Go check out my new video talking more about Frodo and Sam as paragon and tragic heroes on Nebula!! go.nebula.tv/hellofutureme Thank you for your support :D
What made cpt. America work so extremely well in the MCU was that despite being a paragon through and through, he wasn't naive. He understood that there was rationale behind the other perspectives. Him and Iron Man ending up at odds with each other was the perfect culmination of virtue ethics vs consequence ethics, and both could respect the other side but be convinced that their side was the right one. That's one way of describing the paragon btw, the personification of virtue. There's a moral compass, not a moral equation. The consequentialist will do the math, while the paragon will have an instinctual ethic (of course, they're never 100% either or, you need some reasoning to sustain virtue, and you need some baseline virtue assumptions to be able to do consequentialist equations anyway).
Adding onto the not neive nature is also character growth. In the beginning & middle Cap was good, but this wasn't always the best move, then you have scenes like in Endgame where a fight could break out & ruin everything so Cap uses deception & trickery to get the advantage both against himself in combat & against the Hydra goons avoiding conflict all together.
Meanwhile in today's Marvel writing: "Just don't be a dick" (the great moral speech that changed the antagonist, Ant man 3) Oh how the mighty have fallen...
Another great example of Captain America being a great hero is how, before he ever got the serum, he jumped over a dummy grenade at boot camp (thinking it was a real, live one) in order to 'save' everyone else. He even waved at others to run and get away, shouting at them to leave him. Paragons are often best shown as Paragons when the character is without power, safety, or ither comforts, yet still fully follow their morals/'duties'.
'What you are in the dark' often applies too. Someone put in a situation where nobody would know. Nobody would see, or even when the less morally right choice would still be applauded because of the situation (you did what you had to do. There was no other good option. Etc.)
My favorite version of the paragon hero is one who has to find self-worth. Like they need to learn that their life has value too and they shouldn’t always be ready to throw themselves away for anything.
The reason people think Superman and Captain America are boring is because doing the right thing is rarely difficult for them. They're superheroes, of course they're going to do the right thing. And they're strong enough to do the right thing with little effort. But stories that subvert this are fascinating. In the MCU, Captain America, the perfect soldier, frequently breaks rank in order to save his friends. In the Justice League cartoon, Superman struggles with Lex Luthor turning public opinion against him. A morally straightforward hero in a morally complex world has lots of potential for great stories.
I myself, don't find them boring but find them to not be morally right even tho the story tries to say it. Superman doesn't have the balls to kill someone to save millions(except that one time he killed darkseide) and this is shown as a good thing when in reality, it's not
@@Wormopera I have no idea how this perspective became so popular, but that's not the case at all. Supes' (and a number of other DC Heroes) Issues regarding killing people is as follows: The entire point of bringing in the criminals they take on alive is so that the Judicial System does its due duty, once Supes and his crew start executing (like do you have any idea how easy it is for a lot of DC Heroes to kill? Some are strong enough that they could flick a forehead and explode someone's brain. Others were quite literally trained by some of the world's greatest assassins, so it would be child's play to end someone's life.), how would you think that would impact on the world? Characters like Diana and Arthur have faced backlash in universe before for extra-judicial killing, which in Diana's case resulted in the Amazons going to war against the entire World...and almost being wiped out had it not been for their goddesses stepping in. If you want to be pissed at someone, look at the citizens of DC's Earth and ask yourself, how they keep falling for Joker's insanity pleas or Luthor's sob stories that got him elected as President. How about USA's Cadmus Project that has actually created supervillains or even cloned Superheroes to try to "counter their threat to the United States"? Then if we're talking about extraterrestrial threats, are you absolutely sure that killing here is actually a good thing, especially if it could to a galaxy-spanning civilization to attack Earth in revenge for said "good" death, or what if it led to the full attention of a Lantern Corp? And I haven't even touched on that either, that the deaths could and has in fact empowered far more powerful and malevolent forces, which given the Black Entity, Parlements, or Gods, is a very real and present threat. That's just considering in Universe reasoning, even fans irl have been up in arms against DC when Superman killed off villains, writers and artists have had hate mail coming in to put them on blast for "ruining Superman". In universe, there are a lot of things to consider before a hero ends a life, the least of which being, how will everyone else react to this. IRL there's the fan backlash to consider as you will have people preaching and shouting that such and such a character would never do it and it's not in character...like what happened the Man of Steel Movie when Supes killed Zod, something he has done before in comics mind you.
Chosen Ones like Percy Jackson,Avatar Aang,Lyra Belacqua actually have personality in the Form of sass,but Hollywood thinks The Chosen One must be bland for self insertion.
Agree with both of these comments. Lyra is just a child and many conflicts stem from her struggle to do the right thing when the world around her doesn't take her seriously or has simply more power than her. Sass helps.
In reality a lot of us if we were told or proven to be the Chosen One, we'd either be immensely cocky KNOWING we have plot armour, or we'd run away like a shitting chicken because nobody's gonna react smoothly to being told the fate of the world rests purely on their shoulders.
@Jebber I don't think I've ever seen a protagonist who KNOWS they have plot armor. That would be difficult to play straight, but could make for some really interesting conflict where the hero has destiny on their side and is functionally invulnerable, but the people around them are not. Instead of lowering the stakes, they're shuffled around a bit to maintain the tension.
I’ve always felt like a bit of a weirdo for liking pure-hearted heroes so much when everyone around me prefers morally ambiguous or antihero protagonists, so thank you for making this video. As an example you didn’t mention, Adora from She-Ra and The Princesses of Power is a paragon who always does what’s right and sees the best in people, but still is an amazing character.
Morally ambiguous and anti-hero protags are nice, but well written paragons just click for me. Because trying to be so unapolagetically good and willing to be better through all the hardships can be very hard, especially when villian/narrative keep trying to break the protagonist. They may have nothing, but they will still fight and stand for their beliefs and their close ones.
I love the paragon. Being a paragon isn't easy in the real world so why would it be easy in a story? Their whole being is doing what's right and making the world a better place and real world doesn't respond well to that.
She-Ra was a breath of fresh air. I didn't realize how long it'd been since I'd seen a good story about a character with principles trying to do the right thing. I'd missed it and didn't even realize. Some people online openly hate the idea of heroes having principles. They see them as an obstacle to doing good but don't realize those principles are necessary in the aftermath where they have to rebuild what was broken, physically, emotionally, and societally.
I think there's immense social value in having mass media with clear paragons. The problem is making sure that they are paragons of the right kind of morality. Like being anti-torture is easy, but if you get the wrong writer suddenly you just have another lever of neoliberal subjectification rather than an introduction to moral ideals
Paragons are actually my favorite archetype, particularly paired with extremely amoral characters. Where I went to was the StarTrek episode “In the Pale Moonlight” where Sisko (a paragon character) increasingly becomes dragged into dirtier and dirtier business for a noble goal and has to partner with Garak, who is the most amoral and dirty of heroes. Things do not go well and when Sisko confronts Garak over the complete destruction of his principles for the greater good Garak makes the speech that ends with: “T hat's why you came to me, isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing? Well, it worked. And you'll get what you want: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant. And all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain.” Oof, and the best part, Sisko ends the episode with a journal entry insisting that he can live with himself, when it is clear that he doesn’t think he can. Perfect. Paragons are great archetypes, because it is potent when what is right is stood up for, and they can let us explore the cost of that. Was Garak right leads to a lot of soul searching for the audience, and hopefully growth.
Which probably why garak and bashir work so well together, bashir is smart, and clever, but a good person mostly still. And garak, he is drawn to that, and they both inspire each othr and grow as people. Because yeah garak is still new. And he is really into spy fiction and mystry , while garak, is sick off it and extremely cynical and experienced but broken. And bashir is very curious. Like thats why they are o grat togetthr and drawn to each other. I dot think sicois a paragon, he i sometimes but sometimes not an, but bashir absolutely is.
My newest favorite moment for Captain America was I think in Civil War. The comic. He turns himself in after seeing the chaos caused and as the citizens are giving him a mixture of confused comments, insults, and thrown items, he jumps in front of someone else to save them from getting shot. As he's bleeding out, he still is only concerned with the people. The same people were moments ago rewarded his decades of kindness with thrown tomatoes. I really love paragon characters and people who just wanna help people because they're just good people
People seem to think that paragons are boring, and I think it's because you rarely see them given interesting challenges. The paragon always does the right thing, so putting them in a situation where they have to choose between right and obvious wrong doesn't work. If you have a character who's perfect in every way, you need to find different ways to challenge them. Give them a loved one with a terminal disease they can't do anything about, or a complex conflict between two parties with no clear good/bad, or whatever else. You don't challenge a character with superhuman strength by asking them to punch even harder this time. Know your heroes, and know their struggles.
Or, as Red pointed out in her Detail Diatribe, you give them collateral damage to worry about - innocent people in danger and they might not be able to save them all.
