2023/08/12
Word count: ~600
Reading time: 4-5 minutes
What is a hero? Someone who fights for glory, fame, and wealth? Someone who fights for the greater good? An idol or icon? A humblebragger? Someone who saves cats stuck in trees and never speaks a word about their deeds?
Yes.
Yes, all of that, and more.
'The Hero' is an archetype as old as humanity itself, and it speaks to desires that live in all humans (and nonhumans raised by humans). To be loved, to not live in fear, to aspire for something better, whatever that may be. To make the world a bit better.
The Hero is a paradox; a walking contradiction. Her greatest desire is peace, yet she lives and breathes conflict. What will the Hero do when the war is won? Find a new fight? Or stop being a hero?
Life is one conflict after another, and I complain when I can't get a moment's rest - one issue is solved, two more take its place, like Heracles battling Hydra. Except, the Hero doesn't win when he kills the Hydra. He becomes restless, aimless, pointless. What do you do when the quest has ended, but 'questing' is in your blood and bones?
I complain about my endless battles, but peace leaves me frazzled, more than anything. When I'm at war, my existence has a point - when I'm at war, I can rest in my existence. When I'm at war, I know my role, and my endless search for a unified identity takes a break.
When the Hero is at war, the Hero is at peace.
What, then, does the Hero fight for? Not for the greater good, but for self-fulfillment? That is the original meaning of the word:
A hero is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. [...] The original hero type of classical epics did such things for the sake of glory and honor. Post-classical and modern heroes, on the other hand, perform great deeds or selfless acts for the common good instead of the classical goal of wealth, pride, and fame. The antonym of hero is villain.
"Hero," Wikipedia, retrieved today
What sets classical heroes and villains apart is not our motive - we are both just fulfilling our nature. What sets us apart is outsiders' interpretations of us. We are classified, less by our drives and desires and our actual feelings, and more by how strangers like or dislike us.
What makes me a 'hero' is not my drive to act. It's my desire to be liked. My fear of being disliked. Like the villain, I crave conflict in life, but unlike the villain, I only join conflicts where I have decent chance of coming out the other side looking good.
But it comes at a cost. Can you believe it? That concerning yourself with being appealing to others, and with joining the conflicts others want you to join, has a cost?
The Hero is an idol. The Hero fights, because fighting is her lifeblood, but the Hero fights for others, because simply joining random street fights won't win you any love or fortune. And because the Hero fights for others' sake, the Hero is idolized. And idols don't have personhood.
The Hero reduces himself to an object, because being a well-like object still beats being a maligned villain. The Hero sacrifices autonomy for acceptance. Heroes don't exist without idolatry and objectification, in the most basic sense of the words. The Hero may as well be a helpful footstool.
But at least, at last, the Hero is liked.