We seem dissatisfied with our heroes nowadays. I think it’s because people have caught onto the fact that flawless human beings can’t exist, and if they did we really wouldn’t want them, because, really, they wouldn’t be heroes. They would just be perfect…boring…unchallenged.
We want internal turmoil. We actively crave Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight; it gives us joy that every superhero in Wathcmen is as broken as the world they inhabit; Iron Manis only interesting so long as he is an egotistical wanker. It’s an exercise in self-validation, a look at the greats, thinking, ‘if something that amazing has a really shit side, then my shortcomings by comparison must only be mild and weak-limbed, because I’m only an average bloke.’
In that vein, here’s some balm for your heroic souls:
Hercules went mad and killed his family.
Ghandi was very often a terrible husband.
Martin Luther King Jr was a serial womanizer.
Turns out Lance Armstrong was on drugs.
Oscar Pistorius may possibly have a bit of a violent temper (subject to the outcome of his case – in which, funnily enough, his prosecutor was taken off due to multiple charges of attempted murder. South Africa FTW).
Everyone wants to be a hero. Unless you’re apathetic, which, I guess, makes you a student. In that case, you, dear reader, probably don’t want to be a hero.
I say seek out anti-heroism. It’s what Epics are made of these days.
It’s the tragic fall that makes the hero shine brighter and turns his/her story into an epic. Try to do as much heroic shit as you can before then. Because you will fall. Trust me.
Note: On the other hand, if you think I’m wrong and are an optimist like my high school English teacher, do check out my conversation with the retired messiah.
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