"Well, if it isn't Xena's little bitch. Welcome to the doghouse."
- ―Alti to Gabrielle, in "Them Bones, Them Bones"
Alti was a recurring character on Xena: Warrior Princess. She was an ex-Amazon turned powerful shamaness. She was able to use visions of past and present lives to inflict pain on her victims, a technique that she used frequently on Xena and Gabrielle. She was able to kill people using this technique, by making them experience their pre-determined deaths well before they should have happened. When she tried to do this to Xena, it proved to her that Gabrielle was actually alive after presumably dying with Hope in the lava pit.
She first met Xena and Borias in the depths of Siberia. She had been expelled from her Amazon tribe and needed their help to harness the power that will turn her into an all powerful shamaness. She asks Xena to kill Cyane, Queen of the Northern Amazons. After this, she sends Xena in search of the Ixion Stone, which contains great evil power. This starts the great Battle of Corinth. From then on, Alti and Xena have had nothing but an antagonistic relationship. The two fought on several occasions, usually in the spiritual realm, almost always ending in the death of Alti. She seems to revive herself each time and continue to hunt Xena down, even going as far as to jumping into future lives and living into the 21st century to cloning her. Alti also built up an antagonistic relationship with Gabrielle, whom she also attempted to kill on several occasions. She was also the High Priestess of Julius Caesar's Alternate Reality, where once again she got the upper hand on Xena, going as far as killing Caesar.
She was played by Claire Stansfield.
Story
Meeting Xena and Borias
"Your friend you told me about; Lao Ma. Her powers come from denial, from self-sacrifice, from the Light. That's not for people like you and me. I want to tap into the heart of darkness, the sheer naked will behind all cravings, hatred and violence. I will become the face of death destroying not only a person's body, but their soul. Help me and I'll make you the Destroyer of Nations."
- ―Alti to Xena, in "Adventures in the Sin Trade"
Alti warns Xena about a young Otere, in "Adventures in the Sin Trade"
Alti belonged to a Siberian Amazon Tribe. She was expelled from the tribe, as she began to adopt the attributes of a Shamaness. Her powers grew too great and was forced out of her tribe. During the time of being expelled and meeting Xena and Borias, Alti found a young girl, Anokin, of whom she trained and used as her ‘apprentice’. Xena grew close to Anokin and this relationship led to her first journey to the Amazon Land of the Dead, in order to see her once again. In order to harness great power, Alti needed the souls of an Amazon Tribe. She lulled a naive Xena into a false knowledge that she would bestow her with great power. A much wiser Borias tried to warn Xena of Alti’s true motives, but Xena’s lust for wealth and power got the better of her and she succumbed to the shamaness’ deal. Alti promised Xena the title of “Destroyer of Nations”, one which she would possess until her meeting with Hercules. Xena manipulated and killed the entire tribe, including Cyane their Queen.
During her time spent with Xena and Borias in Siberia, she cursed an unborn Solan, stating that he will never be able to know the love of either of his parents. The curse worked, as Borias died immediately after he was born and Xena was forced to give him up to the Centaurs, causing him to know the love of neither Borias nor Xena. When Borias and Xena raided a small town, Borias saved a small child, of whom Alti prophecised would one day take Xena's powers away from her. Alti told her to kill the child, but Borias stopped her. Alti then inadvertently triggered the Battle of Corinth, when she asks Xena to retrieve the Ixion Stone from the Centaurs.
Death
Xena kills Alti in "Adventures in the Sin Trade II"
Years later, when Xena returned to Siberia and the Amazon Land of the Dead, she was in search of Gabrielle, of whom she thought had previously perished in “Sacrifice II”. After arriving in the Land of the Dead, she was faced with the Berserker, the most feared warrior in the land. He was a minion of Alti and so he had the same powers as her too: able to use ‘snippets’ of past and future moments in life to inflict pain and even kill the victim. He managed to break her legs by making her experience the time when Caesar broke her legs.
