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The Four Great Heroes Before the Trojan War
The character's traits, their role in the story, and the conflicts they experienced in the story.

Perseus

 Perseus demonstrates the qualities of an epic hero since he is courageous, virtuous, protective, intelligent,
protective, compassionate, and is willing to sacrifice himself. He demonstrates his reliability since he does not
break his promises to King Cephus. He is benevolent and compassionate toward Andromeda's predicament,
though he is influenced by her beauty.
 His role was to go on a quest to defeat Medusa to free his mother, Danae, from the harassment of King
Polydectes so he embarked on the journey to kill Medusa and intelligently petrified King Polydectes during the
banquet with Medusa's head. He is always determined to achieve his goals and protects the people he loved. He is
resolute to save Andromeda from the sea serpent and marry her. No matter what impede him, he overcome the
obstacles and reach his goals. He pursues his goals, though he faces difficulties.
 Perseus accidentally killed his grandfather, Acrisius, during a disk-throwing contest. Ultimately, he gives up his
throne in Argos, which shows that he is willing to sacrifice his throne due to his guilt of accidentally killing Acrisius.
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Hercules

 Hercules is son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the grandson of the great hero Perseus. He is the illegitimate son of
Zeus, the Father of Gods, and men. He is born in danger and into royalty. Hercules is known for his extraordinary
strength and courage. Hercules is also being described as vigorous and well-build. As a hero, He takes every
challenge with confidences and finish all the tasks with his courageous and strength. He is rewarded spiritually
when he dies and becomes a god upon his death. He is accepted into the Olympian Pantheon. Hercules fits the
epic hero archetype as he has all these qualities that a hero should have.
 One of the first heroic decision he makes is to stay on living rather than killing himself after he has killed his family.
He was able to stand for what he had done, and he takes his punishment without any hesitation. No one in this
world is perfect, but what separates a hero from the rest of the people is the ability to admit his or hers wrongs and
to fix them.
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 His life is full of obstacles. A sorrowful incident happens shortly after he marries Megara. Zeus's jealous wife, Hera,
is angry at her husband for having had Hercules as an illicit son, she tries to kill Hercules so many times and
makes Hercules insane. Driven made by Hera, Hercules unconsciously kills his children and wife. After he realizes
what horrible thing he had done, he wants to kill himself, but Theseus persuades him to continue living. Later,
Hercules is sent to perform the twelve labors by Eurystheus as his punishment. In the first labor, Hercules is sent to
kill the Nemean Lion. In this first task, Hercules's heroic qualities are being demonstrated.

Theseus

 Theseus, the son of King Aegeus, who is a brave prince with great pride in himself, volunteered to become one of
the sacrifices in the blood tribute for the Minotaur. Theseus then explains his plan to his father of slaying the
Minotaur and saving the Athenians once and for all.
 Theseus arrives at the Island of Crete and is inspected by King Minos himself. King Minos was surprised at how
calm and unwavering Theseus is then jailed but later rescued by King Minos’s daughter Ariadne. Theseus is
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warned by Ariadne how dangerous the Minotaur is and assists Theseus with his weapon and a ball of silken string
to trail behind him. The Minotaur was slain and Theseus sails back to Athens but only tragedy awaits him.

Atalanta and Hippomenes

 Atalanta grew up differently from normal girls, she was raised and trained with a group of hunters. By the time she
became a teenager, she outshined any other hunters in the group. She learned fast, she was skillful at using any
kind of weapons, and she ran extremely fast. She was close to a super woman character by excelling at everything
she was into.
 Atalanta fulfilled the epic heroes’ archetype by help killing the deadly boar and saving the villagers. She was skillful
and possess every super skill that made her different from ordinary people. She was beautiful, and she was
famous - the protagonist of the story.
 Atalanta confronts deadly creatures to show her courageous personality. She refused to get married with a guy so
easily. She wanted to be free and she was eager to challenge others, one could only marry her if one could win her
in a race. Atalanta went off the path to pick up the apples Hippomenes threw during the race. She ran so fast that
even she did this, she was still only one step later than Hippomenes when they crossed the finish line.