User talk:ZachsMind/Concept

"Heroes" The Show as analysis of The Concept "Heroes"

I was trying to ascertain from this article just how many characters in the story really are heroes. Based on this article, one could hypothesize that up to the point of "Distractions" there are only nine characters which have certainly performed indisputably heroic actions.

• Claire saved the man in the train.
• Nathan saved his brother from falling.
• Matt & Audrey saved Molly from Sylar.
• Hiro and DL saved that couple from the car wreck.
• Niki realized after Jessica struck Micah, that the only 'right' action left available to her was to turn herself in.
• Eden put herself in harm's way to try and kill Sylar, and when she failed in her effort she destroyed her grey matter hoping that would keep Sylar from aquiring her ability. Didn't work, but still, heroic effort.

Other characters performed other actions which can be added to this list.. and as I review my own list of unselfish actions where risk was involved, I question even these examples. Claire had figured out she couldn't take permanent damage, so what was she risking when she went into that train? The answer to that is normality. The world could have found out she wasn't normal. She dodged that bullet by allowing another cheerleader to take the credit, and ultimately get killed in her stead, because Sylar thought Jackie was Claire. So there were consequences for her initial actions which led to Homecoming. In that moment however, when Claire was faced with entering a burning train to save a dying man, she was not risking herself physically. She knew she'd be okay. So to her, the risk was equivalent to saving a drowning puppy from a babbling brook. There are certainly risks, but they are negligible. Would we still consider that heroic?

If you have special powers that allow you to know things others don't know, go places others can't, or withstand pressures that would kill normal people, is it heroic to use these abilities? Is Audrey more heroic than Matt because she goes into danger without any telepathic abilities alerting her to other dangerous people potentially in a room. She doesn't know what her enemy is thinking, so she's comparatively blind. Does that make her more of a hero? Does Matt having this crutch make him less of a hero? Or is he just as heroic cuz given the opportunity but not the power, he'd probably rush in there anyway where fools fear to tread? And what of the motive? Is Matt doing heroic things because he honestly wants to do the right thing, or like Audrey is he playing hero because he thinks it will improve his chances of advancement and allow him the notoriety offered to a hero? Does telepathy improve the odds of being seen a hero, or being seen a weirdo mutant crazy guy, or worse a pathetic liar pretending to have abilities? If he's a hero in the eyes of his wife, does it matter that the entire police department thinks he's a loser?

Nathan either couldn't or didn't save his wife in that car wreck, but he did and could save his brother from falling. Then he told everyone that Peter was suicidal and didn't die by stupid luck, in order to protect his own reputation. Does lying about a heroic deed negate the act, or amplify the humility of the do-gooder? Was Nathan trying to protect both him and Peter from being dissected by people like Bennet, or was he just selfishly protecting his own reputation as a public figure? In that nanosecond of fight or flight, he didn't rescue his wife. He instinctively flew out of harm's way, and then helplessly watched his wife become a parapeligic. Had he spent that nanosecond trying to pull her with him out of the car, perhaps they'd both be dead now. Would that have been heroic, or just stupid?

I didn't include Isaac in my above list of nine, as he hasn't done anything particularly heroic yet, but he has managed to successfully (for now) defeat an addiction to heroin. That alone is arguably a Herculean task, and therefore arguably kinda heroic - anyone related to a person who beats drug addiction could compare it to an heroic act. However, is that really objectively an action that one could say makes a hero? Did his time at the paper company serve as an heroic act, or were the facilities there what did most of the work for him? Is Eden or Bennet responsible in any way for getting Isaac off the stuff, and does that lessen Isaac's heroism for himself? I could go on and on citing each example and looking at the ramifications and permutations of each act but this thing got too long already. Are any of these people really heroes? ...is what I'm trying to ask. -- ZachsMind 13:34, 11 February 2007 (EST)