Xena then discovered that Alti’s experiments with power had subsequently trapped the souls whose blood she was using, namely Cyane and the rest of the Amazon Tribe killed during Xena’s massacre. Xena, Yakut, Otere, as well as the rest of the Amazons that had looked after Xena, all had Xena put the pinch them to be dead and convert their souls into one fighting spirit – in the form of Xena herself. This way, Xena was able to fight Alti in the spirit realm. Alti tried to use her powers to make Xena experience her death in Xena's_Vision but by doing this, she assured Xena that Gabrielle was in fact alive, as Gabrielle was featured in the vision dying with her. Before the climax of Xena’s actual death was reached, she got the upper hand on Alti and managed to push her into a spiked branch on a nearby tree and killing her in the same way Cyane was killed.
India and Naiyama
Xena and Gabrielle took a spiritual quest to India, in hopes of finding answers to their separate wonderings: Xena’s being her vision. Whilst there, they stopped a girl, Naiyama, from being killed at her husband’s funeral. In a twist of events, she revealed to Xena that enemy from her past was trying to find one of her future lives.
Alti is defeated by Xena and Gabrielle using the Mehndi, in "Between the Lines"
She gave Xena the weapon that would defeat this enemy, the Mehndi – a skin paint that Hindus believe to be sacred and hold great power. Sent into a future life, Xena realised that she was in the body of her future self, Arminestra, a follower of the Way of the Saint. She discovered that the enemy was none other than Alti (in the form of Khindin, an enemy of Arminestra), stifling through future lives to find Xena.
Naiyama realised that Xena and Gabrielle were soul mates and so she sent Gabrielle into the future to find Xena and help her. She discovered that she was Shakti, a noble fighter and defender of Arminestra. Once discovering each other in the future life, they found the location of the Mehndi (which was left by Naiyama in the past life) and applied it to themselves, before being found by Alti. They used it to send Alti back to the past (in their normal lives), where a heavy battle was fought between Xena, Gabrielle and Alti. Alti showed Gabrielle the vision of her and Xena’s death, which resulted in emotional stress for Xena. Alti began to exert a lot of pain on Gabrielle and so Xena used the Mehndi to summon up ‘spiritual Chakrams’ and cut though Gabrielle’s hair to release her from Alti’s grasp. The battle ended when Xena and Gabrielle teamed up to bring together the Mehndi’s power and overwhelm Alti, defeating and killing her.
Attempt at Reincarnation
By now pregnant with Eve, Xena began to experience excruciating pain. She had a premonition, which led her to believe that something was trying to steal her baby’s soul. With Amarice and Gabrielle, Xena travelled to the Northern Amazons, in hopes of having Yakut help discover the power that is trying to steal her baby’s soul. They found it was Alti, who was hoping to use the soul to reincarnate herself and return to the living realm. In order to defeat Alti, battle had to have been done in the dream or spirit realm – in other words, she was unable to be defeated in reality.
Alti and Gabrielle in the spirit realm, in "Them Bones, Them Bones"
With Xena in no fit state to battle Alti in her own realm, Gabrielle volunteered to learn the ways of the shamaness and venture into the spirit realm to do battle with Alti herself. Almost killed on her first attempt, Gabrielle realised that Alti was too powerful in her own realm. They managed to trick Alti into coming into Xena’s dreamscape and do battle with her there. This gave Xena the upper hand and rendered her able to take advantage of the situation. Alti was defeated once again and her plot to be resurrected was prevented.
Alternate Reality
When Julius Caesar escaped from the Underworld and tampered with Xena’s life thread, he created an Alternate Reality, in which he and Xena where the Emperor and Empress of Rome, respectively. He included Alti in the reality, where she assisted Caesar into once again conquering Xena becoming supreme. Unaware of her power and her true ambitions, Caesar under-estimated Alti and she killed him while they had consummate their newfound union. Having crucified Xena and acquired power over Rome, Alti thought that once again she had won. Gabrielle discovered that the timeline was a fake and destroyed it, thus bringing back the original universe and causing the events in the Alternate Reality to have never existed.
