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>What is a hero?
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Great stuff!
There are two further and interrelated points I'd like to add.
Firstly, the definition of a hero varies with the culture and the age. This is less so in Glorantha, where herodom is tied to measurable ritual abilities, but is still important. A hero from Jolar will be defined by her people in very different ways than a Heortling hero.
In our own western cultures, herodom was for a long time tied to military prowess and use of violence. Women could not be heroes, in fact a man who displayed 'unheroic' behaviour was called 'a woman'. Such hero stories glorify violence and define manhood in the context of violence. Our roleplaying sometimes unthinkingly uses such models, sometimes overturns them, but most often satirises or subverts them. (Conan was a *real* hero to Howard's early twentieth century readers, these days the Thrud-typology bare-chested barbarian is usually played for laughs or with a great deal of irony).
More recently, the word 'hero' has come to be frequently applied to sporting professionals (hmmm - though at least it includes women) and even stockmarket speculators (Digest rules on obscenity prevent me from commenting :)).
Another important strand of our contemporary understanding about the Hero and the Hero's journey is psychological - steaming from the work of Carl Jung and especially his student Joseph Campbell - whose illuminating and frustrating mythology about mythology is still central to our idea of the heroquest.
Campbell defined a hero as someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. On another occasion, he defined two different types of heroic deeds. One, he said, is the physical deed, in which the hero performs a courageous act and saves a life. The other kind is the spiritual deed, in which the hero learns to experience the supernormal range of human life and then comes back with a message [a lesson, a gift, an idea] to share.
For me that's the essence of the hero (the definition is arbitrary but useful). You follow your own passion into realms previously unknown, discover a new truth or way of seeing, and *bring that gift back for the enrichment of their people*. The last aspect is often overlooked, but is crucial: a gift for your community. Heroes understand something is missing from their consciousness, struggle until they find what it is, claim it, then share it.
There's another side too. One thing I've always emphasised in my games is the way *some* (most?) of the greater Gloranthan heroes work to an alien, non-human scale of values. No one merely-human survives contact. Such heroes destroy the village (city, country, continent...) in order to save it. For those who encounter them, (or their armies), there is only suffering, bloodshed and death. And cynic that I am, I include the various Argraths in this category.
The land is *afflicted* by a hero...
This could explain my fascination with Sartar, who is a humanising hero, and my hatred of Harrek, in whom I can find no higher purpose. It doesn't, however, explain my equal fascination with Arkat, who is one of those who sacrificed a continent to an ideal.
We need more Ernaldan heroes!
John
Passion for cosmos itself is an aesthetic act, a commitment to beauty.
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