Dahak
Who is Dahak? He is not the equivalent of Satan exactly, although in the series, he/she seems to impersonate pure evil.
shareShort Answer: A primordial god who represented/embodied every dark, destructive, evil impulse in the world. The name of said entity is from a demon from the Zorastrian
Long answer: In the overall loose continunity of the Hercules and Xena universe, Dahak is one of two primordial deities that existed before the world. He embodies the darkness while the "God of Love" embodies light, creation, peace, etc. I don't know if you watched the Xena television series, but Dahak originated a a behind-the-scenes antagonist trying to get into the world throughout seasons three and four.
The world of Hercules and Xena had a sort of dualism where Dahak and the God of Love existed as higher entities above the earthly pantheons like the Olympians.
His opposite, the God of Love was a prominent figure behind the scenes in Xena Season Five. It was the driving force behind the controversial "Twilight of the Olympians" story arc. It was based on the Christian God and had Eli (the show's version of Jesus) spread the Way of Love to replace worship of the Olympians to free humanity of their oppression and cause them to eventually fade away all without violence. The controversy comes from a number of elements including the Olympians going from fairly neutral to outright stupid (all of them including ones like Hades and Hepahestus), forgetting about their powers. Xena being given the power to kill gods despite the God of Love being so against violence. And in the end, the God of Love basically replacing the Olympians where instead of worshipping many gods you worship one god. Add on in Season Six his commandments became more oppressive sounding than anything the Olympians did and he sounds little different from them. While Dahak preached total freedom the God of Love demanded total obedience. In the end, even Xena kind of lost faith in him.
It was so bad some fans like to pretend the God of Love was really Dahak in disguise.
Satan himself appeared in Xena Season 6. The episode "The Haunting of Amphipolis" introduced Mephistophales who was the King of Hell. Where exactly he came from no one knows, but the closest speculation is he was a fallen angel who once served the God of Love. There was mention on an episode of Hercules about angels haveing previously rebelled. Lucifer himself showed up the next episode and was corrupted by Xena into becoming the next King of Hell.
First of all, thank you for a thorough answer. I have only read about Xena television series from here, IMDB database and a couple of more articles in the web. Both Xena and Hercules were aired in my country in the early 2000-s, at first at the prime time in the evenings, then only in the early mornings of saturday and sunday. I watched Hercules from time to time, found it entertaining and comical, but nothing more. I think I watched it just as a show for fun, not as the masterpiece I see it today.
However, for some reason I was deeply impressed by Dahak. He was so evil and depraved and yet so cunning that he made and makes you either love or hate him. At that time, I was only casually familiar with Christianity like most of us, I suppose, so for me he was the Devil- nothing less or more. Just the personification of evil. Never gave it a second thought.
Now, about 15 years later, I have started rewatching the series and started reading more about the show. However, before you post I had not found a complete and understandable describtsion of Dahak. I cannot explain why I am so obsessed with some mythic character from television series. My only explanation is that I just want to find out, who or what the Dahak is supposed impersonate in our world.
I must admit, I had to start from the basics after reading your post. I did not even know, who were primordial gods in Greek mythology. Zorastrian was also something new for me. At first, I thouht that Dahak was the Angra Mainyu, the opposite of Ahura Mazda. Then I found out Dahak (or Zahhak) was actually the son of Angra Mainyu. After that, it all started making sense to me, considering the storyline of Dahak and who or what he is.
I am not sure I did understand it correctly, but I have also read that the Devil, as whe know him, does not necesserily impersonate evil, but in some ways the free will of human being.