Forum:WT:Heroes

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Time for my next weekly tip. (Yeah, I'll try to make these weekly.)

Unlike last week, which focused on a novel and divulged several lessons from it, I'm going to focus on one lesson and cite several examples. A universal principle I feel needs to be discussed is what makes a "hero".

Just about every Star Wars story has a hero. It is simply a characteristic of stories, a universal principle that is understood all over the world throughout the history of the human race. Heroes are necessary for stories to accomplish anything. This is true whether the story is comedy, tragedy, or epic. What distinguishes these specific genres are the types of heroes in the story.

What is a hero?
You might have heard the adage "A hero is someone you want to be like." This is by and large applicable to fiction. While dictionary definitions tend to highlight that heroes have virtuous qualities or are capable of something most people aren't, the core essence of a hero is simply that any third person wants to be like the hero. Except that's false, because in fiction, a hero isn't someone you want to be like, a hero is someone you can understand and connect to. Wanting to be like someone is a subset of the ability to connect with someone, so taking the broader definition helps my point that all fiction is characterized by the inclusion of a hero.

The real question is how one should go about writing a hero. Let it be established that whatever Star Wars Fanon story you're writing, it's worthless if there's no hero. Nobody will care about your story if they can't connect to a character. All you need now is a good hero, someone that your audience will connect to. Now, because I chose such a broad definition, we can now examine the many different types of heroes and see what they all have in common.

Because the definition I presented is intentionally broad, how to go about writing a hero depends greatly on what type of fiction you intend to make. A comic hero connects to the audience by a combination of pity and amiability. A tragic hero connects to the audience because the audience cares about his loss. An epic hero connects to the audience because the audience wants to be like him.

Now let me just say that all of these heroes are valid for Star Wars Fanon. Even comic heroes aren't necessarily classified as the forbidden joke articles that seem to be detested on this wiki (much to my remorse; writing funny stories was fun). What classifies a comic hero is mainly a blissfully ignorant way of rolling with the punches.

Characteristics of various heroes
One thing that is generally understood to be true about heroes is an enviable degree of virtue, which holds strong despite the temptations of evil. This is almost always true of an epic hero, and can apply to almost any other kind of hero, but it is not really necessary. For example, Starkiller in The Force Unleashed is what is called an anti-hero, or a character the audience connects to whose actions are not "heroic," or virtuous. It is entirely possible to write an evil hero. What matters most is the connection the audience is able to make. What matters is that the audience cares what happens to him, or because of him.

Flaws and virtues
However, in the case of a comic hero, I highly recommend that he has a degree of morality that causes him to persist in his quest despite any mistakes or circumstances. A comedy is made a comedy, not by Steve Martin slapstick-a-thons, but by ironic scenes that are carefully set up due in part to a flaw of the comic hero's character. However, unlike tragedies, where the hero loses something and kills himself or something, a comic hero's character flaw winds up both getting him in and out of trouble by the end, and the ending is usually happy. A useful technique when making a comedy is by making the hero's flaw the same thing as the hero's virtue, as the hero, who is pitied, but not envied, by the audience, would get in his ironic scenes because of a good thing, which adds substance to the concept. Tragic heroes are all about a single character flaw winding them in trouble too, except the ending is sad. What makes a comic hero have the audience laugh instead of cry is that his flaw, often the same as his virtue, causes him to not ultimately lose everything.

An epic hero's flaw can also be the same as his virtue; for example, in Return of the Jedi Luke temporarily gives in to his anger because of his love for his sister.

So now that we've affirmed that just about every hero has one, let's ask ourselves: Why does that help an audience connect? I'll make this short and sweet: Virtues are enviable, flaws make the virtues seem attainable in an epic hero. A tragic hero's virtue makes the audience feel more sorry for him when his flaw gets the best of him. A comic hero's virtue gives the hero reason to keep going and making the audience laugh, and the hero's flaw allows the writer to make an ironic scene.

Control
Heroes are neither omnipotent dictators of their destinies nor helpless victims of fate. To have sympathy from the audience, a hero should be able to perform something admirable, but must have limitations.

A common mistake for Star Wars Fanon is to make an epic hero have an unbelievably high degree of control of any given situation. Characters such as these tend to be classified as "Mary Sues," but this isn't always the case. An example of a well-written character who is the master of just about any situation is Thrawn, but he is not an epic hero (Jedi Master 76 inspired me to do one of these tips on the Thrawn Trilogy sometime, so I'll save my substance on this matter for when that happens). What really makes a hero too powerful or too weak is how easy it is to overcome his challenges. When you have a cunning, dashing, muscular, witty, noble king, you might call him a Gary Stu, but if there is uncertainty as to who wins in a confrontation, the author is successful in creating the suspense necessary to make the audience care about the epic hero. Superhero flicks tend not to involve that much petty crime. Superman could defeat all the bank robbers in the world in his sleep, but supervillains and masterminds are much more difficult to defeat. When a hero's adversary is his equal or his superior, the audience has a much greater tendency to root for him.

