March 21, 2012

What makes for a good hero?

What makes a good hero? (Spoilers below the fold for To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, and Shakugan no Shana.)

 

 

I've written about what makes a good villain. Five points:

  1. Hubris: He thinks he's strong and dangerous because he is  strong and dangerous. But he isn't quite as strong as he thinks he is, which  is why...
  2. Nemesis: he eventually gets what's coming to him. Maybe it's  incremental punishment, or maybe it's a grand reckoning, but in the end he  suffers and probably dies. And before it happens, he knows what will happen to  him and why. When it happens, in the eyes of the audience there should be a  feeling of justice being done, and feeling of triumph.
  3. Comprehensibility: We understand his motivation, even though we may  not agree with it. What he does makes sense.
  4. Menace: Serious villains should genuinely scare us.
  5. Attraction: But villains should also be a bit seductive. There  should be just a little bit of a temptation to root for the bad guy over the  good guys. We should admire the bad guy, just a little, maybe. And feel just a  bit sorry for him in the end.

But what about the good guy? What makes for a good hero? These are my opinions; you may have others. But here's my opinion:

  1. Superiority: He's better than I am. I can look up to him, and  admire him.
  2. Imperfection: But he ain't perfect. Perfection leads to Marty  Stu-ness which, ironically, prevents
  3. Identification: While I'm watching him, I can pretend to be him,  and enjoy his triumphs, and sympathize with his defeats.
  4. Personality: He can't be generic. He needs to be a distinct  invidivual, and I need to believe in him as a person. (But note: there's a difference between personality and eccentricity.)
  5. Virtue: Why is he in this fight, anyway? I want him to want  to be there. He's fighting for a good cause, because he's a good person. Just  fighting for survival, or fighting because he has no choice, isn't enough.
  6. Victory: And after great struggle and trial, I want him to win in  the end, so I can enjoy that victory along with him.

I came to the conclusion that Cell in DBZ and Friagne in Shakugan no Shana were just about the best villains I had ever seen. By contrast, Kid Buu in DBZ and Telestina in Railgun are terrible.

So who are good examples of heroes? I have two in mind: Sai Akuto from Daimaou and Cinque from Dog Days.

In villain, it is comprehensibility where most writers fail. Kid Buu is a terrible villain because he's a halfwit. He isn't any kind of character; he's more like an inimical force of nature. He kills and destroys because... well, why? It's seems to just be what he does.

And Telestina? Well, the writers have fallen back on the easiest out for her: she's utterly insane. How she became insane is indeed explained, but it makes her ultimately into a shrieking witch, more of a caricature than a character.

Friagne is exactly the opposite. We know what he's after. It's crazy, but it's straightforward, and everything he's doing makes perfect sense in terms of his motivation. He does what he does because of love.

But failed heroes are failures for all kinds of reasons. Kouta, in Kanokon, is a multi-faceted failure. He isn't superior; I don't admire him. He is imperfect, but without superiority that doesn't help. I don't identify with him. He doesn't have any kind of personality. And so on.

What makes Akuto work for me? And Cinque? I believe in them as characters. They are distinct people to me. They're both better than I am, but not so much better as to put them out of reach. And I like and admire them both.

They're both virtuous. That's part of what I admire about them. So when they win, I cheer for them, and feel good about the victory. Their victories were difficult; they didn't walk all over their opponents. But their victories were not flukes, either. I believed they both could win, the way they did win.

Which brings me to Marika, in Mouretsu Pirates. I think she's going to turn out to be one of the best heroes (or heroines), because she satisfies all my criteria. She, too, is better than I am, but she isn't perfect. I may have a bit harder of a time identifying with a girl than with a boy, but not so much so as to prevent me from enjoying the show.

She does have personality. I believe in her as a character, and know her as an individual.

What motivates her? She has accepted the job of being captain of the Bentenmaru, and with that she now has responsibility for the lives of her crew. If she makes the wrong decision, all of them could die. But if she refuses to decide, that too could lead to disaster. She has to take risks; it's part of the job. As Grace Hopper once said, "A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for." A pirate ship, in particular, isn't about safety. It's about calculated risk.

