Ares On Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
The character of Ares on Hercules is quite different from his character on Xena. In the show's first season, prior to Ares' appearance on Xena, Ares appears in non-human form as a skull in the moon or a fountain of blood, and in one episode, he takes the form of a slain warrior. He first appears in the familiar form of Kevin Smith in the Season 3 "Hind trilogy", in which Hercules falls in love with Serena, a mysterious woman who sometimes becomes a golden hind and who is a protegée of Ares. Ares tells Hercules that he will release Serena from her vow of service to him, and allow her and Hercules to marry, if Hercules gives up his superhuman strength. Later, Ares' underling, the god Strife, kills Serena and he and Ares attempt to frame Hercules for her murder. He is saved by the intervention of Xena and Zeus.
Ares' main goal on Hercules is to kill his demi-god half-brother, both because Hercules constantly stands in his way by preventing wars and because he resents his father Zeus' preference for Hercules. Ares' schemes are invariably thwarted. In later episodes of Hercules, he changes from a dark villain to a more comical one. This is especially true following the rise of evil entities such as Dahak, or the rise of a more powerful God in Xena: Warrior Princess which sought to destroy all Pantheons of gods and become the sole ruler. While most of the Olympians are destroyed during this time, Ares remains a mortal and appears in many comedic episodes such as "Old Ares Had a Farm".
In a Season 4 episode, it is revealed that Ares had sired a child with the now-mortal Goddess of Revenge, Nemesis. The child, Evander, is born with supernatural abilities, particularly telekinesis. Ares wants to take the boy from Nemesis and raise him to be loyal to him, hoping to use him as a weapon against Hercules. However, Hercules and Iolaus manage to foil his plan and return the child to his mother. Later in that season, Ares teams up with Callisto, now a goddess, to trap Hercules in a passageway between parallel worlds. Callisto, working with Dahak's daughter Hope, then turns on Ares, gets thoroughly beaten up by him in a hand-to-hand fight (during this, Ares admonishes her, "Pain? I invented it!"). However, she is then "recharged" with supernatural energy by Hope, turns the tables and roundly defeats Ares, and finally uses a dagger dipped in the blood of a golden hind, lethal to gods, to kill Strife. In the Season 4 finale, Ares plots with his mother Hera to kill Zeus.
In Season 5, Ares and Hercules briefly team up to stop the archangel Michael from destroying the world by unleashing the Apocalypse. In the show's finale, Ares is back to plotting against Zeus, this time by releasing two of the Titans once imprisoned by the gods, but Hercules and Iolaus stop him again.
In two episodes the series introduced a parallel world in which Ares is a god of love wearing white and without facial hair, while Cupid is a god of war.
Ares also appears in two Hercules "uber" episodes. In these episodes, which are set in the present day and based on the premise that Kevin Sorbo is actually the immortal Hercules himself, Ares is still at war with his half-brother and is plotting to get Hercules: The Legendary Journeys off the air.
Read more about this topic: Ares (Hercules And Xena)
Famous quotes containing the words ares and/or legendary:
“Not even Ares battles against necessity.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“By many a legendary tale of violence and wrong, as well as by events which have passed before their eyes, these people have been taught to look upon white men with abhorrence.... I can sympathize with the spirit which prompts the Typee warrior to guard all the passes to his valley with the point of his levelled spear, and, standing upon the beach, with his back turned upon his green home, to hold at bay the intruding European.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)