Hero Complex

***Do not read this if you have not read or watched Watchmen and are planning on doing so. It contains spoilers.***

Facing down ones doom and performing the job that is in front of you even in the face of inevitable death--as Aloysha pointed out this is truly heroic. Yet, I found the fact that he used Hector in his comparison very interesting. While Hector does die heroic in battle he is from a world where that is not necessarily the norm for heroes. It is so full of gods and demi-gods that death is not necessarily a certainty. Even Hector's adversary, while not invincible, did not have the same vulnerability as a normal man. These heroes though are usually tragically flawed--Ajax tried to slay his comrades, the Greek leaders, and then eventually kills himself, Hercules in a fit of rage and madness killed his wife and sons. This madness is always tied to their superhuman strength or power--the thing that makes them a hero.

It is when heroes are removed from people, when they no longer see themselves as being on the same plane as the rest of humanity that the dark side of heroes emerges. Sometimes, like Ajax and Hercules, in their rage or madness the hero sinks to the level of a villain. However, often times the supposed hero will elevate themselves in their minds to the level of a god. They stop seeing humanity as people, a individuals with their own hopes and fears and desires, and the ingenuity to shape their own destinies. Instead they view humanity as a puzzle, something to fix.

This belief is often pervasive among people in power. As Mal notes in Serenity "Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better." It seems so simple that "saving" people, the roles of a hero, should mean making all of their problems go away.

When seeing Watchmen this past weekend that was one of the most striking parts. Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt) believes that he and he alone can prevent nuclear Holocaust and that this is his mission. He views this not as pride and arrogance but as a type of martyrdom saying he made himself suffer with every death he caused, to feel their pain. He is above the ranks of men, being "the smartest man alive" and styles himself as a modern Alexander the Great. It is from this belief that he feels justified making the decision to kill millions of people in order to trick them, thus staving off the possibility that billions don't die. The comic does a good job of showing where this logic leads and just how twisted it can be. The movie, however, fails to pass judgement on Adrian. Dr. Manhattan ends up agreeing with his logic while Dan and Laurie never come down strongly on either side, believing instead that the issue is to big for them and so the decision should be left up to someone like Adrian--a hero. Without the "Tales of the Black Freighter" it is only Rorschach who condemns Adrian's actions, and by that time his moral compass has been called into serious question. I think that is was a problem with adapting the comic for a movie and having to cut parts, but it made me really wonder if people viewed it as ok for a "hero" to play god? Or was that assumed in the definition of a hero that the producer/director/writer didn't notice that they were cutting this important discussion out?

The more I see heroes portrayed as bordering on gods, as beings with the power if not the right to decide the futures of those around them, the more amazing the Incarnation seems. Instead of being sent a savior akin to a hero in tights and a cape who would sweep in make a better world, humans were sent someone who was fully human. Instead of being forced or tricked into salvation, or suffering from a hero's madness, or being tempted to the level of heroes our self, fulfilling man's ancient desire to "be like gods," we were met by someone fully human, someone who wept and got tired, and offered us a choice. As JP II said in Redemptor Hominis "Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For by his Incarnation, he, the son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man."

Magnificent Valour

Valour is the strength , not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul - it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own. He who falls fights on his knees. He who relaxes none of his assurance no matter how great the danger of immanent death, who giving up his soul, still looks dimly and scornfully at his enemy - he is beaten not by us, but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered.

Where has our valour gone? Where are our heroes? Where are the men who would give their lives for an idea? Are there no more epic battles left for history? Is valour only left in songs and legends? Why do our "modern" wars seem so hideous in my eyes? Did all the heroes die with the arrival of the gun? Wars used to show men in their greatness, back in a time when it was thought right to die for a cause. When we fought with swords and shields there was a beauty in war. That beauty was death. It is not in the killing of a man, but rather in the dying of a man. "Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, we cannot choose how but, what we can decide is how we meet that end, in order that we are remembered, as men." "A hero would die for his country, but he would much rather live for it."

Stare in wonder, who's here to bring you down?

Find your martyr, I'm sure you've made the crown

So light a fire under my bones, so when

I die for you, at least I'll die alone

Ain't nothing for me to end up like this

There's no comparing me this time

All my heroes have now become ghosts

Sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most

All my heroes are dead and gone

But down inside of me, they still live on

Dark devotion in a beacon paradise

Shows no emotion to a willing sacrifice

You can put a man on trial, but you can't make the guilty pay

And you can cage an animal, but you can't take away the rage

Ain't nothing for me to end up like this

There's no comparing me this time

All my heroes have now become ghosts

Sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most

All my heroes are dead and gone

But down inside of me, they still live on

All my heroes have now become ghosts

Sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most

All my heroes are dead and gone

But down inside of me, they still live on

They're all dead and gone

Brand New Hero

When people look back, who will be seen as the heroes of our age? What artists' names will endure? What musician's work will resonate with future generations?

Perhaps this is merely a problem of perspective, and as members of this generation we are unable to recognise which of our contemporaries will achieve greatness, but it seems as though we lack people who can be numbered among the giants of the past.

Looking at the politicians of today it is easy to pick out the major players who will dominate the history books. However, there do not seem to be any people who would sacrifice their careers, their health, their lives for a cause merely people who are very good at the political game. There is no one like William Wilberforce, Gandhi, Lincoln, or even someone like Churchill who saw what needed to be done and did it, regardless of popular opinion, a fact which eventually cost him his career. There do not even seem to be the type of person powerful enough to define an age; no Robespierre or Napoleon, who, regardless of whether people see them as a hero or villain, had the power in their generation to change history with a word.

I don't see someone like Annie Lebowitz ever being listed with Da Vinci, Rembrandt or Picasso. As much as I love the work of Seamus Heaney I don't think he equals Elliott, Yeats, Milton or Dante. There is a lack of greatness among our generation.

I think this is largely the result of education. It is hard for genius to grow when everyone is taught at the same pace, held to the same standard, when there is one acceptable answer and deviation is not tolerated. This is not necessarily bad, it raises the fortunes of the majority a moderate amount as opposed to a few achieving greatness.

According to Henry Newman fostering greatness is not the purpose of education: "It neither confines its views to particular professions on the one hand, nor creates heroes or inspires genius on the other. It is the great ordinary means to an great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political power, and refining the intercourse of private life. It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them."

Yet, in an age when professional athletes are revered as never before, when the lives of pop sensations are followed with rabid enthusiasm, when the story of an orphaned wizard who might be the chosen one has launched an unparalleled franchise, when superheroes have finally become mainstream and widely popular, when a Batman movie was the summer blockbuster, it seems as though this is not enough and people want a hero, need greatness to inspire them.

(While not the original intent, this post may or may not have developed into an excuse to include the above picture by Alex Ross).