Hermesis?unmask

Hermes is the messenger of the gods. He's usually depicted with a caduceus — a winged staff intertwined with two snakes, his winged sandals (talaria) and his winged hat (petasos). His breakout role was leading souls to the underworld, and his repertoire gradually expanded to encompass boundaries, travelers, sailors, commerce, and travel itself. Due to his mobility and mediating between opposites (such as merchant/customer), he was considered the god of commerce and social intercourse.

We want a princess whose story is defined by a boundary between two worlds. That's an easy criteria to fulfill, so let's tighten the requirement to a story where travel, sailors and commerce are involved. The princess could mediate between opposites, as a guide or a translator. As a nod to Hermes' original role as a soul guide, we want one who talks to and receives guidance from spirits. Finally, we want a princess who can match Hermes' restlessness and constant motion, one who goes wherever the wind takes her.

That's Pocahontas in a nutshell. The sailors of the Virginia Company, a chartered, joint stock company, have travelled across the Atlantic, the largest boundary to the New World, in search of riches, commerce and conquest. The two worlds clash, and Pocahontas is at the heart of this great divide of opposites, serving as guide, mediator and translator.

What about Hermes' symbols — Sandals, Staff? Pocahontas famously has no footwear, no item. Or does she?

• The winged sandals arrive at the climax: as she runs to stop the execution, she calls on the eagle to help her feet to fly.
• The caduceus staff is a length of wood, two serpents wound around it, topped by wings. Wood, creature, wind, fused into one harmonious object. Now take Pocahontas' worldview and keystone song: that the trees are alive, that the animals are kin, the wind is full of color to paint with, and that everything is connected.

And for the homerun, Hermes' speed. Pocahontas is canonically the fastest runner in all the Disney princesses. In the movie's climax, as the opposing armies march to war, Pocahontas has been clocked at an 8-frame cycle running stride which translates to a sustained 38.2 mph pace. By comparison, the fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt, tops out at a measly 27.79 mph during his 100 meter dash. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, she was running to deliver a message.

A major objection we have to overcome is Pocahontas' lack of guile. As a Disney princess, Pocahontas is markedly sombre. Not even her refusal to marry Kocoum who is 'too serious' can save her from that characterization. Yet Hermes is the trickster god — he stole Apollo's cattle, and he did that on the first day of his life.

But let's look into Pocahontas' name. It's not her given name — it's her nickname, one she earned. In the Algonquian language, Pocahontas translates to: "little mischief" or "ill behaved child", hearkening back to Hermes' founding myth. Every time someone says the eponymous heroine's name, we're reminded that it's Hermes' film. A hidden trick from the trickster god, hiding in plain sight!

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Extra-diegetic. Hermes serves as the Gods' herald, one who announces or otherwise signals the approach of something else. On June 10, 1995, Disney did not announce the arrival of the film Pocahontas in a theatre. They hosted a massive, non-traditional outdoor premiere in New York's Central Park, on four screens eighty feet high, for an estimated hundred thousand people. This is the largest film premiere in history, a record that still holds to this day.¹

Footnotes

1. See Pocahontas (1995 film). ↩