Hercules: The Legendary Journeys/Characters


Characters from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys include:


Heroes

Hercules

Half-man, half-god, Hercules is the son of Zeus and Alcmena. Having been trained by the centaur Chiron, Hercules grew up to be a hero who saved Greece from disaster several times before settling down with his wife and having a few kids. The series however starts with his family being killed by Hera, setting him back on the path of getting rid of monsters, and tyrants, and thwarting whatever zany, or horrible schemes his father's family has concocted, between other kinds of problems.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Ancient Grome: Uses his Roman name, instead of Greek.
  • Badass: He is the strongest man in the world. The writers eventually took his status down a little by emphasizing the "man" part and introducing Atalanta.
  • Badass Long Hair
  • Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Blue Oni: To Iolaus, which is much eager to get involved in fights.
  • Cain and Abel: With Ares, one of his several older brothers, especially because his pacifism makes him a primary target of the God of War.
  • Cartwright Curse: Season 3. Just as he seems to have found love again, Serena is killed by Strife and he goes back to being a loner.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Despair Event Horizon: The death of his wife and kids at the beginning of the series. In Season 3, the death of Serena.
  • The Hero
  • I Am Not My Father: And how.
  • Lightning Bruiser: He is not supernaturally fast but the fact his strength is supernatural means he is a moderately quick human whose strongest punches would probably kill a grown man.
  • Martial Pacifist: He created the Olympic Games as a replacement for war, much like in the myth.
  • Messianic Archetype: Of course, Hercules already shares a lot of similarities with the big J from myth, but this series especially adds the pacifism trait: Hercules does not engage in unnecessary fights or war, and tries to stimulate peace between humans and non-human races, unlike his mythological counterpart who basically extinguished the centaurs by himself. As a result, his older brother Ares becomes as much of an antagonist as his stepmother Hera. And he is constantly struggling and suffering because of said pacifism.
  • Papa Wolf
  • Pungeon Master
  • World's Strongest Man

Iolaus

Hercules' sidekick, Iolaus is an average human being, but a much better fighter than most human beings. He is very prone to get himself into trouble thanks to his boasting and overestimation of his own capabilities. Like Hercules, he is from Thebes and was also trained by Chiron. Unlike mythology, he is not Hercules' nephew(or his lover, for that matter).

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Often prone to boast about fighting by Hercules' side, though a lot of episodes focuses on the natural inferiority complex that grows out of it.
  • Badass Normal: He is fully human, though relatively strong, and relies therefore much more on his wits than Hercules to deal with supernatural or simply natural threats.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Boasts a lot about his ability to fight, and often gets beat up a lot for it by boasting to the wrong target.
  • Butt Monkey: Prone to end up in humiliating situations, and was killed several times during the show run, with his first death happening even before the show properly started in the television films(and he somehow remembers it despite being reversed with time travel).
  • The Lancer: He is fully human and much more hot-headed than Hercules.
  • Lightning Bruiser
  • Red Oni: He is a lot eager to rush into situations without thinking, and Hercules has to rein him in.

Herc's Family

Alcmene

The daughter of Electryon and Anaxo, the mother of Hercules and Iphicles. Pureness personified, at least in the eyes of Zeus. For most of the series, Alcmene is absent, but if Hercules is near Thebes Hera will certainly use her as bait to try to kill him.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: She had to raise Hercules and Iphicles as a widow because in this universe Amphitryon bites the dust fighting in the battle that he takes part in in the myth.
  • Foil: To Echidna. Their kids' fathers were absent in their lives and were gifted with incredible strength and supernatural powers thanks to inheriting them from their parents. But while Zeus simply left, Typhoon was imprisoned by Hera. And while Hercules fought against Hera, her children were recruited to fight in Hera's name. This eventually leads Echidna to try to kill her in an "eye for an eye" revenge scheme.
  • Happily Married: In the present, to Jason.
  • Mama Bear
  • Nice Girl: She seems incapable of holding any kind of negative feeling and secretly blames herself for the hardships Hercules endures despite being the victim of the most infamous Bed Trick in the history of mankind and being left to raise her twin sons without even Amphitryon by her side.

Aphrodite

The goddess of love is the daughter of Zeus and Hera in this series. Despite looking like an adult, she behaves like a petty teenager, often causing trouble intentionally or not. Hercules has a friendly relationship with her and she treats him well, but she doesn't often mind if she is caught in the crossfire of her plans, which often end in disaster even for her.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Alpha Bitch: She is very petty and prone to try to cause wars over minor offences by using her ability to make people fall in love, between other spells. She is also very worshipped, with mortals thinking highly of her just because she is the goddess of love, having rarely or never met the real Aphrodite. Character development eventually kicks in thanks to Hercules, that teaches her to mellow out and have more respect for mortals, and she falls in love with Hephaestus, and she becomes a Lovable Alpha Bitch.
  • Balance Between Good and Evil: Love and war need to coexist, so she becomes mentally ill when Ares ceases to be a god and there is no God of War replacing him..
  • Big Little Sister: She is presumably at best thousands of years old, but Hercules refers to her as "little sister" at least once. This is probably a reference to her much smaller mental age.
  • The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson: All gods can time travel, though Zeus restricted such ability, but Aphrodite is shown to have a deeper than surface knowledge of 20th-century culture, unlike many other gods.
  • Hair of Gold: Eventually grows up into this.
  • Love Goddess: And is shown as a hazardous thing, since basically counts as Mind Control when she induces people to love other people. It also has limitations: she can't stop love born by itself.
  • Mind Over Matter: She can at least move small objects only with her mind.
  • Opposites Attract: She is gorgeous and The Ditz, and she is attracted to Hephaestus, one of the smartest gods and not very good-looking, though the smith god was so afraid of rejection that he avoided meeting her at all. They eventually marry when they accidentally meet thanks to her being captured by his automatons.
  • Totally Radical: Deconstructed. She often uses future slang and references future things, which confuses the hell out of the ancient people surrounding her. The series is filled with Anachronism Stew, but it only goes as far as the 1st century CE (where Word of God says the series happens in the 1st century BCE).

