Let's talk about Heroes in Stories

 "WE NEED A HERO! Holding out for a hero till the end of the night! He's gotta be strong, he's gotta be fast, and he's gotta be larger than life!" ...Does a hero need to be those things though? Every story needs a hero, just as every story needs a villain. But what makes a "good" hero? Is it their powers? Their talents? Or is it even their moral code? Well, dear Internet person, we will figure out this mystery as I explain, What's the deal with Heroes in Stories. ...Huh? Why did I cover Villains first? The answer is simple! Villains act, heroes react! I totally didn't forget to publish this post first! No sir! ...Let's just do this thing.

So what actually is a Hero? A Hero, in its most blunt form, is the protagonist and point of view in a story. It is the character the audience follows, and the character we root for in the conflict. Much like a villain, the exact wiggle room of what a Hero can and cannot be is rather flexible. Ranging from humble farm-boys destined for greatness, to charismatic outlaws who fight a corrupt upper class because it's the right thing to do. However, there are some problems you can run into when writing a Hero. Most problems are a case-by-case issue, and depend heavily on the context of the story. If the hero is a seasoned, grumpy war veteran who is slow to trust others because of time on the battlefield, that's one thing. If the hero is a rich, privileged edgy teen whose angst is directed at his "friends" and there's no real reason to justify his attitude, you'll find very few people that find that hero endearing.

First thing to do when writing a Hero. Give them a reason to partake in the conflict. Even something as small as, "I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do." Nothing is more frustrating than a hero who is only progressing the plot "because destiny said so." Of course, you can give your heroes a more selfish reason to want to save the world, or stop the bad guy, or whatever. Wanting to destroy the villain in the name of vengeance? That could work. Signing up to a wizard school because your home life is so miserable you would rather stay in school than come home? That could work. But the important thing about a hero is no matter how selfish their motive may be, they must ultimately be good people morally, or at the very least appear in the right in the context of the story. So making your "hero" into an amoral jerk who's no better than the villain is going to get tiring, fast. At the same time, making your hero a perfect boy scout can be just as bad as making them a "hero" in name only. It's a balancing act between making your hero flawed enough to make mistakes, yet virtuous enough to carry out the plot. 

For an example of a flawed hero, Dimitri from Fire Emblem Three Houses is great. He starts out friendly and sociable, but completely loses it when Edelgard is revealed to be (indirectly) responsible for several war crimes, including the Tragedy of Duscur, a genocide Dimitri witnessed as a child that scarred him for life. The game fast forwards five years into the future, and Dimitri has become a berserk, rage-fueled barbarian screaming bloody revenge. He doesn't want to stop Edelgard because it is the right thing to do. He wants to do so because Edelgard wronged him personally. He eventually sees how fruitless the pursuit of revenge is, and devotes the rest of his life atoning for the lives he took during the war. Keep in mind the main reason Dimitri's flaws work is because his character development is a slow burn. If he started out as "Feral" Dimitri straight away he wouldn't be anywhere near as engaging. But we get to see his slow descent into madness followed by his recovery and redemption, and the game's "every chapter equals a month in-universe" format it makes Dimitri's development more believable. Also, keep in mind that Three Houses has branching narratives (more on that later) and as such, Dimitri is only a hero in the Blue Lions campaign (where you team up with him). In every other campaign he is either an antagonist or gets killed off-screen.

Another thing to remember about heroes is that they rarely are capable of handling the main conflict by themselves. That's what the supporting cast is for. To assist the hero, accomplish tasks that the hero can't do, and give someone the hero to interact with outside of battle. That's not to say you can get away with making your hero incompetent, unless you're writing a comedy where the hero's lack of skill is played for laughs. Take the Fellowship of the Ring from Lord of the Rings. Frodo Baggins and Aragorn are without a doubt the main characters, yet if they had to defeat Sauron by themselves they probably would have died down in the Mines of Moria, long before they had a chance to even see Mordor. Case in point, Frodo couldn't even fully resist the effect the One Ring had on him, and it took Samwise literally carrying Frodo for the last quarter of the march to Mordor in order to get Frodo close enough to destroy the Ring. 

