ship_manifesto

Title: Screentime? We don't need no stinkin' screentime!
Pairing: Ares/Iphicles
Author:

marinarusalka
Spoilers: Most of the runs of Xena: Warrior Princess (XWP), Hercules: the Legendary Journeys (H:tLJ) and Young Hercules (YH).

Screentime? We don't need no stinkin' screentime!

Okay, let's get this point out of the way right from the start: the characters of Ares and Iphicles have never actually appeared on screen together. This isn't too surprising, since they're both played by the same actor -- the late, great Kevin Smith. This leads many people unfamiliar with the pairing to dismiss it as just being All About the Pretty, and one certainly can't deny the Pretty, as the pics I'm including to make abundantly clear. But, as I hope to demonstrate, there's a lot more here than meets the eye. The backstories and personalities of the two characters make for a natural and highly intirguing pairing.

Iphicles

Ares is the role that made Kevin Smith famous in the fandom, but it was actually as Iphicles that he made his first appearance, in the Hercules episode "What's in a Name?" In this episode we're introduced to Iphicles as Hercules' older, mortal half-brother. He does not come across as a particularly nice guy. He is, in fact, impersonating Hercules in order to impress his fiancee, Rena, the daughter of a nasty warlord who's been terrorizing the countryside. Iphicles denies any involvement in his future father-in-laws activities, but he's not doing anything to stop them, either. Confronted with the real Hercules, Iphicles is sulky and resentful. We learn that he's been estranged from his family for years, due mostly to his insecurity over living in his demigod brother's shadow. He clings to his impersonation, convinced that Rena couldn't possibly love him if she knew he was an ordinary man. But when the chips are really down, he owns up to his identity and backs up Hercules in a fight. Rena, following in the tradition of female TV guest stars, easily forgives him and declares her love. The episode ends with the promise of reconciliation between the brothers.

Iphicles reappears later that season in "The Wedding of Alcmene." Alcmene, Hercules and Iphicles' mother, is marrying king Jason of Corinth. Since the law forbids the king to marry a commoner, Jason must abdicate the throne a choose a successor. Once the requisite plot complications are out of the way, Jason announces his choice. Iphicles, now married to Rena, appears and is crowned king. (There's no explanation as to why having a commoner for a queen is a no-no, but having that commoner's son for a king is okay, but H:tLJ has never been a series known for its tight inner logic.) Some episodes later there's a passing mention of Rena expecting a baby, so things appear to be looking up for the new king of Corinth.

Iphicles' issues are not over, however. In the third-season episode "Surprise," the villain Callisto spikes the punch at Hercules' birthday party, causing the guests to hallucinate and act on their hidden feelings. Under the influence of the drug, Iphicles still expresses resentment of Hercules, and we learn at least part of the reason -- he feels that Alcmene favored Hercules over himself. There's indication that he's actually right about this: Alcmene hallucinates a vision of Hercules telling her that he's dead and asking her to kill herself so that they can be together in the Elysian fields. She immediately agrees, without a thought to the son she'd be leaving behind. And in the fourth-season episode "Twighlight," when Alcmene is dying, she spends some time reminiscing about the joys of her life but never mentions Iphicles (who's absent due to his kingly duties.)

Iphicles' last appearance is in the episode "War Wounds," which finds him in conflict with the Trojan War veterans in Corinth. We learn that Rena has died while he was away dealing with a riot, and a grief-stricken Iphicles is holding the veterans to blame and retaliating with harsh legal punishments. Iolaus and Hercules settle matters in appropriately heroic fashion, Iphicles sees the error of his ways, and that's the last we see of him on the show. But not in fanfic.

Ares

Ares is -- hey, what do you know? -- Hercules' older half-brother. He's also the God of War, but hey, everyone needs a hobby, right? The character is originally introduced on Xena: Warrior Princess, where he comes across as more seductive than menacing. Ares and Xena share a history, from back in her evil warlord days, and he often seems more interested in seducing her back to fighting by his side than in killing her. On H:tLJ, his motives are much more straightforward: he hates Hercules and wants to kill him.

Ares first appears on H:tLJ in the Golden Hind trilogy of episodes: "Encounter," "When a Man Loves a Woman" and "Judgement Day." In full strutting villain mode (and very tight leather trousers), he asserts ownership rights over Serena, the shape-changing half-woman, half-deer creature Hercules falls in love with. He persuades the other gods to demand that Hercules give up his powers as the price of being allowed to marry Serena. Then he arranges for her murder and frames Hercules for it. It's all part of a plot to seduce Xena back to the dark side, of course, and it fails, of course, but it establishes Ares as a recurring villain on the show. For the next four seasons he keeps cropping up, looking studly and hatching dastardly plots that invariably end in dragged out, sweaty fistfights with Hercules. He also frequently appears on the Young Hercules spin-off series.

Ares' characterization on X:WP becomes steadily more sympathetic over time, especially in the later seasons. On Hercules, he remains pretty much steadily a villain, though his portrayal ranges from darkly menacing to slapsticky comic, depending on the episode. In all incarnations, though, Smith's charismatic performance has made a character into a fan favorite.

Why does Ares have it in for Hercules (aside for a general objection to itinerant do-gooders who keep defeating his warlords)? Why, it's because he feels that their father, Zeus, favors Hercules over himself. He's right, too; whenever Zeus appears to intervene in a conflict between his sons, he always takes Hercules' side. In "Stranger in a Strange Land," Ares actually gets a genuine, blubbering, "Dad always did like you best!" line. In the Xena episode "God-Fearing Child," there's a darker scene where Zeus tries to enlist Ares' help to kill Xena and her unborn child. When Ares refuses, Zeus tries to appeals to him as father to son, at which point Ares resentfully demans, "Oh, so *now* I'm your son?" (As it turns out, Hercules kills Zeus by the end of that episode. So the king of the gods had backed the wrong son after all.)

