What Makes a Great Hero?
All great heros have one thing in common: they are "reluctant heroes." Think about Harry Potter, Spiderman, Indiana Jones – none of these characters set out to battle wizards or defeat the Nazis. They were thrown into the situation and at first resisted. But through self-reflection they were able to rise to the challenges presented to them and defeat their enemies.
What Makes A Hero Great?
Great heroes are a combination of many things:
- What Aristotle called, "The Great Souled Man" is a person with outstanding abilities, passions or vision.
- A great character will have a system of values they live by. When you give values to your hero, the story becomes a struggle of value systems.
- A character is also made great by the opponent they face. The greater the opponent, the greater the hero.
- Great heroes are also ones that the audience loves. To get your audience to identify with a hero, give him/her a character flaw or weakness. Character weaknesses will cause the audience to identify with the need of the hero.
- The need to change forms the emotional part of the tale and it will give power to your story. Overcoming a character flaw can make your hero great.
- You can also model your hero after an archetype, and this will give your hero power.
I’ve also written an article here:
http://www.betterstorytelling.net/basicstorytelling/whatmakesagreathero.html
> We’ll look at the hero first because, let’s face it, most women read romance novels because they want to read about the hero. Sure, the heroine is important, too, and a badly written or annoying heroine can screw up the entire book, no matter how good the hero. But while a good heroine is vital to the story, the hero is even more important. (For some reason, “even more vitaler” didn’t sound right.) So what does make a good hero? There is no one answer to this question. Contrary to the usual popular opinion, not all heroes in romance novels are alike. There are many different types of hero. Some heroes are leaders, others are poets, many are rakes or bad boys, and still others are the carefree boys next door. Good Traits Naturally, your hero should be heroic. Not all heroes are heroic in the same way, however. And just as some animals in Animal Farm were “more equal” than others, some heroes are more heroic than others. It all depends on what you, the author, can get away with. When m