@@cailin5301how does that make them better? People don’t like antiheroes because they’re challenged. People like them because they destroy challenges easily.
Kinda like how Jonathan Kent died from a heart attack and Clark freaks out trying to save him, thinking because he's Superman there's something he can do to save him
Paragon might be too strong a term - but when you mentioned the Doctor getting literally millions of planets coming to his aid? Reminds me of FMA (well Brotherhood since I haven't read the manga), when we have all the secondary and tertiary characters lending a hand. The protagonist's kindness being paid back by all the people they've helped coming to their aid - I mean, that just sounds like a perfect scene for a paragon. And that's exactly why my favorite bit from any superhero movie is Spiderman 2, when Spidey stops the train, passes out from the strain, and all the people on the train stand up to Doc Ock for him.
In that vein, the inversion of this is currently at-play in the draft of my novel. Where the villain is a sociopath who doesn't care who he crushes along the way, and lots of minor characters get caught in the crossfire. And that ends up his downfall - people beneath his notice have an opportunity for revenge by helping the main characters.
The entire train scene. New York standing up to Doc Oct, carrying Spider-Man down the entire train but refusing to look at his face. That scene is so fucking good. I love scenes like that. Where the good, all the little things and the big, impacted so many people - even indirectly - that when they had a chance to pay him back, they did without question. Fuck I need to rewatch those movies.
Agreed, thongs like those really help to engage the reader or audience to the story. Could I ask if any of you have some time to maybe indulge this idea of a character and story I've thought about for a bit?
My favorite Superman movie is called Superman VS The Elite. It's a film about Superman meeting a brand new group of superheroes whom the public favors over Superman, as they can get the job done without worrying about the morality that Superman is "restricted" by. They think he's outdated and not appropriate for the modern era. Superman sticks to who he is and tries to show the world that old fashioned goodness still has a place in the world. I think this is excellent commentary on the effectiveness of the paragon archetype. While many view them as boring and no longer interested enough for modern audiences, this movie shows that they can be. I love how the movie comments on both a thematic level within it's own self-contained narrative and also on a meta one with how they show that paragons are still awesome.
I've got Trigun brainrot right now but Vash is one of the best paragons in media in my opinion. He's a gunslinger who refuses to kill, and his choice to be a pacifist definitely has very negative consequences, innocents still die even when he refuses to kill. In fact at times that causes more to actually suffer. Wolfwood is his antihero foil, who is quite willing to kill, and is changed by Vash's ideals, to a tragic end. Everyone should watch/read Trigun, preferably all versions.
CORRECT. I just finished the OG trigun anime and I fucking LOVED it. (I also spent the whole time explaining the bible symbolism to my wife but that’s a a separate kind of brain rot I have)
I wish people would stop trying to avoid following tropes, even if overused. Tropes happen cause they're effective or people like them but didn't know how to execute them. If you try to make a 100% original story, characters and world, then you're gonna fall flat cause that just can't happen. Zombie stories were massive in the 2010's, but since a lot of people were just latching onto what The Walking Dead and The Last Of Us got right, we got tired of the genre quickly.
The "Trope" is an often used Storytelling TOOL... It's neither good, nor bad. It simply is. Among the Tropes in literature, theater, and Cinema, there are Cliches... Those change over time, often even from one year to the next just inside one Genre. THOSE are the ones that were "done to death", and in the Refrain, get tired and worn out. The more novel approach to Genre, Storytelling in general, and Tropes most specifically, is to avoid "following blindly"... Meaning, JUST because JK Rowling (for example) wrote a monumentally successful series of Fantasies based on an Orphaned Kid who turned out to be a Prophecied Chosen One (hero), that doesn't mean YOU are going to instantly hit "Best-Seller Status" by writing the same stories with different names and descriptions... THIS is the problem with "the industry" in the largest sense. It's run by corporations with MOUNTAINS of money "on the line" when a decision is sent into production. Nobody sets out to write and publish a "Colossal Flop"... SO the Corporates hire and insist upon "experts" to find the "formula for success" as if it's something so simple as to be easily and readily boxed, bottled, distilled down, and turned into an objective and quantifiable product. BUT this is ART. Art simply does NOT work that way. There are a lot of formulas to go around and work with in order to create success. Success, itself, is a relative term. Tropes are useful, because at a reference, there are assumptions made that allow a writer to SKIP a lot of substance rather than wile away the prose, page after page, just to introduce a Character... You reference in the Trope, and LET the audience ASSUME... It's later on in the story with "show, don't tell" that you "undermine" the trope here and there, to flesh out your Character in interesting and fun ways... THAT is what makes the story INTERESTING to read. Otherwise, there are only so many ACTUAL plots (less than a dozen) and the ONLY variation from one story to another is how or where (precisely) you shift those plots around in order to create the various Character and Story ARCS that provide the audience with their experience... ;o)
@@HiThereImLily That's all well and good, and my observation still stands. from the hobby writing to keep household kids entertained or for fun and games at get-togethers with friends or family... all the way to class projects in school, or professionally drafted and rewritten work sent to your agent or publishing house... It is what it is... and tropes are a tool. ;o)
One of the things I love about Ned Stark is that years after his death, other character still respect his name and the people associated with him. He’s such a paragon that his impact is still felt even after he’s been gone for a long time.
And it creates a nice contrast with Tywin. He might have won the war for a time by being a ruthless asshole but at the cost of destroying his reputation and legacy, which contributed to house lannister slowly losing everything.
@@legrandliseurtri7495 I would rather be a scumbag like Tywin and had my house “slowly” losing everything than being a paragon like Ned and had my whole house losing everything “overnight”. Remember the red wedding? Things turned out so good for the Starks, wasn’t it?
@@nont18411 so you choose a easy choice you sucrifise long good for a shot term satisfaction because being good is to scary and hard for you that is a definition of weak a coward and evil
@@cosmicdoggo9296 At least it means I’m still alive, not being headless like those of Ned and Robb or down in a gutter like Catelyn. I would rather be someone who abuse people and survive than a moral idiot. If I’m in that world, I would love to be more like Ramsay Bolton than be like any one of the Starks.
When I saw the tittle the first thing that popped into my mind was the few pannels of Superman flying to a girl that is standing on the edge of a building and she just says ,,I am not ready to talk" and you see for the next pannels him just floating next to her without a word as the day ends... Moments like this are how you really do a hero, even Deadpool had a moment like that (there was a comic dub that really gave it justice but I don't remember who made it)
As someone who usually finds Superman boring *THAT* particular set of comic frames was how you do him well. It leveraged his goodness in a genuinely heartwarming way, made it about the human ability to be there for someone. Instead of the typical "The invincible flying brick with super-speed saves the day by being an invincible brick with super speed, as expected".
@@AegixDrakan Those really are the best superman stories. Not the specticle. The fact that at the endo f the day he may be a kryptonian and essentially God in physical form, but he has a human heart and struggles all the same for it.
@@singletona082 there are thousands of Heroes that can beat up the bad guy, but there are just a few that will sit with you and rebuild your small personal world
My spin on my paragon protagonist is that he is one under construction. On the novel I'm trying to write (trying is the word, even though I'm progressing), he has all the right morals to instinctively recognize injustice and what should be done... but not necessarily confidence to do so. His arc is not necesarily about learning what he has to change about himself. He is wise beyond his years. But I always wondered how heroes like Superman and Captain America are never afraid of getting in the middle of a situation, nor really question themselves when acting out of fear of misreading a situation. A fear a lot of people in real life have, in something as basic as human interactions. Basically, what I made is a paragon on construction, trying to overcome his shyness.
@@cosmicspacething3474 good idea. But I like the other way better. A twist paragon would be cool. But getting inside mind of a person who wants to be a paragon would be nice to see and in my opinion bring more diversity in protagonists in literature. (also I kinda saw myself in the description of the OP.)
Best of Luck Johnny. Definitely sounds interesting. It's difficult to be a paragon & very hard to write a not just likable, but admirable. If protagonist isn't OP then it helps
All Star Superman dispels the myth that a paragon Superman is necessarily boring. The Superman in that comic is both deeply human while also sticking with the higher morals that we expect Superman to adhere to. He never loses a single physical battle, yet seeing his internal struggles and the way he changes (or doesn’t change) others makes him an incredibly compelling character.
Lux: I could have saved the world. Superman: If you wanted to save the world, you would have done it long ago. Lux: your right. Best Hero victory over a villain.
One of the things I liked was actually a scene in this video. After General Ross presents the Avengers with the Sorkovia Accords, most of the heroes immediately take a position on them. Meanwhile, Steve Rogers is reading the entire book, looking at everything there before trying to form an opinion. Team Cap!
