Consequently, Hercules grows up on Earth as a mortal and is raised by mortal parents. For many years they have been praying for a child, so they delightedly accept Hercules as their own, especially as he is handy for disposing of underworld demons in snake form. Pain and Panic’s plan was interrupted by Amphitryon and his wife, who happened to be walking by. Since he doesn’t drink the last drop, Hercules still retains his god-like strength, but can no longer live among the other gods on Mount Olympus. Pain and Panic use a magic potion to turn Hercules mortal with the aim of killing him afterwards, but they are interrupted and drop the bottle before the baby has finished drinking. He is their only son and their pride and joy, so when he is stolen by Pain and Panic, Hades’ minions, Zeus terrorises the sky with his lightning and all of the gods go on a frantic search to try to find him. Hercules is born to gods Zeus and Hera on Mount Olympus, and a grand party is thrown in celebration. So you could argue that the Muses in the original stories were a tad less friendly towards mortals, and they are no way involved in the story of Heracles either.Īpart from choosing the Latin name for their main character, Disney also decided to revise Heracles’ origins a little bit. This rather extreme alternative to a pub quiz wouldn’t be possible without the Muses having given her the riddle in the first place. For example, the legend of the sphinx (as in the lion with the woman’s head) sees her asking a seemingly impossible riddle and then mercilessly devouring anyone who gets the answer wrong. They’re not strangers to helping others though. Others who have tried to outdo them have met similar ends. When a poet and lyre player called Thamyris challenges them to a music contest – after which they will have to sleep with him if he wins – they respond by whooping his ass at said contest, blinding him and taking away his ability to play the lyre to teach him a lesson. However, they are also daughters of Zeus, and take their sassiness to a more extreme level. There are nine Muses in total and they are indeed goddesses of the arts. They are also allowed to gatecrash the gods’ party on Mount Olympus, so they accompany us throughout the story. They are enormously sympathetic to the protagonists, singing sadly when Hercules is stolen from his nest, and joshing Megara when she refuses to admit she is in love. Rather inexplicably, they choose to narrate the tale of Hercules via gospel songs, and spend the remainder of their time drooling over him or enticing other statues into a sing-a-long. Our storytellers are five sassy Muses, who introduce themselves as goddesses of the arts and the proclaimers of heroes. So without further ado, let’s look at Disney’s second bash at mythology in this series. Pinning down a specific source text is also rather difficult, as due to oral storytelling traditions it’s often a case of “he said/she said”, but the collection by Apollodorus, said to have survived from antiquity, is considered a primary source of the original myths, and any gaps in between I have patched up using the who’s who guide by M. Since Disney have picked a handful of figures and events from the original legends and concocted a story around them, it’s not possible for me to do an exact side by side comparison, so instead I’ll be going through the scenes of the film and comparing the characters and situations with the relevant parts of the source material. If you aren’t familiar with the mythology, then brace yourself for Disney’s finest glossing since The Little Mermaid. If you are even remotely familiar with Greek mythology you are probably pulling a face already, but are equally unsurprised at Disney’s deviations from the original myths – you are more likely asking yourself why on earth they chose these stories in the first place, which are usually crammed with murder, betrayal, tragedy, and the other kind of family friendly entertainment. All the while, Hades, Lord of the Underworld, seeks to destroy him as he is the one obstacle in his plan to take over the universe. Helping him along the way are his trainer Philoctetes (voiced by Danny De Vito), love interest Megara, and his trusty steed, the winged horse Pegasus. It’s about Zeus’ mortal son Hercules, who seeks to regain his place among the other gods on Mount Olympus by becoming a true hero. Set in Ancient Greece, Hercules is by far one of Disney’s most happy-go-lucky films.
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