Lorendiac
08-16-2004, 06:55 PM
Some years ago I asked myself what the basic ingredients were that made a fictional character qualify as a "hero" in my eyes. Just winning lots and lots of fights with "bad guys" didn't prove you were a better person than your opponents, after all. I came up with three things.
1. Morals
The hero should have a moral code, a set of values that recognizes that some things are far more important than his personal comfort, wealth, reputation, or even his survival if it comes right down to it.
Of course, this is complicated by the obvious fact that not all heroes share the exact same code (for instance, Superman and Batman generally hate the idea of deliberately killing your enemies, but many "heroes" in comics and other mediums of entertainment take a much more permissive attitude toward that sort of thing). Still and all, I can respect a character who holds firmly to a core set of values even when it would be much more convenient to compromise his principles and look the other way.
2. Courage
This is when the character actually takes great risks to pursue an agenda based upon his moral code, as mentioned above. A bank robber who takes great risks in his efforts to steal a few million dollars just doesn't cut it as a "hero." Ditto for a bounty hunter or mercenary whose motivation seems to be, "Hey, I'm only in it for the money! Wave enough cash at me and I'll go fight anybody!" Han Solo seemed to be taking that attitude when Luke Skywalker persuaded him to help rescue Princess Leia from the Death Star in the original "Star Wars" movie. "She's rich" appeared to be the argument that clinched it. Luke's idealistic motives made his participation heroic, but Han wasn't there yet. Or claimed he wasn't.
On the other hand, in the final battle in that movie, when Han Solo (having already received a cash reward and loudly announced he was scramming as fast as possible) suddenly came flying in out of nowhere to blindside Darth Vader and buy Luke Skywalker the window of opportunity to complete his bombing run and destroy the Death Star, that was heroic courage.
3. Brains
I don't mean high IQ. No need for the hero to be a supergenius like Reed Richards. After all, I respect Sue Richards and Ben Grimm as much as I do Reed. (I don't feel as much respect for their teammate Johnny Storm, but that's not because of his IQ, whatever it may be).
But I wanted a one-word summary of the attribute I was referring to and that was the best I could do. Another way to say it might be "common sense" or "the ability to get a clue." It's fine with me if the hero probably would get a nice average score on an IQ test. He doesn't have to be a master of quantum physics or genetic engineering or anything like that.
In other words, if a hero is to impress me in the long run, he must demonstrate the ability to learn from his own mistakes so he doesn't keep getting caught in the same sort of trap, over and over and over and over again. And if he got caught off-guard by a new villain the first couple of times they fought, the hero should eventually come up with some sort of plan that takes the villain's specific strengths and weaknesses into account.
To offer a few examples . . .
Stan Lee used to take that kind of "learning curve" concept into account in his plots in the early years of the Amazing Spider-Man. Routinely, Spidey would bump into some colorful new bad guy (Doctor Octopus, the Scorpion, Sandman, Electro, or whoever) and would take a poke at him, figuring he could put this latest nutcase on ice in about ten seconds and then call it a night. Routinely, Spidey would then suffer the humiliation of getting beaten till he was black-and-blue (or suffered a nasty electrical shock, or whatever) and the villain would sneer and make his getaway. But then Spidey would start thinking long and hard about this and would come up with a new gadget or tactic to shift the odds the next time they tangled, usually resulting in a stunning "surprise victory" for the underdog.
On the other hand, as a kid in the early 80s, I used to be bothered by all the times the Pre-Crisis Superman totally failed to learn from painful experiences regarding the proper way to fight bad guys who might have kryptonite up their sleeves. It would work something like this: Superman would see criminals running away from a bank robbery, and would fly down toward them, moving slowly enough that they had all the time in the world to see him coming and react by pulling out a lead box which they opened to reveal a chunk of kryptonite . . . or some other fancy weapon that could actually knock him for a loop if it scored a direct hit on his body, or whatever.
Logically, if Superman is faster than a speeding bullet, "ordinary" human crooks who only have the reflexes of regular people should basically be totally unable to see him coming, and then pull out and use their Anti-Superman-Weapons, before he has already searched them for such weapons with his X-ray vision, stripped them of mysterious lead boxes, fancy death-ray-pistols, powered armor, or other nasty tricks, handcuffed them, and deposited them at the nearest police station, all of which should have taken the Pre-Crisis, "I-can-fly-faster-than-lightspeed!" Superman about .0001 seconds.
Unless, of course, Superman had a death wish and was deliberately going in slow and dumb to make himself as much of an easy target as possible . . . or was just too clueless to ever learn from painful experience. I preferred, and still prefer, such heroes as Batman and Spider-Man and others who aren't naturally bulletproof, can't move faster than the human eye can see, and thus have an easier time of persuading me that they are doing "their very best" against nasty odds without deliberately handicapping themselves by moving much slower than they need to.
