Zeus Doesn't Approve of Our Relationship
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| Title: | Zeus Doesn't Approve of Our Relationship |
| Creator: | Randi DuMois |
| Date(s): | January 16, 2000 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Hercules: The Legendary Journeys |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | The Less Than Legendary Journeys: Zeus Doesn't Approve of Our Relationship by Randi DuMois, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Zeus Doesn't Approve of Our Relationship is a 2002 essay by Randi DuMois.
Some Topics Discussed
- UST and RST
- slash
- the word processor's global replace feature, any two guys type of fiction
Some Excerpts
For one thing, Hercules and Iolaus do not have the relationship typical of most popular slash pairs. The usual slash pairing (and there are other exceptions) are two characters who have met recently, their friendship or relationship on the show is still developing and is often fraught with conflict and tension, creating much fodder for first time stories. UST (unresolved sexual tension) is thick on the ground. Other folks have described the typical slash couple in much more detail and with better examples, so that's as far as I'm going to go here.
[snipped]
They declare their feelings for each other openly. In the first episode "The Wrong Path," Hercules tells Iolaus that he will hold him in his heart with his wife and family. Iolaus says more than once, "I love Hercules." (wait for it) "Like a brother." They also don't take the kind of verbal shots at each other that are common in most slashy pairs. They kid around with each other, but it's obviously kidding, gentle teasing. "Genius is never appreciated in its own time." "Hercules! Your head! It's so big! Do you want help carrying it around?" They admit they have a powerful bond and consider themselves as brothers.
They've seen each other naked before. We have the mud bath scene in "War Bride," the scene in a YH episode where Jason and Iolaus are dressing while Hercules is wearing only a towel, and the scene in "Just Passing Through" where Hercules and Iolaus talk about the stolen gem while Hercules wanders out of the pond buck naked, to name a few instances. These guys live in the woods, sleep in the dirt, tend each others' wounds, and nurse each other through crippling injuries (Iolaus is beaten to the point where he can barely hobble with a crutch in "The Enforcer" and Hercules takes an arrow the size of a small household appliance in the gut in "The Mother of All Monsters."). It's unlikely at this point that they have any body modesty or inhibitions with each other.
This show isn't a documentary by any stretch of the imagination, but in 5th century Greece having both a wife and a boyfriend was a normal state of affairs, no pun intended. In ancient Greece the relationship would have been between an adult man and a teenager, like the sexual relationship between the mythological Hercules and his young nephew Iolaus. Greek mythology is also packed with homosexual and bisexual relationships, like Zeus' love affair with Ganymede, a young boy whom he abducted and who became his cup- bearer in Olympus. Historically there's also the Theban sacred band, which was supposedly made up of pairs of warrior lovers. In the Iliad, we have Achilles and his shield-bearer Patroclus. Plato said "A handful of lovers and loved ones, fighting shoulder to shoulder, could rout a whole army."
Given the 90s spin of HtLJ, we can speculate on a society where male and female sexual relationships are kept in separate mental compartments, where Hercules and Iolaus' relationships with women have no bearing on their relationship with each other. There are also little hints dropped in several episodes that homosexual relationships aren't unusual (Iolaus' non-reaction to the kiss from the male Lotus-eater in "The Lost City," for one big example). If the fanfic author wants to write about the theme of the difficulties gay couples experience in a disapproving society ("Zeus doesn't approve of our relationship"), she probably shouldn't be writing Hercules fanfiction.
Hercules and Iolaus' relationship does not feature UST, unresolved sexual tension. It is however brimming with RST, resolved sexual tension. It's a comfortable longterm relationship based on years of love, affection, trust, companionship, and friendship, whether the viewer prefers to see it as sexual or not, and for me it's equally engaging in slash or gen stories.
I think it's perfectly possible to write good Hercules/Iolaus slash stories. But it's going to take imagination and originality, and not just writing a new version of the last Sentinel or Highlander slash story the author read. To me writing, whether it's fanfiction or original fiction, is about creativity and exploring characters' relationships, and not just writing the same damn story over and over and over again, whether it gets you pats on the head from the readers or not.