@@pn2294 Not really. First off, as the commenter said, this is strictly within the DC and Marvel universes, not necessarily ours. Second, I think their point was less you shouldn’t think, and more you don’t really need to as much, as you can trust the judgment of these two characters. Finally, looking at their comment, it’s possible they might be exaggerating a little, so it might not be a good idea to take what they said at face value. With all that said, I think if the idea is “you can generally trust Cap and Superman to take the right stance on a given issue” I’d say that’s fair, especially if we’re talking within their respective universes.
@@benparrish672 I would argue MCU Cap has a lot more failings than 616 Cap (he's honestly kind of... mid. I dunno. Stark is a good update (he's literally just the OG version updated to modern context), but Cap really feels like he's not pushing far enough ahead to be a paragon in the MCU, he's just a meh action hero instead of being moral good above all else, but also willing to take guerilla methods to avoid collateral damage. I'm still salty over how bad they did all sides in Civil War VS the comic where it was made obvious Stark was taking a road to hell paved with good intentions and self-destructing because that's just what he does when he realizes he made everything worse, while Steve is refusing to compromise HIS beliefs which lends him as a fugitive, so he has to start considering where his morals can flex and where he won't yield, but throughout all of it he never makes a blatant shitty decision like MCU Cap with Lagos and haring off after a Hydra agent while trying to find the Winter Soldier or picking violence over Bucky. Like, FFS he literally surrenders himself to Stark instead of causing further collateral damage in 616, where's that concern for innocents in the crossfire again????
I think what makes The Doctor an interesting Paragon character is he knows what he’s capable and during the Time War he did things that he would’ve never done. And so that’s what makes him a a paragon character. He knows the Darkness in him and so with a smile and a screwdriver her helps people. But don’t forget that his Companions are what keep him as a Paragon character
It's an interesting reflection of the personal and social structures people are in When I met people from different parts of the world I realised that people from poor or dangerous backgrounds are drawn to heros who do the right thing and are king but safer people are drawn to darker heros because they've never had to live a constantly threaten life
I love my morally complex, deep, flawed characters as much as the next guy, but I can't help but just love paragon characters so much when they're done so well. They inspire me to be a better person, and makes me believe that even in a dark, complicated world they're still can be people that represent the best of humanity, kindling some light in the darkness, no matter how hard it can be.
At his best, Superman almost always struggles with his role as protector and hero. But he still doesn't become this moping depressed grunt Zack Snyder tried to portray him as.
I like them, but they usually don’t make me feel very inspired 🙉. They usually fail at making the world 🌍 a better place in stories designed 👨🔧 to show them making the world 🌍 a better place. 😂 They are nice 👍🏻 stock characters though.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana Far be it from me to dictate how you write your messages, but don't you think you are overdoing it a bit with the emotes, friend?
Professor Geek made an interesting video about how characters like Superman are aspirational because they are want we want to become but can't though we ought to try. Meanwhile characters like Batman and Spiderman are inspirational in that they are flawed like us but they keep fighting the good fight. Basically one is the end goal and the other is like the road we walk.
It's worth noting that the rules change a bit when you're working with lightly dramatized biographies. For example, I'm perfectly happy with the recent Julia Childs and Mr Rogers shows/movies just being wholesome simple characters who are all about the good vibes.
I also wonder if it's a cultural thing too- the simple wholesomeness of Bake Off is starting to catch on in American television but it does seem very British
Mark from Invincible seems like an interesting take on the paragon hero concept (with the caveat that I've only seen the show, not read the comics). He has a strong moral compass and always wants to do the right thing, but actually _doing_ that ends up being a lot harder than he originally thought. At first, just because the reality of being a superhero involves a lot more death and failure than he'd realized, and then because of the impossible situation his father put him in.
If you can you ought to read the comics because its wild or watch comicsexplained explanation of invincible granted he does add his own opinions here and there but he atleast summaries the comics just enough for you to get whats going on
@@pn2294 And he had every right to be selfish considering everything he’d been through. Also, I love how in the end, he became borderline evil as well considering he established himself as an dictator emperor.
Ah, this brings to mind my favorites - the Elric brothers and Winry Rockbell. SPOILERS FOR FMAB: Their entire arc revolves around them trying to find a way to regain their bodies with the firm resolve to never kill, not just because they're the "good guys", but because they have been through the horror of human resurrection and its devastating effects. They're always determined to help whomever they can, whilst driven by the firm belief to never kill, even when they're in the direst of situations and even when their enemy is willing to kill them. They inspire others around them, even gain some former bad guys as allies in the process and have never been responsible for the deaths of any of the homunculi; Edward also refuses to use his estranged father as a toll for regaining Alphonse's body despite Hohenheim willing to sacrifice himself, and they ultimately succeed in their quest. Winry herself refuses to kill the very person who was responsible for her parents' murder and even helps heal him, while being clear that she isn't doing this out of a passive will to forgive, rather knowing that it is the right thing to do no matter how painful it is. It's not a simple matter of good guys "not killing" and being morally pure - these characters are traumatized and human, and simply do not want anybody else to suffer what they've suffered.
I don't know if I'd call the Eric brothers paragon heroes, as much as I love FMA. The whole story is a redemption arc that starts with their sin, and several of the other major characters have a similar arc. Edward, especially, is short-tempered and arrogant. He has lots of positive qualities, as you say, but he has a lot to learn about morality.
@@pn2294 They go through great lengths to never hurt any villain even when they posed an extreme risk to their own lives. Kimblee for example almost killed Ed and left him to die while he was impaled with steel beams. Ed still refused to harm Kimblee or use the Philosopher's stone to heal himself as he didn't want to use anybody's life for his own, and healed by using his own soul, at the cost of his lifespan. Ed even refuses to use his estranged father for the toll to get Al back, even though their father was an immortal. That is some severe dedication and anything but weak.
I feel like a lot of writers feel they need to include a paragon hero guy who has all the good personality traits so they have more freedom to make the other heroes flawed, and then...never go back and add interesting character traits to the hero, because they assume that will compromise his paragon-ness. In fairness, sometimes that initial feeling comes from managerial pressure to include a Good Example to soak up the heroism, so Concerned Parents or other "moral guardians" don't cause a shitstorm. (Not all publicity is good publicity.) But that doesn't stop these default-settings heroes from being okay at best.
I recently read the book Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini. The book is nearly a hundred years old by this point and for some reason the main character, Peter Blood, really struck a chord with me. Blood is nearly too perfect, he is a doctor, a experienced soldier, a cultured gentleman and smart as a whip. But the thing that gets him into trouble is his good heart. He gets arrested and convicted to indentured servitude in the Caribbean because he took care of wounded rebels in England during a rebelling against the king. He throws away his chance for a pardon, later in the story in order to save his crew and deserts his service as a privateer for the French navy when he realises that the French commanders are using their commission to plunder Spanish settlements and enrich themselves instead of actually pursuing strategic goals. Blood’s problem is that he is a good man in a corrupt world. He doesn’t need to be riddled with character flaws, because most of his conflicts are a direct result of him trying to do the moral thing in a setting where those in power don’t play by moral guidelines.
"You abandoned me Clark, and for what? To save some random people who "needed" you!? Why Clark?" Lois's voice trembled yet she retained an air of authority in her voice "Why?!" I lashed out in rage "Tell me this Lois, If I had never decided to go down this path, If I decide to not use my powers for good then how many more people would have died horrific deaths at the hands of Darksied? You think this is easy??? What's to say you wouldn't have died if I didn't decide to become super man". I don't really know much about Dc but I thought this was an interesting little interaction between Lois and Clark that uses the principles in this video
I feel like something else needs to be added here: paragons work best when they are facing tyrants, because it creates an unstoppable force/immovable object problem. Neither the paragon nor the tyrant have any flexibility: which basically means you can increase the tension in the story as much as you want. Unlike other good characters, the paragon won't compromise with the baddies. When the goal of the baddies is "force everyone to follow our rules": this means the paragon provokes the villainous forces to becoming more angry and violent out of sheer frustration. Whereas other heroes might instead work within the system the villain has set up, or subvert it in ways that the villains don't really notice. But the paragon's blatant refusal to engage with the villain's system at all will make them and anyone associated with them into a target. If you want to drive your villain to do truly unspeakable things, matching them with a paragon hero is a good way to get them there. But, that will typically mean that other characters around the paragon suffer... at least in the short term (since it's also true that frustrated villains tend to make mistakes). This is actually how a lot of the early Superman stories worked: because the villain was usually someone with a tyrannical disposition and good PR. Supes had to first expose and provoke the villain, usually through his alternate Clark Kent persona. But exposing the villain's dastardly deeds usually put people at risk: the villain's underlings, random civilians, or indeed his friends. Much of the tention was then derived from whether Superman would be able to protect the people that *he had himself put in danger*.
So does that mean that even the argument that paragons are morally simplistic is a result of bad writing and confirmation bias rather than something intrinsic to the archetype?
