A wee bit more about heroes
Oct. 31st, 2010 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupOver at the Book View Cafe Blog, Sherwood Smith (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias) talks about heroes, and particularly why Miles Vorkosigan is one of her favorites. She comments, I love a hero who gets things done that need doing.
While that does not wholly describe my idea of a hero, it comes pretty close. I hadn't thought about it in quite those terms before, but in my top five non-Buffyverse heroes I mentioned exactly that attribute for three of them. It's why Tiffany Aching would have been on the honor roll ("Witches deal with things.") When I think of heroes, I don't think of the flashiest or most gifted characters, nor the characters that suffer the most. I think of the characters who do the things that need doing.
This implies a certain amount of awareness: the ability to assess what needs doing and how it can be done. Much is made of the 'hearts' of heroes, but brains are useful, too!
Heroism also often, though not always, implies a whole lot of self-sacrifice. However, characters who seem bent on suffering for their heroism don't interest me; I cannot believe that Francis Lymond, brilliant as he is, can't save Scotland and the Queen in less personally damaging ways than we see in the first two books (I never made it through the third). Likewise Angel.
sartorias) talks about heroes, and particularly why Miles Vorkosigan is one of her favorites. She comments, I love a hero who gets things done that need doing.While that does not wholly describe my idea of a hero, it comes pretty close. I hadn't thought about it in quite those terms before, but in my top five non-Buffyverse heroes I mentioned exactly that attribute for three of them. It's why Tiffany Aching would have been on the honor roll ("Witches deal with things.") When I think of heroes, I don't think of the flashiest or most gifted characters, nor the characters that suffer the most. I think of the characters who do the things that need doing.
This implies a certain amount of awareness: the ability to assess what needs doing and how it can be done. Much is made of the 'hearts' of heroes, but brains are useful, too!
Heroism also often, though not always, implies a whole lot of self-sacrifice. However, characters who seem bent on suffering for their heroism don't interest me; I cannot believe that Francis Lymond, brilliant as he is, can't save Scotland and the Queen in less personally damaging ways than we see in the first two books (I never made it through the third). Likewise Angel.
