Hera hates Heracles because he is a living reminder of her husband's infidelity. Because of this she is cruel to him. She could bring about Herakles' death but instead she wants him to suffer. She sends Madness to drive Heracles to murder his wife and progeny.
Among the more famous victims of Hera's jealousy is Hercules (aka "Heracles," whose name means the glory of Hera). Hera persecuted the famous hero from before the time he could walk for the simple reason that Zeus was his father, but another woman -- Alcmene -- was his mother.
Hercules did try to smooth things over with the angry queen of the gods; when he noticed that she had not opposed him during his fight against Hippocoon, he sacrificed goats to her, in thanks. When Hercules died, Hera's anger finally cooled, and after the hero ascended to Olympus, he married Hera's daughter, Hebe.
The jealousy of Hera, queen of the gods, is the biggest source of conflict for Heracles' entire life. As one of Zeus' many illegitimate children, Heracles is a constant reminder her Hera of her husband's cheating ways. Her jealousy is so intense that she makes Heracles go crazy and kill his own children.
The constellation Hercules is the fifth-largest one in the sky. Then, after Hercules was born, Hera sent two snakes to kill him in his crib. The infant Hercules was unusually strong and fearless, however, and he strangled the snakes before they could strangle him.
In a rage Zeus hurled his ugly son down from Olympus to the isle of Lemnos, crippling him forever. The arguments between Zeus and Hera were fairly frequent As Zeus continued to have one affair after another, Hera could not punish him because he was much stronger than she was.
As the story goes, Zeus had an affair with a mortal woman. From that union, Hercules was born. Because Hercules was half mortal, Zeus was concerned this son have more powers. He thought his goddess wife Hera could breastfeed Hercules along with their children so that Hercules could gain some powers through breast milk.
Her unloyalty lied in the fact that she wanted to rule over Zeus and devised a plan to do so. In order to overthrow Zeus, Hera decided that she would drug Zeus and make him fall asleep. Once asleep, the gods tied Zeus to his throne.
Sometime during her marriage, presumably in retaliation, Hera started an on and off affair with Hades that ended around the "80s." It is unknown if Zeus was ever aware of the affair.
Despite Zeus' wandering eye, Hera remained fiercely loyal to him. While she may have had numerous opportunities to cheat on Zeus, she spent most of her time punishing the objects of his desires.
Hera was understandably jealous of all of her husband's infidelities. The goddess had a violent temper, and Zeus roused her fury more than once with his incessant seductions.
Hera Sends Madness
The king of Thebes was so happy to have had Heracles' help that he offered his daughter, Megara, to Heracles as a wife. Megara and Heracles married and had two sons. They lived for a few years in peace, but Hera was still out to torment Heracles, so she sent madness to drive him mad.
Hera prayed to Gaia to give her a son as strong as Zeus, then slapped the ground and became pregnant. Hera gave the infant Typhon to the serpent Python to raise, and Typhon grew up to become a great bane to mortals.
The Relationship Between Zeus and Hera
The goddess Hera was initially uninterested in Zeus, so he turned himself into a cuckoo bird and seduced her. After falling in love, the godly couple had two key children. These were: Ares, the god of war.
Hera is strong-willed and empathetic; however, she does appear to have a bit of a temper. Her empathetic nature is best seen when she is able to sense that someone is suffering, and she begins to tear up in response.
Io. Zeus fell in love with Io and seduced her. To try to keep Hera from noticing he covered the world with a thick blanket of clouds. This backfired, arousing Hera's suspicions.
Zeus slept around because he thought it was fun. Zeus wanted to have as much offspring as possible.
Hera figures out what Poseidon is up to and seduces Zeus to distract his attention away from the battle.
Hera, however, hated Hercules from the moment he was born. This was because she was the wife of Zeus and was often jealous of his affairs and illegitimate children. Hera saw Hercules as a symbol of Zeus's infidelity and wanted to destroy him.
As a result of their affair, Megara and Hercules had an astonishing eight children. But jealous Hera played another horrible trick on Hercules to prevent him from finding future happiness, cursing him with an uncontrollable madness that pushed him to murder them all!
In Greek mythology, Hera was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, and mother of Ares (god of war), Hebe (goddess of youth), and Eileithyia (goddess of childbirth), all with Zeus. Hera also gave birth alone to Hephaistos (god of metallurgy) in retaliation for Zeus' similarly single-handed birth of Athena.
Aphrodite later and of her own volition had an affair with Zeus, but his jealous wife Hera laid her hands upon the belly of the goddess and cursed their offspring with malformity. Their child was the ugly god Priapos.
Did Zeus sleep with any of his children? After Rhea refused to marry him, Zeus turned into a snake and raped her. Rhea became pregnant and gave birth to Persephone. Zeus in the form of a snake would mate with his daughter Persephone, which resulted in the birth of Dionysus.
There are many stories about Hera's jealousy. She even killed (or tried to kill) many of Zeus' children that he had with other women, like the time she sent poisonous snakes into the cradle of a baby Hercules. There was also a time she tried to kill Apollo and Artemis before they were even born.
This is the first change we get in her behavior throughout the series that is unrelated to her grief over Kanan's loss and the strongest indicator we have that she knows she is pregnant here—but not the only one. When they go to invade the dome, Hera's behavior is also significantly subdued.