A match made in Olympus?

With Ares and Iphicles' backgrounds laid out like that, it's easy to start seeing some rather important points of connection. Both are Hercules' half-brothers, and both are extremely resentful of him. Both hold him responsible, with some cause, for stealing away a parent's love. Moreover, while the two characters never interact in canon, there's no way they can be unaware of each other's existence. Ares is one of Iphcles' gods, in a universe where gods are real and all too prone to interfering in mortal lives. Ares, given his obsession with Hercules, can't have failed to notice that his arch-enemy has a brother who's not too fond of him. Iphicles is a fighter (fanon often has him making a living as a mercenary during the years he's been estranged from his family; there's no canon evidence for this, but he's certainly handy with sword and fist). This means at least a part of his life falls under Ares' purview. And even if Ares managed to miss Iphicles' existence prior to "Wedding of Alcmene," he'd be bound to pay some attention to the king of a major military power like Corinth.

Because of these implied connections, the pairing is suited to a wide number of scenarios, ranging from darkest non-con to shmoopiest romance. In some fics, Ares uses an unwilling or unwitting Iphicles in order to get to Hercules. In others, the two of them bond together over their mutual resentment of "that annoying do-gooder." Sometimes Ares is out for political influence in Corinth, and other times Iphicles himself seeks divine help in battle. The opportunities for getting the two characters together are pretty much infinite. Iphicles is conveniently widowed, and his life before he met Rena is an equally convenient blank, so there are no pesky canonical love interests to get out of the way. Ares does have that long-term "thing" for Xena, but doesn't stop him from flirting from anything that moves. Greek gods were notoriosly omnisexual and non-monogomous, anyhow, and the fantastical pseudo-ancient-Greek world of H:tLJ and X:WP is particularly well-suited to slashy relationships. In addition, Kevin Smith managed to have amazing chemistry with anything that appears on screen with him, up to and including random props, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that two Smith characters would absolutely sizzle together.

Surprisingly for a same-actor pairing, the physical resemblance between the characters doesn't get as much play as one might expect. In fact, you can kind of tell when a story was written by seeing how much fuss it makes over that aspect. When the pairing was new and treated mostly as a novelty, it got played up quite a lot. As Ares/Iphicles became more and more established as a viable pairing in the fandom, the emphasis faded. Then again, the characters don't actually look all that much alike, so maybe it's not all that surprising. Many H:tLJ fans watched the show for years before realizing, "hey, that's the same guy!"

Do you AU?

One of the things that makes the universe of H:tLJ and X:WP so entertaining to fanfic writers and readers is its openness to AU stories. First, canon gives us a lovely parallel universe, introduced in the H:tLJ episode "Stranger in a Strange Land." The Ares in that universe is the God of Love -- white-clad, Elvis-impersonating, rose-petal-strewing, and so over-the-top flaming that it seems almost superfluous to slash him. The parallel version of Iphicles is never seen, but we know he must exist, since we're told that every person in the canonical universe has an AU double. So fans are free to invent him as they see fit, and hey, it's not that big a step from slashing two characters who've never canonically met to slashing one whose existence is merely implied, right? As a result, there are quite a few stories out there involving both versions of Ares and multiple versions of Iphicles in all sorts of permutations and combinations, so try not to get too confused if you encounter them.

In addition, canon tells us that characters can be reincarnated into other time periods. This is established in episodes like "The Xena Scrolls," where reincarnated versions of Xena and Gabrielle run around in the WWII-era. Ares, of course, is an immortal god and can show up at any time he pleases. So stories set in periods other than ancient Greece are also not uncommon.

All right, you've talked me into it. So what should I read?

Kevin Smith's death in a filming accident a few years ago has had a strong chilling effect on the Ares-centric section of the fandom, so there's very little new fic being written. However, enough stories were posted back in the heyday to keep a new reader entertained for a good long time. Most of the fic can be found on the archive of the now-defunct ksmithares mailing list. The list was dedicated to all Kevin Smith characters, but is still the best resource for the Ares/Iphicles pairings. It was replaced by the ksares list, which still exists at Yahoo, but gets almost no traffic these days. The new list also has an archive, here.

Going through the two archives can be a bit overwhelming, so here are a few stories I'm particularly fond of. These are just a tiny fraction of the great stuff that's out there and not in any way, shape or form meant to be an attempt at a comprehensive recs list, so don't stop with these -- check out the authors' other stories and the links on their websites.

At Swim in a Dolphin Sea by

thamiris. Thamiris practically created the Ares/Iphicles fandom when she founded the ksmithares list. If you read just one author in the fandom, it should be her. It was hard to single out just one story to list here, but I happen to particularly love the beautiful prose in this one. You can also check out her website here.

According to His Need by

askance. A particularly tasty version of the AU Iphicles. The author also has a website here.

Regency Fuck by

damerel. The classic Ares/Iphicles AU. A novel-length Georgette Heyer pastiche with some amazingly hot sex. Author website is here.

Iphiklos by Isos Arei. The Ares/Iphicles relationship as viewed by a modern scholar. Nicely original idea.

General fandom resources

Whoosh.org A ton of info on H:tLJ, X:WP and YH, with episode summaries, transcripts, character guides, production info and all sorts of other goodies.

Mary Crawford's Vices has tons of screencaps from H:tLJ. Slanted toward the character of Iolaus, but with all other characters, including Ares and