What do you think would have happened had Hope didn't kill Solan? What if she was more manipulative?

Posted by Emica12@reddit | xena | View on Reddit | 5 comments

This was a thought I had years ago but I figured I'd run it by the Xena community to hear other thoughts on this.

But let's say Hope as a child tried to play the long con.

What if Xena and Gabrielle just found Hope hiding with Solan? What if the two somehow made friends (mostly young Hope manipulating the boy) and Hope had fake crocodile tears saying they were hiding from Callisto?

Even if Xena did try to kill Hope at this point not only Gabrielle would defend her child but Solan would be asking Xena why does she want to hurt his new friend.

If Xena gave the benefit of the doubt even briefly there would be no way she'd let her guard down around the child.

I don't know maybe in this situation Gabrielle would try to influence Hope further away from Dahak. Maybe while playing the long con by acting like Gabrielle and Xena as her new mothers she may have an internal struggle with the love and attention her birth mother is giving her. Or would she be a 100% monster threw the whole con? Or perhaps Xena and Gabrielle take their respective children and go separate ways? Or Gabrielle grabs Hope and runs away.

It'll probably never end well. But there's a lot of, "What if," thoughts here and I just wanted to know your thoughts.