Before he was a hero, Hercules was a zero, and by “zero” we mean “scrawny punk with a lovely tenor.” Anyone who’s ever suffered through puberty will relate hard to the challenges Hercules faced as a pre-growth-spurt Greek god banished from his Mount. And of course, without those challenges, Hercules might never have become the hero he did. (Just like you might never have transitioned from the amorphous demographic of “tween” to the strappingly handsome/beautiful creature you are today.) In celebration of that, we now pay tribute to Hercules’ awkward teenage years.
Like a preteen girl first experimenting with makeup, young Hercules often took things too far.
He caused so much destruction that others would go to great lengths to exclude him from their rowdy games of discus.
Times were tough. The local youths threw major shade.
It didn’t help matters that Hercules consistently proved everyone right, causing mayhem and destruction everywhere he went.
Boy, were the kids cruel.
Yeah, we get it. “JERK-ules.” So clever.
If all this is giving you horrifying flashbacks to the time your backpack split open on your first day of high school and all your brand-new textbooks went careening violently across the hallway to everyone’s cruel amusement, don’t despair! Things are going to pick up for our young misfit. He’s just going through the same awkward phase we all endured.
We all said this at least once during gym class:
But now it’s off to the Temple of Zeus to ask the hard questions and get the hard answers.
The same way you were once weaving uncertainly through the hallways with the gait of a newborn giraffe as you tried to find your next class, Herc starts things off strong by walking in slightly duck-footed…
…makes a good first impression with his dad by crashing into a bunch of stuff…
…and unsurprisingly, doesn’t take the news that he’s a god very gracefully.
Also he literally walks off Zeus’ hand.
But it’s okay! Just like when you held a lunch tray in the cafeteria and desperately scanned the faces of strangers searching for someone to sit with, young Herc is off on a Hero’s Journey. All he has to do to return to Mount Olympus is become a true hero, and that starts with finding Philoctetes.
Similarly to the way you eagerly introduced yourself with a hungry look in your eye to every potential friend you encountered, Hercules makes things awkward with the dreaded double-fisted pumping handshake.
This should probably remind you of what it was like to have just gone through a growth spurt, and not quite learned yet how much space your body takes up.
Good news for Hercules—Phil agrees to train him! Herc reacts the way you did when your locker buddy nervously asked you if you wanted to eat lunch together tomorrow.
Things are looking up. Soon, you and your new best friend have a secret handshake that will one day seem embarrassing, but right now seems really cool, and so do Hercules and Pegasus.
You may have wished that the slow blossoming of the next several years of your life could be consolidated in a training montage highlight reel. Well, Hercules had that luxury.
And thank goodness for that.
Remember when you tried to dance at Homecoming? It may have looked like this jolly charleston on a stoop.
But in spite of all those cringeworthy moments, you emerged from your awkward years like a phoenix from the ashes… just like Hercules.
Zero to hero, in no time flat.
