Philoctetes

"Yeah, I had a dream once. I dreamed I was gonna train the greatest hero there ever was. So great, the gods would hang a picture of him in the stars... all across the sky... and people would say, "That's Phil's boy." That's right."

- Phil on his dream.

Philoctetes, better known as Phil, is an old Satyr (half-man, half-goat), who appears as a major character in Disney's 1997 animated feature film Hercules.

He was originally voiced by Danny DeVito.

Physical Description
Phil has likely based on the satyr Pan, half-man and half-goat. He has two goat-like horns on his head, a beard, and a round red nose. And he is also bald.

Personality
Although he has a big heart, Phil can be easily ticked off. He dislikes others who ignore him or refuse to grant him respect. When not busy training heroes, he spends his time watching beautiful women and flirting with them, only to usually face rejection. A peculiar habit of his is announcing certain statements by saying their word count, then following with a sentence that fails to match the aforementioned count. He also has a rare condition called Pica by eating things that is not food. For example Phil eats a bowl (without fruit) and flowers.

Hercules
At the command of his father, Hercules travels to Phil's island with Pegasus to begin his training. He stumbles upon Phil watching Nymphs bathing, angering the Satyr when they flee at his arrival. Hercules introduces himself and his purpose, though Phil refuses to hear his plea, insisting he had retired with the many failures he had trained in the past. Even with a tremendous display of strength and the claim that he is the son of Zeus, Phil refuses to believe him or train him. It isn't until a lightning bolt comically strikes Phil that he settles on taking the young teenager into his hands.

Years of training pass under Phil's counsel before he declares Hercules ready to begin his work. They begin flying to Thebes, a rough city in Greece, before being sidetracked by the cry of a damsel in distress. After Megara is rescued, Phil flirts with her but is rejected, distrusting her immediately. The trio of Pegasus, Hercules, and Phil then continue their flight to the unfortunate city, where Phil loses his patience with the disrespect shown by the citizens there. It isn't until Hercules defeats Hades' Hydra that Phil receives recognition for his efforts. From there on, Phil keeps Hercules on a strict schedule while enjoying the benefits of wealth and glory.

When Hercules goes off to train and accidentally leaves his mentor behind in a garden, Phil witnesses Meg speaking with Hades, who had Meg seduce Hercules in order to learn of a possible weakness. Phil hurries to the stadium in which Hercules is training and insists that Meg is tricking him. Hercules ignores him the first few times before becoming so overcome with anger that, to his own horror, he slaps and knocks back Phil. At this, a saddened Phil gives up on Hercules and attempts to return home to his island during Hercules' most vulnerable hour. It takes Meg to convince Phil to forgive his student and help as the Titans attacked.

Hercules prevails in the end, and instead of becoming a god as he had often dreamed, he stays on Earth with Phil, Pegasus, and Meg. He is overcome by a sense of unrivaled pride when the stars form a constellation in the shape of Hercules and a man shouts, "That's Phil's boy!", giving him a true sense of fulfillment as a trainer.

Hercules: The Animated Series
Phil was a main character in the series that took place during Hercules training. He and Hercules would regularly go on adventures often stopping legendary beast or training to become the true hero he will eventually be.

Phil served major roles in a few episodes of the series. In "Hercules and the Living Legend", Achilles returns after his infamous injury rendered him unemployed. He reunites with Phil and secretly manipulates the satyr to rejoin his side as his personal trainer, thus abandoning Hercules. Unbeknownst to Hercules and Phil, Achilles was actually working for Hades, who wanted Phil out of Hercules life, knowing the hero was (at the time) nothing without his trainer. In the end, when Hercules and Phil are attacked by one of Hades' hired henchman, Achilles arrives, reformed, and saves the duo, learning his lesson after his deal with Hades became void.

In "Hercules and the Caledonian Boar", Phil takes Hercules on a hunting trip, where his old friends are introduced, as well as his old rival, Chiron, a much larger, hero-training satyr with a far grander track record, having trained some of the most legendary heroes of all time, much to Phil's dismay.

In "Hercules and the Muse of Dance", Phil was shown to be in a relationship with a southern Nymph named Syrinx, despite her aggressive father holding a harsh disliking towards him.

Phil also a major character in the special crossover episode, "Hercules and the Arabian Night". He is first seen training Hercules when the duo are attacked by the evil sorcerer Jafar, who has team up with Hades in a domination plot. Jafar conjures up a few giant monsters to destroy Hercules, but the hero defeats them, sending Jafar to the Underworld. Later on, Hercules receives word that his friend Icarus has been kidnapped by a boy named Aladdin. Hercules, Phil, and Pegasus, travels to Agrabah to save Icarus. There, Hercules and Aladdin battle, as Aladdin thinks Hercules kidnapped his monkey Abu. While Hercules and Aladdin fight against each other, Phil meets Jasmine and attempts to flirt with her until Jasmine reveals she is married. Eventually, the heroes realize that neither of them are the kidnappers. Upon mentioning Jafar's revival, Phil realizes that Jafar had to have team up with Hades. Hercules and Aladdin travel to the Underworld where they eliminate Jafar, leaving Hades to simply give up.

