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Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

Hercules is half-man, half-god and a hero of fantastic strength. After his malevolent stepmother, Hera, kills his wife and children, he wanders about Earth with mortal best friend Iolaus, fi... Read all Hercules is half-man, half-god and a hero of fantastic strength. After his malevolent stepmother, Hera, kills his wife and children, he wanders about Earth with mortal best friend Iolaus, fighting evil and trying to overcome his loss. Hercules is half-man, half-god and a hero of fantastic strength. After his malevolent stepmother, Hera, kills his wife and children, he wanders about Earth with mortal best friend Iolaus, fighting evil and trying to overcome his loss.

• Christian Williams
• Kevin Sorbo
• Michael Hurst
• Kevin Smith
• 59 User reviews
• 32 Critic reviews
• 7 wins & 21 nominations

Episodes 111

Photos 1161

• Salmoneus …

• Autolycus …

• Aphrodite …

• Hercules Double …
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• Trivia The ratings soared to number one in syndicated action shows, passing the seemingly insurmountable Baywatch (1989) . Later it would be surpassed by its own spin-off show, Xena: Warrior Princess (1995) , which took top spot in Xena's second season. Xena continued to lead Hercules every subsequent year both series aired.
• Goofs Aphrodite refers to Hercules as both "older brother" and "younger brother" several times throughout the series.

Hercules : This is not my world... DISAPPOINTED!

• Crazy credits The end credits for many episodes include an additional humorous message near the end of the credits. They were usually in the style of the "No animals were harmed..." messages featured in most end credits.
• Connections Edited into Hercules: The Xena Trilogy (1998)

User reviews 59

• Jun 7, 1999
• How many seasons does Hercules: The Legendary Journeys have? Powered by Alexa
• Why isn't it as popular as Xena?
• How can Strife die in 'Armagedon Now' but be alive in 'Yes Virginia there is a Hercues' which is set in the present day?
• Why are there so many episodes with so little Hercules in them?
• January 16, 1995 (United States)
• United States
• Những Cuộc Phiêu Lưu Của Hercules
• New Zealand
• Universal Television
• World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 44 minutes

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Morrigan (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys)

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Morrigan, the demigoddess Heracles met when he, with the help of druid magic, ended up in Ireland. She was in the service of the god Kernunnos. With whom she used to have a love affair and from whom she gave birth to a daughter Bridget. She drank the blood of God from the cup and this strengthened her semi-divine nature. Giving her the ability to move at an unimaginable speed. By order of God, she sought out druids who preached their faith among the people and repelled them from worshiping the gods.She killed people by torturing them and tearing out their hearts. When she learned from Kernunnos that the Druids had called Hercules to Ireland, she fought with him and defeated him. She then learned from one of the traitors where to find the very youngest of the Druids. She found him, but it turned out that a simple weapon could not harm the magician. Mabon led her to the shrine of the Druids, where she was deceived by them. Morrigan killed the oldest of the druids and absorbed his magical powers. Becoming a druess of justice. After that, she wanted to kill the rest of the druids, but Hercules appeared, who was trained by the druid and with the help of Mabon learned to move with incredible speed. Hercules defeated Morrigan in battle and defended the Druids. Then Mabon told Hercules to take care of Morrigan and help her become good. At the time when Hercules was trying to make friends in Morrigan, Caesar sailed to the shores of Ireland. Who wanted to conquer Ireland and annex the country to the Roman Empire.

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• 1 Stephanie Lake (Batman Beyond)
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Tongue-in-cheek derring-do about the mythical strongman and his quest to battle evil while avenging the death of his wife and children. Filmed in New Zealand, the hit syndicated series was introduced in 1994 with five two-hour TV movies and inspired the wildly popular 'Xena: Warrior Princess.' It also was the source for 'Young Hercules,' a live-action series for children on Fox.

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Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Cast List

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys cast list, including photos of the actors when available. This list includes all of the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys main actors and actresses , so if they are an integral part of the show you'll find them below. You can various bits of trivia about these Hercules: The Legendary Journeys stars, such as where the actor was born and what their year of birth is. This cast list of actors from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys focuses primarily on the main characters, but there may be a few actors who played smaller roles on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys that are on here as well.

Everything from Lucy Liu to Lucy Lawless is featured on this list, so cast your votes below.

If you are wondering, "Who are the actors from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys?" or "Who starred on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys?" then this list will help you answer those questions.

Alexandra Tydings

Bruce Campbell

Claudia Black

Elizabeth Hawthorne

Kevin Sorbo

Lucy Lawless

Gina Torres

Michael Hurst

Robert Trebor

Kevin Smith

Nathaniel Lees

Renee O'Connor

Ryan Gosling

Tawny Kitaen

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Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

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Summary Short summary describing this series.

Herakles/Heracles, more commonly known as Hercules, is probably the most well-known of all the Greco-Roman gods. Hercules was born a demigod with physical strength surpassing even that of the gods. The greatest and mightiest hero of ancient Greece, Hercules' name is synonymous with strength.

A fierce fighter and Hercules's best friend.

Salmoneus is a bumbling, scheming businessman who always seems to get himself or "the heroes" in heaps of trouble!

Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war and is the personification of sheer brutality, in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.

Autolycus, indeed a master thief, if he does say so himself.

Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation. Aphrodite was syncretized with the Roman goddess Venus. Aphrodite's major symbols include myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans.

The Queen of Olympus and wife to Zeus. She is the Goddess of Marriage and Monogamy. Her Roman counterpart is Juno.

The human mother of Hercules.

Jason is a hero of the Greek mythology who battled at Troy and then went on an epic journey back to his home of Argos, along with his friends and comrades, the Argonauts.

Discord is the Roman goddess of strife.

Celtic Goddess of War and Death.

In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis, also called Rhamnousia or Rhamnusia, is the goddess who enacts retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods).

Xena Warrior Princess. Once a warlord, she has now turned to the path of good and fights evil with her best friend Gabrielle by her side!

Zeus the King of the Gods. Youngest Son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, Zeus is the Father of Olympus, God of Lightning, Skies and Earth. He rules over all mortals and immortals, as well as holds his role as the leading authority figure in Greek Mythology.

Deianira of Calydon was the second known wife of Hercules. She was the daughter of Oeneus, King of Calydon and his wife Althaea. Some accounts suggest she was actually the daughter of Dionysus, patron deity of Oeneus. She was at some point abducted by Nessus the Centaur. When Hercules killed Nessus.

Azhi Dahaka

Three-headed mythological dragon.

A Giant who is the son of Gaea and Tartarus whose sole purpose in life was to overthrow the Olympian Gods and claim the world as his. In ancient times he was defeated by Zeus. He has returned in modern times and has made an enemy of Hercules.

Mother of all Greek monsters with great power to rival even Zeus.

Ephiny was a member of the Telaquire Amazon tribe. Friend of Xena and Gabrielle.

God of the Underworld, Minerals, Gold and the Dead.

The blacksmith of the Greek Gods, responsible for creating most of their weapons and technology. He is usually represented as disfigured, or at least ugly, and is the only god to have been able to return to Olympus after being cast out.

Callisto blames Xena for the death of her family after her and her troops torched her village and has gone mad with rage.

He's Joxer, Joxer the Mighty.

The First Centaur; half human and half horse, Cheiron was renowned as a wise teacher, healer, and prophet. His most famous students include Jason of the Argonauts, the invulnerable Achilles, and the legendary Hercules. Upon his death, Zeus created the constellation of Centaurus in his honor.

Gabrielle is Xena's fast-talking, lovable sidekick, who starts out as a mere bard to sing Xena's praises and occasionally get rescued then grows into a warrior princess in her own right.

Atalanta was a Greek athlete and heroine known for her ferocity and swiftness. She was one of the Argonauts whom sailed in search of the Golden Fleece under the command of Jason.

The Lernaean Hydra, more often known simply as the Hydra, is a serpentine water monster in Greek and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, which was also the site of the myth of the Danaïdes. Lerna was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld.

Cassandra of Troy

Loki is a Norse god associated with fire, magic, and trickery. He fathered Hel, Fenrir, Jormungandr, and Slepnir (Odin's steed), among others. He is the husband of the goddess Sigyn. Loki is one of the few giants who are allied with the Norse gods.

Wife of Jason. A princess of Colchis who helped the Argonauts defeat her father. When, years later, Jason abandoned her, her vengeance was horrific. Medea was a powerful witch.

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Series / Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

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"This is the story of a time long ago, a time of myth and legend, when the ancient gods were petty and cruel, and they plagued mankind with suffering. Only one man dared to challenge their power: Hercules!

Hercules possessed a strength the world had never seen, a strength surpassed only by the power of his heart. He journeyed the Earth, battling the minions of his wicked stepmother Hera, the all-powerful queen of the gods.

But wherever there was evil, whenever an innocent would suffer, there would be Hercules!"

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys followed the life of the legendary hero played by Kevin Sorbo throughout ancient Greece as he fought tyrants, monsters, and the machinations of the Olympian gods with the help of his trusty sidekick Iolaus. It never took itself too seriously, it started out cheesy and got campier and campier as it went on, but it retained a good sense of humor throughout its run (and it had a kickass theme song ). Hercules was closely tied to its spinoff Xena: Warrior Princess , which soon overshadowed it in popularity. It also spawned another spinoff , Young Hercules , starring a young Ryan Gosling , which didn't fare quite as well.

The show began life as a series of TV movies as a part of Universal 's syndicated Action Pack which proved successful enough to go on to a series (which had a good deal of cosmetic and thematic differences, the events of the movies were not referred to in the show proper), and being filmed in New Zealand gave it an unprecedented level of Scenery Porn that other shows couldn't manage. It put a new spin on Greek Mythology , deliberately avoiding the white togas normally associated with this time period. It was delightfully tongue-in-cheek (including a hearty serving of Anachronism Stew and lots of awful Puns ) and impressively epic in its scope, using a lot of Wire Fu action sequences. It was also one of the first television series to make extensive use of CG creatures.

It was executive produced by Sam Raimi of Evil Dead fame, who would later go on to direct the Spider-Man Trilogy movies. Speaking of Evil Dead , Bruce Campbell directed a few episodes (Including the series finale), and played Autolycus. As an interesting note, the writing duo Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci got their start on this show, and have continued to complete a nerd trifecta of scripting movies for Mission: Impossible , Transformers , and Star Trek (2009) .

Incidentally, although the series ended two years before Xena: Warrior Princess , Kevin Sorbo's final appearance as Hercules was on the spinoff's "God Fearing Child."

