The funniest thing about reading Sophocles is...you'd expect those ancient dudes to be really different from us, different in mind or character in some way that reflects the gulf of ages that lies betwixt us. Unso. They're the same people we see around us today. Not literally the same set of individuals, of course, but the same set of flaws.
The difference is, we seem to have lost hold of the concept that a flaw can be heroic in some way. The tragic flaw. The crack in the noble facade, that causes the whole thing to crumble. That humanizes the hero in the end, at great personal expense.
The ancients had a concept of a hero as a noble and wholly-admirable character, but with that one tragic flaw that leads to ruination. Our modern hero tends to be a character who consists of almost nothing but flaws, but with that one shining ability - often mere sheer determination - that leads to redemption. It's very interesting to me, to look at the two types side-by-side. The hero as perfection personified - but with that one flaw that undermines everything; versus the hero as imperfection personified - but with that one virtue that redeems everything.
Of course, there were heroes that fit our more thoroughly-flawed mode, even back in the days of antiquity. Hercules comes to mind. That guy was a walking catastrophe, and one not waiting to happen either. And of course today...there are still some heroes in the old mold. Paragons of Right and Virtue. But the general archetype seems to have changed, and even our old-school heroes seem to have lost the tragic flaw. Unless kryptonite counts as a tragic flaw.
I'd guess that the tragic flaw is just collateral damage; a casualty of the demise of nobility itself. We're not too big on nobility as a virtue these days.
But you know what? I don't think the ancients were either. The whole purpose of that tragic-hero setup was to have the big payoff at the end, where the too-perfect hero is brought crashing down to Earth.
We all love a happy ending.
3 comments:
"Our modern hero tends to be a character who consists of almost nothing but flaws, but with that one shining ability - often mere sheer determination - that leads to redemption."
What modern hero would be an example of this? I'm interested in several examples, if you could provide them.
I think maybe it's a matter of the fact that we don't glorify heroes these days, we glorify people who are good-looking and/or (usually "and") wealthy. People are rarely impressed with true heroes, because they're not glossed up and livin' the good life. But they call the pretty and the powerful "heroes" because they think heroes are people you'd aspire to be like, and people nowadays want to be rich and beautiful. Because so little else matters. A lot more should matter, of course, but it doesn't.
I think I was thinking specifically of action heroes played by Bruce Willis...but in literature as well I think we place a much higher premium on making the protagonist someone as flawed and human as possible, even to the point of flirting with being unsympathetic. But then they go through their character arc and come out the end as admirable, or so it's presented. No? Maybe it's just me.
The idea of an anti-hero who redeems himself (or herself) through her (or his) actions is also fairly prevalent, I think. I don't know why I'm blanking on specific examples. Don't you find it to be so? You're not seeing this?
Huh. I guess I should think about it more. Seems like a lot of Clint Eastwood characters apply. It just seemed like a general tendency to me, perhaps I'm off base if you're not seeing it at all.
I should have clarified, I'm talking solely about fiction. The Tragic Hero archetype is alive and well when it comes to celebrity worship. Build 'em up, to tear 'em down!
2/12/2011: Editorial note. Changed the post title. Was originally called
More Pretentious Woolgathering: A Tragic Flaw
- but I don't know, that "woolgathering" just throws the whole thing for me and I keep wanting the post to have more sheep in it.
Maybe I can do a separate post on that later.
@Blue, yes, I think the kinds of heroes I am talking about are very much popular entertainment "common man" archetypes. Very human, often with some 1 thing that they're just fucking great at, plus determination that pushes them through.
The dichotomy I was trying to cast in relief here was that in the old days, they seemed to want a hero who was a paragon of humanity, who is very usually revered and highly regarded in their world, and whose tragic flaw provides the downfall that "humanizes" them.
In the modern version, the hero is downtrodden to begin with, underdog, spat-upon, put-upon, but has this one thing (sometimes just guts!) that keeps getting pounded home through the character arc that they need to believe in, believe in themself, and through this one thing that makes them special, and/or sheer guts, they are elevated at the end of the piece to a place of adulation.
The old heroes had to be humanized by failure. The theory seems to be that we needed to see them fail for them to be relatable?
The type of modern hero formula I'm talking about reverses it. Start out failed, or at any rate scoffed at, and then triumph to become a hero. Since we've already seen the human and fail-y side, no tragic flaws or sad endings need apply!
So we're talking popular stock fiction heroes here, primarily.
You asked for examples, I kind of blanked, but for actiony examples let's say Rocky Balboa. The Kurt Russell character in Executive Decision. Ralph Macchio's character in The Karate Kid. At least the first Bruce Willis Die Hard movie. For less actiony examples how about Simon Pegg in Run Fat Boy Run if that's what it's called - that movie is pretty much an essay on this type of character.
Pretty much any story that fits the "zero-to-hero" mold probably fits also, though increasingly the people in those are like, total losers to begin with, and are redeemed by super powers. It gets pretty wishy-fulfilly at the shallow end of the trend!
Of course, not every stock shlock action hero fits this description. It's not the only modern hero archetype by any means (and the odd Tragic Hero still crops up of course!). For just one example, I wouldn't say that my ol' pal Steven Segal fits that mold. His characters are pretty much presented as Beyond Human, but with a Heart of Gold.
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