What makes a hero? A small gripe on a Vox article

Last updated on: April 18, 2016 at 11:26 am by Jane the Actuary

What makes a hero? A small gripe on a Vox article 2016-04-18T11:26:20-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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When I was in high school, I had an elective class on Greek mythology, and we learned about the concept of the Greek hero, then read a section from the Iliad about the death of Hector, in which Achilles sulks in his tent, his best friend* Patroclus tries to take his place and is killed, and Achilles then returns to the battle to seek vengence, kills the Trojan warrior Hector and drags his body around the city, then the Trojans mourn Hector’s death.

(* Yes, the equivalent class now probably talks about the two being gay lovers. It was a different time.)

Then we had a debate about which was the true “hero”, Achilles or Hector? Hector was nobler, and Achilles was a jerk — but that was, as I recall, part of the Greek concept of the hero, to have a “fatal flaw.”

And think about modern storytelling and moviemaking. (Yes, I know, I hardly ever actually read fiction, so most of my exposure to storytelling is in films.) How many times have you read a review with the complaint that there’s lots of action, or drama, or comedy, but the main character doesn’t seem to grow or be transformed in the course of the film — either he or she is perfect to start with, and remains so, or is flawed, and doesn’t overcome the flaws. We expect the characters to overcome some difficulty, and be changed in the process. Even in the superhero movies, we get Thor being sent to Earth because of his arrogance and temporarily being unworthy of lifting his hammer, and Tony Stark learning, over time, to be less of a self-centered womanizer, and the Avengers, as a group, learning to work together.

Constance Grady at Vox doesn’t seem to get this, and produces an article complaining that, as its title says, “Every semi-competent male hero has a more talented female sidekick. Why isn’t she the hero instead?” She launches into a discussion of a series I’ve never seen, The Magician, but then generalizes:

This approach is kind of a halfway-there response to feminism. We all know it’s poor form to relegate your leading lady to the damsel-in-distress role, so let’s make her competent! Actually, we’ll do you one better: We’ll make her more competent than the hero. Girl power! Guys are always such bumbling idiots, right, ladies? Except, you know, when it’s important. When it’s important, only a guy can get the job done.

And so we have Hermione and her Mary Poppins bag singlehandedly keeping Harry and Ron alive all through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She wards their invisible tent, brews Polyjuice Potion, and hexes Harry into unrecognizability when they’re captured — but it’s Harry who kills Voldemort, of course.

There’s even a graphic, comparing

Peter and Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy,
Emmet and Wyldstyle in The Lego Movie, and
Luke and Leia in Star Wars,
as well as the aforementioned Harry and Hermione,

but it pretty much misses the point. If the hypercompetent secondary characters were “promoted,” the films would be missing something essential. Star Wars without the element of the whiny farmboy becoming something more, wouldn’t be Star Wars. Emmet’s growth over the story is much more central to the story than how they defeat Lord Business. Peter and Gamora I don’t quite remember the details of, so perhaps a reader can remind me. And Harry and Hermione? I suppose Harry doesn’t grow and develop in quite the same way, since he’s portrayed as brave and noble to begin with, but so far as I understand the concept, Hermione is, to a certain degree, a Mary Sue, or would be if she were the main character. She’s almost too perfect, too smart, and able to come to the rescue with her superior wizarding knowledge (which she has from Day 1, despite coming from a nonmagical family), and further the storyline in ways that fit better as a secondary character, than for the main character to simply always know what to do. Could you really recast these in the oppose way?

(Image: Hector’s last visit with his wife, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHector_Astyanax_MN_Jatta.jpg, By Jastrow [Public domain])

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