ship_manifesto

Title: Subtext and the Single Warrior
Author: LtLJ
Fandom: Hercules: the Legendary Journeys
Pairing: Hercules/Iolaus
Spoilers: Complete Series and TV Movies
Author's Note: I wanted to mention here that I used snippets of material and examples from an essay on Hercules/Iolaus slash that I wrote a few years ago, and from an overview I wrote for

crack_van -- so if anything sounds familiar to anyone, don't worry, I only plagiarized myself. :)

Subtext and the Single Warrior

Who These Guys Are

Hercules is a demigod with supernatural strength, the son of Zeus, King of the Gods, and Alcmene, a mortal woman. He was played by Kevin Sorbo. Iolaus is his mortal companion, played by Michael Hurst.

The Hercules and Iolaus of Greek mythology were actually uncle and younger nephew, though, as was traditional at the time, they were depicted as having a sexual relationship.

Hercules: the Legendary Journeys tends to put a twist and a spin on Greek mythology. It's fantasy, sword and sorcery, with liberal helpings of comedy and drama. In its canon, Hercules and Iolaus are friends who have known each other since they were children and learned to be warriors together at the centaur Cheiron's training Academy. In the episode "Surprise," we learn that Iolaus is actually two years older than Hercules.

By the first episode of HtLJ, Hercules and Iolaus have known each other for more than twenty years. There's some confusion as to when they met and became friends, but when you factor in Hercules and the Amazon Women (the first TV movie) and the movie and series Young Hercules, there's sufficient evidence to suggest they became friends as young boys, that there was a period of estrangement when they were teenagers, but that they were close buddies again by the time they were both enlisted in Cheiron's Academy after the Golden Fleece adventure on the Argo. In a sixth season episode Iolaus asks, "What do you know about raising teenagers?" and Hercules replies "I raised you, didn't I?"

In mythology, Iolaus actually returns from the dead to help Hercules' sons in battle. In the show, Iolaus has been killed and brought back to life four times. (Yeah, I know it's weird, just go with it.)

There isn't much tension in Hercules and Iolaus' relationship, either in Young Hercules or HtLJ. The conflict tends to come from outside, such as in "Hero's Heart," where Iolaus breaks up their partnership because a tragedy has temporarily wrecked his self-confidence, or in "The Mother of All Monsters" where Hercules tries to convince Iolaus to stay behind because he's afraid he will be killed. In the "Warrior Princess" trilogy there's the fight over Xena, which is uncharacteristic in its bitterness and also bizarre in its speedy resolution. Hercules and Iolaus snap their normal relationship back into place so quickly it leaves Xena flabbergasted and running for her life. The fight between them is violent but at the end it's also apparent that they were blowing off steam rather than really trying to kill each other. These two guys have been training with each other most of their lives and going at each other with swords is not as hostile an act as it would be for two accountants.

Hercules and Iolaus' relationship does not feature much in the way of unresolved sexual tension. It is, however, brimming with resolved sexual tension. They fight together, travel together, sleep in the dirt together, tend each other's wounds, bicker, tease, and express lots of affection for each other. 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. For me it's equally engaging in slash or gen stories.

Canon and Subtext and Just Text

In the commentary track for "Warrior Princess" on the first season DVD set, Michael Hurst describes the opening scene in the forge as homoerotic and over the last scene jokingly inserts the dialog:

Hercules: "You're more important than she is."
Iolaus: "I love you, Hercules, let's go home. Will you sleep on top tonight?"
Hercules: "I don't know."

In other words, there's a lot of subtext.

Hercules and Iolaus declare their feelings for each other openly all throughout the show. 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 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 brothers.

