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Hercules

The Mundane World

Hercules lives with his adoptive parents, but his life is anything but normal. He is super strong but is extremely awkward and always breaks things. Nobody in town likes him and all of the boys his age call him “Jerkules.”

The Call To Adventure

Amphitrion, Herc’s adoptive father, gives him a medallion of the Gods and says that it was around his neck when they found him. This prompts him to go to the temple of Zeus to receive guidance.

Crossing The Threshold

Zeus comes alive within the statue in the temple. He reveals to Hercules that he, the king of the Gods, is his father. Hercules wants to come back and stay with his true father and mother, but Zeus tells him he must become a “true hero” to live among the Gods. He sends his son to Philoctetes, trainer of heroes, to achieve this task.

The Path of Trials

Herc’s first trial is to win over Philoctetes, or “Phil,” and get him to train him as a hero. Phil reluctantly agrees and Hercules starts his instruction. It is tough at first, as Herc is still very awkward and clumsy, but as time goes on, he gets in shape and makes his way to Thebes to find hero work with Phil. On his way, he meets Meg, a beautiful girl in distress that he saves.

His next trials consist of beating the monsters that Hades sends his way. Hercules defeats them all and Hades gets so frustrated until he realizes that Hercules’ one weakness is that he cares about people too much, specifically, Meg. Meg’s soul belongs to Hades because of deal she made with him. Hades makes a deal with Hercules to release Meg from a trap if he gave up his strength for a whole day.

Hercules realizes it was a trap and his next trial is to try and save Olympus. Even though he has no strength he still tries to battle the Cyclops. He wins, but Meg is hurt, giving back Hercules’ strength. He goes and saves Olympus, but is too late to save Meg and her soul goes into the Underworld.

Hercules’ last task is to go to the Underworld and saves Meg’s soul. Hades lets him dive into the river Styx and grab her soul. The river Styx takes the life out of anyone who is living, and as Herc goes deeper and deeper, the life gets sucked out of him. He finally grabs Meg and comes out as a God.

Master of Two Worlds

Hercules obtains God-status because he acted as a true hero. His strength of heart, not the strength of his sword or arms, is what gave him his God-status back. Although Hercules is finally achieves his goal, he chooses to stay mortal because an immortal life without Meg would be empty. Hercules realizes power and status aren’t the most important things in the world.

Submitted by: Steve Kessel