...was making Hera good (as in not trying to kill Hercules).
I certainly don't expect to see Hercules killing his wife or Zeus whoring around in a children's cartoon, but even the Kevin Sorbo show had an evil Hera (which kids watched all the time when it was on) and Disney has had their share of 'evil stepmothers' so...why would an evil Hera be taboo?
Hera killed Hercules family, wife and children.
shareBut if the writers had kept Hera as the villain, how would they have gotten around the fact, that Zeus had a baby with another woman, without straight out saying that he had cheated on his wife? Kids might have watched the Kevin Sorbo TV show, but if my memory serves me correctly, it was still more mature than Disney ever could have dared to be. I still remember how one episode was about David and Goliath, where they presented David as a religious fanatic and Goliath as a misunderstood anti-hero. So I say that show could be controversial and edgy at times, at least much more than Disney have the guts to be...
And a Swedish re-telling of Greek mythology is unexpectedly straight forward, considering that it's written for pre-teens. But even this writer (Maj Samzelius) had to dance around who Hercules's real father was, since Zeus also was Alchmene's great-grandfather! Incest was too much to handle even for her, so she just had Hera be jealous of Alchmene anyway. Which doesn't really make that much sense, since Hera was a freaking goddess and Alchmene was a mortal woman, but it was either that or admitting that Zeus had sex with his great-granddaughter. So then you can understand how much Disney had to tweak the story to make it suitable for them...
So all things considered, it's not strange at all that Disney went with Hades as the villain. Not only did he become a very good Disney villain, with a great peformance by James Wood. But if you had asked an ancient Greek who was more scary, Hera or Hades, you can bet that they would answer "Hades". Hera was unfair towards Hercules, that is for sure. But she was also the protector of child-birth and marriage, and especially the women would have prayed to her a lot. But as for Hades, you would never pray to him. No temple was built for him, and except for the coin, which the ancient Greeks would put into the mouths of their dead, there was no sacrifices made to him. People were even afraid to speak his name, just like some people would be afraid to speak the Devil's name...
Intelligence and purity.
For me it was the elimination of Chiron.
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