A lot of people hate Hera, and I can’t say that I blame them... But she’s not as deserving of it as so many paint her out to be. She’s, in my opinion, a tragic figure. She’s the divine Medea married to her own Jason.
Her story starts out as one of the unfortunate children of Cronus, a victim of his tyranny. She’s subsequently rescued by her brother, the one who would be king. She and her siblings then wage war against their father, and eventually defeat them. They overthrow the Titans and become the champions of the world. Hera claims her spot on Olympus and is heralded as the most beautiful of these new gods. Her brother Zeus marries their ally from the war, Metis. And they all live in peace for awhile. Until Zeus starts becoming just like their father, starting with consuming Metis to hold onto his throne. He then takes it upon himself to find a new wife and settles on an unfortunate Hera. She refuses, but Zeus doesn’t care. He makes a bet with her and then subsequently wins it through trickery and deception. So Hera is forced to marry him, and she does. She becomes the Queen of Olympus, a ruler of the world. They have several children, and maybe she could be happy... But now that Zeus has his prize, he no longer cares. He, a god of justice who punishes oath-breakers, breaks his oath and seeks new lovers. And the one time Hera openly rebels against him, she’s hung over a void and put through so much pain. Yet Zeus doesn’t care, and only releases her because her sons and cries are merely getting on his nerves.
Hera is arguably the victim in this story. She’s trapped in a loveless marriage she refuses to break to a god who’s to powerful to stand against. And since Hera has no way to punish Zeus, she takes out her rage on Zeus’s lovers and illegitimate children Zeus favors more than their own. And she’s arguably justified. As a goddess of marriage, it should be in her right to judge Zeus, his lovers, and his illegitimate children. She can’t judge Zeus, but she retains the right to judge the others. She is cruel, yes, but she’s also stuck in a cycle of abuse that can’t be broken. The only truly unjustifiable thing that she did was throw Hephaestus off of Olympus, but even then, that’s far less than almost any of her fellow gods have done. And eventually, it would seem Hera and Hephaestus moved past that. In the story I mentioned earlier about Zeus quite literally torturing his wife, Hephaestus is the only one who tries to save Hera. With Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus, Aphrodite (in the myths where she is a daughter of Zeus), Heracles, Hermes, and Athena, her quarrels end when they are welcomed into Olympus it would seem. At least quarrels regarding their birth, that is. When it doesn’t come to Zeus, she’s a honorable goddess. She protects pregnant and birthing women, she helps heroes, she helped protect the Greeks from Zeus’s wrath, and she tries to uphold the family. Her name even means “defender/protector”. And in the RV, without her, the world would end. We don’t like her in RV because Annabeth doesn’t like her, and because she took Percy. But the first is mostly because Annabeth openly insults her to her face, and the second was necessary. If it wasn’t for her, the only member of the Seven would have been Annabeth and maybe Percy. Hera’s not perfect, but out of the Olympians, she’s the most human. How would you feel if your husband cared almost nothing for you or your children? How would you feel if he cheated on you with every pretty face he could find? I mean, he replaced his own daughter’s (Hebe, Hera’s daughter) divine duties and gave it to some pretty mortal boy he kidnapped. He openly dislikes Ares. He tortures her. He gives spots on Olympus to almost every godly illegitimate child he has. You’re one of the most powerful gods, but not powerful enough to change anything. Hera’s story is honestly tragic, but no one ever really looks at it from her perspective. Anyway, what do you all think?