Tragic heroes, in order to have successful tragedy, must have the opportunity and power to prevent the ultimate downfall from happening. This is true of tragedies from Romeo and Juliet to Revenge of the Sith. Usually the loss of control that results in the hero's downfall is a silly small thing, such as what is seen in Romeo and Juliet. Really what destroyed their happy ending was the fact that Romeo fell for Juliet's trick, a trick that Juliet intended for everyone except Romeo. But fanfictioneers seldom try to replicate Shakespeare, so I won't go too deep into that. The point is that a tragic hero must have a hope of redemption (I choose the word "redemption" because usually something bad happens mid-way, such as Anakin's slaughter of the Sand People and Count Dooku), making the tragedy not seem inevitable. Anakin had the choice to save Palpatine or Mace Windu in that fateful duel, and I'm sure he knew what was the right choice. Instead he took the selfish choice, which is his critical point of loss of control that results in his downfall.

The irony of a comic hero is most necessary in this aspect. A comic hero should think he has control, but the events of the story should expose the character's comic flaw, which leads to the audience's perception that the hero is not in control at all. The common twist in a modern comedy is that the comic hero is revealed to have a greater degree of competence than the audience presumed, which takes the admiration of a triumph as seen in an epic and enhances it with the pity of a comic hero.

Origins and destinations
Modern heroes tend to have humble origins, though traditional heroes, such as those in ancient Greek plays and epics, were often kings. What really matters is not the origin or the destination, but the journey from the former to the latter. This is what makes a story. If you just tell an audience that a slave boy became the galaxy's most feared warrior, you will get their interest because they want to know how such a thing could happen. They want to know the journey, not the outcome. They want to share the hero's adventure.

What distinguishes a tragic hero from an epic hero is the order of the story. A tragic hero starts out happy, but ends up sad. An epic hero starts out sad, but turns out happy. Yes, this is a gross oversimplification. After all, the comic hero can start out happy or sad and end up happy or sad, or something else entirely. Just look at all the Pink Panther movies.

Every hero has a quest. These quests are usually motivated by their virtues. An epic hero and a comic hero are often indistinguishable in that they have righteous goals that could seem bigger than life. To make the audience care for your hero, the journey must be a combination of something the audience can identify with and something the audience has never seen before (so it's treated as original and fresh).

Hero's map

 * Epic hero
 * Example: Luke Skywalker
 * Virtue: Responsibility and friendship. He takes charge of his life instead of moping around all the time,
 * Flaw: Naiveté
 * Control: Powerful in the Force, great pilot, takes responsibility.
 * Loss of control: Han Solo repeatedly saves his butt. From Vader, from the Wampa, etc. The point here is that the epic hero's flaws are compensated by a friend or virtue.
 * Origin: Tatooine, on a farm. Where all heroes are born, even though nobody expects Tatooinians to be heroes.
 * Outcome: Savior to the galaxy. Many times over.
 * Tragic hero
 * Example: Anakin Skywalker
 * Virtue: Love.
 * Flaw: Angst.
 * Control: He's the freakin' Chosen One. He's the most powerful Force user in the history of the Order.
 * Loss of control: He has much to learn. He doesn't know how to stop his dark premonitions from coming true.
 * Origin: Humble, a slave on a remote planet. Mentor takes him under his wing.
 * Outcome: Darth Vader. 'Nuff said.
 * Comic hero
 * Example: Jar Jar Binks
 * Virtue: Innocence
 * Flaw: Clumsiness
 * Control: He harasses the Battle Droids with a bunch of spilled boomas. Unintentionally, of course, but that's the life of a comic hero.
 * Loss of control: Same thing really. That's what makes comic heroes special. Two seemingly opposites are the same.
 * Origin: Exiled/banished. He seems to have lost everything.
 * Outcome: Senator? Who voted for him?

Note on comic heroes: There aren't that many great examples of comic heroes in Star Wars, but comic heroes can be taken seriously. For example, you could have a well-meaning Jedi who saves a planet because of his attachment to a love interest somehow - contrary to Jedi doctrine. There you have a good virtue and flaw, and can work some interesting ironies into it without making it a joke article.