So what happens if you make your protagonist perfect at everything, with no flaws at all? You get a Mary Sue, writer offhand for a character so hyper-competent that they derail the story just by existing and actively break the rules established in the story's world in order to justify "hOw CrAzY aWeSoMe hE iS!" Now, everyone says to make sure your hero (or any character for that matter) is not a Mary Sue, but the thing is, what counts as a Mary Sue is largely subjective, and the term has lost most of its original meaning. In case you didn't know, the term was coined by a female Star Trek fan to poke fun at how fan-made Star Trek exist solely to live out the (usually female) creator's personal power fantasy rather than contribute to the story. Which is pretty much what a Mary Sue is supposed to be. Now, stories about characters that are supposed to be symbols of excellence work. The superhero genre is literally built upon this very concept. You just have to make sure that the hero makes sense in the setting. For example, a prince/princess who can transform into a mighty dragon to fight eldritch horrors can work. As long as you do something with those cool dragon powers. The protagonist can have an identity crisis, not knowing where the human ends and the dragon begins, or have everyone be afraid of them because of their draconic lineage. Just adding "Oh yeah he can turn into a dragon!" onto your character without even considering how the world reacts to such a character is bad storytelling. Even just saying, "people with these kinds of powers are a common sight in this world" is better than giving your hero awesome powers purely for the spectacle and nothing else.

Another important thing about setting up a hero, is to show them being good at their trade, rather than telling the audience. "Show, don't tell" is one of the oldest rules of storytelling, and in my experience is the one rule that should never be broken. Unless, and only unless, the story is meant to parody bad writing cliches, but even then it can be really iffy. But how does one show a hero being awesome? Part of it lies in the first impression. Take the Mandalorian for example. When he's introduced, he walks into a tavern on a far-flung ice planet, effortlessly dispatches of some common thugs who were threatening him, and claims a bounty on one of the tavern patrons. This entire sequence was done to establish that the Mando is A; an experienced fighter, B; a persistent hunter, and C; is undeniably awesome. The hall of frozen bounties in his ship only reinforces that the Mandalorian is starting off already an experienced hero (or in this case an anti-hero). If the Mandalorian was introduced as a newbie, the audience most likely wouldn't hold as much respect for him. But at the same time, they establish that he has room to grow, repeatedly getting beaten quite badly by various monsters and needing external aide to take down beasts. Also, I find it a neat touch that whenever the Mandalorian is curb-stomping somebody, it's always a humanoid, but the moment the opponent becomes some kind of animal or large armored vehicle he struggles. Which also establishes that he was trained to handle humanoid opponents and thus naturally struggles with foes outside of that demographic. Basically, Mando is an example of how to make a character feel powerful without him completely trivializing the plot. So strike a balance between making your hero powerful, but weak/unskilled enough for there to have stakes and tension during action scenes.  

And now we're going to delve into the more political side of story-telling! This surely won't cause arguments! ...Right? Anyway, an important thing to remember about a hero, or really any kind of character, is that systemic prejudice is a thing. What do I mean by this? Say you're writing a story, and your main villain is a part of a minority group, while your hero is a part of the privileged upper group. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with a story like this. You could have the prejudices and frustrations of the minority character push them to a life of reluctant villainy for a tale of moral ambiguity. But if said villain is the ONLY character in that minority that plays a role in the story, people are going to call you out on systemic prejudice, whether that was your intention or not. Now, I'm not saying that minorities can't be portrayed as evil. In this day and age, I feel it's important to remember that evil can arise from any group of people, and that the struggles of the minority do not excuse or justify acts of extreme violence and hatred. But doing a story like this needs a sympathetic character of the same minority to show that the minority is capable of good, otherwise you leave the accidental implication that the minority is ONLY capable of evil, which by the way, is the basic foundation of most real life prejudices. I'm going to use Black Panther as my reference for doing this kind of story right. For those who haven't watched Black Panther, in that film T'Challa (the main hero of the film) is an African king who has stop Kill-monger from reigniting a race war. Kill-monger is African-American and became a villain precisely because of the prejudice he endured as a child. But the story makes it a point that Kill-monger is a hypocrite, gleefully murdering Caucasians and even his fellow Africans without a care while T'Challa tries to keep the situation between his country (Wakanda) and the rest of the world under control. This story shows that racism and bigotry goes both ways, and it ultimately T'Challa's decision to use his country's vast technology and resources to help people peacefully that positive change in the world begins. Now, I know what you're thinking. "UGH, why do you have to bring politics into this, SPENCER!?" Let me tell. First of all, "bringing politics" into entertainment is a moot point, since entertainment will ALWAYS be political to an extent. It largely depends on how heavy-handed the message of the story is. After all, a story can have a truly just and admirable message, but it can get ruined by mediocre writing. Plus, given that humans created everything, our personal worldviews will bleed into our works, whether we intend it or not. Captain America started life as pro-war propaganda (in much the same way Uncle Sam was) during World War 2, but over the years his character got reinterpreted as being the embodiment of patriotism in general, and recently has been re-reinterpreted as being good for the sake of it, consequences be danged. 

