So I had worrisome decisions to make in preparing the tale. But then again, the story's power wasn't in those terrible acts, but rather in his Twelve Labors, and the redemption they offered. That guilt, and a desire to free himself from the control of his weakling cousin, drove him to become a slayer of monsters, and thereby a savior of men and women. By the time the story ended, Hercules had moved from sociopath to sufferer to an almost beatific wise man. Which, of course, is why the story was worth telling, at least for me.
Old stories are funny like that.
They don't follow the rules of Hollywood formula writing, to which we've all become so instinctively familiar. So the next time your kids watch Hercules solve his problems in a quick hour, pull out some dusty old book about him. Read it to them. To solve his problems, it took the real Hercules a lifetime.