That probably sounds a bit cheesy doesn’t it? I know I felt a little cheesy writing it. After all we’ve heard so much B.S. feel good self-help type advice that goes on and on about being your own hero or being the “boss” or some other nonsense. Yet I think that this is a very important topic and one that is probably not at all what you’re thinking. For example I know many think that God is sort of like an author, or a creative at the very least. And I agree with this to an extent but I think very few people realize what this means for everyone else, including you and me.
First off understand that a hero is something very few people would want to be if they knew all that comes with it. And I’m not just talking about things like dealing with fame or fortune or having to take responsibility or having to work hard or any of that. Though the latter two and sometimes the former two usually come with it. No, it goes beyond that. When you study fiction writing and study what makes a good story good, and thereby what makes a good protagonist a good protagonist you see a very different picture than what is thought.
Authors, in order to be good ones, have to be cruel, sadistic, psychopaths in a way. Or at least when dealing with their heroes. What I mean by this is that it’s an author’s job to sit there and think of the worst possible things that could happen to their hero (while still allowing them to continue) and then do those things to them. It’s your job as an author to sit there and think of ways to make your character’s life, especially your protagonist’s a living hell that most people would simply check out from.
Being The Hero You Want To Be
But that’s the thing, that’s the thing that makes them heroic. Is that they go through all of those things, the worst possible things that you can think up and throw at them and they come out the other side, somewhat still together. At the very least still fighting and still pressing on. That’s the very essence of what makes them heroic. It’s not physical might, powers, wit, or any of those other things. It’s continuing on and barreling through when literally the universe is conspiring against you.
That’s what makes for convincing fiction and convincing heroes. And I should’t just say continue on but to continue on, fight, and thrive. To adapt and overcome. Despite the odds, despite everything. That’s what makes a hero. So when one wants to become a hero, what one is doing is heaping pain, turmoil, and trouble on themselves. But granted that none of this destroys them it will refine them into things they could never have been before. It takes dirt and turns it into gold. It takes tinfoil and turns it into steel. It takes what is base and makes it high.
But it’s not an easy road. It’s a road that most just couldn’t hack, they’d give up and give in somewhere close to the start. Even the stronger wouldn’t make it all the way. It takes a hero. Not in some cheesy way devoid of power but in the truest sense of the form and of the word. Someone who is willing to bear up under the universe conspiring against them and fight on and continue on, to become better for it.
Heroism Is For The Few
We throw the word hero around a lot and that divorces it of its power. When everyone and everything is a hero then the word ceases to have any meaning. Sort of like when everything is “awesome” then nothing it truly awesome. When something that’s moderately good is described the same as something that inspires awe then the word has lost its power and meaning. To be a hero is a noble thing. But it’s one that very few could or will ever do. It is not something for the masses and just because one is part of a certain group or profession does not make them a hero.
True heroism is something that takes guts and a whole lot more. If you want to be a hero you are resigning yourself to a life of suffering. But it is through this suffering that the good things that make up a true hero are produced. The process to becoming a hero is akin to torture. Through going through deep pain to refine yourself and become more. That is being a hero and it’s not pleasant.
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-Charles Sledge
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