A thing that shows up a lot in video games is the Blank Slate Hero. This style of protagonist only really works with video games, because the whole point of a Blank Slate Hero is that they exist as a in-universe justification for how the player interacts with the world and as such, the personality or backstory is left entirely to the player's imagination. The idea being that you yourself flesh out the protagonist through choices made throughout the story. Some examples of this archetype include the Dovahkiin from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the Human Child from UNDERTALE, pretty much any protagonist from a BioWare game (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic, etc), and pretty much any protagonist from the Souls-borne series (excluding Sekiro from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice). While you can most certainly try to have a Blank Slate as your protagonist in a more passive medium (film and books), this archetype strongly relies on the players themselves to give these characters life. Some stories even provide in-universe explanations for the protagonist's lack of identity (the Human Child is an empty vessel for a cosmic entity implied to be the player themselves, for example) Hence, an interactive medium such as video games lends itself well to this archetype.

The whole "letting players flesh out the protagonist with their own choices" concept can even apply to characters who already have a set personality or backstory. Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn is, regardless of the player's input, spunky, intelligent, and eager to prove herself. But throughout the game you get various dialogue options that, while not changing the story, does let Aloy respond in different ways to various situations. Usually with one choice emphasizing her proud, aggressive warrior side, another choice reflecting her cunning street smarts, and a third choice representing her empathy and compassion. Basically, while Aloy has traces of these personality traits, the player decides what parts of Aloy's personality to put emphasis on. And that's really the best way handle player choices in a linear story. Horizon: Zero Dawn is a fairly linear story, unlike most open-world RPG's. Aloy will always be cast out from her village and train with the hermit Rost to become a huntress, move out of her home country to avenge her mentor, discover the truth of her upbringing, and defeat the Shadow Carja Cult, in that order. But those choices not only give the player a little bit of agency, but also make their interpretation of Aloy's character a bit more official. Do you view Aloy as a kind, understanding young woman who tries to keep dire situations from spiraling out of control? Go with the Empathy choices. Do you want Aloy to be a rough-and-tumble tomboy who doesn't give two crab-cakes what other people think of her? Aggression choices are there for you. How about s cunning sass machine who roasts everyone around her with facts and logic? Intelligence choices for the win!

On the subject of choice, here's a classic video game storytelling trope. Branching morality. What does this mean? Basically games with morality choices let you decide whether to keep the protagonist good or have them slide down the slope of moral ambiguity or even become a straight up Villain Protagonist. Games of this nature include Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the inFAMOUS franchise (yes, it is spelled like that), as well as the previously mentioned Skyrim and Mass Effect. It's not uncommon for entire game mechanics to be locked behind specific moral alignments, and games that allow you to make choices of this nature will almost always make the more exciting abilities evil-exclusive. Which is a trope that I view as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being good in games that rewards evil with mechanical benefits (such as exclusive access to awesome powers) makes it feel thematically rewarding from a story perspective, since you are intentionally weakening your character in order to hold on to your moral code. But on the other, it can make it harder to play "the good guy route" if the good-exclusive abilities are so lackluster that the game becomes boring. inFAMOUS strikes a decent balance, since the Paragon abilities are (usually) just as powerful as the Infamous abilities, just with a focus on non-lethal take downs and stunning enemies instead of instant kill moves. 

