User:ZachsMind/Concept

"Heroes" The Show as analysis of The Concept "Heroes"

Essentially what this series is turning out to be is a character study on what constitute a hero. It's not really the origins of comic book super hero archetypes. It's just a what if: what if you woke up one day and could do X, Y, or Z? What if you could fly? What if you could walk through walls? What if you couldn't die? How would 'everyman' react to such a strange event? Not a hero. What would a normal person do. The use of the word "Heroes" as a title of the show seems a bit misleading. Are these people heroes? Is there such a thing? So the series itself becomes an analyzation of the concept of heroism, and a dissection on the archetype of a hero, as modern culture accepts the term to mean.

This is perhaps an exercise in redundancy. The television series "Lost" is allegedly about a bunch of people who can't be found - hence the name. However, we know exactly where they are. They're on an island. That's not being lost. I'm reminded of the story of the mother upset with her son for getting lost in a supermarket and his response was, "Mom, I was never lost. I knew exactly where I was the whole time."

So do these characters in "Heroes" see themselves as heroes? In some cases yes, and in other cases no. Do any of them see themselves as villains? They identify themselves in other ways. Peter is Nathan's brother. Niki is Michah's mother. Matt used to identify himself as a cop, but now that he's lost his job he has to start seeing himself in a new way. What exactly identifies us? What makes us who we are? And at what point does a person stop being just a person and starts being a hero? Are special abilities alone something that automatically catapults one into hero status?

The verdict on that last question, as of the episode "Distractions" is pretty much a resounding no.

I was trying to ascertain from this article just how many characters in the story really are heroes. Based on this article, one could hypothesize that up to the point of "Distractions" there are only about eight or nine characters which have certainly performed indisputably heroic actions.

• Claire saved the man in the train.
• Nathan saved his brother from falling.
• Matt & Audrey saved Molly from Sylar.
• Isaac heroically fought his own drug addiction.
• Hiro and DL saved that couple from the car wreck.
• Niki realized after Jessica struck Micah, that the only 'right' action left available to her was to turn herself in.
• Eden put herself in harm's way to try and kill Sylar, and when she failed in her effort she destroyed her grey matter hoping that would keep Sylar from aquiring her ability. Didn't work, but still, heroic effort.

Other characters performed other actions which can be added to this list.. and as I review my own list of unselfish actions where risk was involved, I question even these examples.

The Cheerleader

Claire had figured out she couldn't take permanent damage, so what was she risking when she went into that train? The answer to that is normality. The world could have found out she wasn't normal. She dodged that bullet by allowing another cheerleader to take the credit, and ultimately get killed in her stead, because Sylar thought Jackie was Claire. So there were consequences for her initial actions which led to Homecoming. In that moment however, when Claire was faced with entering a burning train to save a dying man, she was not risking herself physically. She knew she'd be okay. So to her, the risk was equivalent to saving a drowning puppy from a babbling brook. There are certainly risks, but they are negligible. Would we still consider that heroic?

The Telepath

If you have special powers that allow you to know things others don't know, go places others can't, or withstand pressures that would kill normal people, is it heroic to use these abilities? Is Audrey more heroic than Matt? She goes into danger without any telepathic abilities alerting her to other dangerous people potentially in a room. She doesn't know what her enemy is thinking, so she's comparatively blind. Does that make her more of a hero? Does Matt having this crutch make him less of a hero? Or is he just as heroic cuz given the opportunity but not the power, he'd probably rush in there anyway where fools fear to tread? And what of the motive? Is Matt doing heroic things because he honestly wants to do the right thing, or like Audrey is he playing hero because he thinks it will improve his chances of advancement and allow him the notoriety offered to a hero? Does telepathy improve the odds of being seen a hero, or being seen a weirdo mutant crazy guy, or worse a pathetic liar pretending to have abilities? If he's a hero in the eyes of his wife, does it matter that the entire police department thinks he's a loser?

The Statesman

Nathan either couldn't or didn't save his wife in that car wreck, but he did and could save his brother from falling. Then he told everyone that Peter was suicidal and didn't die by stupid luck, in order to protect his own reputation. Does lying about a heroic deed negate the act, or amplify the humility of the do-gooder? Was Nathan trying to protect both him and Peter from being dissected by people like Bennet, or was he just selfishly protecting his own reputation as a public figure? In that nanosecond of fight or flight, he didn't rescue his wife. He instinctively flew out of harm's way, and then helplessly watched his wife become a parapeligic. Had he spent that nanosecond trying to pull her with him out of the car, perhaps they'd both be dead now. Would that have been heroic, or just stupid?

The Prophet

I include Isaac in my above list with some uncertainty, as he hasn't done anything particularly heroic yet, but I feel a level of uncertainty with all these 'heroes' so I figured why not include him? Isaac has managed to successfully (for now) defeat an addiction to heroin. That alone is arguably a Herculean task, and therefore arguably kinda heroic - anyone related to a person who beats drug addiction could compare it to an heroic act. However, is that really objectively an action that one could say makes a hero? Did his time at the paper company serve as an heroic act, or were the facilities there what did most of the work for him? Is Eden or Bennet responsible in any way for getting Isaac off the stuff, and does that lessen Isaac's heroism for himself?

The Sword Slicer of Space and Time

Hiro is unique among this list. He knows what it means to be a hero. It's been ingrained in him from childhood and the code of a hero is something with which he's spent a great deal of thought. One can arguably say it's an abstract concept with which he has tried in his life to identify, and now he has an opportunity to take these ethical concepts and utilize them in concrete ways through the choices he makes. Of all the people on this list, Hiro alone sees the concept of heroism as dare I say a religion? A belief structure and a way of life that one must follow in order to someday truly be objectively a hero.

However, he's finding it harder to live this path than it has been to merely contemplate it. He performs acts which he feels are heroic, but the results are not always meeting his expectations. He risked causing a rift in order to save Charlie. He argues with Ando about using his powers to trick gamblers from their money, or stealing a sword from a museum on the belief it will serve a greater purpose in his hands. How are these rationalizations any different from Sylar's belief in his evolutionary imperatives?

The Living Ghost

Admittedly we caught DL at a bad time in his life. Framed by his own wife for murders he did not commit. He escaped prison and was later exhonerated for the crimes but is still at the mercy of the mysterious Linderman, who seems to have a stranglehold on his entire family. He had a stranglehold on his wife during a fight with her alter-ego Jessica, who seems at least partly responsible for everything happening to them. DL is a hero of sorts to his son, and tries to do the right thing, but he's more of a survivor than anything else. His actions are usually not those of a man risking danger to save strangers. It's rather the actions of a man in a corner, or on the run, or under the gun. He fights to preserve his family. He fights to preserve his own life and he wants to make the world better for his son but he's constantly pressed down by forces out of his control. Perhaps one can argue that it's heroic for this man to just get out of bed every morning and face the next day, but does that really make him a hero?

Are any of these people really heroes? ...is what I'm trying to ask. -- ZachsMind 13:34, 11 February 2007 (EST)