#hercules the legendary journeys
My library just got the complete run of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
I was a little miffed that we got this and not Xena. So I put in a request for us to get the full run of Xena, too.
A coworker blinked at me and said “Hercules the legendary journeys? Never heard of it.”
Stg my first thought was oh you sweet summer child. Bless your ignorance. Mind you, what came out of my mouth was, “How old are you?” And when he told me, I said, “Well, that’s why you’ve never heard of it. The show was off the air before you started teething.”
He wanted to know if it was worth watching and I said it was okay if he wanted some D&D ideas, but really…it hasn’t aged half as well as Xena did.
@methotrex8I couldn’t watch it even before the shit with Sorbo and Lawless went down. It’s a completely different kind of show despite being made by the same people. I’ve written an analysis on Xena VS Hercules before where I tried to explain the striking differences between both shows. It’s significant.
https://girl4music.tumblr.com/post/619484567705911296/hercules-vs-xena-striking-differences-if-you
I do think you have a lot of valid points here, and I’ll just nod and go ‘mmhm what she said’ to those.
Myown issues are more narrative, I think. Basically, I think Hercules doesn’t age well because frankly, the hypocrisy of the title character only gets MORE glaring as the series progresses, and it utterly undermines the messages it was probably trying to send.
Hercules, from jump, is against the other Greek gods. Note I say ‘other’ gods. Hercules is himself a demigod; he’s got the power of a god, just not the immortal deathlessness of one. And unfortunately, it’s the power that he rails against. Hercules frequently gets on the gods’ case for using their power as they choose, protecting or destroying whomever they choose.
Hercules does the exact same fucking thing. Like. All the time. That’s his entire THING, actually - seeing what he regards as a Problem, and then using his godly power to bulldoze right through it until he regards it as Solved. He’ll lecture other gods about doing this! It …gets old.
Xena solves this problem by not being a god. Not even a demigod. Xena is just a pretty damn talented mortal woman. Yes, Ares definitely likes her and has maybe (possibly) blessed her with greater martial might. Maybe. But the fact remains - she’s still mortal. She’s not a god. She’s not a demigod. And she actually doesn’t really have a problem with gods for the most part; she doesn’t differentiate by power, she differentiates by what the being does with it, which is rather more easy for a modern audience to deal with. Narratively, it’s absolutely an improvement and makes for better stories. Xena can fight for mortal kind because she is, herself, one of us.
There’s also the matter of the sidekick. Quite aside from Hercules practically shouting ‘no homo’ every other episode - which is a thing that itself gets pretty fucking old especially to a modern audience - there’s the fact that, again, Hercules is a god. Aeolus wants to be special too! He wants to stand at Hercules’ side as an equal, and be respected as an equal! And it is never going to happen. Never. Because Aeolus is not a god. He’s just a mortal man. He’s never going to get the girls with Hercules around. He’s never going to get the tales and songs when Hercules holds all the spotlight. Aeolus’ character arc is damn near tragic, in that he loves his Friend and wants to be like him and he ends up dying with that dream forever unfulfilled. Hercules, at several points, comes off as a VERY bad friend because damnit, it wouldn’t have hurt him at all to give Aeolus even a shred of the spotlight.
And again, Xena deals with this problem by having Xena be, while powerful, a mortal woman. Gabrielle’s arc is far more triumphant than Aeolus’ because, while she won’t ever be the warrior Xena is, she doesn’t want to be. She grows in her own way, in her own time. She picks up enough skill to hold her own when Xena’s fighting, yes, but her real contributions to their partnership make her Xena’s equal by a different route. Their partnership is far more satisfying to watch, because Gabrielle grows up and grows strong and Xena encourages it.
It is because of Gabrielle that Xena’s story is told, and it is because of Gabrielle that ultimately, Xena is redeemed. It’s much more human, and far more satisfying.
My library just got the complete run of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
I was a little miffed that we got this and not Xena. So I put in a request for us to get the full run of Xena, too.
A coworker blinked at me and said “Hercules the legendary journeys? Never heard of it.”
Stg my first thought was oh you sweet summer child. Bless your ignorance. Mind you, what came out of my mouth was, “How old are you?” And when he told me, I said, “Well, that’s why you’ve never heard of it. The show was off the air before you started teething.”
He wanted to know if it was worth watching and I said it was okay if he wanted some D&D ideas, but really…it hasn’t aged half as well as Xena did.
