Monday, October 31, 2016
Hercules: A Problematic Hero?
Hercules is a problematic hero because sometimes he kills people or hurts people and there are minimal consequences for him. For example, he killed his wife Megara and his children and he only had to get purified by King Thespius. Even though he kills them because of a madness that was brough on by Hera, I don't forgive him for this act because he marries again, and makes it possible for the exact same thing to happen again. In addition, he hurts the wise centaur, Chiron, putting him in eternal pain and for this he also recieves no consequences. I think there are quite a few modern heroes that experience the same thing, Superman, Spiderman, Batman, etc, all wreck havoc in their cities when fighting evil and for the most part don't experience the consequences of the havoc that the wreck.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree, it's not only his curse that makes him problematic but also the choices he makes, like remarrying and setting himself up for disaster again.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, the concept of making the same mistake more than once says a lot about a person's character. By putting himself in positions to do harm, Heracles was directly adding to the destruction that he caused.
ReplyDelete