Compare And Contrast Hercules And The Greek Demigod From Mythology

Heroes are those who are called to action by some circumstance, be it dramatic or not, that calls them into service to fulfill a quest, a task, or some other rite of passage that will harden them and serve as initiation into legend. Each and every hero throughout mythology’s many different tales has undergone a rite of passage, a series of tests that shape them to become the people they were meant to be, cementing their names into history in a manner that is reserved for the heroic. It is this quality that allows such tales to endure the test of time and the scrutiny given by the public, the mere fact that so many wish to either experience or view the life of a hero setting the stage for such an individual to emerge. In his anthology, The World of Myth, author David Leeming presents depictions that “speak of the most fundamental human experience” (Leeming, 1991). People love a hero that they can see, a person that has come from virtually nothing and has fought their way forward in order to achieve their current status. The two heroes that have been selected for this essay, Hercules, the Greek demigod from mythology, and Neo from The Matrix, are comparable to several rites of passage that Leeming describes and are quite close to the typical archetype of the

While it can be argued that in the first film of The Matrix trilogy that Neo selflessly faces down Agent Smith to save the others, his true sacrifice does not come until the third film, Matrix Revolutions, that he performs the greatest sacrifice in order to save his people. Hercules does much the same when he confronts each challenge and by doing so thwarts the intentions of the goddess that seeks his demise. Unlike Neo however his death comes in a most ignominious fashion as he is poisoned and lain atop a bier to be cremated at the time of his