House of Mouse
Phil made recurring cameo appearances in this animated series, usually seen sitting alongside Hercules and Megara.

He had a speaking role in the episode "Donald Wants to Fly" when he and Hercules were witnessing Carpet's stunt performance.

In the episode "Salute To Sports", Phil had his own advertisement at the end of the show promoting a training program where he promised to have people go from zero to hero in twelve weeks.

In "Jiminy Cricket", after the titular character's speech, Hercules openly expressed interest in having Jiminy replace Phil as his trainer.

In "Ask Von Drake", Phil was featured alongside Hercules and Hades during the headcount of all the Disney character guests.

Kingdom Hearts series


Phil is a recurring series in the game featured in his homeworld Olympus Coliseum. Like the film, he's featured as the grumpy trainer for Hercules and once he encounters Sora, Donald, and Goofy, he shares their passion in wanting them to succeed and become true heroes. He is voiced by Robert Costanzo in English, and Japanese voice is done by Ichirō Nagai.

He first appears in the original Kingdom Hearts, set after Hercules becomes a true hero, where he refuses Sora access into the coliseum games on account of the fact that he isn't a true hero. Sora challenges Phil and offers to show his skills, and nearly succeeds until Cerberus arrives and attacks. Phil escapes, leaving Hercules to defeat the beast, but upon hearing of Phil's anxiety, Sora, Donald, and Goofy enter the arena and defeat Cerberus,  proving to Phil what they're capable of. As a reward, Phil dubs the trio junior heroes.

In Kingdom Hearts II, Phil reunites with Sora and friends, happy to see them, but claims they still haven't got what it takes. At this time, Hercules has been fighting beast after beast without much rest, rendering him weak and upon eventual defeat. To help, Phil goes into the Underworld to find an "understudy" of sorts for the hero, wanting him to take a break from the action to rest up. He's instead attacked by Demyx, a member of an evil group known as Organization XIII. During the climax of the visit, Phil assists in the battle against the bloodthirsty Hydra. During the world's second visit, Sora and company finally earn their titles as true heroes, much to Phil's joy, though he tries to hide the proud tears.

Phil makes a larger appearance in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Set ten years before Sora, Phil is trainer a juvenile Hercules when he meets the wisecracking young fighter, Zack, who wishes to become a hero, begging Phil to train him. Phil claims he'll watch the two students (being Zack and Hercules) battle and decide from there. In the end, though, it's revealed that Phil never intended on leaving Herc in the dust, as he merely felt the young Demi-god had been slacking lately and used Zack as a way to boost his effort.

Phil returns as a figment of Sora's memories in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, as the trainer of Roxas in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and in data form in Kingdom Hearts coded.

Disney Magical World
Phil appears in the game as one of the iconic Disney character citizens roaming about in Castleton, alongside Hercules.

Disney INFINITY: 2.0 Edition
Phil appears in the form of a costumed townsperson in the game.

Disney Parks
Though Phil was once a regular at the Disney parks, his appearances became less frequent in the 2000s and are now extremely rare.

During the original release of the film, an animatronic Phil was seen in the Hercules centric parade as the star of his very own, gym-themed float.

He still makes occasional appearances at Disneyland Paris.

Phil also has a small cameo appearance in the bubble montage during Disney's Hollywood Studios version of Fantasmic! and appeared on the Mark Twain in the Disneyland version in 1997.

Trivia

 * Animator Eric Goldberg used the character Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as a basis for Phil during creation.
 * Phil bears a striking resemblance to his voice actor, Danny DeVito.
 * Phil's character is somewhat inspired by Pan, the God of Nature. Pan is the same species as Phil, and they have a tendency to chase after Nymphs, like what Phil was doing when Hercules first met him. However, the Nymphs would always run from Pan due to his hideous face, with some even being turned into trees to keep them away from Pan. This also happened to Phil.
 * Though being a rather slow mover (occasionally), he is occasionally seen to be very skilled in acrobatic actions and agility both in the film and the animated series. In the animated series, it was noted that his agility even exceeds young Hercules.
 * Phil's function as a satyr comic sidekick references the ancient Greek theatrical tradition of Satyr plays, farcical retellings of myths throwing in satyr characters for comic relief.
 * The Kingdom Hearts series shows that Phil is almost as big as Donald Duck.
 * Phil is similar to Jiminy Cricket in the sense that both characters try to guide the protagonist throughout their films, but one point leave due to the protagonist choosing to listen someone else (Lampwick, Megara) instead of them, leave in anger, but come back when the protagonist is in danger.
 * Although Phil and Hades are enemies and have noticed each other for a bit (Phil when he discovers Meg works for him, Hades saying "Geez Louise, what's got HIS goat, huh?") they do not interact.
 * Phil is similar to Yoda from Star Wars as he trains a hero in this case Hercules as well as being his mentor.
 * Phil is very similar to Mulan's Yao as both are short, are short tempered, are tough and mock their film's protagonist but eventually accept them.
 * Apparently the residents of Thebes remember Phil as they recall him the one who trained Achilles.
 * Phil is based heavily on Chiron/Lupa, the centaur who trained many heroes, such as Heracles/Hercules.

Gallery
Philoctetes