They also show affection physically, though except for the occasional slap on the back, Iolaus doesn't initiate physical contact with Hercules very often, and usually only when Hercules is injured. He'll often turn away or cover his face in a moment of strong emotion. This fits in with the few canon details we're given about Iolaus' family life: he was ignored and disparaged by his warrior-general father and ended up running away from home as a teenager. (When Iolaus and his father meet in the Underworld in the episode "Not Fade Away," Iolaus' father calls him a "crybaby" and says lovely supportive things like "I hope you were man enough to go down fighting.") Hercules, however, often puts his hand on Iolaus' shoulder or the back of his neck during casual conversations. He initiates casual one-armed hugs, and we also see full frontal "I'll never see you again" hugs with Iolaus' head tucked into Hercules' shoulder and leaping into the arms "Hey, you're not dead anymore" hugs.

Then there's the Looks. For example, at the end of "Lady and the Dragon" when Iolaus is berating himself for falling for the villainess' trick, Hercules gazes adoringly at him and says he likes Iolaus just the way he is. Though Hercules is quite capable of being a jerk at times, he is basically a sensitive, new age guy, and he shows it.

I'm only going to hit the highlights of particular subtext moments in the show, because there's really a lot. I'm also only going to talk about HtLJ subtext, as there's a ton more in Young Hercules.

In Maze of the Minotaur, the last TV movie, Iolaus is trying to tempt Hercules to spar with him so he can show him some new eastern fighting techniques he's learned. This involves Iolaus suggestively rubbing his wine cup against his lower lip. There follows a somewhat homoerotic wrestling match in the barn, interrupted by Deianeira, Hercules' wife, and his young daughter, with this dialog:

"Mommy, what is daddy doing to Uncle Iolaus?"
"I don't know, sweetie, that's what I was wondering myself."
"We were just, uh.... What are you doing up so late? You should be asleep!"

In "Full Circle," the last episode, we see Hercules and Iolaus sleeping on a fur rug together. Later in that episode, Hera, Hercules' stepmother and their mortal enemy, who has temporarily lost her memory, asks Iolaus, "And how are we related?" He sputters and doesn't answer.

In "Reunions," when Hercules returns from a temporary stint as a full god, he tells Iolaus "I realized how much my family means to me. And-- you're it."

In "Darkness Visible," Hercules, who is planning to search the castle they're staying in during the night, tells Iolaus, "You won't be getting much sleep tonight." Iolaus, sitting on a bed, bounces to test the mattress and replies, "I thought you said you were tired."

In "Hero's Heart," when Iolaus wants to dissolve their partnership because he's lost his confidence, much of the conversation could pass for a romantic break-up:

Iolaus: "We can still be friends. But if you think you need a partner...you better find someone else."

Hercules: "You're not listening to me! You've always been there for me! Don't take that away! Maybe you just need a little time to-- you know -- sort out your thoughts."

Iolaus leaves, and Hercules follows him around town for a while. He then reluctantly agrees to a trial separation, though Iolaus is still firm on the fact that they actually have broken up already:

Hercules: "King Trancas is expecting us tomorrow. On the way, we’ll talk about this."

Iolaus: "There's nothing to talk about."

Hercules: "Yes, there is."

Iolaus: "Hercules, I meant what I said. I feel like I need a fresh start, or a new life. You're the one that said I should take some time to sort things out. Well, maybe that's true. I just know that for now, I need a little space."

Hercules: "OK-- if that's what you want. I’ll go on to see Trancas alone and-- when I get back, we'll talk."

Iolaus: "I don’t know where I'm going to be."

Hercules: "That's all right. I'll find you."

In other episodes, there's a couple of naked-with-each-other scenes. We have Hercules and Iolaus in a mud bath together in "War Bride" and the scene in "Just Passing Through" where Hercules and Iolaus talk about a stolen gem while Hercules wanders out of the pond buck naked. They don't show any body modesty or inhibitions with each other.

I also tend to find the bickering kind of sexy and subtexty. "A Star to Guide Them," isn't that great an episode overall, but the bickering over whether to stop for lunch or not is classic and hilarious. In "Two Men and a Baby," there's another classic scene where Hercules is bitching at Iolaus for wanting him to fish like a normal person instead of a demigod, and Iolaus starts imitating Hercules' voice. There's also a cute bit where Iolaus loses interest in the baby as soon as it gets wet and hands it off to Hercules to deal with.

