Academics Weekly Assignment — July 10th, 2022

Welcome to the Academics weekly assignment for the week of July 10th, 2022! These weekly assignments will give our Professors the ability to showcase some of their lesson ideas here on the website. Each assignment will be posted for a week, in which everyone will be able to read about the topic and respond to the assignment prompt. This week's assignment is "Mythology - Labours of Herakles" created by Elizabeth (ElizabethTheToad).

The assignment is as follows:
Background
When Herakles, a demigod son of Zeus, was born, Zeus’ wife Hera immediately had it out for him. Determined to make Herakles’ life chaotic and agonising, Hera drove him mad to the point that he killed his wife and children. Determined to make up for his madness-driven sins, he travelled to the Oracle of Delphi where he begged for the god Apollo to offer him guidance. The oracle told Herakles that he needed to serve King Eurystheus of Tiryns for 12 years and perform the 10 tasks assigned to him by the king.

The tasks that Eurystheus assigned to Herakles were:

1. Slay and retrieve the pelt of the Nemean Lion, whose skin was invulnerable to everything
2. Kill the Learnean Hydra, a huge water-serpent with nine heads
3. Capture the Cerynitian Hind, an animal sacred to the goddess Artemis, alive
4. Capture the Erymanthian Boar alive
5. Clean the expansive cattle yard of King Augeias in a single day
6. Chase the Stymphalian Birds away from Lake Stymphalis
7. Capture the Cretan Bull alive
8. Capture the man-eating mares of Diomedes
9. Retrieve the Belt of Ares from the Queen of the Amazons
10. Retrieve the Cattle of Geryon, a giant with the bodies of three men fused together

During the second task, Herakles had help from his companion Iolaos, so Eurytheus determined that it did not count towards the ten tasks. Similarly, Eurytheus claimed the fifth task was disqualified as Herakles had attempted to get paid by King Augeias for the task.

To make it ten, Eurytheus came up with two more tasks for Herakles to complete:

1. Fetch golden apples from a garden protected by a hundred-headed dragon
2. Retrieve Hades’ hound Cerberus from the Underworld

Despite Eurytheus’ best attempts, Herakles was able to complete all twelve of the tasks he had set.

Assignment
If you were King Eurytheus, what is one task that you would give Herakles that you’re confident he wouldn’t complete? What makes you so sure he wouldn’t be able to complete the task?

Please make sure to write at least 5 full sentences to get AC for this assignment! Your assignment must be entirely written by you and may not be plagiarized (including copying anything from online sources, books, or movie plots) in any way. Assignments must follow all PotterworldMC rules, which can be found here; assignments that do not follow all PotterworldMC rules will be subject to punishment. If your assignment does not meet the requirements, you will be unable to redo your assignment for this week. Assignments are due at 12am PST on Sunday, July 17th, 2022. You may submit as soon as you would like, but any assignments submitted after that time will not receive grades. You may receive up to 20 ACs for your submission. House points will not be awarded to any submissions. If you have any questions, please reach out to a Jr. Professor, Sr. Professor, Academics Advisor, Academics Lead or Head of Academics on Discord.

Click here to submit your assignment, and click here to view your submission.