#heracles

Third floor above ground…

Wait？？？

I will be silly right now. I just find it interesting and I am surprised that people miss it sometimes.

Since we were talking about Heracles; Heracles actually married his first wife Megara to his nephew and protegee Iolaos. Ironically the excuse he used for this match was and I quote "to encourage men not to be afraid to marry older women"

Hahahaha you may say whatever you want about Heracles but you cannot say that he doesn't support older ladies haha By the way we even have an age mark for the match (Iolaos was 16 while Megara was 33). I also wonder whether Megara remained married to Iolaos till the end of her life and if yes that means that Iolaos potentially took her with him when Heracles made him in charge to colonize Spain with some of his eldest sons with the 50 daughters of Thespius (which is another thing that people do not say much, he literally gave his nephew the scouts and sent them on a field trip hahahahaha!)

Also generally people do not speak about Heracles outside his labors and maybe Argonautica in general but Heracles has many myths that are linked to his life for instance the founding of the city of Cius (Kios) either by Heracles himself or his friend Polyphemus; After Hylas died Heracles was frantic and looked everywhere for him. Polyphemus stayed with him, not re-joining the Argonautica. Polyphemus ruled the city of Kios and established a tradition that according to legend became an annual ritual; the city continued to look for Hylas as some sort of ritual festivity for centuries after even Heracles died. My man established a city AND a festival dedicated to that one young person that died because a nymph wanted to kiss him underwater!

Last but not least and in a more serious note I think one hella underrated myth that literally NO ONE talks about is the death of Orpheus. Yeah you heard that right.

I hear people talk about Orpheus and Eurydice or at best at Argonautica but very little is known abut Opheus or explored for that matter. For instance people do not know that Opheus seemingly founded several rituals of Dionysus or that he even established his Bacchic worship and that is important to say because ironically his death came from a Bacchic ritual aka a Thracian woman Maenad! Either because Oprheus was depressed and ignored the Bacchic rituals after he lost Eurydice or during the celebrations (in one of the graphic images Ovid gives us) Orpheus was torn limb by limb by the Thracian Maenads. Honestly the death of Oprheus is a really sad myth that I hardly ever see talked about

i think we need to collectively unlearn the disney movie because the actual mythological hercules did not have a single working brain cell. he was just a 250-pound slab of beef travelling from town to town committing structural property damage.

he is the blueprint of every guy who tries to fix a leaky pipe with a hammer and ends up flooding the entire neighbourhood.

he murdered his music teacher with a guitar

when hercules was a kid, he wasn't great at academics. his music tutor, a guy names linus, tried to correct how he was playing the lyre (basically an ancient greek harp).

hercules got so deeply offended by constructive criticism that he picked the instrument and beat linus to death with it. his parents were so stressed out by his complete lack of chill that they literally banished him to live in the mountains with the cows so he'd stop murdering the faculty members.

he was saved from execution by his own butt hair

at one point, two goblin-like thief creatures called the kerkopes stole hercules' weapons while he was asleep. he caught them, tied them to a pole upside down, and slung them over his shoulder to carry them to their execution.

because they were hanging upside down behind him, the thieves had a direct, unvarnished view straight up hercules' loincloth. they noticed his backside was incredibly, prehistorically hairy and started absolutely howling with laughter. hercules asked what was so funny, they told him, and he found the roast so hilarious that he just let them go.

he literally spared their lives because they made fun of his ass-hair situation.

the oracle ghosted him, so he stole her furniture

when hercules went to the famous oracle of delphi to get a prophecy, the priestess looked at him, decided she didn't want to deal with his drama, and refused to speak to him.

normal response: leave a bad yelp review. hercules response: "if i don't get a prophecy, i am stealing the building."

he literally grabbed the sacred tripod chair the oracle sat on and tried to walk out with it so he could start his own rival oracle business. apollo (the god of the temple) had to physically fly and play tug-of-war with hercules over a piece of furniture until zeus threw a thunderbolt between them like a tired dad breaking up a fight in a mcdonald's parking lot.

his baby formula created the milky way

the literal galaxy we live in exists because hercules was a greedy baby. zeus wanted his mortal son to have divine powers, so he snuck hercules into bed with his goddess wife, hera, while she was asleep so the baby could nurse.

hercules bit down way too hard. hera woke up, shrieked and ripped the baby away, causing a massive jet of divine breast milk to spray across the cosmos.

that is NOT a joke. the word "galaxy" comes from gala, the greek word for milk. our entire solar system is floating inside a cosmic baby-feeding accident.

credits:

Heracles DOES have a mace, but the one he’s using is a Japanese one, as you might have realized or already known before reading this.

Am not complaining, just curious if there is further explanation or if the character designers just thought it was cool.

Heracles is already plenty characterized through Alcides. I consider this to be my best Alcides post, and I think it's the best place to answer your question too.