Does a character’s masculinity or femininity really need to be linked to their heroism? Sure the Star Wars sequels are fairly derivative, but Luke does not seem like a hero who represents a uniquely masculine story.
That's a good point. A story that has happened or even traditionally happened to men isn't necessarily male in nature. Though I do think it is generally accepted that men are the "warriors", despite the exceptions. The thing is, Jedi's aren't just warriors.
Well, here's another off topic post. My apologies in advance. I agree with @Matt E. While movies and televisions are a reflection of real life, they are at best a distorted mirror, and often times a fractured, and misleading one. I mean, there is very few real life examples of heroes who fit the Hollywood casting model. In genre fiction its convenient, and even encouraged, to follow the formulas that we have been indoctrinated with. I encourage everyone, when looking for that spark of inspiration for your story and character, step away from the what you are being shown, and look around at the people and stories that are in your life.
I get you, but real life has almost zero heroes - especially ones that do anything heroic more than once. Sometimes fiction is there to create the stories that simply can't exist in real life. Real life is a great resource for tales of stale romance and personal cowardice in a setting of banal drudgery. Fiction is an escape from that.
Because there are no volunteer firefighters in Fallow's world. I see people being heroes all the time. But if I gave any examples, I'm pretty sure Fallow would have a definition of "hero" that excluded them. [ETA: which he of course did. That's how he "wins" arguments.]
I served in two war zones as a military pilot. I had close friends that were decorated Navy SEALs. Three pilot friends were killed in military aircraft crashes. I have close firefighter and law enforcement friends. I know a little bit about what I'm talking about. And what I'm saying is that the people we like to call "heroes" don't see themselves that way. They do sometimes difficult and scary jobs because they are well trained and equipped to do that work, and they chose to do it. What seems almost unimaginably terrifying to outsiders is what we do for a living, and doesn't feel any more adventurous than any other job with inherent risks - like commercial fishing or construction. From the POV of people that do what are labeled as "hero" jobs, we are just being professional. This is wildly different than the idea of the 'heroic quest' in fiction. Fictional heroes do things they aren't sure if they can do, utilize wildly contrived solutions, take immediate action for largely personal reasons and generally didn't expect to have to do anything like what they have gotten into. And, they are unique. But at any given moment in the real world, there are tens of thousands of police officers, fire fighters, soldiers and spies that know they are part of communities of people that do exactly the same thing with the same expectations. And like 'regular' people, the chance of actually finding yourself in an exceptional situation is exceedingly rare - and if it does happen it will be over in minutes and never happen to you again. Completely the opposite of how a hero in fiction is portrayed as going from one state of jeopardy to the next.
Pretty far off topic, but that's not exactly unusual in this thread, so... I really enjoyed reading SF/F author Myke Cole's take on "heroes" and why the label is often uncomfortable for those wearing it: https://mykecole.com/40652-2/
That's a good piece. I was mainly coming at things from the fiction end of the scale, but he expresses a lot of what I was getting at in a more emotionally relevant way.
Yeah, he's talking real-world, but I think maybe it's relevant to fiction, and maybe even to Mary Sues. The label "hero" is sort of dehumanizing, and we want our characters to be human, generally. A comic-book hero, or equivalent, can be fun, but I don't think they tend to have the kind of depth I'm looking for. I want to see the fears and the weaknesses and the insecurities and the failures in characters, not just the strengths and successes. So Mary-Sues don't have a lot of what I'm looking for in a character.
Did you happen to see the film Logan? If so, what did you think of it? I thought it was a well-told, gripping story about a very troubled and worn-down comic book superhero.
It's just too bad that Rowling spends a lot of time apologizing for all of the characters she killed because fans have complained. She might have had the guts to do it at the time, but she doesn't appear to have the guts to stick up for those decisions today.
I liked Logan, but it was such a disappointment to see a “what if” instead of a normal X-men movie, I’d probably never watch it again.
There was a Patrick H Williams video essay that just came out where he was hoping the same thing. I think more people wish Superhero movies were stylish art pieces instead of extended universes. DC seems to be going more that way with how bright and stylish their last three have been. Wonder Woman is my favorite super hero film, despite not caring about the DCEU, but I just love the MCU and XCU.
