#the labors of hercules

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

Not me getting back on my Greek Mythology bullshit, but I feel like a lot of adaptations of Herakles gloss over the part of his story where Hera literally mind-controls him into killing his family.

Like, Imagine having your agency, you mind, and your reason stripped from you so completely and utterly by a force you can't fight against or comprehend and that force makes you murder the people you love most in the world. Why aren't writers doing more with that! The horror of Herakles!

How he can't lift his fists or his sword or his club without seeing his families blood and brain stained across them! how he can't look in the mirror without seeing his children's faces staring back at him? How do you come back from that? From being a puppet, the weapon that murders your own family? Can a weapon grieve? Does it have the right to?

Hell, the only reason Herakles doesn't kill himself is because Theseus shoulders some of the weight of the crime by taking his hand. (Probably the most heroic thing Theseus ever does).

The Twelve Labors aren't a quest for glory, they're about a guy going on a suicide run by facing the most insane challenges the world can throw at him, but every time he triumphs he realizes that he doesn't GET to die. He has to keep going. He has to keep living. He has to live with himself.

And then, one day, when he completes another task, and he sees the grateful faces of the people he's saved, the lives he's made a little better, he realizes that he doesn't want to anymore.

[fabiansociety]

while our preferred reading of the david suchet poirot is as a gay man, i can make space in my brain for him being asexual; i cannot, however, accept the idea that he had any kind of a passion for countess rossakoff, or views the lack of female companionship and children in his life with any particular regret, and i don't care how many long and lingering shots and sad piano music you include in your adaptation

the movies after the departure of hastings really lean into poirot's isolation and loneliness, so if you want to tell me that this man pines for human connection, sure. but the countess has been such a minor figure in this show, with, i think, three episodes all together, counting this one? she's not only not physically present, she's not even narratively present, and it's hard to build a longstanding romance out of that, particularly since her first and most substantial appearance has them frequenting art galleries more than anything else. which, i mean, that's a perfectly fine date, but it's not a passionate one, you know?

it's also a thin sort of reading of the character, too, and one contradicted fairly firmly by the text of the episode itself. "no, madame, i am not your lover. i am poirot." is a lot of things, but an acknowledgement of attraction it is not

[debarbat]

Hercules and the Nemean Lion

Julian Jordanov

[a-ramblinrose]

JOMP BPC || January 21 || Old Author:  Agatha Christie

[my-52-weeks-with-christie]

Cooking With Christie: Cinnamon Waffles

Inspiration: Flipping through a new-ish cookbook, I spotted the words Krumkaka iron — a device I actually own. (Krumkaka is a Norweigan waffle cookie that, while hot, you shape into a cone.) Reading the rest of the recipe, I discovered it was a straightforward dough to make. Even better, you make the dough one day and on the next, you bake them. So I whipped them up…and they turned out pretty…

[luxsit]

Joseph-Boniface Francou

[siryl]

"Monstrous Boar I" and "II" by KingOvRats. The Erymanthian one is on the top and the Calydonian one is on the bottom. Or maybe it's the other way around.

[spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub]

Reading Agatha Christie: The Labors of Hercules

The Labors of Hercules is one of Christie's short story collections, written in the late thirties/early forties, featuring Hercule Poirot. And honestly - it's a fun little collection.

I think the stories are written at a time when Christie is still very much on top of her game. They're varied enough that it doesn't feel like you're reading the same kinds of plots over and over, and while some of them could have been fleshed out more into a full novel, I think they predominantly hold up as short stories. They're all each of even quality, too -- while there wasn't one that I loved more than the rest, none of them were particularly tedious to read or groan-worthy in execution.

They're pretty quick reads, too, and I picked them off one by one each night to great effect.

There is a whole 'shtick' that binds them together -- as the title suggests, Hercule Poirot decides to take on cases that match up with Greek Mythology's infamous Labors of Hercules. While there are some ingenious tie-ins with the original mythology, I think other times Christie is stretching, at best, to make the whole thing work. But - I still think it's kind of a cool tie in - and made me go back and look up the myths to see how the short stories connect to them.

Overall, a definite recommend from me!

[agentem]

Hercules

I hope when Brett Goldstein's Hercules shows up on Earth in the MCU, he tries all the old "classics" like fighting a lion, cleaning stables, and stealing women's girdles to get the Humans to think he's a hero.

ASPCA will be like "explain to me again why you hurt this lion. He was minding his own business." And Hercules will be like, "What the fuck you humans used to love this shit."

And the final battle can be a shot-for-shot remake of the potato sack race with Thor from "Support Your Local Sky-Father."

[gheartistwriter]

random headcannon

Okay, take it out of nowhere, but Ares totally understand Apollo’s hate for Achilles, cause he was the same whit Heracles. Heracles killed a LOT of Ares’s children (some by accident) . And Achilles murdered a LOT of Apollo’s children ( don’t get me start talking about Troilus).

So, for me, even if Ares and Apollo aren’t the best siblings, they, at least, hold each other’s backs when it comes to children lost. Not like siblings, but like two dads that are both tired of losing their kids, to some so named “ Hero”

[lionofchaeronea]

Heracles wrestles the Nemean Lion. Silver tetradrachm minted by King Lykkeios of Paionia (an ancient kingdom located northwest of Macedon, corresponding roughly to the present-day nation of North Macedonia) between 359 and 335 BCE. Now in the Staatliche Münzsammlung, Munich, Germany. Photo credit: ArchaiOptix/Wikimedia Commons.

[dinneratgrannys]

ONCE UPON A TIME REWATCH: 5.13, LABOR OF LOVE When you love someone, you know.

[nemfrog]

Heracles killing the Hydra. Greek and Roman mythology. 1917.

Internet Archive

[delladuck]

wait so where the hell is storkules????

[lachlame]

Man my cat is so disregulated after bringing in a new kitten that she hisses at me when I give her breakfast and dinner

[my-52-weeks-with-christie]