This series provides examples of:

• Accidental Misnaming : A Running Gag in "War Bride" is Princess Melissa constantly getting Iolaus' name wrong and calling him "Iolfus." She gets it right in the end, though Hercules can't resist a little fun with it himself. Hercules: I was just starting to get used to "Doofus." Iolaus: Hey, that's "Iolfus."
• Alas, Poor Villain : When Strife is killed by Callisto in "Armageddon Now", Ares is visibly upset: "He wasn't so bad. He-he tried real hard. He was just no good at his job." (to Callisto) "You didn't have to do this!"
• "...And Fancy Free" features an exchange that doubles as a reference to a role that Kevin Sorbo tried out for.
• "Porkules" has this exchange after Herc's turned into a pig and encounters Katherine (voiced by Alexandra Tydings). Hercules: I'm Hercules. Katherine: Yeah, and I'm Aphrodite.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade : Proteus is depicted as being deformed and ostracized from birth - to the point that everyone on Olympus would mock him for his appearance when he was a child, including Hercules - and is so unloved that he resorts to shapeshifting into people in order to interact with society. In the original myths, not only did Proteus look fairly normal, but never needed to use his shapeshifting powers to pose as anyone, for had no interest in interacting with anyone except on the few occasions when he ended up fathering children. Indeed, his only real trouble in life was the fact that heroes would routinely track him down and wrestle him into submission in order to force him into revealing the future for them.
• Typhon, as depicted in the myth, is a horrifying monster with either a serpentine body of multiple tails, or a body of tentacles, likely a set of wings and a horrible face (either demonic or skull-like), or sometimes as a multi-headed dragon of immense size. He's also quite evil, as he and Echidna deliberately send monsters out to trouble humans. In the series he's a giant that looks like a normal man (played by actor Glenn Shadix), is quite friendly especially with children, and his children with Echidna only turned evil because Echidna was distraught over Typhon's absence, which happened only because Hera had trapped him for a century.
• Adaptational Ugliness : In the episode "Protean Challenge," Proteus is portrayed as hideously disfigured, to the point that his shapeshifting powers are used to hide his deformities and find love. In the original myths and artworks inspired by them, Proteus tended to look like a fairly ordinary old man - hence his title "The Old Man Of The Sea" - and any odd features he possessed were usually limited to a piscine lower half . And far from being unloved, he had numerous romantic partners across the Mediterranean, along with several offspring (two of which ended up getting killed in battle by Hercules himself, incidentally).
• Adaptational Wimp : Proteus is easily given away by his reflection , a weakness he never had in the myths (which would have been quite a pickle considering that Proteus is a sea god ). He also doesn't have the ability to predict the future, and his shapeshifting powers are apparently limited to transforming into living things - whereas the myths describe him as being able to turn into everything from trees to fire.
• Seriously, if a trope mentions "amazons" in its title, it probably showed up in this series. Or in the spinoff, Xena: Warrior Princess .
• Apple of Discord : The golden apple makes an appearance in the episode "The Apple", but strangely it's one of Aphrodite's little toys instead of Discord's. Aphrodite actually says the phrase "how d'you like them apples?" when she incites a war in order to wipe out shrines set up in rival kingdoms to her sisters Artemis and Athena. Hercules makes an Ironic Echo of the phrase when he uses the apple's power to make the two sides at peace.
• Amazonian Beauty : Atalanta. Played by Real Life Amazonian Beauty Cory Everson to boot.
• Anachronism Stew : Where to begin... probably that it was done intentionally for Rule of Funny . Apparently, the big rule in the writers room was "Anything B.C." with season 3 episode 9 "A Star To Guide Them" having Hercules and Iolaus witness the birth of Jesus (6-4 BC). And even then the writers sometimes just didn't care either way and threw in then-modern references, such as the fashion show episode in which "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred is played at an event that's supposed to be in ancient Greece. Another big offender was "Darkness Visible" where Hercules met Vlad the Impaler and it was mentioned that they had fought the Turks together. Vlad and his conflict with the Turks wouldn't come into existence until the 1400s in the AD era .
• It's possibly because his Greek name, Heracles, has the ironic meaning "Hera's Glory." (His mother consecrated him as a priest of Hera immediately after his birth, in an attempt to protect him from her wrath.) Even if people do not know the meaning, it would sound odd to have his name sound so similar to hers. Then again, "Hercules" has been the more commonly used name in various works of contemporary fiction so it may have been a matter of simply using the familiar name.
• Except Cupid who also goes by his more well-known Roman name rather than the actual Greek Name Eros.
• Eris. You don't know who Eris is? Yup, that's exactly why she went as "Discord". (Same for Strife, who is neither Phobos nor Deimos.)
• And I Must Scream : In "Descent", Hercules discovers Dumuzi (gatekeeper to the Sumerian Underworld) is using human souls as nourishment.
• And Starring : After becoming a regular, Michael Hurst had a "Also Starring" credit. And as seasons wore on, Bruce Campbell and Robert Trebor got this kind of treatment — varying between "And ... as" or "Special Guest Star."
• Animated Adaptation : A Crossover with Xena: Warrior Princess called Hercules and Xena – The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus .
• This might be more so because of 2 factors. Firstly, there are a few ways to kill Gods with special items that can be used on any God, and the last thing Zeus wants is certain individuals looking for those items, squabbling over them, and them falling into the hands of his enemies; and secondly, a real all-out fight between Gods would probably wreck most of Greece, if they were lucky. This also means that Gods who try to thwart Hercules can only do so in a certain, scope, to avoid killing him.
• Archangel Michael : Appears in the appropriately titled fifth season finale, "Revelations." This version of the character (along with his actor) later had appearances on Xena .
• The Artifact - This part of the opening narration: "He journeyed the earth battling the minions of his wicked stepmother Hera the all powerful Queen of the Gods" while this is true in the Action Pack movies and the first two seasons to an extent, Ares takes over the rule of Big Bad midway through season 3, Hera appears in the season 4 finale but gets sealed off with Dahak becoming the new Big Bad in season 5 yet the narration always stays the same.
• Ascended Extra : Iolaus. When the character died in the first TV-Movie, Hercules and the Amazon Women , he was originally going to stay dead. But Michael Hurst impressed the producers with his performance, so they re-wrote the ending to leave Iolaus alive. The only reason Iolaus doesn't appear in the next three movies is because they were written before the change was made. Iolaus returned in the fifth movie and was a recurring character in the first two seasons before becoming a regular in Season 3.