Marika wants to be a good captain. She wants to lead the ship, to take calculated risks, and to win. I believe in her motivation; it's a good one. Quite admirable.

And I assume she is going to win. It isn't the kind of show where they're going to slap us in the face. We won't be seeing Bentenmaru exploding with loss of all hands.

There are a lot of reasons why I like Mouretsu Pirates, but Marika is easily the most important reason.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 11:18 AM | Comments (29) | Add Comment
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1 Admittedly, I watch and read different fiction than you, but I would say that the most common failure for heroes these days is the Superiority/Virtue element ( I think they are closely related, and if I were doing the list myself I'd combine them ).  In a misguided attempt to make the hero "identifiable", the writer accidentally strips away all virtue from the character.  At best, you get an anti-hero, at worst, you get a monster you are supposed to cheer for.

Probably the worst such example is from the TV show Buffy, where the titular heroine ceased to have any discernable virtues after season 5.

Posted by: metaphysician at March 21, 2012 11:31 AM (3GCAl)

2 Re: Buffy and Heroes - indeed, I think Spike came off as the hero in the end - which is odd, as Whedon's whole point was to posit the strengths of women.  Or something.

I think Whedon is a talented smart guy in search of a framework, and I don't think he 'gets' what makes a hero.  He has unique and memorable characters for sure, but it gets tough trying to figure out who the hero is from one point to the next.

One of his enduring characters is Malcolm Reynolds - and I can never decide whether Mal is a true hero -- albeit highly flawed -- or an antihero who ends up doing the right thing.

So...  is an antihero who ends up winning anyway, for all the right reasons, also a hero?  Or does that very concept preclude the character from being anti-heroic in the first place?

Posted by: dkallen99 at March 21, 2012 11:39 AM (2lHZP)

3 Actually, I don't think it was really Whedon's intent, he just burned out and lost interest.  Hence, sloppy writing and overseeing.

Anyway, I would argue that if an "anti-hero" starts doing the right thing, for the right reasons, and wins?  He's a hero, and probably was in the first place.  Just a reluctant or lost one.  I think anti-hero gets tossed around more often than it should be.

Posted by: metaphysician at March 21, 2012 11:56 AM (3GCAl)

4 I think the best villain I've seen in anime is Joker from the ROD series. He is rather unique in that he treats his minions with respect and gets impressive results from them. He also has no superpower other than an iron will that actually intimidates the heroes who do have superpowers. He might also be considered an 'anti-villain' given his motives and actions.

Posted by: TBlakely at March 21, 2012 12:41 PM (FrffM)

5 So out of the three, Kirika, Mireille, and Chloe, which are villains, and which are heroes? 

Posted by: dkallen99 at March 21, 2012 01:22 PM (2lHZP)

6 I classify Mireille and Kirika as "protagonists", not as "heroes".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 21, 2012 01:44 PM (+rSRq)

7 Actually, to me, Marika approaches Marty Stu territory.  Just too much awesomeness and composure in a a sixteen year-old package.  Whether it's fighting off armed pirate ships from an unarmed passenger ship, or advising young princesses on keeping their nerve, she just doesn't get rattled, and is always even with her challenges, if not a step ahead of them.

The flip side of the perfect hero, is the incompetent hero.  Take Shana herself, for instance.  She's a great Flame Haze, but so totally impossible in interpersonal relationships. After a while, it just gets tedious, and I ceased empathizing with her.  On the other hand, Marjorie Daw from the same series, is a truly flawed hero -- a drunk, uncaring about the harm she does (at first), lonely and self-isolated. Yet she becomes the best rounded of the heroes in all her flaws and virtues. 

Posted by: ubu at March 21, 2012 01:57 PM (i7ZAU)

8 Well, Marika is smart enough, and has had enough support during her life, that she's never had to deal with failure -- yet.  (She IS only 16, after all.  Most healthy teenagers her age consider themselves infallible.  And it's a self-reinforcing attitude.  To a point.)  It'll be interesting to see if the show paints her into a corner at some point that it doesn't look like she can get out of...and how she'll deal with that.

