In this odd life I live, I have met many heroes. A good many villains too, and people who are either both at different times and sometimes both at once. In other words, like most things, it is complicated. Some of the heroes I’ve met were the big obvious kind… many more were the small barely anyone knows it kind. The kind who ‘die well’ despite their fear and pain… to spare those they love distress. Those who give quietly of themselves (often at great cost to themselves) without any song and dance or the public (or even anyone else) knowing about it. The mum who takes the dead mouse out of her kid’s room – gagging and shaking… because she thinks it would upset her kid.
Heroism – in quiet sense – is more common than most of us realize. It also… sometimes comes from the most unlikely seeming people, when circumstances demand. We all put up masks and pretend to be people we’d like to be. It is one of the reasons – under fire, or in extremis… that you actually get to see those people’s true colors, which has always made going into extreme situations oddly attractive to me. Rock climbing for one example. When you think you’re going to most likely die… your mind is so consumed with fear, that you stop pretending. You are what you are – which is not the person most people see the rest of the time at all. I’ve had the same in rescue situations, at sea, etc.
A young writer of my acquaintance asked my where I got my wonderful heroes from. I said they were all just people I had been lucky enough to have known. She said I must know some very unusual people. She’s wrong. I’ve known some very ‘ordinary’ people, but under extraordinary circumstances. Because that is just it: until the circumstances require you don’t know what that little guy who looks like a mouse will actually do. You don’t even know what the guy who looks like superman and trains non-stop for it will do. Look, I have been in unpleasant spots… and I kept it together. Pushed through – not always gloriously, but I did it. But I am still very aware that… next time might be different. I might panic. I have managed not to, so far. But next time could be different…
There is a strong tendency in writing to make the hero… a Conan. Super-fast, super-strong, super-skilled with everything from weapons to witchcraft etc. A few humans are. Some (not all of those thus endowed) are all of the above AND heroes too. But it is worth remembering that what defines a hero is NOT being good at something, BUT being heroic. And those heroes make more entertaining reading, in my opinion.
Mad Genius Club 
6 responses to “What makes a hero?”
…and if he was ever a hero again, it was in that small, quiet way that millions of people achieve every day.
(End of the postscript in current WIP.)
I do like stories where the hero is a ordinary individual required to do extraordinary things better than those where someone who starts out extraordinary is tasked with things that would be extraordinary for ordinary folk but is routine for the extraordinary character.
Not to say I don’t enjoy some novels with extraordinary protagonists, but I like the ones with ordinary protagonists better.
Case in point: Nevil Shute’s “Trustee from the Toolroom”, an absolutely lovely tale with a hero who might have come straight out of Hobbiton. (Nevil Shute sort of specializes in the type…)
Instead of being a fish-out-of-water story, as one expects, one sees that he brings “his water” with him wherever he goes and whatever happens, and it’s other people who swim in it.
I absolutely agree. This is one of my favorite stories, all because the hero is such an ordinary person who is doing what’s right for his family even though how to do it isn’t at all obvious. Still, with help from friends he didn’t even know he had, he gets through it all successfully.
Dave, must reluctantly disagree. ~:( [engage sad face.]
I can honestly say that these days, I’m getting tired of the poor heroic bastard who -barely- scrapes through, using his every advantage. Just my humble opinion, but I find it nerve wracking, not entertaining. Too much like real life, not enough escapism.
I’m sick to death of the smart-ass “hero”, the nebbish who keeps getting punched in the face but somehow “wins” through a confluence of unlikely events. Done to death.
I’m liking Conan, with his Armor of Doom and his Sword of Destruction, laying waste to the evil sorcerer’s forces, cutting his head off with one swipe and taking the evil guy’s harem slaves home after the battle for some well earned recreation. Maybe for a laugh he takes them all fishing.
My favorite anime these days are the OP isekai protagonists who win everything because they’re just that awesome. Dual wielding, baby! Bring back Doc Savage and the Fabulous Five, solving every problem with science, brass knuckles and a healthy application of hot lead.
Personally, I always wanted to storm Sauron’s gate with Heinlein’s Mobile Infantry and Keith Laumer’s Bolos. Evil sorcery and demons vs two megatons per second. So that’s what I do.
From current WIP, a little sample.
“In their clandestine server, the Great Elders considered their situation.
No reply had come from the invading aliens to the Elder’s demands. The great ship had calmly arrived in orbit, doing nothing but broadcast greetings to one and all on radio frequencies. It had played songs by radio, transmitted visual data, drawn on the clouds with lasers, and eventually sent down landers with swarms of combat units and titanic mobile fortreses.
The Hierarch’s combat drones were hopelessly outclassed by the units of the invaders. Drone after drone was sent to contest with them, only to be vaporized, blasted to fragments by railguns, or in some cases bludgeoned into scrap.
Worst of all were the mobile fortresses. Their actions made no sense whatsoever. They did not deign to notice the attacks of the Hierarchs and their proctors, ignoring beams and missiles alike. Instead, several of them began speeding up a hillside so fast they became airborne off the top and then sped down the other side. Eight-legged combat units scuttled to mark the place of their landing. The immense machines would then circle the hill and go back to the starting point to do it again. The cycle ran several times before one of the Great Elders realized they were contesting with each other to see which could leap the farthest. In the middle of an invasion. While under fire.
Upon receiving that revelation, the morale of the Elders plummeted. These enemies didn’t take them seriously enough to bother shooting back. They held a long-jump competition instead. Worse, some of the workers had come out of hiding to watch the contest and cheer on their favorites.”
“Then what is magic for?” Prince Lír demanded wildly. “What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?” He gripped the magician’s shoulder hard, to keep from falling.
Schmedrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, “That’s what heroes are for.”