• Both Deric the centaur and his human lover Lyla came off as this in the episode Outcast . In the episode itself, they were definitely sympathetic characters and their son Kefor definitely didn't deserve any of the persecution that they received in Athens. However, with their previous appearance in As Darkness Falls , the two of them schemed together to poison and blind Hercules. Not only that, but Deric and Lyla also aided Nemis and another centaur in kidnapping two brides from the village. Considering how Deric and Lyla had little qualms about kidnapping and breaking apart families in their first appearance, the punishment and persecution they receive in their second appearance pretty much comes off as a case of Laser-Guided Karma based on how they themselves had willingly poisoned Hercules and helped Nemis to terrorize and tear apart other couples in the past.
• Iolaus lampshades this himself when he is bitten by a vampire:
• Played for much drama with Iolaus in a later season when he dies and stays dead saving Hercules' life. When Hercules finally returns home to Greece an arc and a half later, Iolaus is up and walking around, but things aren't exactly what they appear to be at first...
• Badass Normal : Iolaus, Autolycus, and of course Xena, Jason, Atalanta...and a never-ending stream of one-shot badass characters showing up nearly every week. Perhaps most surprisingly, Alcmene demonstrates in "The Wedding of Alcmene" that not only can she hold her own in a fight, she actually enjoys it.
• Bar Brawl : Hercules gets into quite a few of these. Even regular fights out of taverns do a lot of collateral damage to nearby furniture.
• Barbarian Longhair : Hercules, without a doubt. Being played by hunk Kevin Sorbo helped.
• Barehanded Blade Block : Hercules does one against Xena's sword.
• Barred from the Afterlife : The fallen soldiers in "The Vanishing Dead" couldn't move on to the afterlife until they were given proper burials.
• Batman Gambit : In "Reunions", Hera has Apollo provoke Hercules and threaten a village. Of course, this distraction allows Hera to overthrow Zeus without any difficulty. Apollo: And you could've stopped it to if you'd been there instead of here. Hercules: And how many of these people would be dead if I hadn't? Apollo: Well, that was sort of the point of it all. Who cares... other than you?
• Demeaning the memory of Hercules' family is one of the fastest way to get him angry.
• The Sovereign is a pretty unstable person in general, but in "Stranger In A Strange World", he really flips out when Iolaus refers to him as "Hercules."
• Let's just say if you're doing evil in Hera's name, you'd better make sure Hercules doesn't find out.
• Beta Couple : Iolaus and Nebula.
• Beware the Nice Ones : Hercules is probably the nicest, most easy-going guy in the series. Course, if you threaten innocent people or those he cares about — well, remember, he has super-strength. "No more Mr. Nice Guy."
• Alternately, Ares serves this function in Season 4 and (after Dahak is defeated) Season 5.
• In the fifth season, Hercules has to deal with even more divine antagonists all working their own agenda. Ares is still his archfoe for much of Season 5. Also, Dahak took center stage as an Arc Villain of the first half of the season. There were also a few deities working outside of Dahak's influence such as Dumuzi and Kernunnos who menaced Hercules. And unconnected with the rest was Archangel Michael who had his own plans for the world in the form of the Four Horsemen towards the end of the season.
• Big "NO!" : Used often, particularly the episode "Not Fade Away".
• Bittersweet Ending : Not so much for the show but for Hercules himself when it came to his final appearance in the shared Hercules/Xena universe. In his final appearance in God Fearing Child , he manages to save Xena's baby and finally makes peace with his stepmother Hera. However, it came at the high price of Hera dying right after Herc made his peace with her and Hercules being forced to kill his own father Zeus in order to save Xena's baby, starting a chain of events which would spell the downfall of the Olympian gods. Though, this ending does become less bitter if the Hercules-in-modern-times episodes Yes Virginia There Is A Hercules and For Those Of You Now Joining Us are taken into consideration since it shows Hercules moving past the tragedies of his life in ancient times and still leading a happy, heroic, and productive life even into the 20th Century.
• Blood Knight : Xena (formerly before her Heel–Face Turn ), Ares, and Morrigan respectively.
• Ares in particular, is aware of this. Hence why the plans of both himself and Hera regarding Hercules have to be mindful of not actually putting him in enough danger to kill him, and yet try to hurt him at the same time. For Ares, whose plans usually are either A) seduction, B) kill, or C) wage war, this is very frustrating and stretches his limited creative ability rather thinly.
• Break the Haughty : Princess Melissa in "War Bride" starts off as very spoiled, whiny, self-centered and greatly romanticizing war. Being kidnapped, hoofing it through wilderness and having to tend to wounded soldiers causes a sizable shift in her character and priorities.
• You can kind of skirt around this in that the Gods have a rather...odd concept of the 'family unit' that is rather estranged. They seem to only consider each other brother and sister if they have a common father and if they are brought up as brother and sister. You only find this out if you track who calls who brother or sister . For example Aphrodite calls Hercules and Ares her brother, but not Haephestus.
• In "When A Man Loves A Woman", Hercules willingly surrenders his powers in order to marry Serena (who also gave up her powers to do the same).
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday : Subverted in that Hera is well-aware that she murdered Hercules' family; it's just one action among many and she just doesn't see it as a big deal anyway. Hera: I wanted Zeus to understand what he had done to me. The world was incidental. Hercules: Not to me!
• Strife consistently.
• In Season 5, Ares was reduced into a sad joke as compared to being treated as a credible antagonist to Hercules in the earlier seasons. During that season, he loses almost every confrontation (Be it with Hercules or another god), in a comical and humiliating fashion. Even Discord was treated with more respect. Overlaps with Villain Decay and Sorting Algorithm of Evil , where Hercules took on more powerful opponents season after season, so Ares was completely displaced as a former threat to the protagonists. By the time he became an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain in Season 6 it was almost a promotion from this status.
• Iolaus gets his own chance to do this to his father in "Not Fade Away."
• Camp : And how!
• Camera Abuse : Non-stop.
• The Cape : Hercules. Played straight in the first few seasons, and then Deconstructed from season 5 onwards.
• Casting Gag : A genius one in "The Academy" as Hercules has to tangle with an upstart corrupt student, who mocks him on "being an old-timer, let me take over." The student's actor? A then-unknown Ryan Gosling who had played the title role in the short-lived Young Hercules spin-off. As a bonus, Jodie Rimmer, who played Lillith on Young Hercules plays Lillith's daughter, Seska, in the same episode.
• In the same vein, Charon (who works for Hades) is portrayed as a disgruntled employee that's irritated with the monotony of his job and willing to bend the rules for a little profit on the side.
• Character Development : Aphrodite. In her first appearance, she's shown to be quite amoral, willing to start a war between two kingdoms so she could gain possession of the gold there. She was also willing to use her spells to age her own son's love interest because of how jealous she was that mortals considered Psyche more beautiful than her. However, by the episode Reign of Terror, she eventually learns to start genuinely caring for others and even sheds tears over one mortal who was on the brink of death.
• Chaste Hero : You'd be surprised how often Herc turns down women.
• Chekhov's Gun : a magical candle which takes Hercules back to his babyhood in "Hercules and the Amazon Women" is the gun that Herc gets Zeus to use for a Reset Button at the end of the film.
• Chivalrous Pervert : Iolaus. He was shown to get involved with a number of women — so much so that "The Cave Of Echoes" had a montage about it. Still, true to the trope, he showed the upmost respect to each one.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder : Ares. He wants to be top god and some of his plans and actions revolve around achieving that. Lampshaded and justified by Ares himself: "Zeus stuck it to old Cronus like Cronus stuck to his old man. What can I say? It's a family trait."
• Chronic Hero Syndrome : Kind of a given, isn't it? Lampshaded in "Faith": "You're blinded by your own goodness. In a way, you're your own worst enemy."
• Clark Kent Outfit : In-universe, Atalanta in Let The Games Begin . She was seen in a dress until she challenged her nephew to arm-wrestling. Her nephew was in shock when he saw how buff she was.
• Classical Mythology : Chewed up, spit out, and hung out to dry.
• How could you forget "Hercules on Trial"? There he has to clear his own name, with help from Iolaus, Dirce and previous guest characters.
• And also in "Judgement Day", where he's framed for murdering his own wife.
• Hercules and Iolaus for Amphion in "The Sword of Veracity."
• Hercules And The Maze Of The Minotaur : The fifth TV-Movie featured a number of clips of the preceding four.
• "The Cave Of Echoes": Hercules, Iolaus and a one-shot character enter a cave to rescue a Damsel in Distress , recapping old adventures. Notable in that clips from the TV-Movies (which aren't regularly re-broadcast) were also reused.
• "Les Contemptibles": Set in revolutionary France, a pair of con men (played by Sorbo and Hurst) are educated about the heroes of Greece by a pair of seeming aristocrats. This and succeeding clip shows would see the regular and recurring actors playing different characters.
• "Yes, Virginia, There Is A Hercules": One of the most clever uses of this trope ever . All of the supporting actors play a part in the modern day as actual members of the production staff, panicking over Kevin Sorbo going missing. They desperately try to figure out how to carry on without Sorbo, including Spinoff Babies and an animated feature. Pretty much epitomizes the humor of this show. Bruce Campbell as Robert Tapert, etc.
• "For Those Of You Just Joining Us": A sequel episode of sorts, as the Ren Pics staff go on a corporate retreat to come up with ideas for the fifth season (recapping every important development up to that point).
• Combat Tentacles : Echidna has them, although when Typhon returns to her they become altogether naughtier.
• Composite Character : Hercules' first wife Deianeira on the show is actually closer to Heracles wife Megara from the myth. Although Heracles did marry a Deianeira, she was his third wife and she wasn't killed by Hera, directly or indirectly.
• Also the entire plot of Serena. Only in that episode is it shown that Hercules frequently visits his family with extreme ease and that not only do they know that they are dead (something they previously didn't), but that they are cognizant of his visits (while before it was a one-time-thing to visit his family, and Hercules told Hades to wipe their memories of his visit so they didn't have to 'live' with his pain of separation).
• Every time someone is landed with a horrible and unfair punishment that Hercules would have to rage against the Gods in order to change, they turn out to be evil anyway so he doesn't have to do a thing. Unfortunately this dilutes the entire ethos of the show that is stated in the narration.
• In "One Fowl Day", Catherine does this for fun.
• Crapsack World : All of Ancient Greece is shown as this. Not only are the Jerkass Gods on a rampage making things awful, every other king is either corrupt, warmongering, or criminally insane , torch-wielding racist mobs are all over the place, and good is almost always horribly punished .
• And then they had the episode where they walked through Bethlehem and saw Christ and his family in the stable.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass : Autolycus may be comical, but he earned the right to be called "the King of Thieves." Heck, he once stole items from two different gods... in the same day.
• Dark Action Girl : Xena before the Heel–Face Turn
• Dark and Troubled Past : Iolaus used be to a thief prone to getting into trouble. He credits his friendship with Hercules for turning his life around.
• Echidna also counts. She's the mother of monsters, but she's not really evil. She only tries to kill Hercules because Herc killed her children. After Hercules reunites her with her husband she becomes a lot nicer.
• Dawn Attack : "Hercules and the Lost Kingdom" has: Hercules: We attack at dawn. Telamon: Dawn? Why don't we attack tonight? Hercules: Because we attack at dawn.
• A Day in the Limelight : There are several episodes primarily starring Iolaus, Autolycus, and/or Salmoneus.
• They sorted out that if you are in the weird alternate dimension — the "space between worlds" — you are suspended from time and space, and hence the rules of normal universes don't apply. Hence, when Hercules is forced into one of these alternate dimensions with the Sovereign, and he is wiped from existence due to an alternate timeline, he survives, but if he went back into one of the universes while that alternate timeline was in place, he would cease to exist (he had to wait for the original timeline to be restored before he could go back). Likewise, when Iolaus's double stumbles into an alternate dimension through a weird portal, and is there while the original Iolaus is killed, he doesn't experience the killing blow, and hence he is okay.
• Death Is Cheap : Unsurpringly, when the Underworld is shown as a physical realm which one can travel to and back from and there are characters with power over life and death, dying is by no means guaranteed to be permanent in the Hercules Universe. Notably Callisto and (more than once) Iolaus have both died and come back.
• Death Takes a Holiday : Love takes a holiday in the episode of the same name when Aphrodite decides she's bored of being a Love Goddess . The amount of cranky loveless people skyrockets in the interim.
• Defeating the Undefeatable : None of the Olympians are allowed to directly kill Hercules, but this only mostly applies to Ares since he's more likely to physically fight him instead of direct someone else to. He's the god of war, immortal and really hates his brother, but dreads the punishment for violating the "no kill" rule, so he pulls his punches. "Stranger In A Strange World" and Xena 's "God Fearing Child" show exactly how dangerous Ares could be to Hercules if he wasn't willing to play by the rules. Though, it is implied that Herc's victories over the gods were more legitimate later on in the series as Ares was unable to defeat Hercules even when the Olympians were out of the picture (Stranger and Stranger) and he proved unable to kill his brother despite feuding with Hercules up to modern times (long after Zeus's life and protection over Hercules had ended in the Xena episode "God Fearing Child").
• Demonization : In Season 5, Dahak (pretending to be Iolaus) claims to the people of Greece that Hercules has gone insane and vowed to kill the Olympians, thus causing them to flee. By the time Hercules makes it back to Greece, most everyone (including Jason) believes the lies. Hercules: Livia, you were my mother's best friend. You know me. Livia: I don't know who you are anymore. I'm just glad Alcmene isn't here to see what you've become.
• Did Not Think This Through : One episode featured a local ruler who spent all his free time in developing primitive industrialization technology that let one man do the work of five... and then realized he couldn't actually use it without putting 80% of his population out of a job.
• Iolaus does this to Ares in "Porkules." Ares spends the entirety of "One Fowl Day" making him (and by extension, Autolycus) pay for it.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? : Every time Hercules faces one of the gods, he wins. It's a subversion with the Olympians, who have been forbidden from killing him directly. (The rare times where they do choose to violate the rule, Hercules only manages to survive via good fortune and not just his strength.) Played straight, however, when he faces gods from other lands that aren't bound by said rule.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation : In the original myth, Hera tricked Hercules into killing his wife Deianeira and their children. Here, she killed them herself to spite Hercules.
• Diplomatic Immunity : Hercules himself is granted quite a fair amount of this from Zeus, with harsh punishments promised to any Olympian who dares to kill Hercules. Not only does this force the gods to pull their punches when fighting Hercules but it even allows Hercules to go around openly insulting the gods and telling the people to rely on themselves with little retaliation from anybody on Mount Olympus. It becomes especially apparent in episodes where if a mortal like Iolaus would show the same amount of pride as Hercules, the gods would come after him mercilessly ("Pride Comes Before A Brawl" and "Heedless Hearts") whereas Hercules would suffer no such retribution. And while this protection from Zeus didn't completely protect Hercules from being tormented by gods like Hera or Ares, as his two marriages to Deianira and Serena have shown, it did seem to protect him from some of the more petty and humiliating punishments a god like Ares would dish out to both Iolaus and Autolycus in "One Fowl Day".
• Direct Line to the Author : Some episodes, such as "Yes Virginia, There is a Hercules", show an immortal Hercules having adopted the identity of an actor named Kevin Sorbo and playing himself in the show. Hercules also reveals that the show's creators have taken some liberties with retelling the myth. Apparently, killing off Iolaus (the original one) did not happen as Hercules remembers it. According to him, Iolaus lived to be an old man. And Hercules had to correct them... quite a bit. Ares also shows up, to get the show cancelled.
• One of Hercules' complaints about Zeus is that he took no visible role in his life. From "Regrets... I've Had A Few":
• Iolaus' father abandoned his family and later died in war.
• Disguised in Drag : Autolycus and Salmoneus in "Men in Pink."
• In "One Fowl Day", Ares goes out of his way to make Iolaus and Autolycus miserable simply because the former showed him disrespect. Played for Laughs in this case.
• On a more meta-level, Cory Everson (Atalanta's actress) was previously a top-level bodybuilder , then regarded (and still is by some) as a domain exclusively for men.
• Drives Like Crazy : The Enforcer, with a chariot.
• Dual Wielding : Xena and Darphus, her former second-in-command, duel with swords in each hand.
• The Dulcinea Effect : Exploited by Xena in her first appearance. She played herself up as an underdog warrior princess bravely fighting against evil and seeking male companions to love her and fight for her. She used this trick to con Iolaus into fighting Hercules, and it's implied she got most of her recruits this way.