Absolutely. That uncompromising approach to morality is both a strength and a weakness of paragons and can make them very interesting. It can also lead to self-doubt as the paragon sees what happened as a result of that lack of compromise and make them question if they really did the right thing. If they really want to be the hero and save everyone, does that make them a failure if they didn't fully foresee the consequences of their actions, even when it _does_ manage to save more people than if they did nothing, but doesn't save _everyone?_ (I'd hope it's obviously no, but that uncompromising approach may make the paragon think it does. It also brings up questions like utilitarianism and the trolley problem.)
The Elric brothers from Full metal alchemist brotherhood are a perfect example of paragon characters. They stay true to their morals and abstain from taking or using human lives for their own personal reasons, even if it costs them a lot.
Looking around at some of my fandom merch, I’ve come to realize that one of my favorite types of characters is the naive paragon who slowly comes to learn about the darker, more painful and morally complex parts of the world, but instead of losing their drive to do good, they have to come to better understand what “good” is and might struggle with that, but manage to keep their genuinely kind nature throughout. Sometimes these characters even up up switching sides along the way and it’s amazing. Another type I really like is the paragon who faces the horrors of the world, does completely break, but is pulled back to themselves by the more cynical people who they impacted in the past have come to believe in them. I’m not sure they still count as paragons at that point if they have a brief period of completely turning away from their morals, but to see the others they impacted willing to help and see them regain their values and hope is also super satisfying. There are certainly morally gray characters I love, but sometimes a darker story needs someone who can either push their way through the pain or get back up again when they fall.
I love All Might and Deku from MHA. While they are clearly flawed individuals, and their chronic hero syndrome is very much depicted as a flaw, they are also both paragons through and through. In the 6th season, resident jackass-with-a-point Bakugo actually points out how they're a horrible duo to leave alone, because they won't put the breaks on each other's relentles selflessness. Deku in particular is an inspiration to the people around him, owing to his compassion and determination. As early as S2, he forgoes doing the smart thing (winning the sports festival for the publicity boost) in favour of beating sense into his classmate. The brilliant thing is that while his status as a real hero often causes issues (at one point he almost irreparably damages his arms), it also has positive pay offs. A great example is in late s6 (therefor spoilers) Basically, in the first half of the season, EVERYTHING goes to shit. Due to Shigaraki escaping from the hospital raid, and subsequently doing a sevenfold jailbreak, releasing thousands of villains into Japan, many heroes are quitting their jobs, civilians are forming mobs to defend themselves, and it's total anarchy. In the midst of this, Deku leaves the school and goes on the hunt for Shigaraki, running himself ragged trying to stop every crime he comes across and fighting off multiple hitmen sent by AFO. Eventually, his classmates catch up, and a fight breaks out, his class trying to stop his self-destructive behaviour. Ironically, his heroism has both put him in a difficult position AND has a positive pay-off. In general, the show portrays quite well how, even with prodigeous power, you can't save everyone, and this helps humanize Deku and All Might.
I think paragon heroes tend to be more interesting than antiheroes myself. I love stories that explore the idea of what it means to be good. I really love when the paragon is being tested by the events of the plot-can their light persist against the darkness of the world around them? I think my favorite paragon hero is Sora from Kingdom Hearts-particularly KHII. He’s thrown into this dilemma where defeating the monsters, and saving people helps the villains get closer to their goal, and that is really cool.
An amazing example of the "paragons influencing the characters around them", The Expanse's James Holden (as paragon) affecting Amos is a beautiful example of this. Holden is usually a paragon (with exceptions), and Amos struggles with telling right from wrong at all, and their combined arcs are some of the best i've seen in sci-fi
This makes me think of Vash from Trigun. Not exactly sure if he'd classify as a paragon, but he's got to be close at least. He starts out making you laugh, and as time goes on, he warms your heart. His pacifist approach to helping and saving people takes a large toll on him, but he refuses to kill anyone. Even though it's like the wild west where death and violence are everywhere.
Captain Carrot of Discworld fame is a fun paragon character. I heard Pratchett planned for him to be the main character of the City Watch books, but then realized they would work better with Vimes at the center, leaving Carrot free to be as paragony as he likes.
My favorite paragon character is Sailor Moon. The series was a formative one for me, coming along when I was 11 and hasn't aged too badly. All of the characters have their own virtues, but she is the axis that they revolve around.
Loved this one! My favorite stories center around heroic characters, and I've kinda gotten burned out on "gritty reimaginings." Sometimes life is hard enough as it is. Sometimes what I want from a story is to be inspired and feel like the world could be a better place. In my own novel, I've really enjoyed the experience of exploring a group of different "good" characters all dealing with the fallout of a significant event, and how they each process their emotions and responses differently. Also, extra thrumbs-up for the return of "A Wizard Did It", been missing that. ;) Also, also, makes my nerdy-soul happy to see all the board games behind you!
A fav paragon character for me is Sun from Black Summer. I appreciate the difficulties she goes through as being very morally good while surrounded by amoral people, and how it gets her hurt but her faith in other people and value in their life isn’t shaken
i loved the fight of superman and darkseid on the animated cartoon. At one point, darkseid thinks he has the upper hand, when superman says something along the lines of how everyone is so frail to him, and how he has to remain vigilant every waking hour to not break people or use excessive force. That fighting against darkseid was that once in a lifetime chance of cutting lose for once. It's just so fun that, after a paragon having to be thoughtful and restrained for the longest time, the star aligns to allow him to fight unabated. And often we associate a paragon character to privation, and denying temptations, a lot of passing up opportunities for pleasure because they conflict with goodness, so to make 'pleasure' and 'good' align for once is so cathartic. For those that played final fantasy xiv, its that last fight of endwalker, the duel against your rival at the end of the universe, one opportunity to explore pleasure and not have to worry about anything else.
I love the Paragon character type so much. Captain America has always been one of my favorite characters and people always question that/kinda make fun of me for it. But to me the idea of whats right/wrong is more elementary and childish (depending on the story). The idea of how to do good despite everything the story throws at you is such an interesting story and is much more relatable in my life than the basic what's good/wrong.
MCU Cap was... meh, but I'm putting that on the bad MCU writing trying desperately to recycle the comics' plots without realizing what made them work and without giving them the good buildup leading to it. Cap was done so, so dirty in MCU in the Civil War arc, regarding his morals and where the lines he won't cross are, and conversely Stark is _too_ principled to have 616's desperation and "I'm willing to get in bed with the devil and sell all my soul as long as the Avengers get to stay safe", which are the two pivot points that the comics' Civil War hinged on, the fact that it was more than just... the nothingburgers that the MCU sold. I was so hyped up for him all the way up to Civil War, but now I'm kind of side eyeing Endgame at all, because... I don't trust the MCU writers with Steve. Do they fix their writing in the Endgame arc?
An interesting example of a moral paragon is Job in The Book of Job. Confusing read, but in the end you find that Job is a paragon perhaps moreso than even God in that story. He comes to the terrible realization that doing morally good things gives no tangible rewards in this or the next world. And yet, he refuses to do moral evils, presumably because doing good is still desirable over doing evil. We’ve been creating paragons for thousands of years and I think we will continue to do so because it helps us understand the human condition.
YES! This! So much this. (Bible spoilers ahead.) Yahweh is a douche of godly proportions to Job. He never considers it might maybe sometimes who knows be wrong to put your best guy through hell on Earth just because of a bet you took. He never makes ammends for everything Job's lost, just taking the easy way out and going "Aw. You lost your family? There there. Here's another one for you. Happy now?". And in the end he doesn't even answer Job's question, resorting instead to "Dow dare you puny little mortal question your creator?". It's no surprise a god like that would choose David (another douche of biblical proportions) as his anointed one.
@@juliahenriques210 Yeah so God is a very odd and inconsistent character in this story. He agrees to have Job essentially tortured into misery, manifests and (in some readings) rebukes Job for protesting, but then immediately tells Job’s friends that they were wrong to say Job deserved to be punished and that they need to convince Job to sacrifice on their behalf so that he is appeased. It can be helpful to learn of some of the book’s historical background as it likely was a story taken from the surrounding cultures and adapted for Hebrew purposes. Yale Courses has a nice set of lectures by Christine Hayes on the entire Hebrew Bible. Highly recommended.
Yeah as cliche as it is, good deeds don't reward you and they do often get punished. The only real reward is feeling good about yourself, maybe the good deed will cause a transactional relationship but don't bank on that for obvious reasons. It's what makes paragons so powerful, they regularly sacrifice shit because they're simply good.
A great example of a paragon character in fiction is George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, with the central conflict being that he's so willing to do good to help others, he sacrifices his own hopes and dreams to do so. It's the price of him doing the right thing, and ultimately causes him to snap. It's also a great example of another way to deal with paragon characters - to have them go through a crisis of faith. How do they react if everything they've done has been (seemingly or in reality) for naught.
A really interesting example of a compelling character arc for a paragon is Adora from Shera and the princesses of power. Her entire character arc is about valuing her own needs and wants in addition to those around her. While she is pretty much always morally right, she actively hurts people she loves with her actions (namely catra and glimmer). Great paragon character with a compelling arc too!