Cloning Xena and Gabrielle
Alexis reveals herself as Alti, in "Send in the Clones"
2000 years later and Alti has survived into the 21st Century. She took the guise of Alexis Los Alamos, a scientist who developed a cloning programme (with the help of three Xena: Warrior Princess Fans), which will hopefully revive Xena and Gabrielle into modern times. ‘Alexis’ met with a trader, who had in his possession perfectly preserved hair strands of Xena’s and Gabrielle’s and the Chakram. The three fans, Polly, Clea and Mac (who were obviously based on less serious and more modern representations of Xena, Gabrielle and Joxer, respectively), created tapes of Xena episodes, which featured pivotal points in both Xena’s and Gabrielle’s lives. Once the cloning process was over, they began to play the tapes to them, in hopes of reviving them with the exact memories of Xena and Gabrielle. The night before the clones awoke, Alti snuck into the lab and played the Xena clone tapes of her dark past, in hopes of reviving an evil Xena. It only half worked, as the Xena clone seemed to be acting out of character, but in a way that portrayed her as being lazy and sloppy, not evil and violent. Once Alexis revealed her true identity to the fans, she took them hostage and found the clones. Alti tried to talk Xena into turning back to her evil ways, but Alti’s convincing, along with the tapes of her evil past, were not enough to convince the Xena clone around. A fight ensued between Alti and the Xena clone. Xena managed to electrocute Alti, but started a fire in the process – which began to head for a large mountain of explosive canisters. She and the Gabrielle clone helped the fans to safety and the two clones survived the explosion too, implying that there are clones of Xena and Gabrielle living in modern times.
Memorable Quotations
"Your friend you told me about Lao Ma. Her powers come from denial, from self-sacrifice, from the Light. That's not for people like you and me. I want to tap into the heart of darkness, the sheer naked will behind all cravings, hatred, and violence. I will become the face of death destroying not only a person's body, but their soul. Help me and I'll make you the Destroyer of Nations."
:- Alti in "Adventures in the Sin Trade"
"Son of Darkness, Enemy of the Land, come and curse the child that Xena carries within her. Make sure that he never experiences the love of either of his parents."
:- Alti's Curse for Solan in "Adventures in the Sin Trade II"
"Your little friend is dying with you, Xena. How does that make you feel?"
"Good."
"Good!?"
"Because if she's dying in my future it means she's alive now!"
:- Alti and Xena in "Adventures in the Sin Trade II"
"What's she told you about me, little girl? Has she told you about my powers? Has she told you about this? (shows Gabrielle Xena's vision of their deaths) That's my gift to you. That's your future. She's responsible for your death!"
"You BITCH!"
:- Alti and Xena in "Between the Lines"
Background Information
Behind the Scenes
- Claire Stansfield originally read for the part of Morrigan on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Rob Tapert noticed that she had something and called her agent, who gave her the script for "Adventures in the Sin Trade I and II".*When she first read the script, she thought that she was reading for the part of Cyane, not Alti, who was described as "an old hag and bag of bones". Director T.J. Scott said that he would take those parts out, as that did not fit Claire's appearance.
- Whilst at the Seattle Xena Convention in 2001, Stansfield said that she based Alti on Queen Mab, the Evil Faery Queen from the TV mini series "Merlin", played by Miranda Richardson. She also said that there was some influence from the Wicked Witch of the West in the character too.
- Coincidentally, a version of Queen Mab appeared in Once Upon a Future King.
- During the scene where Alti had to dance around a fire to conjure up spirits in "Adventures in the Sin Trade II", Claire based her movements on those of a South American shamaness she had seen in a documentary.
- Alti was originally going to be villian in "The Ides of March" the writers decided to go with Callisto. Appropriately, Callisto was considered for an appearance in "When Fates Collide", but they decided to go with Alti.
Trivia
- Alti was the one who dubbed Xena the "Destroyer of Nations".
- Alti can be considered the reason why Borias died and why Xena gave Solan away, due to the curse she placed on Solan, stating that he will never know the love of his parents.
- In "When Fates Collide", Alti says that Xena's story will end when Gabrielle is unable to save her Fallen Angel, foreshadowing the events in four episodes time, in "A Friend in Need Part II". This was the second time that she had foreshadowed Xena's death, the first being in "Adventures in the Sin Trade II".
- "Alti in turkish language means "six". Alti's name could also be a reference to the Altai mountains in central Asia, which would be near where the Siberian Amazons lived.
Gallery
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Appearances
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