Cupid

A description of the character goes here.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Deianeira

A description of the character goes here.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Iphicles

A description of the character goes here.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Jason

A description of the character goes here.

Serena / The Golden Hind.

A description of the character goes here.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Zeus

The king of Gods, the son of Chronos and Rhea. A god who seduced several mortal women and sired demigods with great power, as gods with his wife Hera. Hercules doesn't like him one bit for being absent from his life and for allowing Hera to torment him and other mortals. Despite that, he is incredibly proud of Hercules for becoming the greatest hero that the human race has ever seen.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Blue and Orange Morality: Operates by his own morality system based on balance, which just often confuses even the other gods.
  • The Casanova: A very polite and charming guy, much to Hercules' annoyance, since he knows well of his tendencies for Parental Abandonment once the woman is pregnant.
  • The Gods Must Be Lazy: Though he appeared frequently in television films, he vanished without a trace in the series for a lot of time and didn't interfere even as the other gods put humans through horrible situations.
  • Top God: The king of the Greek Gods, and the most powerful of all of them by a great distance.

Villains

Hera

The All-Powerful Queen of the Gods, the wife of Zeus. Hercules mentions without further elaboration she is "the daughter of Darkness", implying Erebus is her father on this continuity. For most of the series, Hera doesn't appear in person, only appearing as eyes of the sky surrounded by peacock feathers and a terrifying leitmotif.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Adaptational Badass: In the The Iliad, Zeus affirms(and nobody contests him) that he alone is strong enough to counterbalance all the Olympians combined in a contest of strength so they should stop contesting his orders. Here, Hera is physically as powerful as him.
  • Big Bad: She has an almost endless number of minions and is well more willing than Zeus to use her godly powers. It doesn't help she is the god of motherhood and some humans foolishly think there is some good in her because of that, not realising that the concept of motherhood extends to other species, species that Hera doesn't lift a finger against. The only thing stopping her from turning Hercules into a bloody pulp is that Zeus at least protects her son.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: When she finally has her first in-person conversation with Hercules, her morality system reveals itself as this: it wasn't just about Alcmene, though that was obvious by the number of people she kills before Hercules even hears about her latest atrocities, she thinks the whole mankind is standing between her and Zeus and, in a level, Zeus is cheating on her by loving them. Hercules is obviously not impressed.
  • Evil Matriarch: It's pretty obvious from where Ares got all the bad traits, Hephaestus was cast away by her, and Aphrodite have no good things to say about her mother; but in a way or another, all of her children are very dysfunctional and prone to abuse their divine powers just like her. It's Hercules' influence that makes Aphrodite grow some morals, and Aphrodite manages to make Hephaestus stop and think about what he is doing.
  • Evil Old Folks: Her default form looks like a middle-aged woman.
  • Lack of Empathy: She sees humans less as sentient beings and more like objects.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: When she and Hercules finally go hand-to-hand, Hera turns out to be as stronger as Zeus. Hercules literally goes to the ground after one hit.
  • Not So Different: She tries to claim Hercules also hates Zeus. Hercules denies he ever felt such a strong feeling like hate towards his biological father.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Though it was obvious by the way the other gods and Hercules speak about her that she is just as human-looking as them, her lack of on-person presence made her look much more inhuman than them.
  • Peacock Girl: Her symbolic bird; peacock feathers are a signal Hera was there, used it to make some monster down there, or inform the audience she is there; when she finally appears in person, she wears a dress decorated with feathers of the bird. It does fit her It's All About Me vain nature.
  • Phrase Catcher: Mortal and gods that detest her often call her "cow face", thanks to her association with the animal. It doesn't help she is The Faceless, so speculation she is incredibly ugly runs rampant.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: In the finale of Season 4, gets imprisoned in the abyss of Tartarus just after attempting to do with Hercules.
  • Tempting Fate: In the finale of season 4, she tells Cronos he is getting company soon without specifying who before trying to throw Hercules into Tartarus. Hercules makes sure it is her, not him.
  • They Look Just Like Everyone Else: She looks like an average middle-aged woman in her default form.
  • Wicked Stepmother: It hardly gets more wicked than an evil goddess who kills her stepson's family and keeps sending monsters after him to kill him.

Ares

See the Character sheet for Xena: Warrior Princess

Strife

A description of the character goes here.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Supporting

Xena

See the Character sheet for Xena: Warrior Princess

Gabrielle

See the Character sheet for Xena: Warrior Princess

Salmoneus

A description of the character goes here.

Autolycus

See the Character sheet for Xena: Warrior Princess

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