Drew Hayes wrote a series called Super Powereds in which the mc is a paragon. I don't have time to write up a full essay, but this is what I noticed about his character: 1. He inspires a kind of pity from those around him. 2. Nobody trusts him until they get to know him becaue he is so innocent. 3. He has a path filled with turmoil, yet was shown to be a paragon back then. 4. He's surrounded by dynamic characters. One is an extreme introvert telepath, one is a stuck up brat, one is a deceiving con artist, one is an insecure teen with an alter ego. He stands out as the main character _because_ he contrasts so well. (I highly recommend the series)
I do like Paragons (Cap was my favourite MCU Avenger). I just hate when they're boring, OR when on top of being a Paragon, they're also so OP that there is no struggle to do good, and everything is just a minor inconvenience to them (ie, a lot of Superman stuff) Basically, I like Cap because he's good, but has to work for his wins. He has to struggle against forces that are stronger than him, and put himself at risk, and seek allies who can help carry him across the finish line. Wheras I tend to find Superman boring because most of the time it's just "oh hey, the invincible super-speed flying brick saved the day again because he can just super-speed his way to the problem and tank everything, easy peasy." There's no drama, no struggle, no question of how he's going to manage the task, no question of if he'll do the right thing, or manage the task. We already know how he's going to manage the task. Outside of a few well-done superman stories, everything about him is so obvious as to leave no uncertainty. Unless they leverage the fact that there's only one of him and he can't be everywhere at once, meaning that we're worrying about how other squishier people are going to cope *without* superman. THAT'S when it's interesting, and not because of him, but because of his absence.
@@pn2294Cap isn't a Mary Sue period because he is supposed to be an ideal to be achieved not an embodiment of the author/audience power fantasy. He is designed that way from the start. Batman is more of a Mary Sue by this metric
The Doctor is an interesting case because how Paragon he is varies across regenerations. The third happily continued working together with and being friends with UNIT after they committed genocide in his third episode, because it would help in his essentially selfish goal to get his Tardis working, and stuck with them long after he achieved it. Admittedly he did also make the Brig better over the course of their relationship, but still he's a lot more grey than say the 10th.
Another good example of a Paragon to me is Steven from Steven Universe. Especially in Steven Universe Future when they really explore the psychological cost of everything he's been through and how much his self-worth is tied to living up to that legacy/expectation. It's something about him that gets tested time and time again as the show goes on, and you watch him get more and more drained by the things that seemingly came easy to him. Like you said, it explores how difficult it is to keep choosing good. Both when facing seemingly insurmountable odds that The Good Way will work, and also the straight-up stress of being a paragon. Because he is The Guy Who Saves Everyone, someone who can "always find a way," as the opening says, he needs to maintain that identity to keep the good he's done stable. For many characters in the show, Steven's way only works because Steven doesn't fail. It's a heartbreaking expectation to carry because any mistakes he makes or how guilty he feels or how tied he is to the problems in the first place, he has to remain a paragon. And he's just a kid, at his oldest in the show he's 16, shouldering the weight of the universe on his shoulders. I think it's an excellent examination/exploration of this archetype, and worth mentioning, so behold this comment :P
Also thanks for mentioning Donna Noble and her insecurity. I think The Doctor's constant complimenting of her, which largely is brushed off or passed over, really plants the seeds of Donna's self-esteem issues. Then when Metacrisis Doctor finally starts to get it, saying how she feels out loud until she communicates how much it upsets her to hear it and immediately going "But look at what you did!" and reassuring her and once again telling her how great she is. AND THEN!!! Once she "awakens" as The Doctor Donna her line about how she's "The Fastest Temp in Chiswick" shows the audience that she finally understands it. She always had value and was always important, even without the genetic jiggery-pokery from The Doctor. Nice to have a woman's self worth not immediately and exclusively tied to a man's influence and actions lmao. Great character, great example of how paragons can change people. Hell yeah.
I think Steven from Steven Universe is set up to be a paragon character too, but he's that way because he's a literal child. It's a really interesting take on the paragon, as someone who does right out of childish innocence and then must *choose* to do right as they mature and discover the dark truths of their world.
Favourite paragon would be Tenma from Naoki Urasawa's Monster, a 74 episode show of someone doing the "right thing" and suffering the consequences almost every time.
Maybe because this is the only time he grins. Most of the time Frodo has a desperate, cryface look or a stoned out face. Which is honestly not Elijah Wood's fault, its how the character is written. In all honesty, I always found Frodo to be the most boring, dull and annyoing character in TLOTR. Its come to the point where whenever he and Sam show up in the second and third film, I think to myself "Ugh, them again. Can we skip forward and follow the Elve, the Dwarve, the Ranger and the Wizard again, please."
@@wjzav1971 The thing about finding annoying Frodo and Sam in the second and third film is because their journey and plot line are the least existing and appealing action-wise. Their chapters in the book are a mental, psychological and moral struggle more than anything really. Meanwhile, everyone else is partying hard exploring cities, killing orcs and stuff.
@@ultimateshipper8997 I wouldn't mind physical or mental struggle but Frodo becomes just so unlikeable that I don't give a damn. Its been too long that I read the books, so I don't quite remember but in the films it manifests in Frodo yelling at Sam every once in a while which culminates in Frodo actually believing that Sam ate their last rations, casting him out and trusting Gollum who, you know, tried to kill them. I don't care if Frodo was inlfuenced by the Ring, that was just damn stupid.
@@wjzav1971 Yeah, that was totally made up for the movies, I guess PJ meant to convey Frodo's increasingly physical and mental deterioration, being worned off and scared. In the end, as you said, he just come off obnoxious, lashing out and having coffee withdrawal kind of reactions.
Regarding the paragon hero, I really like that you present the Doctor as a paragon. Regarding character arcs, every Doctor (except 13th, which isn't weel written. :/ I really hope they'll fix that in future Big Finish audio dramas) has one. One of the most compelling to me was the character arc of the Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston. He goes from a complete journey, from a war survivor who struggles with his PTSD and has a very cynical view of the world, and can feel a bit cold and harsh, but his relationship with Rose seems to humanize him, and in the last episode, when he is faced with the same choice he had to make at the end of the time war : killing everyone to defeat the daleks, he can't do the same choice anymore, and states that he prefers to be a coward than a killer.
It kills me that Thirteen had such poor writing because Jodie herself and her Doctor were so amazing and really deserved to be in better stories. It got better towards the end but it's kinda awful that her best episode was her last episode.
@@ShinGallon tbh, I thought her last episode was bad and representative of her era. She doesn't have much agency and she is eclipsed by previous doctors for most of the episode. And her death doesn't come at the consequence of a choice she makes regarding a morality choices, like the previous Doctors of new Who did
@@erin_3569 Good point. I just...really want to like her episodes more than I do, because I like her Doctor so much. Chibnall's a terrible showrunner and not a great writer, sadly.
I think my favourite paragon hero is James Holden from the EXPANSE series. His inflexible morality is treated both as a good and a bad thing, as he refuses to let the world turn him into a bad person. And yet, he still changes over the course of the story, when he sees the consequences of his choices. Great balanced writing for a great character.
A lot of the struggle with writing a paragon style hero is that it is difficult to believe in their struggles against the enemy. The fact of the matter is that when you do good, real good, people appreciate and reciprocate that. If you do good at work, you get raises. And if you don't, then you punish the wrong of your higher ups by leaving, and then they will be more likely to appreciate the next person who goes above and beyond. If you do good for a neighbor,they will generally return the favor. When you do good, good is generally returned, and that helps make up for the harder times in life. If it didn't work this way then life would be a lot harder than it already is. By extension, when a character is the embodiment of some ideal of good, it feels contrived when someone is set against them. My favorite paragon character is Vash from trigun. the guy wouldn't hurt a fly, but he is constantly trying to find a way to foil his brother who is equally evil and actively trying to do him harm. And the people hate him because he has done terrible things because of who and what he is in spite of his intent. This is the same struggle that is mirrored in captain America. The sakovia (sp) accords were made because of the damage heros do when trying to save people. In the Incredibles it is the lawsuit of a guy being saved that didn't want to be saved, which then brought out resentment for the pain and trauma not properly compensated as a result of heros being involved. If you are going to have a paragon, the situation of the consequences of well intended actions is often a better foil than the actual antagonist. Syndrome is a bit part who brings a face to the situation, but isn't the problem himself. Tony was the face of the accords,but the accords were the struggle not cap v iron man. Vash has his confrontation with knives, but the issue is how people react to unregulated power regardless if it takes the form of Vash or knives. But when you have superman vs a cartoon villin who can't really cause harm to Clark, and when we know how it has to end... Yeah, it isn't compelling. And when the villin gets a win against the paragon, we often equally write it off as being unrealistic. But take a literal cartoon character as ridiculous as Vash and put him against a situation rather than a person? That becomes compelling drama. The hero can't be beaten by a person, because the paragon is undefeatable, and we want to believe that. But fighting against natural boundaries, limits and laws... That is compelling because we have all faced that moment of moral judgement where doing wrong is the easier path sometimes. Or if you can't win, why not take what joy you can from the situation before it destroys you anyways? These are the human questions that paragons can explore best. not good vs evil, but perfect vs good, or good vs mediocrity, or finding good in a universe that simply doesn't play by social rules and doesn't care about your human story.