In episodes like "Just Passing Through," we see Hercules also tends to do most of the chores, including the cooking, the laundry, and the sewing. He knits Iolaus an afghan to make up for accidentally tearing his pants. He worries about what Iolaus is going to eat for breakfast, if he's exercising or not, and his personal hygiene. Iolaus sometimes does the hunting and may occasionally pick up firewood, but that's as domestic as we see him get. His job is clearly to fight bandits and warlords and to keep Hercules from getting lonely. When Aphrodite and Hephaestus argue about their own relationship in "Love Amazon Style," Hercules takes up the female perspective and Iolaus takes up the male perspective.

My Perspective

Many people prefer first time stories, but I always felt that with Hercules and Iolaus, two characters who grew up together and have known each other through twenty years of marriages, children and Iolaus' four deaths, the first time probably occurred when they were teenagers. I also always saw it as an open relationship.

In the first episode of the series Hera kills Hercules' wife Deianeira and his three children with a fireball. During the series, Hercules was also married briefly to Serena, who is killed by the god Strife, in an episode which rifs off the story in Greek mythology where Hercules is driven mad and kills his wife and children. (In that story, nephew Iolaus is one of the few family members who survives Hercules' madness, mostly by being quick enough to get the hell out of the way.) In HtLJ, Iolaus was also married to a woman named Anya in the first TV movie, Hercules and the Amazon Women. According to the first volume of the show's episode guide he had two sons who never appeared in an episode, and so have been presumed dead. His wife Anya is mentioned as being dead in the last TV movie, Maze of the Minotaur. Hercules tends to go for serious relationships with women; Iolaus has girlfriends everywhere.

Both are supportive of each other's relationships with women. Hercules arranges a trip with pirate captain Nebula as a surprise for Iolaus in "War Wounds," and often teases him about his various girlfriends and conquests. In "The Enforcer" Iolaus declares that he and Alcmene think that Hercules should get married again, and he acts as best man in Hercules' wedding to Serena. Iolaus' initial objection to that wedding is that Hercules must give up his demigod powers for Serena and that can't lead to anything good, for Hercules or Serena; we see later that he was right. He is also a bit wary of Nemesis in "Two Men and a Baby" before we find out that Nemesis is lying to Hercules, that the father of her son is Ares and not Hercules. Iolaus gently tells Nemesis that Hercules would have helped her anyway, even if she had told him the truth from the beginning. In Maze of the Minotaur, Iolaus and Deianeira greet each other affectionately despite the scene Deianeira breaks up in the barn, and talk about Iolaus' problems as a single parent.

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. The two best examples are Iolaus' casual non-reaction to a kiss from a male Lotus-eater in "The Lost City," and when Nebula has her line in "Web of Desire" about Iolaus and Hercules being "partners." Iolaus doesn't deny it, but makes it plain to her that he can sleep with whoever he wants.

I like the canon in general, and prefer to stick with it when I write fanfic, so I write Hercules/Iolaus as a warrior-companions relationship, where Hercules and Iolaus' relationships with women are incidental to their relationship with each other.

Short Fandom Guide

The Iolausian Library, a giant (over 1500 stories) archive and index of Hercules, Young Hercules and Xena crossover fanfiction.

Hercules Universe Link Listing, links to all kinds of Hercules and Young Hercules sites, gen and slash.

The Less Than Legendary Journeys, gen and slash Hercules and Iolaus stories, both relationship and action stories, with a large helping of humor. Also a large picture gallery.

Lookout2's Young Hercules Archive, an archive of Young Hercules fanfiction.

Ashera's Archive, another giant index of Hercules and Xena fanfiction, organized by pairing and concentrating more on R and NC17 fiction, slash and het.

and the Hercules and Iolaus Fanfiction Net Ring lists many single author sites and small archives, all ratings, gen and slash.