One thing that can be said about The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Adventures of Huck Finn, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Lord of the Rings besides that they all have a male protagonist is their popularity. I do think that all of these works’ protagonists are heroes. I think that anyone who can blow up the Death Star is a hero.
I find that a hero is someone worthy of admiration and therefore, heroism comes from the beholder. I happen to think that the ability to functionally use a whip is pretty cool, so I would say that Indiana Jones is a hero. If I thought that grappling with Grendel and ripping off an arm wasn’t very special, then I might not think of Beowulf as a hero at all. To say that each of these works’ protagonists can be considered a hero is absolutely true, because they have all done spectacular things that are, for some, worthy of respect.
This type of heroism leaves a lot of room for variation. Heroic actions and behaviors may follow some trends, but they aren’t really nailed down to anything. Bravery, strength, and skill tend to produce the best-known or most widely-accepted heroes because people value those traits. A middle-aged father with an office job who manages his time and his money well could be a hero to someone who values his skills. I hesitate to say that a villain could in fact be considered a hero, but certainly a group of aspiring ne’er-do-wells must idolize each of the above works’ antagonists and therefore sees him or her as a hero.
There is no reason why a woman cannot be a heroine. There could be a few reasons why perhaps the most popular stories have male protagonists. I would think that a male author would find it easier to identify with a hero than a heroine and Tolkien, Twain, and Homer, along with Lucas and Spielberg are all men. Perhaps the scenes in Beowulf would be less believable if a woman had been the warrior main character (as, of course, only men can hold their breaths for days at a time). It is also possible that the admiration of bravery and strength, the most exciting and therefore popular heroes’ qualities, appear more commonly in men, who have since the beginnings of war been, more commonly, the warriors.
I would certainly say that the presence of heroes is useful to society. The simplest evidence is the fun of talking about the most amazing parts of a movie while walking out of the theater. But heroes have been created by many different authors in vastly different times and been greatly well-accepted by readers and viewers.
Heroes can serve as sources of inspiration. Although not one of the six titles mentioned has the potential to be recreated in reality, each hero's bravery and success can serve as a model for people in any time. There may have been a time when a warrior or a king actually saw Beowulf as a model, but today imagination can let people think of the satisfaction of mimicking any sort of heroism, regardless of whether they may ever have to flee from a rolling boulder. Even if a viewer cannot relate to or imagine being in any of a hero’s situations, they can still be impressed by a tactic and appreciate a hero’s skill. This imagination gives people a joy as though they already had accomplished something great. When I saw Transformers, I felt as though I had helped save the world, not as though I had sat still for two hours. I was in a good mood, confident and satisfied with myself for doing nothing. Heroes cheer people up and it’s perfectly fine with me if they provide hope and joy to people who find their lives to be boring because they make people happy.
This is why I see the merit in saying that a land that needs heroes is unhappy. A land of people that is excited about fantasy heroics and one that uses its imagination to escape from reality is sort of sad. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a tale of heroism, but relying on it can be dangerous. Reality is still what matters, but if some heroism can brighten reality, then it has use. I think that humans don’t need heroes, but we desire them and, whenever a person helps someone with a flat tire or blinds a Cyclops, they tend to just appear.