I love this one, idk why, but I just love characters who always strive to do good and positively influence others. I also like seeing the interesting stories that can be made with them involved Edit: Learning about Lyra makes me want to check out that story. Good showcase of paragon having inner conflict
Bold of you not to mention Sam Vimes! My favourite moment of his is in Thud! when he's describing reading his son his favourite book, every night, at 6 o'clock, and goes on to talk about how, maybe, he could be two minutes late. Maybe five. But if you'd go to five, you'd go to ten, then half an hour, so he can't make any compromises or any excuses. It extends to pretty much everything he does, and that's what makes him the hero. On another note, I'm an enjoyer of Arknights, which features the heroine, Amiya. She starts off as more of a person with ideology but little power of her own. Sure, she's a powerful caster, but that means little in the face of societally and socially instituted cruelty and hatred that pervades her world, and for a long time, she feels she can't save anyone. Everyone she tries to help dies anyway and she's unable to do anything about the people causing it. Still, she persists, people start believing in her as the story goes on, her cause becomes a movement, and eventually, after many battles and sacrifices, they start to get some wins.
One of my favourite stories is How to Train Your Dragon 2, which I now realise puts Hiccup in the paragon role. His outlook and approach to peace isn't wrong, but he learns that leadership isn't as simple as having positive ideals. It feels like an incorporating-the-shadow type of story more than anything
Superman has and always will be my favourite paragon character. What breaks my heart about the Snyder films is they had something there… they had the ingredients of a paragon facing a world that does not want him to be one. And they got Captain America so right in the other side of the DC/Marvel world. Someone who doesn’t change because the world is bad, but forces the world to change. “Sometimes you have to plant your feet and tell the world, no, you move!”
The funny thing is, you can see the difference in both of these writing approaches in Captain America. Markus and Mcfeely (Cap trilogy, Infinity War, Endgame) said that when Joss Whedon wrote Cap in the first two Avengers movies, he made him too much of agoody-two-shoes who always follows the rules instead of the guy that lied to the government 4 times and straight up disobeys direct orders in the first half of his first movie
i was rewatching merphy's avatar series yesterday and this reminds me of how aang was constantly finding ways he can do his duty as the avatar without crossing his morals and believes as an airbender.
One of my favorite series growing up was the Prydain Chronicles. Taran always strives to be good and do the right thing, but he still has a reasonably compelling arc over the series, from naïve foolhardiness to tempered maturity, from ignorance to wisdom. Heck, despite its simplicity Taran Wanderer is still one of my favorite books. There's something relatable about soneone struggling to find themselves and do right by those around them, even when it's hard
Taran takes a journey from the first book where he wants to be "more than an assistant pig-keeper" who wants to be a knight or other hero. He meets Prince Gwydion, who appears to be everything Taran idolizes. In time, he wants to learn about his parentage in the hope of being someone who could marry a princess (who is something of a girly tomboy), and he even gives up on that when he believes he is the long lost son of a dirt poor farmer, working without complaint to improve his "father's" house and land. Of course, the man was lying to get someone to become his free servant, but even when Taran learns that, he instinctively wants still to help him. By the end, when Taran is told that he is a prophesied king, Taran is upset, because he doesn't feel noble or virtuous, even though he is. It's quite the arc.
I just finished rereading Elantris so Raoden is the top paragon on my mind as I watch this. I have heard people call him boring. I love him! The whole, he does the right thing but it costs seems to be the most played up one with him. As always thanks for the excellent content!
Your videos are always so good to watch I love that you can take a step back and calmly prove your point without having millions of flashy things (dont get me wrong the editing (and jokes) are great I enjoy the way you look at things from an emotional, relatable level pls keep making more videos
Wildbow's web serials do this a lot--Ward and Pale feature characters that are absolutely trying to do good, or are abiding by their moral codes, but they're limited by their own traumas or restrictions. They're constantly challenged by the temptation to 'make the easy choice' by sacrificing their ideals.
Worm is one of my absolute favourite stories, because you see why the anti-hero is making the choice to commit a 'necessary evil' each time they do it, and she's so very persuasive in her reasoning to herself, that it can take a long time for the reader to take a step back and realise that no, it actually wasn't the best choice. You have paragon heroes, glory-hound heroes, ruthless utilitarian anti-heroes and punch-clock 'just doing my job' heroes against not just psychopathic villains, but ruthless utilitarian 'greater good' villains and some villains so idealistic that it makes the heroes question themselves.
Hm, its interesting thinking about the paragons role. I've read two book serieses where the paragon character was a veiwpoint character, but actually had more impact by how they influenced their anti-hero best friend than by what they actually did themselves. But one story where that isn't true is Rise of Phoenixes. Ning Yi is a paragon, and while he does transform some people around him, one of his great struggles is that he can't transform the world enough to keep those people safe (and often by being close to him, they are endangered). That, right there, is what he wants more than anything: to at least make the world safe for the people he cares about, but even more than that, to be able to have a family, again. That drama does such a good job of making Ning Yi relatable because doing the right thing always, always costs him. I think that might be a key with paragons. Make doing the right thing cost something, at least some of the time.
Something I'd love to see an episode on is writing in a way that leaves things open. I play a lot of Destiny and they have a particular writing method that allows them to give the illusion that things are planned out much better than they actually are. I think they've even got a name for it, though googling that name hasn't turned up anything. Open door writing or something like that? Writing in a way that leaves things open and vague.
Just cause a character has a pure heart or stands for stellar morals doesn’t mean they don’t experience conflicts or don’t have room to grow. Good morals doesn’t mean they are perfect. A paragon can always learn from their friends and their own failures, mistakes, and hardships. Which makes for great internal conflict and character arcs. The possibilities are endless.
My favourite paragon character is The Doctor I really like how he inspires people to do the right thing and that he sometimes struggles with doing the right when things aren’t always black and white and he always tries to do the right thing even know he never gets a reward or recognition for it
Except Frodo wasn't the paragon, Sam was. Sam never fell to the ring and never gave up, not for a lofty purpose but because helping his friend was the right thing to do. That said great video. Personally I like the paragon best as a measuring stick. Not the protagonist but a force in the world to show what the ideal would be to see how the rest of the world measures up to this person. Superman needs to be the best of the heroes so the other heroes have a comparison, not in power but in action. Actively choosing to do what Superman wouldn't is a choice that means something in the setting. All-Might in My Hero Academia is another great deconstruction that doesn't undermine his Paragon status but rather shows how it can negatively impact the world around him in spite of him doing only good and working to save everyone he could.
A hero archetype I personally love is the hero their friends can’t respect. Those who sacrifice themselves, but end up hurting those they love. Which sometimes ends in a betrayal in order to save the hero. Sacrifices shouldn’t be a norm.
Sora is absolutely my favorite paragon of all time. His story leans into two things, the first is your point #5, the way he affects everyone around him is a large part of the moral message of the story. He's there for people when they need him. The second thing they do is shape his personal arc around his maturity and self esteem. The Kingdom Hearts story is one about growing up and all the hardships with it. The author doesn't want kids to grow and become hardened so he shows how Sora is able to grow while still being a paragon.
There is a paragon character in Spanish literature - El Cid Campeador, the example for all Spanish knights - and he fights with the Moors for three years, guerrilla-style, against the will of his king, cheats the money-changers to get the money for his raid, extremely brutal fighter and killed his father-in-law on a petty duel. And still, he is a paragon because he is completely honest and noble. He is so honest and noble, even the Moors acknowledge that and offer help when El Cid's daughters were kidnapped. So paragon could be not even a good and nice person.
I like the use of My Hero Academia here. Deku is very much a paragon inspired by a paragon and goes into one of his character flaws; he never thinks of himself or his own safety. It's also shown that he takes it to extremes and gets criticized for it in-story alot. Bakugo's growth is shown in him see in wanting to save Deku from himself. Also What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way? is one of the best examinations of Superman.
I think my favorite paragon character from TV is Jack from LOST. It was a smart writing choice to make him a doctor because embedded in his core traits is that medical ethos of "first, do no harm." He's always wanting to make the right decisions (it was his job as a surgeon) and do good, but as the person all the castaways looked to as a leader, he felt a responsibility towards them, and it gives him a "savior complex." That, along with the intrinsic challenges of surviving all the crazy on that show made him a hero who was flawed and not boring.