1. Morals
The hero should have a moral code, a set of values that recognizes that some things are far more important than his personal comfort, wealth, reputation, or even his survival if it comes right down to it.
Of course, this is complicated by the obvious fact that not all heroes share the exact same code (for instance, Superman and Batman generally hate the idea of deliberately killing your enemies, but many "heroes" in comics and other mediums of entertainment take a much more permissive attitude toward that sort of thing). Still and all, I can respect a character who holds firmly to a core set of values even when it would be much more convenient to compromise his principles and look the other way.
2. Courage
This is when the character actually takes great risks to pursue an agenda based upon his moral code, as mentioned above. A bank robber who takes great risks in his efforts to steal a few million dollars just doesn't cut it as a "hero." Ditto for a bounty hunter or mercenary whose motivation seems to be, "Hey, I'm only in it for the money! Wave enough cash at me and I'll go fight anybody!" Han Solo seemed to be taking that attitude when Luke Skywalker persuaded him to help rescue Princess Leia from the Death Star in the original "Star Wars" movie. "She's rich" appeared to be the argument that clinched it. Luke's idealistic motives made his participation heroic, but Han wasn't there yet. Or claimed he wasn't.
On the other hand, in the final battle in that movie, when Han Solo (having already received a cash reward and loudly announced he was scramming as fast as possible) suddenly came flying in out of nowhere to blindside Darth Vader and buy Luke Skywalker the window of opportunity to complete his bombing run and destroy the Death Star, that was heroic courage.
3. Brains
I don't mean high IQ. No need for the hero to be a supergenius like Reed Richards. After all, I respect Sue Richards and Ben Grimm as much as I do Reed. (I don't feel as much respect for their teammate Johnny Storm, but that's not because of his IQ, whatever it may be).
But I wanted a one-word summary of the attribute I was referring to and that was the best I could do. Another way to say it might be "common sense" or "the ability to get a clue." It's fine with me if the hero probably would get a nice average score on an IQ test. He doesn't have to be a master of quantum physics or genetic engineering or anything like that.
In other words, if a hero is to impress me in the long run, he must demonstrate the ability to learn from his own mistakes so he doesn't keep getting caught in the same sort of trap, over and over and over and over again. And if he got caught off-guard by a new villain the first couple of times they fought, the hero should eventually come up with some sort of plan that takes the villain's specific strengths and weaknesses into account.
To offer a few examples . . .
Stan Lee used to take that kind of "learning curve" concept into account in his plots in the early years of the Amazing Spider-Man. Routinely, Spidey would bump into some colorful new bad guy (Doctor Octopus, the Scorpion, Sandman, Electro, or whoever) and would take a poke at him, figuring he could put this latest nutcase on ice in about ten seconds and then call it a night. Routinely, Spidey would then suffer the humiliation of getting beaten till he was black-and-blue (or suffered a nasty electrical shock, or whatever) and the villain would sneer and make his getaway. But then Spidey would start thinking long and hard about this and would come up with a new gadget or tactic to shift the odds the next time they tangled, usually resulting in a stunning "surprise victory" for the underdog.
On the other hand, as a kid in the early 80s, I used to be bothered by all the times the Pre-Crisis Superman totally failed to learn from painful experiences regarding the proper way to fight bad guys who might have kryptonite up their sleeves. It would work something like this: Superman would see criminals running away from a bank robbery, and would fly down toward them, moving slowly enough that they had all the time in the world to see him coming and react by pulling out a lead box which they opened to reveal a chunk of kryptonite . . . or some other fancy weapon that could actually knock him for a loop if it scored a direct hit on his body, or whatever.
Logically, if Superman is faster than a speeding bullet, "ordinary" human crooks who only have the reflexes of regular people should basically be totally unable to see him coming, and then pull out and use their Anti-Superman-Weapons, before he has already searched them for such weapons with his X-ray vision, stripped them of mysterious lead boxes, fancy death-ray-pistols, powered armor, or other nasty tricks, handcuffed them, and deposited them at the nearest police station, all of which should have taken the Pre-Crisis, "I-can-fly-faster-than-lightspeed!" Superman about .0001 seconds.
Unless, of course, Superman had a death wish and was deliberately going in slow and dumb to make himself as much of an easy target as possible . . . or was just too clueless to ever learn from painful experience. I preferred, and still prefer, such heroes as Batman and Spider-Man and others who aren't naturally bulletproof, can't move faster than the human eye can see, and thus have an easier time of persuading me that they are doing "their very best" against nasty odds without deliberately handicapping themselves by moving much slower than they need to.