• Dumb Blonde : Subverted with Aphrodite. She does prefer the materialistic, easy side of life, but as Hercules notes in her first appearance, she's smarter than she lets on.
• Early-Installment Weirdness : The first season depicted Ares as a mostly unseen entity that was represented by a skull in the moon and a distorted voice, with his first physical appearance being as an armored glowing-eyed demon about twice as big as Hercules, and was said that his blood was poison that could kill anyone, including Hercules. When Kevin Smith was cast this totally changed and the idea of his blood being poison was dropped.
• Effortless Amazonian Lift : Atalanta does this to Hercules in a bout of playfulness.
• Elemental Embodiment : Hera's two Enforcers are woman-shaped golems created from a singular element to hunt down and defeat Hercules after Nemesis refused to do so. Whilst they look like human beings, they're actually masses of elemental matter, and this manifests itself if they are injured or they wish to revert to a less human form. The first Enforcer is made of water, and the second is made of fire.
• Elseworld : Hercules in the French Revolution!
• Emergency Impersonation : In two episodes Iolaus has to stand in for his lookalike King Orestes.
• Enemy Mine : Hercules and Iolaus team-up with Ares in "Revelations."
• Ares generally uses "loved ones" for his own goals, but he demonstrates some genuine fondness for family, such as Aphrodite. In "Two Men and a Baby", after Discord threatens to drown little Evander (Nemesis' son with Ares) out of jealousy, the god of war has a genuine Papa Wolf reaction. ("He's my son. You don't wanna try me.")
• Echidna, the Mother of All Monsters. Before her Heel–Face Turn , she was very unapologetic about her actions or those of her children. However, she dearly loved said children and her husband.
• Even Evil Has Standards : In "The Gauntlet", Xena is against killing women and children. She even saves one baby that survived a slaughter her army carried out while she was away. In the same episode, Xena's followers were willing to turn on her in favor of a leader who would allow them to Rape, Pillage, and Burn as much as they wanted, but when ordered to kill her even after she survives the Gauntlet fair and square, they refuse.
• Everybody Hates Hades : Thankfully averted. Hades is completely overworked and under-appreciated, but at no point is he ever shown to be a bad guy. Even when he kidnaps Persephone, it's only because he's so tired of being alone.
• The Sovereign, literally. Ares also counts, as he is an antagonistic son of Zeus.
• Hilariously subverted when Hercules enters the Alternate Universe, where that world's Ares is a smooth-talking God of Love, meaning the Ares we've known all along is the evil counterpart .
• Discord falls into this for Aphrodite.
• Expendable Alternate Universe : Subverted; Iolaus's alternate-universe twin gets developed into a main character in his own right for about a season.
• The Faceless : Hera, until the fourth season and the final episode.
• Fake Shemp : In the first epsiode of the series Hera kills Herc's wife Deianeira. We see this happen, but we never see her face. Guess the producers didn't want to pay Tawny Kitaen to come back for a one second death scene.
• Fanservice : Pretty much every female character on the show... and the male heroes as well. This show had some of the skimpiest clothes on television since Star Trek: The Original Series . Special mention should go to Atalanta's outfit which seemed rather lacking compared to the male blacksmiths seen in the series, especially in the back.
• Monsters, likewise are frequently the children of Typhon and Echidna, who don't necessarily go out of their way to eat anyone not dumb enough to wander into their open maw. Dragons, while not the babies of Titans, are likewise immediately feared and loathed despite being more apathetic than antagonistic toward humans by default (unless humans hunt their parents .)
• Hercules himself despises all gods regardless of where they come from or knowing anything about them. He thinks the world would be better off with all of them dead and does not hesitate to kill compared to showing some hesitation for humans. He doesn't bat an eyelid at learning he caused the deaths of all the Sumarian gods despite them not attacking humanity. Nor the Norse gods even after learning they care about their human worshipers and try to help them. He only restores the latter because their worshippers actually need them to survive.
• An episode of Young Hercules sort of answered this. Violating Zeus's orders on killing Hercules would result in eternal imprisonment in the dark abyss of Tartarus.
• Faux Affably Evil : Dahak. He presents himself as a pleasant being that wants "to bring freedom to the world." Of course, among his deeds are: using Iolaus' good intentions against him, temporarily driving Nebula insane, slaughtering the Druids and nonchalantly killing anyone in his way.
• Fire-Forged Friends : Iolaus and Autolycus in "Porkules" and "One Fowl Day."
• Fire Is Masculine : The Enforcers are two women dispatched by Hera to destroy Hercules. While both are muscular, superpowered women who are laser-focused on their goal, the Water Enforcer has longer hair and a number of Pet the Dog moments that make her seem gentler and more feminine. The Fire Enforcer has close-cropped hair and is far more violent and willing to harm bystanders. The Fire Enforcer also kills the Water Enforcer for saving Alcmene, Hercules's mother .
• Flanderization : For "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Hercules", real-life quirks of the production team (such as Rob Tapert enjoying to fish) were incorporated into their fictional counter-parts and purposefully taken to extremes for laughs.
• Forced Transformation : Discord turns Hercules into a pig in "Porkules", and Hera turns a woman favored by Zeus into a dog in a flashback in "The Road to Calydon".
• Forgotten Phlebotinum : In "Rebel With a Cause", Antigone and Hercules sneak Oedipus out of Thebes in some underground tunnels that Antigone used to escape through as a child. Later, when Antigone attempts to sneak back into Thebes undetected, she tries to do so through the front gate. Naturally, King Creon catches her.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With : Subverted in "Be Deviled", where a Devil-like being takes the form of Serena. She claims it's because Hercules would find it pleasing, but Herc finds it insulting instead. Later, as we learn more about her character, it's clear "Serena" did this solely to mock him.
• Formula-Breaking Episode : Several episodes, including "For Those Of You Just Joining Us" which takes place in modern times, and "Les Contemptibles" which takes place in revolution-era France.
• Fourth-Date Marriage : Hercules's second wife Serena. He meets her in one episode and they share a kiss at the end of the episode, he's ready to marry her by the very next episode (mere days at best in universe) and they do at the end of the episode. She dies next episode
• Friend to All Children : Hercules and Iolaus.
• Freudian Excuse : In Other World, the Sovereign was abandoned by his mother, Zeus went insane when he was a child and Cheiron instructed him to be a tyrant. It's also implied that losing his family prompted a Despair Event Horizon .
• "Doomsday" features none other than Daedalus.
• Genius Bruiser : While not the smartest people to walk the Earth, Herc and Iolaus tend to win not just by hitting people, but by outwitting them.
• Ghost Town : In "The Road to Calydon", a group of refugees find an abandoned town whose inhabitants suffered the wrath of Hera.
• Giant Spider : Arachne in "Web of Desire." Her upperbody remains human (if slightly monstrous), but her lower half...
• Girl of the Week : Almost every woman Iolaus meets falls for him in one way or another.
• Girls with Moustaches : Hispides, who appears in "All That Glitters", has a beard even thicker than Salmoneus', whom she finds herself immediately attracted to.
• Gladiator Revolt
• The Gods Must Be Lazy : Zeus specifically. Whenever he is needed he cannot be found by mortals or gods. He only shows up AFTER he is needed and tries to at some damage control. Instead, he is on dalliances with mortals. When he tries to hide behind the claim of "responsibilities" Hercules specifically calls him out on it. It frustrates the other gods as well. It is so bad his neglect of his responsibilities is the indirect cause for many of both Hercules and Xena's problems.
• Grievous Harm with a Body : One of Hercules favourite battle tactics. Most often he grabs a bad guy, or occasionally a person he is rescuing, and holds them in his arms bridal style, across his shoulders in a fireman's carry, or sideways behind his back and swings them so their feet knock out the bad guys. If the person being used is a bad guy themselves, he will often put them down after this and punch them for good measure, if they are still feeling feisty after being used as a weapon.
• God of Evil : Dahak. More like "personification of all destructive and evil forces."
• Good Feels Good : Xena mentions this to Hercules in "Unchained Heart"; when previously all she felt when going into battle was hate and rage, fighting to help people gave her a different and altogether happier feeling.
• Aphrodite's jealousy over Psyche's beauty in the episode of the same name.
• And Cupid's jealousy when Psyche falls in love with Hercules. It turns out that Hera had a curse put on Cupid that would turn him into a literal green-eyed monster if he gave into his jealousy.
• Grand Finale : "Full Circle"
• In Zeus's case, he had always been selfish. Hera finally allowed the mother aspect of her divine role to gain supremacy, and like the best of mothers, she will defy her husband, who considers his own survival to be of primary importance, and die for the sake of her children .
• Zeus's Face–Heel Turn happened in the Twilight Of the Gods arc, though, where every single god turned evil, for no explainable reason other than that the writers wanted to get rid of the entire Olympian mythology in order to push a Judeo-Christian one. Hence Zeus' actions and motivations should be taken with this in consideration, considering how all prior characterizations of the Olympian Gods in both Hercules and Xena were ignored in the Canon Discontinuity of this arc.
• Hell Hound : Graegus, who devours the dead in "The Vanishing Dead", preventing their souls from passing on. He is one of Ares' pets, though, instead of Hades'. Cerberus himself also makes an appearance.
• Hero of Another Story : In some of Iolaus' focus episodes, Hercules is either shown or implied to be busy performing heroic deeds elsewhere.
• This at least makes some sense with Hercules, who abhors killing if he can avoid it, and possesses the strength and resilience to effectively use his fists against armed and armored opponents.
• Hercules suffers this several times following the deaths of his family, Serena and Iolaus. Iolaus' death in Season 5 proves to be the gravest, as it takes Hercules a couple episodes to recover from the loss.
• Iolaus, meanwhile, goes through this in "Hero's Heart" after failing to save a woman from falling to her death.
• Salmoneus experiences this in "Unchained Heart", when he freezes up during a crisis.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation : poor Haephastus. Your typical angsty ridiculously talented artist who sees both himself and his creations as worthless. He's been so broken down and convinced that he's horrifically ugly (he has a burn on one side of his face) and untalented by not only the other gods (his small deformity was mocked mercilessly and he was thrown out of Olympus for it by Hera), but also his generations of human advisors who manipulated him to their own ends. He's a really very sweet, nice guy who wouldn't hurt anyone but in an early season 3 episode it's obvious that his advisor lies to him to get him to do what he wants noe  and his father was in the same position much earlier when Haephestus banished a small town for 50 years, and considering that when Iago lies to Haephestus and says that all the villagers hate him, called him names and committed sacrilege against him, Haephestus agrees that he's worthy of mockery and basically just feels terrible and does nothing, being very reluctant to do anything forceful, the amount of manipulation required to get him to take an entire town out of time for 50 years must have been insane! . He dismisses all compliments from Aphrodite, and she has to give a very prolonged You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech in order to get him to think better of himself.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners : Hercules and Iolaus. How much of the "heterosexual" actually applies will depend on the individual's interpretation of their close, loving relationship where each means more to the other than any family or romantic relationship ever. Xena and Gabrielle could probably relate.
• Hercules views Autolycus as an egotistical thief when they first meet, but then he learns about his past. Turns out his older brother was cheated out of his land and then murdered. When the authorities did nothing, Autolycus robbed the murderer blind and gave every spoil to the poor.
• Contrary to her valley girl-like persona, Aphrodite is rather smart, falls for a god that considers himself ugly and cares more for mortals even more than Herc thinks.
• Historical In-Joke
• Hilarious Outtakes : There is a famous one where Kevin runs onto the set of Xena and says "Woops, wrong show" before running off.
• Hobbes Was Right : Callisto claims in "Surprise" that all mortals are wicked and should be punished. Though Hercules doesn't outright invoke Rousseau Was Right , he says he's seen too much good in the world for that to be true.
• Hoist by His Own Petard : Aphrodite gave a golden apple to Iolaus in a complicated plan to make a princess fall in love with him, so her father would go to war against his rival. When the two sides, who worship Athena and Artemis, were wiped out, she planned to take their shrines as her own. Pity she didn't foresee that her love apple would also bring the two rival rulers together.
• Hollywood Exorcism : In "Redemption", the plan is to perform an exorcism to drive Dahak out of Iolaus. However, before it can truly begin, Dahak kills Zarathrustra (the only one who knew how to perform the ritual). Hercules resorts to simply trying to reach Iolaus .
• Honest John's Dealership : Salmoneus. Falafel is the food oriented version.
• I Am Spartacus : In one episode, Herc was put to trial for being essentially a vigilante, inspiring other people to try and repeat his feats to disastrous results and some other bullshit like that. In the end, first Iolaus claims to be Hercules and then explains that he means that figuratively. Then others join him; they share Herc's views and are ready to share his responsibility by saying, "I'm Hercules as well". Ultimately, even the judge himself says it. note  Ares had nothing to do with it, though he did enjoy Hercules being Arrested for Heroism .
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey! : Aphrodite manages to stop a huge brawl dead in its tracks simply by taking her top off. Herc thinks she's losing her touch if she has to get naked to do it.
• I Just Want to Be Normal : In "Two Men and a Baby", Hercules alludes to feeling this way during his childhood.
• Iolaus tries it against Hercules in 'Be Deviled' but it doesn't quite work.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy : After his second wife Serena is murdered, Herc eventually goes back in time and manages to save her life but at the cost that she no longer remembers him and their time together technically never happened.
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine : Bruce Campbell , again working with old colleagues Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert. When it came time to cast Autolycus, Tapert immediately thought of Campbell and personally called to offer him the role.
• Improvised Weapon : Iolaus — he was especially good with frying pans
• Instrumental Theme Tune
• Insult Backfire : After clobbering Ares for the umpteenth time, Hercules calls him a masochist. Ares doesn't know what the word means, but he does "like the sound of that."
• Interspecies Romance : Hercules with Serena, the Golden Hind. He actually falls in love with her human form, and she gives up her Golden Hind side while he gives up his strength so that they can be together, but still.
• It's a Wonderful Plot : Subverted with the "Armageddon Now" two-parter. Hercules isn't in distress about his life, but thanks to a time traveling Callisto, he and Iolaus witness what the world would be like without him — Xena never experiencing a Heel–Face Turn and ruling all of Greece with an iron fist.
• Hera's vendetta against Hercules.
• James Bondage : Iolaus, the male damsel in distress.
• Jerkass Gods : The show got that part of the mythology right, anyway. Any time somebody's acting out of character, it's a safe bet "the Gods are at work."
• Kansas City Shuffle : In the Season Two premiere episode, The King of Thieves , Hercules is chasing a thief who uses a oddly advanced grappling hook holdout . While the two are in a castle, the thief dangles the grappling hook out of a window and hides in the rafters. Hercules isn't fooled.
• Kick Chick : Whenever Atalanta gets in a fight, she seems to favor the use of her legs.
• Kicked Out of Heaven : Archangel Michael sends Iolaus back to Earth at the end of the "Revelations" episode after he snuck out and helped Hercules stop The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from destroying the world. Even though it is called a punishment, the subtext is that being sent back is actually a reward for restoring The Light's faith in mankind since he can be with his friends and loved ones.
• Kill It with Fire : The Water Enforcer's only weakness is fire. Both of the times she was defeated was when her body was boiled away.
• Kill It with Water : A subversion happens when Hercules is fighting Pyro: the camera moves to a large barrel of water, making it look like Hercules is planning to trap Pyro in it. But instead Herc dunks himself in the water to temporarily protect himself, then lures Pyro into an empty well and smothers his fire.
• Lady Luck : Appears in her Greco-Roman form of Tyche. She gave bad luck to a greedy merchant as punishment for not using his money to help the less fortunate.
• Lampshade Hanging : In "Not Fade Away", Hades tells Hercules he has until sunset to save Iolaus because those are the rules. Hercules: Who makes these rules?
• Compared to the original myth, Hercules is a Boy Scout and more in line with our traditional views of a hero as opposed to the he-man who wasn't above rape and murder and had a short temper, Hera kills his family directly instead of driving Hercules insane and having him do it.
• While far from dark and edgy in the first place, all the five TV movies had a more serious tone while the TV series had a comparatively lighter tone, and each subsequent season gets goofier over time. The lighter tone eventually peaks out in Season 4 with ridiculous episodes involving Hercules and Discord turning into a pig and chicken respectively , while a petty Ares make Iolaus and Autolycus his personal Butt-Monkey instead of killing them like he would have done in earlier seasons. However, some episodes still have their own share of high tension/stakes and/or tragedies.