Another thing I do to make my own paragon characters make mistakes and have flaws not related to the values they champion. Like being hot headed, lacking in caution, etc. They still choose to do the right things every time but they don’t always go about it in the right ways. HelloFutureMe brings up Ned Stark and he’s a great example of this. Robb is also similar.
As far as I understand it there is significant overlap between a paragon character and a mentor character (influencing the other characters rather than having their own arc, seeing through the Lie that others believe). It would be interesting to know where they differ, in your opinion, given that you haven’t mentioned it yet. And again, a very insightful and helpful video, kudos!
I quite enjoyed how they used the paragon theme in Once Upon a Time through the Saviour. Firstly we have Emma Swan who had ended up in jail and had a criminal past, giving birth to her son Henry in Jail. Her paragon-ness shines through in Storybrooke because she has this sense of righting an injustice in protecting Henry from Regina and then by the end of the season and into season 2 has to come to terms with being a literal magical embodiment of goodness and love. By season 4 we learn that she had all of her potential for darkness displaced into Maleficent's child and ironically it is this knowledge, coupled with her innate goodness that actually drives her to turn dark, killing Cruella in a scene that should be a straightforward disney-hero-killing-villain, but since Cruella can't actually kill anyone she is at Emma's mercy and is defenceless when she dies. Emma also kills her with magic which in world this a sure fire way to turn it dark and blacken her heart. Then by the season finale she embraces the Darkness to become The Dark One so that Regina won't fall again, but because of her extra-goodness she becomes this strange utilitarian character who does have a dark plan but never really becomes evil. It's only through the eyes of the other characters expecting her to be evil now that she is particularly dark and her worst crime is turning her love interest into a second Dark One which makes him lose the internal battle with the darkness he had been wrestling with from his former villainous ways. In Season 6 they make Emma even more interesting by comparing her to other saviours, Aladdin and Rumpelstiltskin, both of whom were severed from their fate: Aladdin did so by choice because the burden of being the Saviour was too much for him and had started to take the physical toll that Emma also began to suffer, and Rumpel being severed as a baby by his mother because his destiny was to die saving the lives of children, sending him on a spiral to become one of the darkest souls in all the realms. Emma now sees the consequences of both fulfilling her destiny and being severed from it and it's very clear throughout the season that she has just about had enough of "never getting a day off". Twice that season she has an opportunity to escape her destiny but both times she does not because doing so would have let her son commit murder or meant the permanent erasure of all the realms of story. She also realized that the only way to win the final battle is not to kill her opponent because that would darken her soul which is the only way to snuff out the light. In fact the final battle is won moreso by Rumpelstiltskin doing the right thing than by Emma being triumphant in a physical conflict with a dark antagonist. What's also interesting about Emma is that she is the daughter of the ultimate paragons of true Love, Snow White and Prince Charming but we learn through their backstories that both have done the wrong thing, especially Snow who had murdered Regina's mother and deviously tricked Regina into being an instrument of that murder. There is a great scene where Snow asks Regina, The Evil Queen to kill her, and in examining Snow's heart, Regina learns with glee that the murder has created a spot of darkness on it. The moral victory here is actually Regina's and in one of the most powerful scenes in the show, she delights in relating to Snow how she will only grow darker and ultimately bring down her own family without Regina having to do a thing. This adds a new dimension to the conflict between good and evil in the show because evil doesn't have to actively conquer good, light can snuff itself out by doing dark things, which puts a much greater burden on the paragons of good in the show because they have to actively do good instead of just not being bad.
The point about the Doctor's role in changing the people around him reminds me of Luffy from One Piece (Spoilers for approx the end of Dressrosa below) One of the running themes of the show is how Luffy, through his singleminded determination and strange insightfulness and charisma draws in those around him. There's a moment where fleet after fleet of pirate crews that Luffy and the Strawhats befriended pledge themselves to the crew, against the will of Luffy, making him the unintentional leader of a giant armada.
I'm just thinking of Rengoku Kyojuro from Demon Slayer, and how his compassion and morals is what spurs the main character's progression as a person and his journey, largely due to Rengoku's death because he kept those principles and that kindness.
I saw a video which explained how Rengoku differed from other shonen protags (sure he isn’t the protag, but a good contrast to him in this regard) that he actually loses. Like take Naruto or Deku who has the dream to be the best in something and so is Rengoku (all of them for different reasons of course), but Rengoku fails because his father couldn’t care less and even with that he’s still stands and never gives up. These Shonen stories usually have the “if you put all of your effort into it, you can win”, but sadly reality isn’t like that and it would be a better advice how to face with failure and stand up after it.
What I love about the Doctor as a paragon, is how his values are confronted against the amorality of others. Some of my favourites episodes are the ones were he's faced with the intolerance or cruelty of humans beings, and just loose is temper because he cannot stand anymore the suffering and lack of empathy around him. Like in the Rebel Flesh / The Almost People, in which Eleven is faced with the horrible treatment given by humans to synthetic live forms with their consciousness. Or The Beast Below, with the torture of an innocent space creature. He has such peaceful ideals that it is almost painful to see him confronted with the worst of humanity. But it is also because he's so moved by it all that he's inspiring others. Even when he act "bad", like in the "The Waters of Mars" scenario evoked here, it's because he cannot stand more deaths, more suffering. Ten decides that he can choose to change time and became a sort of God at that moment because he's not able to just live and let's all those people die, just because Time says they did. All the bad decisions of the Doctor are guided by his will to save and help others more than anything, or his incapacity to stand more of a cruel and unjust situation. I just love him so much as a character ...
I honestly think one of my favorite parts of his character is 12's rejection of the title of a hero in Death in Heaven. After the suffering caused by his inflated reputation on the town of Christmas over centuries leading the Church of the Silence on a mad quest to kill him, he stops trying to pretend he's a larger than life demigod of some kind, and accepts that he's a simple traveler who just tries to help wherever he can.
I'm so glad for this video! Yesterday I was ranting about how every story needs to be gray these days (exaggerating of course, I know is not true) and wanted to write a more "classic" hero. This gonna be useful as hell.
Shigeo Kageyama from Mob Psycho 100 is definitely a paragon character, his conflict coming primarily from becoming a more mentally healthy person. This video helped solidify him as my #1 favorite protagonist
That's why I like Sword & Sorcery stories There's no thinking and pondering involved if a maiden need saving the mc saves her if a monster needs slaying the mc slays it end of story.
I don't think people understand how hard is being "purely good". Even if you're 100% morally right, you can't make others act like you, and if you don't make people become better people, you acting good is meaningless because evil acts still will happen and you would watch them happen on the sideline. If you force your idea upon others, you are bad. If you don't try to convince others, you are bad. Let's say you can do that, then who is there to save you if you are going to die for others, or letting you take necessary breaks? Who is the hero's hero? To put simply, there is no way to be "purely good", but you certainly can TRY. Trying to navigate the nuance of reality and reach your own goal, that is good enough imo.
I'm so glad to see a video on this subject from you! While I enjoy some delicious moral conflict and ambiguity in my stories, I've always had and probably always will have an extreme soft spot for "Labrador" heroes, lmao 😅 also, I am totally adopting that term now. Characters who inspire everyone around them to be better, and whose struggles come more from their emotional reactions to a reality which is complicated and sometimes cruel in face of their kindness, who continue to CHOOSE to be kind and good anyway, to the best of their ability-they just resonate with me, and with the curent media landscape, and many people in general turning away from this kind of characterization as "bland" or "boring", it's nice to see people defending the heroes that I love.
I've always loved Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks. Who comes into the town with optimism and hope but also great inteligence for people. He's constantly challenged to leave the little lies of everyone alone, but its only through uncovering the darkness behind the little lies that the truth comes out.
![On Writing: The Darkest Hour Trope [ Avatar | LOTR | Doctor Who ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/c2S7zjfs0aU/mqdefault.jpg)
Go check out my new video talking more about Frodo and Sam as paragon and tragic heroes on Nebula!! go.nebula.tv/hellofutureme Thank you for your support :D
No flame wars this is just accurate.
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If you haven't already seen Vinland Saga I highly recommend it and hope you'll make a video on it if it interests you.
@@suto5704 It's so good. I like that it's willing to take risks for the sake of a more compelling story, especially in season 2
@@LuisSierra42 I agree. I'm glad season 2 introduces characters like Einar and explores the stuff it does.
What made cpt. America work so extremely well in the MCU was that despite being a paragon through and through, he wasn't naive. He understood that there was rationale behind the other perspectives. Him and Iron Man ending up at odds with each other was the perfect culmination of virtue ethics vs consequence ethics, and both could respect the other side but be convinced that their side was the right one. That's one way of describing the paragon btw, the personification of virtue. There's a moral compass, not a moral equation. The consequentialist will do the math, while the paragon will have an instinctual ethic (of course, they're never 100% either or, you need some reasoning to sustain virtue, and you need some baseline virtue assumptions to be able to do consequentialist equations anyway).
