of gratitude, the symbolism of which I doubt she recognizes at the time.

Years later, Lao Mao's Warrior Princess returns. She does not come for revenge or blood lust. She comes because of the "profound loyalty" Lao Ma saw in her. She comes to finish what was left undone -- to accomplish what the "weak one" cannot bring herself to do and remove a barrier to the peace that could not be achieved through softness. She is a warrior first, not a poet or philosopher. Her instinct is to use the weapons of her calling. And to kill.

Gabrielle's naive, questionable (oh, all right -- stupid, stupid, stupid) betrayal, gives Xena time to think of other means. She smiles slightly at Ming Tien's announcement that she would leave this life and be put to death. For a few precious moments during this near-death experience, she "conquers" herself, "empties" herself, summons Lao Ma's spirit and power, and seems to have found "her way" to make the dragon small without killing him. "As far as I'm concerned," she tells Gabby when they are about to leave Tien buried in his crumbling palace, "this is all over."

But Tien refuses to accept his smallness. He calls Xena back. He's going to make himself larger by cutting her down a size. He reminds her of her own guilt in "creating" him. "I've learned to clean up after myself…. Is that it?," she hisses contemptuously, turning away. So he belittles the woman who helped create the new Xena. Yes, he knew Lao Ma was his mother, but he's so big and bad he killed her anyway, all by himself. He derides Lao Ma for being too weak to "use her powers to hurt her little boy." And in the midst of this taunting, he pulls out the hair pin, passing it on to Xena like Lao Ma herself. "This belongs to you. Her last request was that it be returned to you."

Xena's shock turns to anguish as she lovingly clasps the oft-exchanged, deceptively "insignificant" gift that could be a weapon "if necessary." Sensing a soft spot, Tien, pushes his jibes in deeper: "It turns out that she was just a sentimental fool" - for risking death to achieve peace, for thinking of Xena's hair bobble as she was about to die, for crying as the son she couldn't make small literally rips her heart out. Xena's eyes have become ice as he concludes, "Mother's book of wisdom failed her in the end." Think again, little dragon. Oops, not very easy, huh, with that pin stuck in your mosquito head.

So. Do I think Xena failed Lao Ma's class? Nope, with a little "help" (yuck) from Gabby, she passed with flying colors, so to speak. Do I think Xena betrayed her own on-going quest for redemption? Well, I've stopped thinking about it so much in terms of the Judeo-Christian notion of being "saved." I believe she simply wants to "do" good when she can and "clean up" when she and others make a mess. That's practical and "doable" for an enlightened warrior. In this instance, she cleaned up big time. Gabby, on the other hand, wants herself and others to "be" good, which is idealistic, nigh impossible every moment of the day in every situation. Her mistake is in wanting to impose that same standard on Xena, just as Xena mistakenly thinks that Gabby can separate doing from being.

Xena has just come through one of the most grueling, self-revealing tests of her life. It is as if she's talking to herself about something she learned, and which may be of some consolation to her guilt-ridden friend, when she says, "You're right, I didn't have to resolve this with murder." I don't think she intends at all to deceive Gabby. It is Gabby who interprets this through her own rose-colored lenses when she says, "You're not killing him made you exactly what Lao Ma wanted to you to *be*." Of course, Xena recognizes that Gabby is saying this without knowing the whole picture, but is simply too tired for further philosophical debate. Similarly, Xena told Gabby she "*did* the right thing," unaware that Gabby hadn't in fact killed Hope. And Gabby, too tired for any more hide-and-seek, lets Xena think what she wants.

In truth, neither lies in terms of her own standards and in the larger moral arena where each is waging her own private war. In terms of the more mundane aspects of their relationship, each continues to love the other both for who she is and for what she is pretending to be. Their "lies" center around the practical compromises they have stooped to make between their opposing sensibilities -- and which undermine, as they deceptively prolong, the friendship neither wants to come apart.