Posted by: Dave Young at March 21, 2012 03:53 PM (ZAk0Z)

9 Your villain definition really it on the head for me.  One of the things that ruins many stories first for me is the lack of believable motivation for the bad-guy.  If I begin to suspect that the villain has no real motivation, or that his "evil plot" is not advancing towards his goal (if he has one), then I lose my suspension of disbelief.  After that, I don't really care who wins anymore.

As for heroes, I am a little more forgiving for lack of obvious motivation (cue the mysterious drifter), but the hero will need to make up for it in other areas.  In my opinion, the "rule of cool" can help a poorly-motivated hero more than it can a poorly-motivated villain.

Posted by: Siergen at March 21, 2012 05:50 PM (3/gGt)

10

Too many villains are depicted as doing bad things just because they're bad people, or doing bad things because they're insane.

Both of those are cop outs by the author.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 21, 2012 07:10 PM (+rSRq)

11

And regards heroes, a very common mistake is to think that making the audience envy the hero is the same as making the audience admire him. It ain't true.

This is particularly common in harem shows, where they assume that having a bunch of girls throw themselves at the protagonist is enough to make us want to watch. That, for instance, is the biggest mistake that Kanokon made. Even if that sorry loser has gorgeous women chasing him, I still don't like the guy.

And in such a case, where the guy being chased has no obvious redeeming characteristics and it's obvious that real girls would not be chasing him, it can bring about disbelief. And envy can turn into resentment.

I think this is one of the big mistakes that mecha shows in general, and Infinite Stratos in particular, made. Ichika is being set up as a target of audience envy, not audience admiration. There is a degree to which he is admirable, but not enough, and the way all those girls throw themselves at him just isn't plausible to me, even with a degree of suspension-of-disbelief.

Fantasy wish-fulfilment also isn't the same as admiration.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 21, 2012 07:18 PM (+rSRq)

12 By the way, Yamato Bouichiro in Daimaou is also a pretty good villain. He is arrogant. He does eventually meet nemesis. We do understand what he is after, and to at least a small extent we do sympathize (or at least I did). And he is attractive. But he's also genuinely frightening (at least to me).

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 21, 2012 07:26 PM (+rSRq)

13 On consideration, I think you can probably apply the same set of criterion to measuring anti-heroes, with the proviso that they use a different definition of "virtue", a more morally neutral one.  In a grey and grey story, there may be no good guys. . . but somebody who decides what is important to them, and then sticks to it in defiance of the world around them has a virtue of their own.

Posted by: metaphysician at March 21, 2012 08:33 PM (3GCAl)

14 Telestina did have better motivation, as you pointed out:

As for Ichika, he did demonstrate bravery in saving his comrades like Laura and even protected poachers at risk to himself. The other main reason for his attracting girls is hypergamy. Like Cecilia's story in the novels, (Her father was a spoiled and timid man who had little influence both inside and outside the Alcott family which made her swore to never marry a weak man {A difficulty due to the shift in social status}), it will be almost impossible for the girls to meet men of equal status to themselves. Ichika's their best shot.

Can a series be good even without a good villain?

Posted by: muon at March 22, 2012 01:30 AM (JXm2R)

15 Of course it can. In Dog Days there is no villain at all.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 22, 2012 05:56 AM (+rSRq)

16 Haibane Renmei had neither heroes nor villains, and is the best I've seen.

Posted by: dkallen99 at March 22, 2012 08:08 AM (2lHZP)

17

"Can a series be good even without a good villain?"

The above two...  Many stories are "man vs environment" or "man vs himself" or "man vs god/fate" etc. rather than "man vs man".  Dog Days and Haibane Renmei

"Can a series [that has a villain] be good even without a good villian?"

Harder to do, but if the real story is, say, the love story between Hero A and Hero B (example: ) and not the conflict with the villain, then it can still work, even if the villain is a bland destroy-the-world nihilist.