But now comes an interesting question? What about a protagonist who is by all admission, evil from the start? You can do two things. One, have your Villain Protagonist have a change of heart and set up a redemption arc. Megamind and Disgaea did this, and while he isn't the main protagonist at all, Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender is an example of a redeemed villain-turned-hero done right. For the five people who don't know what Avatar: The Last Airbender is, basically it is the greatest cartoon of all time and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic an anime-inspired cartoon by Nickelodeon famous for its strong characterization, unique magic system (you control the four elements of nature by performing martial arts techniques), and for having surprisingly good lore and world building. Anyway, Prince Zuko (pictured above) was the Prince of the Fire Nation, and after being humiliated and scarred by his tyrannical father, Zuko swore to capture the Avatar (basically the most powerful person in this story's universe) to restore his honor and prove his worth. Spoiler alert, he goes through a lot of stuff that changes his opinion on his home country's actions, and upon realizing that the Fire Nation will bring about the deaths of millions of innocent lives, he abandons his hunt and instead teaches Aang (the current Avatar) how to control fire (with the help of a pair of dragons). But nobody trusts him for a good while even after redemption, as he spent two and a half seasons trying to kidnap Aang and a good chunk of season 3 is Zuko just owning up to the consequences of his actions. Which is how redemption arcs should be handled. If a bad person becomes good, they still have to deal with the aftermath of their previous choices.

The other option is to simply have the protagonist descend even further down into villainy until they are wholly irredeemable. This is harder to do, since if handled poorly can make your work come across as cynical, overtly depressing and, for lack of a better term, edgy. In fact, the only time I felt this archetype work was in Little Nightmares, a horror game that runs so much on ambiguity that you'll begin to question if the rain-coat wearing girl you play as was just an innocent victim taken prisoner to be eaten by gluttonous giants, or if she is just as monstrous as the beasts who torment her. I have heard that Death Note handles this kind of archetype well, but I never watched that series, so take what I say here with a grain of salt.

The last major point I want to make is on the subject of character development, and having your hero change and grow as a person as the story progresses. I'll use Korra from Legend of Korra as my example. And before you ask, Korra looks like an Avatar: The Last Airbender character because Legend of Korra is a direct sequel to Avatar, taking place after a 70 year time-skip. But anyway, Korra starts off the show impulsive, impatient, and somewhat arrogant and prideful. Throughout the series she is humbled, and begins to mellow out. By the end, she's confident, but reserved. Powerful, but not arrogant. And her journey is made more compelling by Korra taking everything life throws at her to grow as a person. She even acknowledges how much she's changed during the series recap episode.

Of course, a hero can get away with never changing (this is called the Flat character arc). But heroes can only get away with this archetype if the story makes it a point that the hero refuses to change regardless of what's going on in the world around them, and force the world to change instead. Think of how Goku from Dragon Ball Z wounded up redeeming and even befriending various antagonistic forces such as Vegeta, Majin Buu, Beerus and Piccolo. Goku himself never changes (he will always be a happy-go-lucky martial artist who views everything in life as a chance to improve his skills), but rather, his mere existence forces characters like Piccolo and especially Vegeta to reconsider their life decisions. And for this very reason, Goku's battles with Frieza are exceptionally exciting, because Frieza has the same "never gonna change my ways no matter what life throws at me" mentality Goku has, but a twisted, evil version of that same mindset. It's the whole idea of an unstoppable force clashing against an unmovable object. But as previously stated, a Flat character only really works in a story where the entire point is that the hero refuses to change and instead forces the world around him to change. So no, you can't have an underdeveloped protagonist and use "but he's supposed to never change!" as an excuse. You still have to put work into actually developing your hero, just as much as every other character.

And that's all I have to say on the subject matter. I realize that this post is kind of all over the place, but I wanted to do a sequel to the Villains post I made, because being able to talk about why stories work or don't work is honestly the most fun I've had since I started this blog. So expect a fair number of these kinds of analysis posts in the near future.