• Loophole Abuse : Zeus' protection only specifies that the Olympians themselves aren't allowed to kill Hercules. Hera and the like typically send everything from mooks to monsters after him instead. Ares Lampshades this in "Two Men And A Baby."
• Lovable Coward : Salmoneus. He openly admits he's a coward, but has stood up from time to time.
• Loveable Rogue : Autolycus.
• Love Goddess : Aphrodite.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right : An interesting case occurs in the two-part episode "Armageddon Now" when villain Callisto is sent back in time by Hope to kill Hercules's mother to prevent his being born. While this is clearly an example of Make Wrong What Once Went Right , Callisto agrees to commit the heinous act in exchange for the chance to prevent her parents from being killed by Xena's army .
• Malicious Misnaming : Salmoneus is in hiding in the episode "Let the Games Begin", under the pseudonym Psoriasis. Naturally, Atalanta keeps referring to him like other diseases, like Gingivitis.
• Manly Tears : To be shed whenever someone dies, isn't dead anymore, or when your best friend tells you you're his family.
• Meaningful Name : The series is loosely based on Greek Mythology, so of course characters like Jason, Alcmene, Autolycus, and Atalanta have roles based on the myths, but there are also characters like a fast food vendor named Falafel after the sandwich (though he claims it's the other way round) and a woman named Cassandra who has prophetic visions that nobody believes. Hercules has to hang a lampshade when he hears that a mercenary is named Thanatos. Hercules : He has a name that means "death"?
• Subverted in "Redemption", when Zarathrustra's immortality is removed following an attack by Dahak during the exorcism. Hercules thinks it's proof Iolaus' true self is emerging. Dahak then reminds him that only Zarathrustra knew how to perform the exorcism.
• Meta Casting : Atalanta (one of the few Action Girls in Greek Mythology) was played by well-known female body-builder Cory Everson, who probably could beat Kevin Sorbo in arm wrestling.
• Mirror Universe : The Alternate Universe ruled by the Sovereign, Herc's Evil Counterpart (complete with beard ).
• This happens to Hercules in the fourth season. Meanwhile, the Sovereign said his mother abandoned him, which explains a lot.
• Iolaus is an inverse of this trope. His mother is very much alive, but he left her and stayed away out of shame for the way he behaved while living with her.
• Mistaken Identity : With surprising frequency, when Hercules and Iolaus appear in a village ravaged by a warlord, a lone survivor will mistake them for a member of the ravaging army and attack them out of vengeance.
• Murderous Thighs : Hercules does this to one mook. Atalanta does a slightly less deadly version to Salmoneus.
• My Beloved Smother : Demeter towards Persephone.
• Naked People Trapped Outside : Happens to Iolaus and Autolycus in "One Fowl Day" while chained together (both the chaining and nudity being courtesy of Ares), forcing them to resort to covering themelves with leaves, followed by sacks.
• In season 4, Hercules becomes a god to better help mankind while ignoring the political situation on Olympus. His focus on saving humans is used to distract him while Hera overthrows Zeus and seizes control of Olympus.
• Hercules tries to prove the Norse God Balder is not invincible by trying to wound him with a dart without considering where said dart came from. It poisons Balder starting off Ragnarok and the death of the Norse Gods. Hercules tries to brush it off until he learns the Norsemen are more dependent on their gods than other humans.
• Perhaps the biggest one, Hercules does not hesitated agreeing to help the Sumarian king/demigod Gilgamesh in stealing a magical chalice that sustains the Sumarian gods since he assumes the Sumarian gods are no different than the Olympians and pointlessly tormenting humanity. In truth, the "torments" were fall out from their struggle to keep the evil Dahak out of the world. The destruction of the chalice, made only possible thanks to the help of Hercules results in the death of Iolaus, destruction of the Sumarian pantheon, and allowing Dahak to enter the world.
• No Guy Wants an Amazon : If I Had A Hammer centers around legendary femme athlete Atalanta hiding her strength so as not to intimidate men; it ends with An Aesop about being true to yourself. Subverted in the same episode, though, as Salmoneus has always demonstrated a fondness for Atalanta.
• Noodle Incident : Several of the Twelve Labors (e.g. slaying the Nemean Lion or capturing the Erymanthian Boar) are specifically referred to, but never shown on-screen.
• Nostalgia Heaven : This happens a time or two when Hercules goes to the Elysian Fields and sees his wife and kids.
• "Not So Different" Remark : Ares tries this in "Hercules On Trial", with a little We Can Rule Together thrown in: "We've had our differences, but it's because you refuse to look past what you think you see in me. We want the same thing for this world. ... Order. Perfect order. It can be a place without crime, without vice. Think how happy that'd make your beloved mortals. And wouldn't it set Zeus back a step? You and me? Think about it."
• Iolaus, who despite not having Hercules' strength or god-like legacy, still faces the same threats as Hercules knowing that he is the one who will probably end up being killed (and still being okay with dying for Hercules), and who is barely known or applauded as the hero he is. Lampshaded constantly.
• Hades. Poor guy is constantly overworked, and is really pissed off that Ares gets a larger staff than him while making the wars that cause back-ups across the River Styx. Charon isn't really pleased when he gets overlooked either, but at least he doesn't have to deal with the statistical nightmare of co-ordinating and judging the dead while the Olympian Gods and Hercules run around screwing things over whenever it suits them.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping : Actor Michael Hurst (Iolaus) was supposed to sound ambiguous (read: American), but his native Kiwi accent slipped in every now and then, especially in the beginning.
• Obfuscating Stupidity : Hercules jokingly accuses Iolaus of doing this so he won't have to do anything.
• Odd Friendship : Iolaus and Aphrodite. Unsurprisingly, Iolaus 2 develops one with her as well.
• Oh, Crap! : In "Darkness Rising", Hercules listens to Nebula's story, where she thinks she's been hallucinating Iolaus and is going crazy. Hercules thinks he knows what's going on and starts to look distressed. When he checks out Iolaus' coffin, he finds it empty and then finds someone standing right behind him. "Hercules. Boo!"
• Older Than He Looks : Iolaus is actually two years older than Hercules.
• Old-Fashioned Rowboat Date : An episode that is a Whole-Plot Reference to Some Like It Hot , a guy sees Salmoneous in drag, and pictures doing this date with him.
• One Bad Mother : Echidna, the Mother of All Monsters. Her children are just as bad, but all of them apparently are much better when around Typhon.
• One Head Taller : Hercules is taller than pretty much everybody, but specifically he is this to Iolaus.
• One-Winged Angel : In "Ares", the god of war does this in his fight with Hercules — taking the form of a massive, well-armed monster.
• Our Hydras Are Different : Hydras appear as threats to the heroes at various points through this series and its spinoffs. They're all descended from the original three-headed Lernaean Hydra, which was killed by Hercules and Iolaus.
• Our Vampires Are Different : In "Darkness Visible", Hercules and Iolaus face vampires led by Vlad. Typically, the vampires have no reflections and drink blood (being able to turn a mortal or just feed). They also possess healing abilities. Note that these are explicitly referred to as vampires (or Strigoi) — not Bacchae, who appeared on Xena: Warrior Princess and Young Hercules .
• Iphicles might have it even worse, where he has to live in the shadow of his little brother. It's a major plotpoint in "What's In A Name?"
• Parental Neglect : Hercules at times complains how Zeus was never around when he was child. Athena comments Zeus was never around for any of his children, mortals or gods. The daddy issues that resulted from this is implied to be why some of the gods are so messed up.
• Percussive Pickpocket : In "Monster Child in the Promised Land", Klepto bumps into Iolaus and surreptitiously grabs Echidna's invitation from him.
• Planet of Steves : Traicus was apparently a very popular name for warlords, as several were mentioned or shown.
• Please Spare Him, My Liege! : Works only partly with the Sovereign.
• Plot Armour : Hercules (obviously), and Iolaus until his encounters with various Hero Killers .
• Pirate Girl : Nebula ( Gina Torres )
• Powered Armor : The Megoliths in "Doomsday" are the ancient mythical version.
• The Power of Friendship : used liberally, although particularly with Iolaus. Although the relationship with Hercules and Iolaus really pushes the boundaries of The Power of Friendship and ends up looking like The Power of Love when Hercules goes to lengths for Iolaus that outstrip what he'd do for a significant Temporary Love Interest (or his own family). It doesn't help that in the source material, this is canon.
• Precrime Arrest : One episode had Iolus given a chance to kill a man who had raped and killed a family. The catch was that Iolus had been transported in time before that man had committed any crimes. Meaning Iolus had killed an innocent.
• Psycho for Hire : Most of the gods' executioners are basically monsters who just want to kill humans for fun. A noteworthy example is Pyro the fire demon, who was tasked by Hera with killing Hercules' family. We later see him in action when he's tasked with killing Salmoneus for unwittingly looting Hera's treasure hoard . Despite being on an important mission he's clearly more interested in just burning things, particularly Hercules. He even burns one of his own comrades to death just for being there.
• Pyrrhic Victory : In the flashbacks to "Twilight", young Hercules manages to end a bloody war, but not before watching an old friend die. Alcmene: For every boy that's not coming home, one hundred more will and that's because of you. Hercules: Then why do I feel like I failed?
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud : At one point, Kevin Sorbo read "Wait a minute, this isn't my world. [disappointed]" as "Wait a minute... This isn't my world... DISAPPOINTED! " According to Sorbo, the line made its way into the episode as an in-joke on the part of the creators.
• Back-and-forth in "Faith", as Hercules condemns Gilgamesh for turning to Dahak and Gilgamesh mocking Herc for his Chronic Hero Syndrome .
• Dahak to Zarathrustra in "Redemption", when Hercules defends the latter for not sacrificing his family to the demon. "The truth is, he didn't deserve them. Not much of a family man, were you, Zarathrustra? Otherwise, you wouldn't have accepted me into your heart so greedily. But don't worry. Your failure is my success. And if it's any consolation, when I killed your family, I didn't give them a chance to scream. "
• Remember the New Guy? : Happens quite often throughout the show, at least once per episode or every other episode. Usually, Hercules will show up at a place and there will always be a character there that the audience is seeing for the first time but Hercules already knows this person as his old friend, former classmate, girlfriend, relative, mentor, or war buddy. Generally, a lot of characters introduced in an episode already have a pre-existing history with Hercules and Herc treats them like he's always known them.
• Reset Button : Herc gets his father Zeus to do this towards the end of the first Made For TV Movie, "Hercules and the Amazon Women", undoing the deaths of the Amazon queen (who he had fallen in love with but post-reset he never meets), a villager Herc likes, and Iolaus. Herc remembers what happened pre-reset, but no other non-god does. Zeus refuses to do it at first, saying that the other gods get ticked off.
• Ribcage Stomach : The sea serpent that swallows Hercules and Deianeira in Hercules and the Lost Kingdom has one.
• Hercules as mentioned above in Reset Button .
• Following "The End of the Beginning", only Hercules and Autolycus remember what really happened to Serena. "My Best Girl's Wedding" would later suggest that not even the gods really remember the original history. (Aphrodite sees Serena and finds her familiar, but needs Herc to explain why.) Serena only remembers following spending a prolonged amount of time with the big guy.
• The Rival : Ares.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge : In the first episode, after Hera kills his family, Hercules proceeds to destroy all of her temples in the area. It takes Iolaus falling victim to the She-Demon to cause him to shake the vengeful streak.
• Running Gag : During "Prince Hercules", Iolaus is dunked into a grape wine vat, turning purple for the remainder of the episode, prompting everybody who runs across him to ask 'Why are you purple?' The villains of the week even start calling him 'Purple Man.'
• Sadistic Choice : In "Stranger In A Strange World", after switching places with his double, Iolaus finds himself as the assassin in a resistance plot to kill the Sovereign. Killing the Sovereign would mean stopping a brutal tyrant with a Omnicidal Maniac -type plan, but it would also mean Hercules' death, too. Iolaus actually does try to go through with the assassination, but the Sovereign knew about the plot all along and effortlessly stopped him.
• Which is rather funny considering that it still reflects classical Greek Mythology much more closely than most American media at the time .
• Sand Worm : Of the manta ray variety in "War Wounds."
• Save the Day, Turn Away : During a time travel adventure, Hercules is forced to change things around so that Serena ceases to be the Golden Hind and thus, never gets together with him and loses her life in the process.
• Self-Deprecation : Oh, so much of it in "Yes, Virginia, There Is A Hercules" and "For Those Of You Just Joining Us."
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong : An interesting case occurs in the two-part episode "Armageddon Now" when villain Callisto is sent back in time by Hope to kill Hercules's mother to prevent his being born. While this is clearly an example of Make Wrong What Once Went Right , Callisto agrees to commit the heinous act in exchange for the chance to prevent her parents from being killed by Xena's army .
• When Hercules wants to infiltrate a kingdom that engages in gladiatorial games to the death in "Gladiator", he allows himself to be captured and sentenced to slavery. The queen of this kingdom is intent on making Hercules one of these, after having her servants rip his shirt off to inspect his muscles.
• "The March to Freedom" involves a slaver who betrays a band of settlers, and intends to sell off their leader (played by Lucy Liu) as one. The episode also has a Dirty Old Woman who comes on to Hercules, and is sold said slaver as her own personal "Love Slave".
• She Is All Grown Up : Hercules is more than surprised at how gorgeous Psyche turned out, since the last time she saw her she was just a tomboyish little girl.
• Shirtless Scene : Kevin Sorbo said in interviews and on the DVD commentary that the producers wanted the shirt off in every episode, but he did not. He said there were more shirtless scenes in the first season than in the rest. See particularly, "Gladiator", the TV movies "Hercules and the Amazon Women", and "Hercules and the Lost Kingdom."
• Shock and Awe : Much like dear old dad, Ares can also throw lightning bolts.
• Unsurprisingly, Evil Dead got quite a few: 1) the Mr. Goody Two-Shoes routine in "The End of the Beginning"; 2) "Gimme some sugar, baby" in "Men in Pink"; 3) Klaatu Verada Nikto being a passage in the Egyptian Necronomicon in "City of the Dead". Parts of Joe LoDuca's score for '' Army of Darkness ' were also re-used in a few episodes.
• The two enforcers made by Hera are clearly shoutouts to the Terminator franchise, complete with soundalike music.
• They fought the Ghidra, which was designed to resemble King Ghidorah .
• At the end of "Cast a Giant Shadow", Typhon quotes Jackie Gleason's famous line "Baby, you're the greatest" from The Honeymooners — Typhon was played by actor Glenn Shadix, who bears a decent resemblance to Gleason.
• A good portion of the season 3 premiere episode "Mercenary" is a pretty heavy homage to the Tremors film series.
• In "Stranger in a Strange World", when Iolaus is arrested and assigned a number, he screams " I am not a numeral, I am a free man! "
• Shown Their Work : For all the griping about the series not following established myths, the writers clearly knew what they were considering the many references to people, locations and events in various episodes. At the very least, this is one of the very few works based on Greco-Roman mythology to avert Everybody Hates Hades .
• Shrouded in Myth : In "Doomsday", a scribe tracks Hercules down and asks him about past heroics, thinking the myth outweighs the man. Hercules believes that's always a possibility, but it doesn't play out that way with the provided examples. Hercules: People do tend to exaggerate. Katrina: Yeah, like the tale of you killing a giant sea monster with your bare hands? That’s a little hard to swallow. Hercules: Well, actually, that one’s true, and it was pretty easy for him to swallow me. Katrina: Okay, but that yarn about the two-headed Hydra? I mean, come on. Hercules: That one they got wrong. Katrina: There you go. Hercules: It had three heads.
• Sidekick : Iolaus.
• Sins of Our Fathers : Being Zeus' son, Hercules usually has to deal with anyone with an ax to grind — almost always Hera. Comes up also in "Web of Desire": Arachne: You'll pay for your father's crime. Hercules: What else is new?
• Sky Surfing : Apollo gets around this way.
• Smug Super : Hercules can come off as that on his bad days.
• Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome : Evander was born early into Season 4, but was already about grammar school age two years later in Season 6. Possibly jusitified by his father being the god of war and his mother being a former goddess.
• Spinoff : Xena: Warrior Princess , then later...
• Spinoff Babies : ... Young Hercules .
• Star-Crossed Lovers : Hades and Persephone in "The Other Side", although they are eventually allowed to be together (for half of each year, yes, but still).
• Stepping-Stone Sword : Hercules is helped scaling a fort by arrows launched into its side.
• Story Arc : The series was largely episodic, but there were Callbacks and follow-up episodes to build on previous events. ("The End of the Beginning", for example, to the Golden Hind trilogy.) However, Season 5 was a highly serialized one — the first half featuring the Dahak storyline, the second half depicting Iolaus 2's teaming-up with Hercules and some stand-alone episodes for good measure.
• Stripperiffic : Anything worn by Aphrodite. Anything worn by most female characters. Low cut top, short skirt, and (usually) bare midriff were standards for them.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham : In Iolaus' focus episodes or the Autolycus/Salmoneus episodes, Hercules either has very little screentime or outright doesn't appear.