Posted by: Mikeski at March 22, 2012 02:14 PM (1bPWv)

18

Generally speaking, there isn't any villain in a good sports story. There aren't any in Saki, for example. Lots of competitors, but no villains.

Generally, including a villain in a sports story is a descent into melodrama, and usually ruins it.

Coming-of-age stories often don't need a villain. There wasn't any villain in Someday's Dreamers.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 22, 2012 02:30 PM (+rSRq)

19

"Can a series [that has a villain] be good even without a good villian?"

It's tough. The villain in Divergence Eve wasn't very good. As usual, the problem was that his motivation was mostly opaque.

The series managed to surmount that challenge and achieve greatness anyway, mostly because he wasn't the biggest challenge Misaki had to win against.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 22, 2012 02:46 PM (+rSRq)

20 Campanella was basically villainless, too. Didn't stop it from ramping the fighting up though.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at March 22, 2012 02:49 PM (5OBKC)

21 One could argue that Nanoha season 2 doesn't really have a villain, either.


Posted by: metaphysician at March 22, 2012 07:24 PM (3GCAl)

22 I do count him, as it turns out.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 22, 2012 07:54 PM (+rSRq)

23 ubu - totally agree with you regarding Shana and Marjorie Daw.  I just watched the end of Shakugan no Shana 3, and the third series had to be one of the most damnedly (is that a word??) confusing train wrecks I have ever tried to decipher.  Shana and Yuji's actions and motivations made absolutely no sense.  But Marjorie Daw; now there is a woman who knows what the hell she wants, and communicates it very effectively!!

Posted by: Tex Lovera at March 25, 2012 07:28 PM (F8QeG)

24 Will Pirates have a good villain (presumably the person trying to kill Marika), and if not, will that lack detract from it?

Posted by: muon at March 26, 2012 04:24 AM (JXm2R)

25 I don't think Mouretsu Pirates is going to have a villain. And I suspect we're never again going to hear about those who tried to kill her.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 26, 2012 07:59 AM (+rSRq)

26 Pirates is looking like another victim of the "light novel syndrome,"  same as Haruhi, Shana, Bakemonogatari and FMP.  Publishers will rarely commit to a multi-volume story arc to start out, so the first arc is pretty much self-contained, or no longer than three light novels (maybe 9-12 anime episodes) long.  The first story is good, maybe even great, so it becomes a hit.  Then the author, who hasn't worked out all the depth necessary or laid the groundwork to support a longer story, has to capture lightning in a bottle again. 

The author of Crest of the Stars was able to beat that jinx, because it took him ten years to find a publisher, during which he refined his story and universe.

It's becoming apparent that Pirates is not such a case. It may still be a good series, but not a great one.

Posted by: ubu at March 26, 2012 10:41 AM (i7ZAU)

27

 I think that's exactly right.

Marika was attacked in the first episode because that was exciting. The Odette II was attacked later, because that was even more exciting. And that was pretty much the only reason why it happened.

I am not sure I believe that the author really thought through who did the attacking and why. In fact, I think it likely he did not do so. And either it'll get retconned later, probably badly, or they'll just drop it entirely and never mention it again.

There's been a whole lot of Rule of Cool going on, and I don't expect that to end. The ending of the Golden Ghost Ship arc was totally Rule of Cool. And I have to admit, that if you aren't too concerned about things making sense, it really was cool. But in other ways, it was more than a bit underwhelming, even disappointing.

I expected better of Sato. But I guess he's been distracted by Lagrange, and decided to make these books straight instead of fixing the problems.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 26, 2012 10:59 AM (+rSRq)

28 Meanwhile Lagrange gets a reasonably positive receiption, and it was only 1 cour.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at March 26, 2012 11:32 AM (5OBKC)

29

I'm certainly going to keep watching. And I do hope they decide to do the "Cosplay Pirates" story, just because it sounds like it would be a kick, and it would be an opportunity to spend more time with the Yacht Club.

But I don't think there's any series-level plot line. And I think we're never going to get the full story behind some of the things we've seen, for the simple reason that there isn't one.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 26, 2012 11:38 AM (+rSRq)

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