Hermes (pronounced her-me in the episode) is a character who appears in the cartoon show episode "The Smurf Odyssey". He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the king and queen of the gods on Mount Olympus. In the episode's story, Zeus has decreed that the boy must now embark on a quest to prove himself worthy of godhood. However, Hermes is resistant to the idea of going on the quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece from Gorgon Island until Sassette offers the help of her fellow Smurfs to aid him on his quest. Zeus says that a god must quest alone, but Hera says that a god cannot quest with another god, which the Smurfs as mortals do not qualify as. Papa Smurf also objects in that he has his own quest of getting his little Smurfs home, but Hera offers to have her husband help return the Smurfs to their own time if they would be willing to help Hermes fulfill his quest.
With the aid of a few Smurfs and his horse Pegasus, Hermes soon boards the ship guided by its spirit Sylvia and faces his first challenge, dealing with a six-headed hydra who comes to attack him and his friends. However, Hermes finds himself rather fearful in the presence of the hydra and hides himself under a seat in the back of the boat while his fellow Smurfs deal with the hydra. Smoogle eventually defeats the creature by being launched as a pinball in the narrow chasm that the hydra chases the ship's crew into. After its defeat, Hermes comes out of hiding and admits that he isn't ready to continue the quest, but Sassette and Grandpa Smurf talk him into having enough courage to face whatever else may be coming on their quest.
Soon upon their arrival on an island where Sylvia says they can find the magic shield, Hermes and the Smurfs encounter Loomis, the Cyclops that resides on the island. Rather than attack them, Loomis proves that he is terrified of the intruders and tries to keep his distance from them. Realizing that a terrified Cyclops can be no threat to them, Hermes and the Smurfs make friends with Loomis, who then tells the quest party that the magic shield is located in Dragon's Tooth Canyon.
As they approach the canyon, Grandpa Smurf sees the shield within, but Hermes is too fearful to enter it alone. Sassette offers to get it for Hermes, which makes him go in after Sassette to keep her from going in there alone, with the other Smurfs following them. No sooner do they get the shield, though, that a group of skeletal warriors form and surround the quest party with a ring of fire. Seeing that Pegasus is just as scared of fire as he is, Hermes gets on his horse and flies over the ring of fire to get help from Loomis, who comes in not only to extinguish the ring of fire, but also to destroy the skeletal warriors with a boulder used as a bowling ball.
Hermes and the Smurfs then set sail for Gorgon Island, where the Golden Fleece is located. Hermes says that it is guarded by the Gorgon Sisters, whose very look can turn whoever gazes upon them into stone, so he uses the shield to protect himself and the Smurfs as they head for the tree on which the Golden Fleece hangs. But just as soon as they get it, the Gorgon Sisters come out and freeze most of the Smurfs and Pegasus by turning them into stone. Hermes loses the shield which breaks against the rocks, so he goes into hiding along with Vanity until he sees his friend's mirror and uses it to give it to the Gorgon Sisters so they can look at themselves with it. Both sisters saw their own reflections and were instantly turned into stone, which at the same time freed the petrified Smurfs and Pegasus.
Hermes is then congratulated as a hero who has proven himself by the Smurfs who were with him and then later by the gods themselves. Zeus saw in his own the qualities that made him fit to be a god and thus has crowned him with a golden wreath, declaring that he is now a god.
Trivia[]
- Hermes is typically the name of the messenger of the gods in classical Greek mythology.