The Most Heroic Hero

Parth Garg
Sep 5, 2018 · 4 min read

In our ancient history, the primitive days of the human civilization, our literary heroes were very nearly gods. And as civilization advanced, they came down the mountain of the gods, and became more human, more flawed, more realistic, and less heroic. From the divine heroes like Hercules, down the mountain to the miraculous but mortal heroes such as Daedalus and Robin Hood, Great leaders such as King Arthur, and to the great but flawed heroes like Macbeth or Othello. Even below, are the more recent and relatable heroes like Harry Potter, or Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. Until finally we reach the ‘Anti-Hero’. As opposed to the name, the anti-hero is not the villain, not the antagonist. He is actually the main character in some contemporary works of fiction.

We have Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series, the famous Sherlock Holmes from the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass, and Light Yagami from Deathnote. We root for them and yet distance them from ourselves. We feel conflicted over these characters — simultaneously loving as well as hating them. We both despise and appreciate these characters because somewhere, we find it easier to identify them with the real world. And yet, nobody wants to be them.

It is because of our inability to accept our flaws, the human desire to hide them. We are afraid, that we are just like them — flawed, immortal, lost. No one wants to recognize the parts of themselves that may resemble these characters. And why do so? Why be the anti-hero, when you can be the hero itself! The strong one, the pure one, always doing the right thing, making the right choice, hailed by all in all its glory. As easily as we perceive that idea, it is with that swiftness that we ignore the unattainability of our desire. Life is not binary, there are no two dimensional characters, it’s not either totally black or completely white. It’s different shades of grey!

The truth is, that we all mess up sometime or the other. We all fall — sometimes so hard, that the very memory seems to be a ghost haunting our minds. And that’s the point where the human nature to take the easy way out tempts us to take on the victim role. The helpless one, the unaccountable one. It is in such times, that we truly want to distance ourselves from the anti-hero, from the characters we half-root for!

And maybe, that is something we should be doing a little bit more often, half rooting for ourselves. Loving the half of ourselves that we admire and working on the half that needs progress. Upon separating the two halves, we get a Black-White image of ourselves. The amount of energy it takes to shift from one part to the other seems just too much. We forget that we are already halfway there, that it’s not all bad! We need to look at ourselves as we are — not as we were, or as we want to be — and believe that it’s not entirely one way or the other.

The Yin-Yang Symbol

Just like in the Yin-Yang symbol — it is both the black and the white swirls that complete the circle, we too contain both the parts — the positive and the negative. Moreover, each swirl has a dot of the opposite color, meaning that each and everything in the universe contains the seed of their polar opposite. You are not a hero, here to save the day. Neither are you the villain, crushing others on your way to victory. You are, a little bit of both.

The best part about these anti-heroes is that in the end, it is these characters that turn things around. Transformation is the very essence of an anti-hero. It is them who dare to pick themselves up and move on to morph into something new, grow into something better. They are honorable than victims and realer than heroes. They know their dark parts as well as the good ones, and that their demons do not have to sniff out the light within them. As hopeless a situation may seem to them, they do not wait for someone to come and help them. Instead they fend for themselves. Eventually, doing the impossible. Eventually, emerging as victors in the true sense of the word!

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade