King Midas is an antagonist from the Hercules animated series who appears in the episode "Hercules and the Golden Touch."
Background[]
Physical appearance[]
Midas appears to be an obese, elderly man with gray hair who wears a red robe, golden necklace, and golden wrist chain on his left arm, and golden crown.
Personality[]
Midas is shown to be very greedy, as he turns everything he has in his palace into gold and plans on doing the same thing to the entire world. While he is happy with his power, he realizes some negatives sides of it: it prevents him from eating and drinking and it later turns his daughter, Marigold into gold. This makes him have a change of heart, as he wishes to turn his daughter and everything back to normal.
Role in the series[]
In "Hercules and the Golden Touch", for helping a friend in need, Midas was granted a wish for him to have his touch turn everything into gold. One night, Epsilon, an agent who works for Midas, convinces Hercules to bring the king down as a secret agent. Before going to Phrygia, Midas' home, Hercules is given various secret agent items from Icarus.
When Hercules and Pegasus arrive to Phrygia, Hercules tries to enter King Midas' Golden Palace-Casino, but the guard refuses to let him in since he has no gold until he meets a girl named Marigold, who tells the guard that Herc is with her. While Herc is having a conversation with Marigold, he is interrupted by Epsilon, who tells him to focus on Midas. While Hercules asks Marigold questions about Midas, the king enters and Herc realizes that Marigold is Midas' daughter. When Midas makes Marigold give Hercules a tour of his palace, the king and Epsilon are shown to be hatching a plan to make the whole world be turned into gold.
While Hercules continues his conversation with Marigold, he is once again interrupted by Epsilon, who gets him to try to bring down King Midas. When Hercules finds out Midas' plan, he gets caught by the king, who sends his men to chase him, causing the hero to attempt to escape. He soon gets caught by Midas and his men, with Midas telling him what he is planning on doing to him. When Marigold enters the room, Hercules tells everyone that he is a hero in training, but Midas does not believe him until he calls Hermes to vouch for him.
When Hermes appears, Midas forces him to take off his sandals in order to free Hercules. However, it is revealed that everything Hercules went through was a set up to have Hermes show up and that Midas is planning on using Hermes' sandals to turn the whole world into gold.
Midas' first target is Athens. After he uses a machine that sends him flying in the air with Hermes' sandals, Marigold frees Hercules and has the hero bring her along with him to chase Midas. While Hercules, Marigold, and Pegasus chase Midas, Hercules uses a weapon that squirts yellow liquid on three buildings in Athens to make the king slip and fall to the ground. When Marigold tries to prevent her father from doing his plan, Midas accidentally touches his daughter, turning her into gold. This makes him realize the negative side of his power.
King Midas, therefore, decides to go to Bacchus and wish for him to remove his golden touch and turn his daughter and everything else back to normal. When Midas' wish is granted, Hermes' sandals are returned.
Midas also makes a cameo appearance in "Hercules and the Prince of Thrace". The episode was originally supposed to focus on Midas' dealing with his donkey ears following his ordeal with the golden touch, although the episode's story is instead changed to Adonis dealing a curse placed upon him by Gaia. The Muses however did not receive a notice about the change, and are only prepared with song numbers focusing on the Midas plot. Midas makes a brief cameo during the episode, attempting to see the Oracle of Delphi for help with his condition, but is prompty ignored despite the Muses attempting to direct focus to him.
Trivia[]
- Given "Hercules and the Golden Touch" is a James Bond parody, Midas behaves as a typical Bond villain. One particular inspiration is the equally gold-obsessed Auric Goldfinger, who in the song "Goldfinger" is even described as "the man with the Midas touch".
- It should be noted that since he is able to turn anything he touches to gold, he doesn't being turned into one himself every time he touches any part of his body. The same applies to his clothing as well.
- Bacchus likely bestows the ability in such a way in order to teach him a lesson. This can be seen Bacchus immediately lifts the curse when Midas humbly prays to him to remove the ability once and for all, having learns his lesson.
Gallery[]
