So, what is a hero? Is Barack Hussein Obama a hero? Is Osama bin Laden a hero? To me, a hero is anyone who is doing something unique. A while back, whenever I heard "hero", my immediate thought was of a superhero like Batman or Superman (sorry Marvel fans). I thought of the good guys as the heroes. Many people associate a hero to be a person or a group of people that would risk their lives for the greater good. But I don't think that that is a true hero (not anymore, at least). I think that everyone that is a bystander, just witnessing something happen and not doing anything relating to that or affecting it, is not a hero. However, it is once you do something that you are a hero. Some heroes are bigger than others, because what they did had more importance or relevance. But, every time that something is done by someone, that someone is a hero. For example, when I will have finished this majestic piece of art I call a blogpost, I will be a hero (in my own small way for accomplishing this task). But my main point of the day is not the definition of "hero" but the connotation which is placed into it. When you hear "hero", you automatically think of what a good person he must be. But I am not devoted onto that. I regard a hero as someone who has decided to do something (whether it be challenging or not) and follows up on it-- a person that decides on a journey and embarks on it is a hero. It doesn't matter wether he is able to finish it or not. As long as he does not give up, he is a hero. I even consider a bank robber a hero (the semester project I had for last semester involved a thief as the protagonist of the short story), because the robber is embarking on the journey he set forth. The bank robber is not an antihero. "Antihero", as people understand it, is the villain of the journey (antihero because the villain is not the hero of the story). But that is not what an antihero is, because even the villain is a hero. An antihero is the bystander; he is that person that's just there doing nothing. An antihero is a person who lacks the heroic attribute of embarking on a journey. In today's geopolitical world, for example, an ISIS soldier is a hero. Maybe not to you as a person, but to me he is. ISIS set out on a journey which seems impossible in today's time period, but executed it quickly and effectively. Therefore, there is a heroic quality to ISIS. I'm not saying that ISIS is the good guy, they're not (I'll clear that up right now), but they are heroes in their own way. In a battle it's the people that win that are the heroes, because they are the ones that write history. In short, you can't say that the good guy is the hero because that would be subjective. You can say however that anybody that embarks on a journey is a hero, because that is not subjective. For example, in India, hero is also the term used to describe the actor of a movie that comes out. You ofter hear: "Oh, who's the hero of that movie?" When they say hero, it's not because he is great or the actor has done some good deed (he probably has, but that doesn't matter), but because that is the commonly used term. So in the end, it is the definition of the word that matters. Hero is interesting because it in itself describes the actions of everybody that have no connection to each other, apart from having the courage to decide to do something, and then actually do it.
I don't know, Shaleen. In most cases, a protagonist who robs banks would be considered an "antihero"--if a story focuses primarily on his or her experiences, and the audience is tempted to sympathize or identify with the bank robber in some way. The character is the "hero" of the story in the sense that he or she is the central focus whose narrative we follow, and perhaps (in the Robin Hood model) the robbing is being done for "heroic" reasons. But the recourse to outside-the-law tactics sets this kind of hero apart, outside of society, following his or her own rules. Some have even called Batman an antihero for this reason--more vigilante than "superhero" in the Superman/Spiderman mold. The dark settings, the solitude and aloofness, the upstanding-citizen cover story that hides a psychologically damaged and tormented man.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shaleen in many respects, as a hero to one person may be a villain to another, so that, as long as someone stands up for something they believe in, they can be considered heroes. Therefore, it is possible that someone I consider a hero may be a villain to someone else due to ideological reasons, yet we can only define an antihero as someone who refuses to act or fight for a cause, regardless of the moral grounds. I also see that there are values, such as honesty, order and justice, which are upheld universally and that the heroes of any story are the ones who uphold these aforementioned values.
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