There are some people who seem to have lost the definition of exactly what a hero is, thinking that the very word is ‘corny.’ To many it summons up the image of a PG fellow from a Disney film where he never curses, doesn’t drink and is a flat ‘cutout’ of a human rather than a fully developed character. These are the people who have confused the terms villain, anti-hero and hero. They think that Dracula is more fascinating than Van Helsing, Butch Cavendish more intriguing than The Lone Ranger, or the Joker more delightful for the audience to spend time with than The Batman.

I say no; resoundingly NO!

If a reader finds a man who kills, maims and then laughs about it more satisfying than one who tries to prevent said mayhem, that reader may be flawed beyond recovery or the writer has failed in presenting the characters in context.

With this shift in the villains’ status has come corresponding devaluation of the hero, relegating him or her to a role seen as grey and boring.

Some of the problem is that people mistake ‘hero’ for protagonist and vice versa far too often.

Hannibal Lecter was a sick SOB who ate people and delighted in the suffering of others; he wasn’t the ‘hero’ of Silence of the Lambs — or even Hannibal the sequel; he was the protagonist.

Clarice Starling is the heroic figure, but not an unflawed or bland character. She has a complex character of failings and weaknesses; she works against it and that is what makes her a hero.

She overcomes.

Webster’s defines hero as:

A: a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability; An illustrious warrior.

B: a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities.

C: the Principle male character in a literary or dramatic work.

A hero does not sweep in and, with no qualms about what the situation may be, solve all that must be solved — if he did it would be the blank and boring flat line far too many people think a hero is. No, conflict is the essence of all drama and so it must be with a hero as well. Inner conflict is just as important. Perhaps more vital to the story line than storming the castle is the reason why it is being stormed!

Robert E. Howard knew this; his Conan, Solomon Kane and El Borak are anti-heroes in the sense that they are grey on some points, yet they have a very rigid code of honor. If they give their word they keep it, they do not harm the innocent, and they protect the weak — all definitions of heroes.

A hero must have something at stake and something to overcome, or it is not drama.

The ultimate ‘barbarian’ of literature was Hercules of classical myth (definition A). He is a hero because he overcomes his own personal faults. He is really an anti-hero by that very modern definition. He is a drunk, he kills his family in a fit of madness, and spends a guilt-ridden life trying to make up for that. Not a bland fellow at all. But he tries to do good, and that is the thing that makes him a hero (definition B). In fact, in a ‘Hollywood’ happy ending his good works get him elevated to demigod hood!

The faulty assumption is that heroes just do what they do and are not affected; in fact they have to take what Joseph Campbell called “The Hero’s Journey” — moving from a beginning point to their end point in a story and growing or evolving in some way. If they do not, they are, by definition, not heroes. Heroes doubt, have their moment of weakness, their ‘human’ moment, just as villains, to be fully human, must have theirs. (Hitler was good to his dogs, the original Blackbeard was Joan of Arc’s sidekick and protector, and Dracula was a patriot for his homeland before he became a human mosquito.)

As writers we are obligated to connect with those human portions of both sides of the moral wall or we are cheating our readers and not doing our job of presenting a ‘complete’ world for them to journey through. In my collection Of Swords & Sorcery (from Gypsyshadow.com), I explore 12 shades of heroes, from reformed pirates to innocent types caught up in the throes of adventures opposing evil who must find the hero in themselves — the ultimate expression of definition C.

I confess my criterion is narrow by some definitions. At the same time, nobody — including me — likes a stuffed shirt, and I don’t want my heroes to be that way either. Thus, while I may want them to be a hero I need them to be flawed so I, a flawed human, can connect with them.

I still want them to be better than me: more able to withstand temptation, more able to endure pain, else why am I reading about them? Limit perfection, though, so I can believe and connect with them.

And I want my villains to be less than me, expressing the darkness I fear either externally or in some far corner of my own soul that I want to conquer.

And this may be where I differ from far too many of today’s audience; I do not delight in seeing people worse off than me as a way to make myself feel superior.

That may be why those aforementioned critics like the so-called anti-heroes. Maybe in their mind following the adventures of the rapists, killers and perverts makes their ‘heroes’ help them feel better about being flawed.

Me, I’d rather look up to the heavens than down in the mud even though I never forget that even the demigods have to stand in that mud.

How about you?