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December: Do We Need Heroes?
In Trickster's Choice, Dove tells Aly, "Everybody needs heroes...Everybody. Even grown women. Even slaves." Do you think this is true? Who are your heroes?
9 comments:
I guess there's two ways to look at it. There's the literal way, that everybody needs a hero who will save them and come to their rescue or the other way, in that everyone needs someone to look up to and want to be like.
I think the latter is more necessary then the former. Having a hero you look up to and want to be like can drive a person to be more than they are and work harder.
If you just have someone swoop in and save you whenever there's a little bit of trouble, you don't learn anything and you make the same mistakes. In theory its romantic or sweet or whatever, but in practice the 'hero' is just breeding laziness and stagnancy.
Absolutely everyone needs heroes, and when I read this quote, I think more about the type of hero who is a mentor or role model, rather than the rescuer/hero. Heroes suggest that there is hope in the world, that change can happen and that hard things are possible. Everyone needs this kind of hope, no matter their position in life.
Yes, everybody needs heroes, but it doesn't mean we get them very often. And we need both types, the rescuer and the inspiring role model. A stranger saved my life once. I don't know who he was but I can still see him in my mind and it was many years ago. Even the memory of him is rather inspiring for me because when I think about it I know that I must act to help if I'm ever faced with a crisis like he was.
I love this discussion of two types of heroes. Heroes inspire, in any form, and I think they're essential to a life lived with hope and aspiration.
Me, too, Melissa. Great differentiation between heroes! I love it!
My mom is a hero for certain. :~)I think of the divas as heroes, too.
We definitely need heroes. I have so many--people that inspire me in many ways. Inspire me creatively, inspire me as a person, inspire me intellectually....
Here is my current list (in no particular order), which I actually made a couple of weeks ago, before you even posted about it!
Holly Cupala
Justina Chen Headley
Lorie Ann Grover
Dia Calhoun
Jaclyn Moriarty
Regina Spektor
George Grant
Douglas Wilson
Shannon Hale
Hallie Todd
Glenn Withrow
Thomas Wilson Brown
Lesley M. M. Blume
Kirsten Miller
C.S. Lewis
William Shakespeare
Audrey Hepburn
Sarah Miller
Holly Orr
Beth Kephart
Melissa Walker
Traci Van Deventer
Johnny Depp
Roald Dahl
J.K. Rowling
I got this book for my birthday last year. Yes, I do think everybody needs heroes. But, they don't appear all that often, do they?
Ah, Erin! I'm so touched. Thank you so much for including me on your list of heroes.
I believe that heroes are critical to civilisation. We need larger than life figures to look up to, to inspire us, to emulate, to lift us above the everyday, to keep us filled with hope.
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