The hero vs the heroic action. Which defines which? That is one of the themes in my WIP. Questions like these, when asked out of the box, can help the writer to avoid creating the typically bland genre protagonist and villain. There are many, many examples of people throughout history who take heroic action to effect change. Yes, while most of these actions were 'once in a lifetime events' they can still be the inspiration to create a fictional character. There is no reason why a fictional character can't be a composition of actions and traits of several real life people. I'll let one of the United States Marine heroes give us his opinion: “Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum.” ― Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, Baa Baa Black Sheep
It's more like, what I've seen of Rey felt like it was there to replicate what had been already seen in the Skywalkers but without the sense of time that they had in pursuing the Jedi way. The feeling I had was like seeing different people pull the same magic trick. Eventually you crack the secret and the shine isn't there anymore. I agree, and that is disappointing. It wasn't like she liked them off randomly. Her world was at war.
In the various genres of adventure fiction, the "hero" is the person who relentlessly pursues whatever agenda despite long odds and great (personal) risk. It's hard to make a heroic story out of one courageous act, or depict jeopardy by showing a character with a dangerous job do what is normal for that job. There are always stories that aren't about heroics, but it is hard to escape the formula of continually choosing jeopardy. Of course there are many in history, but how does that relate to your suggestion of finding those people in your own life? The reason we are still talking about Beowulf and Achilles is because those characters arise so infrequently in real life. So you can certainly assemble a hero out of a collection of heroic acts borrowed from many different people. What's hard is to find a single person that engaged in act after act in the pursuit of a goal. And that's the magic hard part - that motivation or situation that would cause anyone to act that way.
The new SW movies aren't very good for a lot of reasons. But it is really hard to say what the force does or doesn't do - at Vader's most powerful he doesn't do anything like lifting an X-wing out of a swamp like Yoda, so maybe the Skywalkers aren't all that amazing.
Thanks for sharing that link. I got a chance to see Myke Cole a few weeks ago at the Seattle Comic Con. He really is a cool guy, and talked about that sort of stuff, about portraying members of the military accurately in fiction during one of the panels I went to. I think I’ll defer to his judgement on whether it’s appropriate to use the hero label for people who went through that kind of experience. When i think of the fictional hero though (Aragorn, Jack Reacher, Luke Skywalker), there are definitely qualities that set them apart beyond just their job. The effect that an individual person can have on the world is usually exaggerated in fiction, and I think that makes for good storytelling while still not being that realistic. In real life, kings don’t really return, singlular people don’t foil a Big Bad’s megalomaniacal plans, and the types of moral dilemmas encountered in fiction are extremely rare. In real life, people tend to fill the roles that they are supposed to fill, and the critical moments of fiction are replaced by parades of boring meetings. The outcome of conflicts is usually predetermined by economic forces. I am in agreement with some people here that fiction is an escapism from that. The idea that it is a storytelling sin to have the world revolve around a hero — a “Mary Sue” — has to be considered with nuance. The world revolves around most protagonists. It revolves around Aragorn, around Frodo, Luke, and Jack Reacher, far more than it revolves around any person in the real world. The difference here is in degrees and in the management of suspension of disbelief. Perhaps a Mary Sue exceeds standard allowances in this regard.
She had a plan and she executed that plan. Unfortunately, down the road, she discovered that said plan wasn't politically correct enough so she tried to cater to the regressive left and that's never a good idea. It led her to retroactively make Dumbledore gay, which would be entirely fine if he was ever portrayed that way in the books or movies, but it was something she did in retrospect, just to appear politically correct. Someone pointed out that there were no Jews at Hogwarts and she yanked one straight out of her ass to try to appear inclusive. She might be a decent writer, although she desperately needed an editor that could tell her "no" starting around the fourth book, but she really comes off as a terrible, spineless human being.
Why is it that adding more kinds of people to her kids books is so offensive? Is it unrealistic, given the real demographics of magical academies?
And what magic spell is it that gives posters here complete insight into an author's motivations and character? Is it the Reflectio My Biasia spell?
It wouldn't have been offensive if she had done it at the time. She just decided to do it after the fact, once a particular political ideology that she happens to want to get in good with started complaining.
