Hercules' Parents

According to Disney, Zeus and Hera are Hercules' birth parents.  They are proud of him and love him a great deal.  Upon his kidnapping and subsequent mortalizing, he is adopted by Amphitryon and Alcmene.  When they find the baby, Alcmene says "Oh, Amphitryon, for so many years we've prayed to the gods to bless us with a child; perhaps they've answered our prayers" (Hercules, "Hercules is Kidnapped").

Okay, Disney.  You’ve had your fun.  How about we get back to who Heracles’ parents really were?

Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene.  Amphitryon was his foster father and Hera was not proud of him, did not love him, and did everything in her power to get rid of him.  Those snakes at the beginning of the movie?  The ones baby Herc tied up and threw away when Alcmene and Amphitryon found him?  In the Greek legends, they weren’t Hades’ minions in disguise, setting the groundwork for a plot eighteen years in the making.  They were sent by Hera to kill Heracles just because she was angry her husband cheated on her again.

Apollodorus says that “Alcmena bore two sons, to wit, Hercules, whom she had by Zeus and who was the elder by one night, and Iphicles, whom she had by Amphitryon.  When the child was eight months old, Hera desired the destruction of the babe and sent two huge serpents to the bed. Alcmena called Amphitryon to her help, but Hercules arose and killed the serpents by strangling them with both his hands” (Library 2.4.8).  So Disney’s implications that Amphitryon and Alcmene were unable to have children were false.

Zeus was King of the Gods, he was weather, he was a thunderbolt, he was often at odds with his wife.  The Greeks believed that if you are struck by lightning, you have been touched by Zeus.  When Hercules told Philoctetes that he should train him in heroism because he is the son of Zeus, Phil just laughed. He only agreed once he was struck by lightning.  It was a smack upside the head to show Phil that yes, Zeus is watching, yes, Zeus is watching because Herc is his son.  Similarly, each time Zeus spends time with his son in his temple, he possesses or dispossesses his statue via a bolt of lightning.