What Kind of Hero Are You Looking For?

With the foundation for this series laid by The Uninviting Tavern, this blog post takes a look at the most well-known of all fantasy tropes: The Hero.

Variations on this beloved trope can be found in just about any fantasy book because, well, the hero is who the story is all about. The plot revolves around them. If the storyteller isn’t careful, this can often create a sense of overinflated egotism in the hero—especially if they’re already prone to narcissistic tendencies.

Some writers try to offset that phenomenon by telling a story about multiple heroes and giving them an equal share in the limelight, but all those different storylines get confusing really quickly. (And let’s be honest, readers just tend to skip over the ones they don’t like. Oh, was that just me as a child?)

Ah, but I digress. To keep this (somewhat) short, we’ll briefly look at four different variations on the trope of the Hero. You might recognize some (or all) of them:

1. The Chosen One
2. The Secret Heir
3. The Reluctant Hero
4. The Lucky Novice

I have other more sarcastic names for these variations:

1. The “Only I can defeat the Dark Lord” hero
2. The “Turns out, I was the lost prince/princess all along” hero
3. The “No thanks, I’d rather be home” hero
4. The “I’ve never held a sword before, but I guess I’m a natural” hero

All kidding aside, variations on these tropes are in some of my favorite Sci-fi/Fantasy stories from childhood. When they’re well-written, man, do they hit home. When they aren’t… well, this isn’t an admiration post, it’s a chance to poke fun at the tropes in stories!

So without further ado…

The Chosen One (The “Only I can defeat the Dark Lord” hero.)

You’d think the Dark Lord would stop wasting time fighting harmless background characters and focus all of their attention on rooting out and crushing the only person in the entire story who can possibly defeat them. But woe! Woe to the Dark Lord or Evil Villain who thinks they can cross the Chosen One and live—this Hero has plot armor thicker and stronger than any known material on any plane of existence. (To be fair, they have to have impossibly thick plot armor. Otherwise they’ll never be able to defeat the Dark Lord or Evil Villain—nor will anyone else.)

The Secret Heir (The “Turns out, I was the lost prince/princess all along” hero.)

The Secret Heir often bears a strange birthmark that identifies them as the lost prince/princess (Which, if the story is being told in first-person, the protagonist will assuredly comment on their strange birthmark by saying something along the lines of “I don’t know how it got there… it’s just something I’ve always had.”). They’re either introduced as an orphan, or learn from their parental figure/guardian about three chapters into the story that they’re not actually related… Oh, and by the end of the first book (if it’s being told as a trilogy or series), they figure out who they truly are.

The Reluctant Hero (The “No thanks, I’d rather be home” hero.)

The Reluctant Hero often gets a good, hearty shove in the back to get the story moving, and they often get dragged kicking and screaming the whole way, protesting about how they’d much rather be at home than off on an incredibly dangerous adventure. Of course, by the time their story reaches its end, they’ve come into their own and accepted their role as the hero—however unwillingly.

The Lucky Novice (The “I’ve never held a sword before, but I guess I’m a natural” hero.)

I’m convinced that this variation exists because training montages in books are so… well, BORING. (To most people, that is—not everyone!) That’s why many storytellers dispense with such lengthy digressions and instead have their hero discover by sheer luck or happenstance—usually through a one-on-one duel with a rival or their mentor—that they’re a natural. Never held a sword before the story began, not once in their life, but goodness gracious, this was what they were born to do. Swordplay, which takes years to master just like any other skill, is as easy as breathing for the Lucky Novice.

Now, these brief descriptions are, of course, filled with sarcasm. But there’s still some truth to them. The sarcastic comments highlight some of the more worn out and overly used instances, but as with all of the tropes, when these variations are used skillfully and in different ways, that’s when magic happens.

What am I personally looking for in a hero? Honestly, I enjoy all of these variations in their proper stories. However…

Give me a story instead where the hero wants nothing to do with being the story’s focus. Give me a story where they want nothing more than to be a background character. Give me a story where they do everything that they possibly can to avoid the limelight. Not because they’re reluctant, but because they believe other people are more qualified—more gifted to do so.

Let someone else deal with fighting the Dark Lord. Let someone else go on a quest to destroy a cursed, magical object in a fiery volcano. Let someone else save the world from certain doom.

Give me the sort of hero that does heroic deeds because those deeds need to be done and no one else is doing them. Give me the hero that ends up doing them because the world is drowning and everyone else just is just standing there watching. Give me that sort of hero—because then at least, when they must decide to act, readers know they’re not doing it because of any selfish pride or puffed-up egotism. They’re doing it for everyone else.

That’s the kind of hero I like reading and writing about. That’s the kind of hero I’m looking for.

Until next time,

Al