• Iolaus 2 is an inversion, being a different character but played by the same actor.
• Happens again in "The Wedding of Alcmene":
• Take That! : The tagline for the Battle for Mount Olympus Animated Adaptation brags that it includes "the REAL Hercules", a likely dig at Disney's own cartoon version that was released less than a year prior.
• Temporary Blindness : Hercules in "As Darkness Falls" via a drug in his drink. Rather than wait to see if it will wear off, he chooses to (with some help) go after the Centaurs responsible and rescue their captives.
• Temporary Substitute : Iolaus 2 in Season 5.
• Terminator Twosome : A complicated case in the two-part episode "Armageddon Now" — Callisto is sent back in time by Hope to kill Hercules's mother to prevent his being born. Iolaus is sent back in time by Ares to prevent this. While killing Hercules's mother is clearly an example of Make Wrong What Once Went Right , Callisto agrees to commit the heinous act in exchange for the chance to prevent her parents from being killed by Xena's army .
• Think Nothing of It : Hercules' stock response.
• The Time of Myths : Parodied in season 1 episode 2. This was so long ago that togas were new at the time.
• Took a Level in Badass : Iolaus 2.
• The Unfavorite : Ares sees himself as this to Zeus — especially when compared to Hercules.
• Unwanted Harem : Hercules most definitely did not want to father children with all fifty of King Thespius' daughters, and they actually chased him around for most of the episode. Salmoneus was more than happy to step up to the challenge.
• Viva Las Vegas! : Midasius in "All That Glitters" is essentially an ancient version of Las Vegas , complete with gambling, cheap all-you-can-eat buffets, exotic dancers (and not just female ones; there's a man in the background whose job is to pose and flex), and boxing matches.
• Villain Decay : Ares gets hit with this hard , season after season. He was a faceless and completely serious threat all until season 3, where an actor (Kevin Smith) began portraying him onscreen with semi-seriousness but still remained a principal threat to the protagonists. By season 4 finale he was reduced into Hera's lackey , and in season 5 he was further reduced into what's arguably the show's biggest Butt-Monkey . By season 6 finale, Hercules and Iolaus treated him as if he's the weakest Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain they ever met, even waving him off dismissively when he vocally threatened them.
• Villainesses Want Heroes : Callisto with Hercules in her first appearance.
• Walking Shirtless Scene : A good number of male characters, effectively.
• Walking the Earth
• Walk This Way : The Widow Twanky managed to get in on this gag in "Greece is Burning" asking a group of young women to "walk this way" and having her exaggerated "palms up, hands moving up and down" walk copied in response.
• Wallpaper Camouflage
• War God : Ares.
• Watch Where You're Going! : Used in the animated adaptation, and may have been employed in the regular series as well. Tricking two Mooks into knocking each other out was a good time saver.
• Water Is Womanly : Played with. The Water Enforcer takes the form of a beautiful woman... who is muscular, superhumanly strong, and laser-focused on destroying Hercules, slaughtering anyone who stands in the way. However, unlike the Fire Enforcer (who purely wants to destroy), the Water Enforcer has a few Pet the Dog moments with her human guide Gnatius, and eventually redeems herself enough to be sent to the Elysian Fields after her second death.
• We Will Meet Again : Ares does this often—either saying essentially that or making a comment about his list. He does it so often that Herc and Iolaus mock him for it in the last episode.
• Wedding Smashers : In The Wedding of Alcmene , a giant sea serpent interrupts Alcemene and Jason's wedding and it swallows Jason and Hercules whole.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy : This is more true in Young Hercules , but the flashback episodes show a young hero who wants nothing more than to meet his father and be acknowledged.
• Wham Episode : "Faith." Greece is left behind (and will be for about half a season), Iolaus dies (again... for a while), a devastated Hercules has to work through his grief, Nebula becomes a queen and the Dahak storyline officially begins on this series.
• Wham Line : One for both the character and the audience as, at their old academy, Jason runs into former flame Lillith who introduces her daughter, Seksa (played by Jodie Rimmer, who played Lillith on Young Hercules ). Lillith : I want you to meet Jason...your father.
• Salmoneus was a fairly prominent recurring character early in the series' run, but made fewer appearances later on — stopping with an early Season 5 episode. This was Lampshaded in a Season 6 episode:
• Jason also stops making appearances by the end of Season 5. His last episode ("The Academy") arguably gives him something of a send-off (a rekindled romance with Lilith, a daughter in Seska and taking over as headmaster of Cheiron's academy). However, "A Wicked Good Time" features Seska going through a rough time and absolutely no mention is made of Jason.
• Who Wants to Live Forever? : When Zarathrustra turned against Dahak, his family was murdered and he was cursed with immortality to keep him separated from them.
• Whole Episode Flashback : The four Young Hercules episodes ("Regrets... I've Had A Few", "Medea Culpa", "Twilight" and "Top God") and "Just Passing Through".
• Whole-Plot Reference : "King for a Day" ( The Prisoner of Zenda ), "...And Fancy Free" ( Strictly Ballroom ), "Men in Pink" ( Some Like It Hot ), "The Enforcer" ( The Terminator ).
• William Telling : In "Reign of Terror" King Augeus gains Zeus' powers and forces a man to stand with an apple on his head while he takes shots at the apple with lightning bolts. He misses wildly. Aphrodite saves the man by distracting Augeus, just as the last bolt passes between the man's legs.
• Worf Had the Flu : In one episode Hercules is injured in a shipwreck and had to face against a dangerous escaped prisoner. If he was completely healthy there would be no difficulty fending him off, and the prisoner compliments Hercules on his skill even with a busted arm.
• World of Badass
• World of Ham
• World's Most Beautiful Woman : Psyche.
• World's Strongest Man
• Would Hurt a Child : Callisto says as much in "Surprise", picking up on what was established over on Xena . Who she threatens, however, is what really boils Herc's blood. "If I go back to the Underworld, I won't be suffering alone. I'll find your children. Aeson, Klonus and little Ilia, is it? And I'll dedicate eternity to making them suffer. After all, I got here, didn't I? I can get to them."
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit : Xena does this in "The Warrior Princess" to make it looked like Hercules ambushed her and tried to kill her in order to further her plot in turning Iolus against him.
• Dahak pulls it again in the same arc by trying to get Hercules to kill him and send him back into his realm. Doing so would condemn an innocent soul (Iolaus) to the same fate, thus shattering the balance between good and evil — plunging the world into chaos and darkness. Of course, if Hercules does nothing, then Dahak "will take the world soul by soul" and win regardless.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside : In "Love Takes A Holiday", Iolaus stumbles upon a village that Hephaestus cursed. The villagers think only a morning has passed, but it's actually been 50 years. It's later revealed that Iolaus' grandmother lives there and his father escaped the curse because he was playing by a nearby river.

