Quote Originally Posted by 7-Love View Post
Gabrielle's traveling with a woman who's list of evil deeds was far, far, far longer than Callisto's was when Xena & Gabrielle had met Callisto for the first time. If Xena (someone who's list of evil deeds looks like a vast ocean in comparison to Callisto's little lake of evil deeds (at that time when they had met her)) could change, why didn't Gabrielle believe that somewhere deep down inside there was a glimmer of hope for Callisto's redemption someday? The way that Gabrielle had acted in the episode "A Necessary Evil" towards Callisto (after Xena had confessed to a village what she had done to Callisto's life) is the way that she should've acted towards Callisto all along in Callisto's debut episode.
When Gabrielle first met Xena, Xena was searching for redemption and had already made the decision to give up her warlord ways. Had she met Xena when she was still evil, there's no way Gabrielle would've felt much sympathy for her. She didn't feel sympathy for Callisto because Callisto clearly had no intention of ever redeeming herself. Gabrielle saw her as a crazy, evil, and dangerous woman. Gabrielle was also quite a naive person in season one, and still didn't know the full impact Xena's past had on various people. Had Callisto shown any signs of remorse in season one, I think Gabrielle would've felt some sympathy for her. But it's hard to sympathize with a murdering psychopath, regardless of how she became that way.