What were Hera's powers?

Answer 1

Hera is a goddess by birth. She gained more power by being born than by being married to Zeus. She was conceived as the goddess of marriage and this was her birthright. She also has a claim to the realm of majesty

As with all goddesses she had the power to prophecy, the power to move through the air, and the power to change her shape. A goddess can also negotiate with other deities for other temporary powers. She is the goddess of heaven and the goddess of marriage and the life of married women and so she had most of powers in these realms. But she seems to associate status and majesty with this realm. This is with the fact, especially of those days, that the status of a man depended upon his acts while the status of a woman often depended upon the status or acts of her husband. Within her own realm she could set the natural law and provide fixes when her law went awry. She could change the nature of a marriage and what happened to the two partners, including how the woman's birth goes and whether the husband is faithful.

Zeus is the King of the gods and Hera is his wife. Zeus is more powerful than all the other gods and goddesses combined, but Hera is just a major goddess. Hera was respected but not that powerful. The story of the Trojan War seems to make Aphrodite the most powerful goddess with Athena second with Artemis and Hera third or fourth. It takes Hera and Athena to defeat Aphrodite in the Trojan War.

The Minoan culture may have had a supreme goddess that was eventually transformed into Hera. That Zeus is supposed to have raped her may represent the political act of Hera being absorbed into the Greek culture in a role subservient to Zeus. It is probably not correct to interpret this rape in the ordinary way. It is true that this would have been a sex act against the will of Hera but it is related to a fact of ancient Greek life. Young women were an important part of their family and it took some effort by a young man to get her away from her family. The custom was to steal her away. To complicate this was the notion, developed later, that the maiden was the responsibility of her father and it was up to the father to arrange the marriage. The young man might be asked to perform a great feat for the father to win the bride. Finally there was the fertility function associated with Zeus. When young ancient Greek women prayed for fertility she may have been asking for Zeus to rape her as this would guarantee that she would be pregnant. It might have been a time when becoming pregnant was the most important consideration for the girl. This was especially true if the rape was by Zeus because the child would invariably become a hero. So Hera may have been considered lucky for being raped by Zeus because it meant she would bear important children. She also obtained a marriage to the most powerful god in the universe.

Answer 2

Here are some of Hera's powers:

1. Hera turned Lamia into a monster.

2. Hera turned Gerana into a crane.

3. Hera turned Io into a beautiful white heifer.

4. Hera disguised herself as Semele's nurse.

5. Hera turned Callisto into a bear.

6. Hera cursed Echo to only repeat the words of others (hence our modern word "echo").

7. Hera sent a gadfly to bite the cattle of Geryon.

8. Hera's powers are commanding the winds and watching over women and motherhood.

9. Godspeed.

Answer 3

Hera's superpowers were similar to that of other Olympian gods. She had super strength, immortality and resistance to injury, and because of the particular section of Greek life that she resided over (marriage and women), she had the ability to bless and curse marriages. She was also able to protect women from rape, death during childbirth and help preserve the health of women all together.