MovieChat Forums > Hercules (1997) Discussion > Don't you kinda feel bad for Hades in a ...

Don't you kinda feel bad for Hades in a way?


I mean, he's the black sheep of the bunch, rolls out classic oneliners that nobody laughs at yet Zeus spews a gagger like "Work yourself to death. HA!" and everybody chimes in with their yuks. No wonder Hades is bitter. lol



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Ha not at all! I mean, that was the whole point, right! That's why he hated Zeus, he was jealous.
:)

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...Somewhat.

What if every human was bad?

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[deleted]

oh nope they say the same in the us version, davinfected.

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My American VHS has "Work yourself to death".


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Yeah.. I mean, in the real Greek Mythology, Hades comes off a lot better than the other Gods. I mean, the female gods like Hera and Aprhodite did horrible things out of anger and jealousy and Zeus had like a hundred kids with all different women than Hera.. Besides the raping of Persephone, Hades really wasn't THAT bad.

Ofcourse, the fact that he's the God of the dead is going to scare people so naturally he gets a bad name for himself. I personally think the movie Hades kicks ass... except he is pretty mean in the movie..

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Maybe if he'd have gotten some attention by the others he wouldn't have felt quite so bitter but they pretty much cast him out. I guess Zeus was just very proud, lol.


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I get what you're saying and agree for the most part, but I find the line "Besides the raping of Persephone, Hades really wasn't THAT bad" hilarious. If we were talking about a real person and said something like that, it would sound ridiculous.

That's like saying: Besides the mass execution of thousands of Jews, Hitler really wasn't THAT bad.

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I get what you're saying and agree for the most part, but I find the line "Besides the raping of Persephone, Hades really wasn't THAT bad" hilarious. If we were talking about a real person and said something like that, it would sound ridiculous.

Yeah, but he was also a god in the ancient Greek pantheon. And wow, those guys were some messed-up people! And you also have to remember that while Hades abducted Persephone, which he shouldn't have, I don't remember that he actually raped her. Hades also became the most devoted husband in the entire Greek pantheon.

Intelligence and purity.

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Hades became the most devoted husband because if he even showed interest in another woman Persephone would have her killed or threaten to do so. She had that man on lock down.

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I far as I know he didn't rape her, just abducted her. At that time, "rape" and "abduct" were
used to mean the same thing. Shakespeare even used it this way. It was only later that they
came to mean different things.

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He didn't really abduct her though, he had the permission of her father to marry her - she just wasn't given any choice, and neither was her mother.

I’ve seen honest faces before. They’re usually attached to liars.

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I did feel bad for him, and I was actually hoping that he would win because I liked him more than the protagonists.

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Its true, I feel bad for him because after 18 years of being patient and preparing to finally be on Olympus where he should've been more welcome, Hercules ruins his whole plan just so he can prove himself a 'god' when he was only a demigod lol

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I would feel bad for him in that sense and at that moment. But other than that, no.

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You should check out the great musical "Twisted" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3033536) by Starkid available in full on Youtube. Although it doesn't reference Hercules specifically, it does introduce the idea that the villains of Disney might have something different to say if the story was from their perspective. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77cUxba-aA or just view this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9vgqq8KyZo (the song that covers Disney villains.)

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[deleted]

Not every human is bad, and although Hades was the main antagonist in the first film, I do feel bad for him. Maybe he turned evil because he was made fun of constantly? Do you think maybe that is the reason he became the villain? Not just because of jealousy, but many other things as well?

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I think that was the whole point of Hades in this movie. The point was that Hades is obviously the underdog and has been pushed around his whole life by Zeus and is forced to have a really crumby job. He is basically a tragedy that becomes a comedy. He tries really hard for justice but keeps on making things worse for himself.

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I now see that I never replied properly to the topic of this thread, so here I go...

No, I don't feel bad for Hades at all. Well yeah, I can see that James Wood's brilliant performance won people over. But he obviously is the villain of the movie, someone who actually almost has his own baby nephew killed. So nope, no sympathy from me. And yeah, I also think he's the scariest-looking Disney villain since The Horned King.

Intelligence and purity.

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Just to counter argue: Hades was basically "forced" to control the underworld and he hated it. Literally, everyone on Olympus is having parties all day (in the movie) and is having a splendid time and for hundreds of thousands of years Hades isn't allowed to stay with them. Hades even says in the movie "I have a job". Basically, everyone on Olympus is portrayed as slackers who do what they want while Hades is the only one who is actually working.

As far as Greek Mythology goes, Hades wasn't evil, but he was one of the only ones to actually be doing something as a job and not for fun. Everyone else kind of did as they pleased and what they found enjoyable, but Hades did what he had to.

So yeah, I feel sorry for him.

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Well, I wonder if Hades (as far as this version goes) hadn't brought his isolation on himself. Because he obviously was the evil god, who never fit in with all the others. Maybe he also had done some really bad stuff in the past, that nobody else had forgotten? Just see how all the other gods look at him, when he turns up at Olympus for that party in the beginning! There has to be some back-story to Hades, that has turned everybody against him... Yeah, I can see that he was jeaolus of the other gods, especially his brother Zeus. But that still didn't give him any right to murder his baby nephew (it was only dumb luck that Hercules survived)! So nope, still no sympathy from me...

Hades in Greek mythology is mostly a totally different figure. He was more sombre than evil, and he was no worse than the other gods. But even so, it seems like the ancient Greeks feared him. They built no temples to his honor, like they did to all of the other gods, and they even were afraid to speak his name. Hades got a bad reputation because he was the ruler of the Underworld, so he was asocciated with death. And when people returned to the old myths centuries later, they eventually turned him into this devil figure. So even though he was never the villain of the original Hercules story, this movie didn't get the "evil Hades" thing out of the blue...

Intelligence and purity.

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Right. Hades is actually one of the least evil gods in Greek mythology, which is why it is ironic he was so feared. Out of all of them, the only real bad thing he did was kidnap Persephone. Compared to Zeus, he was a saint.

I felt like in the Disney movie, the reason why they didn't like him was more because he became bitter from the Underworld. Much like Xibalba from The Book of Life. You honestly kind of feel bad for the fact that his job is miserable and boring and he doesn't get any fun for hundreds of years. Hades obviously hates his job, and he has been doing it for far too long.

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But you still seem to ignore that Hades almost had his baby nephew killed! And I don't see how having a boring job, or even that he was jealous of his brother, justified doing such a thing. I'm sorry, but even though I agree that James Wood gave a fabulous performance, I can't see Hades a misunderstood woobie in this version. He had most likely earned his bad reputation already in the past, and he only made it worse by having baby Herkules kidnapped and even almost killed. Not to mention that he convinced people to sell their souls to him, or set the titans loose to conquer Olympus. So nope, no sympathy for the villain from me.

Intelligence and purity.

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Yeah, I do have a little sympathetic spot for Hades. He was assigned to oversee the underworld, which was nowhere near as pleasant as Mount Olympus. Even worse, Hades was the butt of jokes among the other deities.
True, Hades attempted to have his nephew killed. But in the end, that same nephew defeated Hades all by himself. Unlike in "Sleeping Beauty," where Maleficent cursed newborn Princess Aurora to die (how anyone can view her as a bad-*ss villain is beyond me) and was ultimately defeated by Prince Phillip along with the good fairies. Hades got his comeuppance at the hands of his actual victim. An even better justice if you ask me.

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True. He was scared of his plans falling through and James Woods was charismatic. But he did alot of evil in that.

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Hades went5 and got political

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