Do we like them?

Do we like Kevin Smith?

Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful found and warm tributes from colleagues, but he died in 2002 and the record is short.

Kevin Smith was the New Zealand actor who played Ares, the god of war, across Hercules, Xena and Young Hercules. He was Auckland-based and best known overseas for those shows. Fans loved his Ares, a villain you couldn't quite hate.

Smith died in February 2002, aged 38. More than a thousand mourners went to a memorial at Auckland's Aotea Centre after a private funeral in his hometown of Timaru. Speakers included fellow actors, old friends and the Associate Minister of the Arts, and Temuera Morrison performed a haka.

On the harm test, there's nothing to report. We found no controversies, no lawsuits, no accusations and no harmful comments. Nothing on the record puts him alongside people who push harm. He worked in the 1990s and early 2000s, so there's no later slide into grievance to check. That's an absence of evidence, not a deep dive into every interview he gave.

On the good-person test, the tributes agree. His friend Michael Hurst, who wrote about him in the NZ Herald, remembered him as clever, generous and humble. At the memorial, speakers praised his kindness, humility and wit. Co-star Simon Prast said everyone wanted to hate Ares, yet “nobody could”. Eulogies are generous by nature, so read them as a pattern rather than proof.

The wider picture is a working actor who was, by his friends' account, a funny, big-hearted raconteur and a family man. We couldn't open stories about charity work or causes he backed, so we won't claim any. What we have is the warmth of the people who stood up to speak for him.

So it's a yes. He cleared both tests with nothing against him, and he lost a point or two on the meter only because the record is short and sourced mostly to tributes. If you've got a Xena fan in the house, you can enjoy Ares with a clear conscience.