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Arm wrestling hercules.

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Hera's Head Archer (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys)

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Hera's Head Archer, played by Rebecca Clark (now known as Tyler Jane Mitchel), appeared in two episodes of the tv series, Hercules the Legendary Journeys.

Her first episode was "The Mother of All Monsters" in 1995. In this episode, she is summoned by Echidna to assist in a revenge plot to kill Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) and Alcmene. Along with her sister archers including Archer 2 (Katrina Misa), she works with Demetrius to lure Hercules into Echidna's trap. She shot Hercules with an arrow but he survived. Iolaus (Michael Hurst) discovered that if the archer's bow strings were snapped, then the archer who it belonged to disappeared. 

While Hercules is fighting with swords against the archers, Iolaus discovers the archers bows which they had laid down against some boulders while they are resting and cleaning their weapons. Iolaus plucks them one at a time, and each of them disappear while trying to reach Iolaus. Therefore, the Head Archer disappears into oblivion along with the other sister archers.

I assumed that this was the end of her, but she reappeared in an episode the following season. Her second episode was "Monster Child in the Promised Land" in 1996. She is revived by Hera and given one last chance to succeed. She is tasked with going to Echidna and Typhon to retrieve their newborn monster baby Obie. Hera wanted to train Obie to become a vicious killer. When the parents refused, the Archer worked with the warlord Bluth to try to kidnap Obie. The head archer returns to kill Echidna in her lair, along with Iolaus. She is about to end Echidna, but Iolaus steals the Archers bow. In a attempt to get it back she accidently breaks the bow string with her own weapon and she disappears into oblivion.

Obviously, the archers wore extremely sexy outfits ranging from metal winged headdresses, metal colored split skirts, silver thighs high boots, and crop tops. I wish they would have had more screen time.

• Rebecca Clark appeared as Ice , the evil villainess in the New Zealand superhero TV series "the Amazin Extraordinary Friends".  She appeared in 18 episodes from 2006-2007.  At the time, Rebecca had changed her name to Tyler-Jane Mitchel, and later assumed the name Tyler Jane.

Gallery [ ]

Ep: The Mother of All Monsters

Ep: Monster Child in the Promised Land

• 1 Dr. Lane Hunter (The Resident)
• 2 Rey (The Rookie)
• 3 Linda Dupree (Widow On The Hill)

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Hera , the Queen of the Olympians Gods, is the wife of Zeus , making her queen of the Olympians . Aside from her duties as Queen, Hera is known as the Goddess of Women and Marriage. Both the peacock and the cow are sacred to her and she would often appear in the disguise of a peacock.

Hera is the mother of Ares ,  Hephaestus , Aphrodite  and presumably mother of  Discord . She is also the step-mother of Hercules and often would use her followers to try to kill him.

History [ ]

Marriage being sacred to her, Hera was enraged at Zeus 's many infidelities. The one which irked her the most was Zeus's affair with the mortal Alcmene : the product of which was the Demi-God Hercules . At every opportunity, from the very moment Hercules was born, Hera would send every sort of enemy, obstacle, and misfortune she could to destroy him.

Her first move towards Hercules was unleashing the Lernaean Hydra to attack Hercules and his friend Iolaus . The Lernaean Hydra was slain by Hercules and Iolaus. When Hercules is a prisoner of Hippolyta , Zeus pays Hercules a visit and tells him that Hippolyta and her Amazons are servants of Hera. Hippolyta later speaks with Hera. During the discussion, Hera is displeased with Hippolyta for developing feelings for Hercules. Hippolyta tells Hera that the Amazons have had it with her lies and hatred.

Hera decides to ensure her vengeance by possessing Hippolyta. As Hippolyta, Hera orders the Amazons to ride to Gargarencia and leave nothing left standing. Ultimately, the women cannot destroy the men and their village. Hercules has to fight "Hippolyta" to save both the men and the Amazons. Pithus tries to come to Hercules' aid, but "Hippolyta" slits his throat.

When Hercules has a chance to kill the possessed Hippolyta, he cannot do it as he would also be killing the woman he loves. Knowing the pain it will cause Hercules, "Hippolyta" takes a suicidal dive into a ravine. Hercules later went back in time with Zeus' help and prevented Hippolyta from siding with Hera ( HTLJ : " Hercules and the Amazon Women ").

