Heroes

Heroes

It turns out that Chocolate contains several substances that can trigger abnormal behavior.  Such psychological sensations are similar to those caused by addictive drugs.  This mood altering affect is what, I believe, caused me to write the piece about cultural culinary adventures.  Clearly I was not in my right writers mind when I penned it. I mean really a sausage made from white and dark chocolate. And so I ask that those of you read my ramblings about bizarre foods at Easter time put it out of your minds as I must have been out of mine.

Let’s get back to writing.  I’ve been thinking a lot about heroes. Here I mean the people who save the oppressed, not the sandwich.  You know the ones who go on quests, and have to overcome horribly difficult obstacles to succeed. They typically get the object of their affections in the end, but not before saving the innocent from the evil villain.

Prior to this century most heroes would have been men and they would have slain the dragon to save the woman, who would then fall deeply in love with the dragon slayer. The last hundred years have given us a Wonder Woman who does all of the things that the male heroes of the past did, but with greater flair.  And speaking of differences, we have lately seen the hero be an ogre who not only doesn’t slay the dragon, but enlists the help of the dragon in overcoming the villain who happens to be a man. Here the villain is smaller than the hero, and when you get right down to it looks much more like someone who needs saving and not defeating.

Probably the most widely read hero of the last twenty years was a young boy who constantly needed the help of his dead parents, friends, and teachers to overcome the evil villain who is far more adept at creating threats than the hero is at overcoming them. Yet with the help of the afore mentioned individuals he is able to overcome the massive threats placed in his path and defeat the villain, who in all actuality defeats himself.

So we have broken the traditional mold for heroes, and today we can all create protagonists who in the past would have been considered unworthy. Is today’s hero stronger that the opponents? No in many cases the hero is far less physically capable than those who stand against him. Is the hero smarter than the villain? No again, although the hero is often more aware of the world around her than the opponent.

What then are the characteristic of the modern hero? Loyalty seems to be high on the lists of traits we want to see in our heroes. While the villains may cast aside their cohorts, the heroine sticks by them to the end. Even when that action may spell doom for her, she will not abandon her friends. The villain collects weapons of mass destruction, the hero collects obligations. Heroes see that the world needs saving, while the villains see an opportunity to take over the world for their own purpose.

There appears to be a need for the hero to have a villain as an opponent. If not an actual opponent then she must at least be presented with an impossibly difficult barrier to overcome. The hero must show courage in the face of danger or opposition that threatens. Perhaps not to the extent the hero’s very existence, of course that type of threat certainly accentuates the hero’s courageous behavior.

Must the hero win in the end? Sometimes just continuing to go on is the fate of the hero. As writers we call that the lead in to a series. In life we call that reality. And so that brings me back to the heroes of today.

They face almost unbelievable difficulties just to survive. Often those difficulties are nearly invisible to the average person, but the hero sees and must overcome them none the less. The hero triumphs over the opposition and yet there are rarely any rewards for the action. Even some of today’s “super” heroes rarely receive a reward for their heroism. They have to pay the rent with second jobs. Perhaps that’s why so many writers have their heroes start out life as privileged individuals, who can drive around in fancy cars without a worry in the world about the price of High Test gasoline.

I read a story in the paper the other day about one of the real heroes of today’s world. His name was Tommy, but it could have been Tom, Dick, or Ahmed and it wouldn’t have mattered. His single parent, his father, had been murdered the month before and he was living with his only remaining relative, a seventeen year old single mother who was holding down two jobs to pay for her apartment and food for her two year old child and herself. Now she had taken in her nine year old young brother.

There was no trust fund to pay for their daily needs.  No fancy black limousine that would carry them around town and on to the nearest crime scene. Heck, they lived in a crime scene every day. Each day Tommy would get out of bed and face the impossible odds of going to school without breakfast or food of any kind. The article told about Tommy getting a meal at his school, and that meal was probably the most food he was going to get all day. He would return to the apartment and try to study while the television blared next door and could be heard through the almost paper thin walls of the low rent building.

Hard enough you say to stymie even the bravest hero in the comics. Yet fate would test him even further. Summer was coming and then there would be the apartment with one window and no air-conditioning. So at least he will be able to go outside and play.  Of course there are the drive-by shootings to keep life interesting.

Yes, today’s heroes face challenges that no costumed hero ever would have imagined in the comics. Oh, and don’t forget, during the summer there won’t be any school, nor the one filling meal that he got there. If only there were some magic words that he could say to make it all go away.