What ancient heroes did for the civilizations of the past was to give them an ideal for the citizens of those civilizations to follow. Ancient heroes upheld the standards that the people saw as desirable, which is why the heroes of the past may not seem as heroic to people in the modern day.
For example, look at Gilgamesh. He sleeps with as many women as he pleases, leaves the city he rules to fight monsters, and goes on a long quest to become immortal, leaving his city with no leader while he's gone. Yet, despite what we might think now, in that time and place, Gilgamesh was considered to be a hero.
I think part of it is also that making a hero with flaws like Gilgamesh just makes for a more interesting story. No one wants to read about a hero who is completely perfect. But I'm not an expert on this, so I could be wrong.
It seems that in all the ancient stories, all heroes had some type of flaws. There was never a perfect hero. Now some heroes live longer and survived longer than others, but at some point in their journey they battles some self inflicting flaws. We see heroes with good looks, super strength, and of divine birth, but many of the times these powers are what lead them to their flaws. I very much agree that the standards for heroes in ancient times have changed widely to the standards of heroes we view today. a question that bothers me is, Are the heroes we view today actual heroes, or are they people helping society doing their jobs?
ReplyDeleteI like the character journey Gilgamesh went through. In the beginning, he was lording over his subjects, raping the women, and drilling his soldiers endlessly. However, throughout his story he overcomes obstacles, wins over monsters, loses his best friend and faces his own mortality. After gaining and losing the key to immortality he returns to his kingdom wiser and becomes a better ruler. He realizes the only way for him to become immortal is to leave a great legacy behind and rebuilds the kingdom of Uruk. It is in his journey as a character that we can view him as a hero.
ReplyDeleteI think we can parallel this in our own lives. We face challenges and hope to become better and wiser by overcoming them.