How powerful was Apophis really?

Months to assemble a strike force of only two (2) ships, quickly overthrown, and no mention of him anywhere in my printed resources. Not very powerful, apparently…

@kritiper are you making the mistake typical of newcomers in assuming that loli’s question has anything to do with reality?

For those who don’t know, this question is about a character from the show Stargate SG-1.

@ragingloli The show is pretty clear about the Goa’uld not being real gods. But more than that, Apophis is based on a character from Egyptian mythology (Apep) whose reputation vastly exceeded his actual power. Apep’s only real strengths were his persistence and the fear others had of him, and even that wasn’t enough to stop him from being replaced in the pantheon by Set. In fact, the main reason Apophis is the primary villain of the show is that Ra—Apep’s rival in Egyptian mythology, who ordered several gods to keep him in place—was killed in the movie that preceded it. So it all squares with the source material (which was mined pretty heavily by the writers of both the film and the television series, though I can’t say I know for sure how much of it was lifted and how much of it is coincidence).

It’s all about perspective. The stories are told from the perspective of the Tau’re (spelling likely off because I’m too lazy to bother to look it up) and Poffy was the first of the System Lords to reopen the Chapa’ai on Terra, therefore he was extremely powerful as far as we were concerned. It was because of him that the Stargate program was redeveloped, so it stands to reason that he would appear most powerful and influential until the Terrans had become more familiar with the Goa’uld power structure.

Reminds me that I’m due for a rewatch. :-)

@stanleybmanly Nope. But I did assume it was at least a fictional character of legend, myth, Greek, Roman, something…
But still, how powerful could he have been, as I stated sans the printed resourses???