Becoming a Hero
(Or, The Spirited Retelling of The Heroic Fixer Known Henceforth Upon Her Steed Rocinante as Don Quixote)
(Spoilers for Limbus Company Canto 7)
What are the qualities that make up a hero in a traditional sense? Someone willing to fight “the bad guys”, someone willing to risk their life to protect a stranger, or someone strong enough to fight against whatever tide of “injustice” that sweeps across the land? What traits of one person can cause another to cheer them on as not just a hero but someone to aspire to become more like? In the revisionist context of Don Quixote, its the inspiration of hope.
Don Quixote in the context of it’s original publication by Miguel De Cervantes was satire. It was satire of a genre about heroic knights fighting for justice in the name of their fair maidens and the code of chivalry. Don Quixote was characterized as a delusional and dangerous individual causing harm to those around him with little to no admirable traits. Yet that’s not the Don Quixote that we’re frequently exposed to. Most modern versions of Don Quixote are aspirational dreamers who want to be a “hero” like those knights who came before. Leaving a trail of changed hearts on his quest to reach the unreachable star.
How does satire go through so many reiterations that it eventually becomes the very thing it was conceived to mock? I think the answer lies in that new context. Narratives throughout history typically focus on “heroes” so much that we have a list of set expectations for hero stories called The Hero’s Journey. The “hero” journeys beyond their known world into one that is unknown, challenging, dangerous, and forces them to change as a means of becoming a “hero” and achieving their goal. The journey is the means by which a normal person is forged into becoming someone above the common people, earn that power to become a “hero”, and the ability to change the world.
Tales of heroes dominate narratives in Television, Movies, Books, and Video Games. Marvel movies have dominated popular culture for the past 16 years despite how formulaic they had become even before the first Avengers film in 2012. Each film typically was an origin story for the title character, or an origin for characters who would later fill out the superhero lineup. For over 16 years, popular culture has been flooded with superheroes earning their mantles and being cheered on by the public for saving them in grand displays of heroism. We watched knowing that no matter how bad things ever got, the “hero” would always rise above their circumstances and achieve their goals. In this sense, they occupied the simultaneous role of “the underdog” and the assured victory. Even if the villain was stronger, gained ground, or even beat the “hero” before, we knew that the “hero” could and would come back stronger to always triumph in the end.
So what happened? Why did we turn the story of a delusional, dangerous, disconnected, and untrustworthy “hero” into one about actual heroism and inspiring those who had little will to act on their own to achieve unachievable dreams? I don’t know, but I believe it’s because that’s what we hoped would happen. We want heroes to be real. We want to believe that there are those who can rise above the crushing weight of reality and do something that nobody else before could do. We see characters like Don Quixote yelling about heroism, vanquishing evil, and protecting others from injustice so much that we want to re-write their story. Not out of malice or shame, but because we want to remember those dreams of hope. We want to remember the dream and the feeling that there are those willing to bear the unbearable weight of being a “hero” who is tasked with saving everyone else.
To shatter that dream, is to then admit that those “heroes” are flawed or, worse, could never exist. That feeling after a hopeful and inspiring tale of fiction is a slowly grinding sense of reality creeping up your spine once again. Feeling like you’re falling with no net or hero to swoop in at the last moment to save you. To believe in heroes is to resign yourself to two thoughts: that you will either be saved or that you will be a savior. If heroes were real, then they’d save you, right? They wouldn’t just make things worse, they wouldn’t let you fall, they wouldn’t let you suffer if they know you’re in pain, right? A hero’s duty is to protect those in need from things they can’t protect themselves from. We want to believe in that. We want to believe that there are those who can save us from impending death or destruction and the only thing we have to do is to shout loud enough for them to hear our cries before they’ll come rushing in on a valiant steed, sword in hand, and shout “HARK! ’Tis this vile miscreant be such a beast as to grant thee such painful despair? Stand behind me, and I shall vanquish such a villainous fiend!”
But we know that doesn’t happen. We don’t have an Iron Man, Superman, Spider-man, Captain America, or anything resembling an Avengers. We have ourselves, and not a Don Quixote. He have people who try to uphold unrealistic expectations and some do manage it for a while, but not all of them can. Eventually a crack forms, and we’re able to peek through to the fellow human beneath that mask. We find the flaws, contradictions, incongruencies, and lies that allowed them to get so far, and we have to ask if they can still be our hero. When we see beneath the mask, we have to ask ourselves if we still want to believe in that mask as its slowly pulled apart and shredded to pieces. Its easy to feel like we could be “objective” and face reality, but its not. That’s the reason we keep such a distance and not look so close. The images they leave in our minds are precious dreams we don’t want to also discard. We don’t want that dream to die. We’ve given up so many of them already, why must we be forced to give up more?
To me, I think that’s why Don Quixote has changed. Not as a misinterpretation, but a deliberate reinterpretation. To show a delusional and dangerous fool as someone who could be what he wasn’t: A hero. To have all those flaws present on the surface and show the audience how ridiculous and unachievable those dreams of being a perfect hero truly are in the face of reality, but inspiring nonetheless. Even if Don Quixote wasn’t a hero, he tried, and that attempt is what makes him so inspiring to readers. Don Quixote is a ridiculous figure who causes more harm than good, but something about that made us want to turn him into a true embodiment of good and heroism in the face of a cruel and unfeeling world. In that reinterpretation of the past, we’ve given ourselves a dream to strive for. An image of a hero who persists and fights despite the embarrassing shame that comes with proudly proclaiming oneself to be a noble hero.
Not everyone can be a hero. To many, the thought of charging headlong into danger on behalf another is the telltale signs of a hero, but the ability to do so is another factor we don’t consider without seeing the myriads of others unable to move their feet in that same moment. A hero isn’t then defined by action alone, but through the deliberate refusal of inaction. Ones whose body moves to protect others, either figuring out their reasons and justifications during or after they’ve already sprung. There can be doubt in if the actions taken were right or not, but that’s why we have to toil over our definitions of “right” and “wrong” or what “justice” means both to ourselves as well as our peers. Being a hero means to question each and every action you take while asking if it truly was the correct thing to do as a means of protecting others. That pressure and stress of determining if you were just in your actions while accepting the consequences and responses from your witnesses is heroic. To be a hero, you must have just as much faith in your actions as you have doubt and hold yourself accountable.
Its easy for Don Quixote to be a hero. He had little to no doubt in the actions he took in the name of being a valiant knight and that’s why he was as dangerous as he was delusional. An unfiltered id acting on impulse in the desire to do what was right. While inspiring in it’s own ways, I think that dream should die. We must be better than Don Quixote if we want to be a hero. To look at the world and ourselves with unclouded eyes while pursuing our desire to be kind and virtuous. We will get things wrong, we will stumble, we may lie, and we may end up causing more harm than good, but we must hold ourselves accountable to those failures. To know that to be a perfect hero is impossible, but we can still try. We can try and be there for others in need while showing them unreserved kindness and patience. To see what we feel is unjust and stand to oppose it while knowing we have the potential to be completely wrong. We may not be able to be heroes, but we can allow ourselves to be flawed. We have to believe heroes can be real, and be their fans if we ourselves can’t be those heroes.
You can be a hero, but you have to be your own biggest fan, your own enemy, and your own friend.