Hera's Blue Cult led by the Blue Priest occupied Troy when King Ilus was unable to sacrifice his daughter Deianeira of Troy . Right after the Blue Priest is slain by Hercules, Zeus appears to tell his son that Hera still wants Dieaneria. When Hercules refuses to grant her that demand, Hera instead takes him as a sacrifice. Zeus assures the worried Dieaneria that Hera won't dare kill his son. This proves to be true as Hera drops Hercules back on Earth ( HTLD : " Hercules and the Lost Kingdom ").

Hera later stole Prometheus 's torch in order to rob Earth of it's fire. Hercules found the torch on top of a mountain surrounded by a circle of fire. After Hercules threw the torch all the way back to Prometheus' lair, he started to collapse in the circle of fire. Zeus threatened Hera not to kill Hercules or he will haunt her decision on this. This forced Hera to spare Hercules ( HTLJ : " Hercules and the Circle of Fire ").

After defeating Hera's minion Eryx , Hercules takes the peacock feather he earned to Hera's temple in order to call a truce with her. Hera defies Hercules so he destroys her temple. Zeus appears and tells Hercules that he will only make things worse between him and Hera ( HTLJ : " Hercules in the Underworld ").

Hera later sends a giant fireball to Hercules' house which kills Deianeira while she slept. This caused Hercules to swear a lifetime vengeance on Hera and even plans to take down Hera's temples. ( HTLJ : " The Wrong Path ").

Hera was shown to have a Sacred Vineyard near Traycus which was guarded by her worshipers led by Castor and the Cyclops . After the Cyclops enlisted by Hera's worshipers failed to kill Hercules, Hera sent her Executioners to kill Hercules. They were all defeated by Hercules and the Cyclops ( HTLJ : " Eye of the Beholder ").

When a group of homeless villagers are making their way to Calydon , Broteas steals a chalice from an abandoned town of Parthus which angers Hera. The seer tells Hercules about the abandoned town which is cursed. At night, the seer goes into the temple where the chalice was kept and has a vision of a beautiful woman being given the chalice by Zeus. He also sees Hera exact her revenge on the villagers by turning them all to dust. Hercules wakes the next day to find the villagers about to sacrifice the food he had given them to Hera. Hera later sends the Lead Bounty Hunter and his minions after Hercules and the homeless villagers. They were defeated by Hercules. After Broteus was discovered to have stolen the chalice, Hercules takes the chalice and throws it very far ( HTLJ : " The Road to Calydon ").

Nessus ' brother Nemis enters one of Hera's temples to ask for her help in obtaining Penelope for herself. Hera sends down a club and is instructed to kill Hercules ( HTLJ : " As Darkness Falls ")

Hera later chains Prometheus to a rock causing Earth to lose the gift of fire and medicine. This caused Xena and Gabrielle to team up with Hercules and Iolaus to obtain the Sword of Hephaestus which would free Prometheus ( XWP : " Prometheus ").

Salmoneus later obtains some treasure that belonged to Hera. Zandar informs Hera of Hercules' interference and she sends him Pyro ( HTLJ : " The Fire Down Below ").

100 years ago, Hera was responsible for trapping Typhon 's foot in a rock so that she can have Echidna and her children do bad things. Hercules was able to free Typhon. Hera later sends a sign to Maceus to work with the freed Echidna to destroy Hercules ( HTLJ : " Cast a Giant Shadow ").

Once Hera fell in love with a mortal, but Aphrodite seduced him first and like punisher Hera curse her son Cupid, that if he ever felt unrequited love for a mortal, he would turn into a Green-Eyed Monster ( HTLJ : " The Green-Eyed Monster "). 

Traicus later beseeches Hera for help against Hercules. Hera creates a Minotaur and it's Assistant Minotaur to kill Hercules ( HTLJ : " The Sword of Veracity ").

Hera punishes Nemesis for refusing to kill Hercules by removing her divine powers. To replace Nemesis, Hera creates the Water Enforcer to kill Hercules ( HTLJ : " The Enforcer ").

Hera later creates the Fire Enforcer following the destruction of the Water Enforcer ( HTLJ : " Not Fade Away ").

Hera later realigns herself with the Blue Priest (who was previously revived by Ares ) to lead an attack on Jason and Alcmene 's wedding ( HTLJ : " The Wedding of Alcmene ").

When Queen Maliphone prays to Hera for help to stop Hercules, she sends her guards to Bethos ( HTLJ : " A Star to Guide Them ").

Hera visits Callisto in Tartarus where she offers her an opportunity to return to life in exchange that she kills Hercules in a day. ( HTLJ : " Surprise ")

When King Augeus starts to think of himself as Zeus, Hera plays along with this and grants him the ability to throw thunder balls in exchange that he kills Hercules by dusk ( HTLJ : " Reign of Terror ").

Hercules, Iolaus, and Jason flash back to their youth when Hera in the form of a young girl manipulated Medea to make sure that Hercules doesn't survive against the Ghidra . After the Ghidra was slain, Hera in her young girl disguise showed up and made Medea disappear before getting away ( Hercules: The Legendary Journeys : " Medea Culpa ").

Hera shows up in person and says she came to make an "offer of peace", saying they always had their "contempt for Zeus in common". Hercules replies that they never had anything in common. Hera begins to tell him how Zeus fell out of love with her, but Hercules stops her and tells Hera that she only loves herself and that she couldn't go against Zeus so she took all her anger out on humanity. Then Hera says she just wanted to understand what Zeus had done to her and that the world was less important. Hercules says the world is important to him. Hera then vows that now Hercules is a God now and that she doesn't want to fight with him anymore and that it's zeus she hates.

Hercules says why don't you say what you're trying to say. Hera tells him "Do you believe that Zeus brought you to Olympus just to help mankind?", laughs and disappears. Hera later visits Alcmene in the Elysian Fields . Zeus is on his throne when Hera walks in. She says that every ally he ever had, including his son, has deserted him. Hera then adds that she thought she could only take over with the help of the other Gods, but she now knows that Zeus will hand his power over to her. Zeus replies that he'd rather destroy Olympus first. Hera waves her hand and Alcmene appears surrounded by fire and Zeus threatens Hera by says what makes you think l won't cover the whole world with your dead ashes!?. She says that if Zeus does anything to her, he will never find Alcmene. With no choice, Zeus hands his Godhood over to Hera. Hera then banishes him from Olympus saying that he can join the mortals he so admired.

When Zeus flirts with a woman at a bar and defeats some opponents Hera sends Ares to kill him. Hercules saves him from ares and then the still mortal Zeus meet Hera and Apollo on Olympus. Apollo rushes Hercules with his speeder, but Hercules delivers a well-placed punch. Hera then flies through the air and kicks Hercules. Hera gets off with the advantage and has the better of the fight. With two lightning bolts, she pushes Hercules back to where the past and present are stored. Hera tells Hercules that this is the Abyss of Tartarus and that "old Cronos is down there somewhere, captive until the end of time".

Hercules tries to fight back, but Hera blocks all of his punches and then lands some of her own. Hercules is standing next to the railing that separates him from the abyss, almost keeling over from the beating he's taken and Hera walks away. She suddenly turns around, fires a lightning bolt and Hercules falls over the railing. Hera walks up towards the edge of the platform, looks down and Hercules punches her in the face. Hercules is holding onto the railing with one hand and Hera places her foot on it and squeezes down, then comments "i'm going to miss you, Hercules". He succeeds in climbing back over the railing by placing his other hand on the railing, vaulting up into the air, and kicking Hera in the back of the head. The kick pushes Hera over the railing, and she screams "Hercules!" as she falls down into the abyss of Tartarus. Hercules peers over the railing and responds "i won't miss you". ( HTLJ : " Reunions ").

A while later, Zeus used his grandson Evander (the son of Nemesis) to use his powers to release Hera from the prison with amnesia. Hoping to regain his marriage back, Zeus reconnected with his wife, who unfortunately was given her memories back by Ares (who payed a visit to The Fates ) and attempted to get her revenge on Hercules, remembering he pushed her into the abyss of Tartarus. With the help of Hercules, Hera decided to end her vendetta and give Zeus another chance after helping to heal Evander ( HTLJ : " Full Circle ").

Powers and Abilities [ ]

Hera has the powers of an Olympian God, as she is one of the most powerful Olympians, Hera is powerful enough to petrify Zeus and to subdue Hercules, she demonstrated but not limited.

Immortality: Hera has the ability to live infinite life span as well as immunity to all sorts of diseases.

Invincibility: Hera is invincible to all sorts of weapons (swords,axes,crossbows) as well as all magical powers from the Gods although these powers can hurt her but not kill her.

Power over the weather: All Olympians has the power to control and manipulate the weather bring out storms , tornadoes ,rains and Lightning.

Power over fire: Hera has the power to control and manipulate fire by throwing it from his hands as well as creating powerful Fireballs capable of killing Mortals as well as hurting Gods..

Teleportation: Hera has the ability to teleport to any place whatever he sees fit either on earth or Olympus.

Super Strength: Hera super strength can send people flying as well as gods her strength equally as powerful as Hercules.

Energy Blasts: Hera has the power to shoot powerful white Energy blast capable of killing mortals and hurting Gods.

Invisibility: All Gods have the power to make themselves invisible to all mortals they can't be seen or heard by them.

Telekinesis: Hera has the ability to move objects & mortals with her mind.

Lightning: Hera has the power to shoot powerful arcs of electricity/lightning capable of killing mortals & hurting Gods.

Shapeshifting: Hera has the alter her appearance to take whatever form she likes whether mortals or monsters or Gods but the the form she always likes to take is a pair of frighting green of disembodied green eyes with peacock feathers for irises and a menacing voice that appears in whatever place she likes most notably the skies.

Petrification: Hera is so powerfull she can petrify of Gods like when she did with Zeus.

Background [ ]

• Hera was played by Meg Foster when the character was finally revealed in person. Prior to that, she was voiced at various points by Joy Watson , Elizabeth Hawthorne and Narelle Swenson .
• In spite of being the series' primary villain (even being addressed as such in the opening credits) she does not appear in her "true" form until the finale of season four. Until that point, she had appeared in disguise or much more memorably as a set of disembodied eyes with peacock feathers for irises and a menacing voice.
• Hera is the only character apart from Hercules and Iolaus to appear in both the series premiere and the series finale of HTLJ.
• A theme of peacock feathers and iridescence was adopted for Hera and her minions in HTLJ. This extends to her costume, which features a collar of feathers, a series of crystals on the bustier and an iridescent cape (although the dark color makes this difficult to see).
• In For Those of You Just Joining Us , Hera's distinctive theme music is played whenever Norma Bates appears.
• Ironically, in the original myths, Hera is the patron of Jason , and Hera set aside her vendetta with Heracles so that he could aid her champion in the quest for the Golden Fleece. In HTLJ, she is as antagonistic to Jason as she is to any ally of Hercules.
• In Hercules, Hera and Hecate are sisters, it is not specified if Hera is sister of Zeus, as in the myth, it is unknown, if she is the mother of the other children of Zeus.
• According to Hercules Hera is the daughter of darkness.

See Also [ ]

• Seven Temples of Hera
• Hera's Chalice
• Hera's Executioners
• Hera's Archers
• Hera's Guards
• Sign of Hera

Notable kills [ ]

• Deianeira of Thebes
• Aeson of Thebes
• Atlas (with help of Hercules )