This is a well thought out and expressed opinion, kudos
Adding onto the not neive nature is also character growth. In the beginning & middle Cap was good, but this wasn't always the best move, then you have scenes like in Endgame where a fight could break out & ruin everything so Cap uses deception & trickery to get the advantage both against himself in combat & against the Hydra goons avoiding conflict all together.
My question is, why is consequentialism implicitly being treated as a lesser moral center in this comparison? Or at least, that's how it comes off.
i mean cap was right pretty much every time,so
Meanwhile in today's Marvel writing:
"Just don't be a dick" (the great moral speech that changed the antagonist, Ant man 3)
Oh how the mighty have fallen...
Another great example of Captain America being a great hero is how, before he ever got the serum, he jumped over a dummy grenade at boot camp (thinking it was a real, live one) in order to 'save' everyone else. He even waved at others to run and get away, shouting at them to leave him. Paragons are often best shown as Paragons when the character is without power, safety, or ither comforts, yet still fully follow their morals/'duties'.
'What you are in the dark' often applies too. Someone put in a situation where nobody would know. Nobody would see, or even when the less morally right choice would still be applauded because of the situation (you did what you had to do. There was no other good option. Etc.)
Is this a te-
*credits*
I think Cap America is boring. And is a piece of crap. But Cap America 2 is my fave Marvel Movie
My favorite version of the paragon hero is one who has to find self-worth. Like they need to learn that their life has value too and they shouldn’t always be ready to throw themselves away for anything.
@@cjboyo I really like this concept! What are some of your favorite examples?
The reason people think Superman and Captain America are boring is because doing the right thing is rarely difficult for them. They're superheroes, of course they're going to do the right thing. And they're strong enough to do the right thing with little effort.
But stories that subvert this are fascinating. In the MCU, Captain America, the perfect soldier, frequently breaks rank in order to save his friends. In the Justice League cartoon, Superman struggles with Lex Luthor turning public opinion against him. A morally straightforward hero in a morally complex world has lots of potential for great stories.
The reason people think tht is because of bad writing or maybe worse, the writer believes tht about the character.
@@benparrish672 I don't think it's even that most of the time. Alot of people never experience paragons because they assume it's bad.
I myself, don't find them boring but find them to not be morally right even tho the story tries to say it.
Superman doesn't have the balls to kill someone to save millions(except that one time he killed darkseide) and this is shown as a good thing when in reality, it's not
@@Wormopera "in reality" on an inherently subjective topic? That's a bold statement.
@@Wormopera I have no idea how this perspective became so popular, but that's not the case at all.
Supes' (and a number of other DC Heroes) Issues regarding killing people is as follows:
The entire point of bringing in the criminals they take on alive is so that the Judicial System does its due duty, once Supes and his crew start executing (like do you have any idea how easy it is for a lot of DC Heroes to kill? Some are strong enough that they could flick a forehead and explode someone's brain. Others were quite literally trained by some of the world's greatest assassins, so it would be child's play to end someone's life.), how would you think that would impact on the world? Characters like Diana and Arthur have faced backlash in universe before for extra-judicial killing, which in Diana's case resulted in the Amazons going to war against the entire World...and almost being wiped out had it not been for their goddesses stepping in.
If you want to be pissed at someone, look at the citizens of DC's Earth and ask yourself, how they keep falling for Joker's insanity pleas or Luthor's sob stories that got him elected as President. How about USA's Cadmus Project that has actually created supervillains or even cloned Superheroes to try to "counter their threat to the United States"? Then if we're talking about extraterrestrial threats, are you absolutely sure that killing here is actually a good thing, especially if it could to a galaxy-spanning civilization to attack Earth in revenge for said "good" death, or what if it led to the full attention of a Lantern Corp?
And I haven't even touched on that either, that the deaths could and has in fact empowered far more powerful and malevolent forces, which given the Black Entity, Parlements, or Gods, is a very real and present threat.
That's just considering in Universe reasoning, even fans irl have been up in arms against DC when Superman killed off villains, writers and artists have had hate mail coming in to put them on blast for "ruining Superman".
In universe, there are a lot of things to consider before a hero ends a life, the least of which being, how will everyone else react to this.
IRL there's the fan backlash to consider as you will have people preaching and shouting that such and such a character would never do it and it's not in character...like what happened the Man of Steel Movie when Supes killed Zod, something he has done before in comics mind you.
Chosen Ones like Percy Jackson,Avatar Aang,Lyra Belacqua actually have personality in the Form of sass,but Hollywood thinks The Chosen One must be bland for self insertion.
The original works also showed the immense toll it took on twelve year olds to have the fate of the world on their shoulders.
Agree with both of these comments. Lyra is just a child and many conflicts stem from her struggle to do the right thing when the world around her doesn't take her seriously or has simply more power than her. Sass helps.
In reality a lot of us if we were told or proven to be the Chosen One, we'd either be immensely cocky KNOWING we have plot armour, or we'd run away like a shitting chicken because nobody's gonna react smoothly to being told the fate of the world rests purely on their shoulders.
@Jebber I don't think I've ever seen a protagonist who KNOWS they have plot armor. That would be difficult to play straight, but could make for some really interesting conflict where the hero has destiny on their side and is functionally invulnerable, but the people around them are not. Instead of lowering the stakes, they're shuffled around a bit to maintain the tension.
@@Jenna_Talia the latter half of your description is literally what Aang did lmao
I’ve always felt like a bit of a weirdo for liking pure-hearted heroes so much when everyone around me prefers morally ambiguous or antihero protagonists, so thank you for making this video.
As an example you didn’t mention, Adora from She-Ra and The Princesses of Power is a paragon who always does what’s right and sees the best in people, but still is an amazing character.
Morally ambiguous and anti-hero protags are nice, but well written paragons just click for me. Because trying to be so unapolagetically good and willing to be better through all the hardships can be very hard, especially when villian/narrative keep trying to break the protagonist. They may have nothing, but they will still fight and stand for their beliefs and their close ones.
I love the paragon. Being a paragon isn't easy in the real world so why would it be easy in a story? Their whole being is doing what's right and making the world a better place and real world doesn't respond well to that.
She-Ra was a breath of fresh air. I didn't realize how long it'd been since I'd seen a good story about a character with principles trying to do the right thing. I'd missed it and didn't even realize.
Some people online openly hate the idea of heroes having principles. They see them as an obstacle to doing good but don't realize those principles are necessary in the aftermath where they have to rebuild what was broken, physically, emotionally, and societally.
I think there's immense social value in having mass media with clear paragons.
The problem is making sure that they are paragons of the right kind of morality. Like being anti-torture is easy, but if you get the wrong writer suddenly you just have another lever of neoliberal subjectification rather than an introduction to moral ideals
This is why Superman is my favorite superhero. He's a good person in spite of the world spitting in his face.
Paragons are actually my favorite archetype, particularly paired with extremely amoral characters. Where I went to was the StarTrek episode “In the Pale Moonlight” where Sisko (a paragon character) increasingly becomes dragged into dirtier and dirtier business for a noble goal and has to partner with Garak, who is the most amoral and dirty of heroes. Things do not go well and when Sisko confronts Garak over the complete destruction of his principles for the greater good Garak makes the speech that ends with:
“T hat's why you came to me, isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing? Well, it worked. And you'll get what you want: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant. And all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain.”
Oof, and the best part, Sisko ends the episode with a journal entry insisting that he can live with himself, when it is clear that he doesn’t think he can.
Perfect. Paragons are great archetypes, because it is potent when what is right is stood up for, and they can let us explore the cost of that. Was Garak right leads to a lot of soul searching for the audience, and hopefully growth.
Which probably why garak and bashir work so well together, bashir is smart, and clever, but a good person mostly still. And garak, he is drawn to that, and they both inspire each othr and grow as people. Because yeah garak is still new. And he is really into spy fiction and mystry , while garak, is sick off it and extremely cynical and experienced but broken. And bashir is very curious. Like thats why they are o grat togetthr and drawn to each other.
I dot think sicois a paragon, he i sometimes but sometimes not an, but bashir absolutely is.
Great example. 👍
This episode is an amazing piece of television. Great example.
My newest favorite moment for Captain America was I think in Civil War. The comic. He turns himself in after seeing the chaos caused and as the citizens are giving him a mixture of confused comments, insults, and thrown items, he jumps in front of someone else to save them from getting shot. As he's bleeding out, he still is only concerned with the people. The same people were moments ago rewarded his decades of kindness with thrown tomatoes.
I really love paragon characters and people who just wanna help people because they're just good people
People seem to think that paragons are boring, and I think it's because you rarely see them given interesting challenges. The paragon always does the right thing, so putting them in a situation where they have to choose between right and obvious wrong doesn't work.
If you have a character who's perfect in every way, you need to find different ways to challenge them. Give them a loved one with a terminal disease they can't do anything about, or a complex conflict between two parties with no clear good/bad, or whatever else. You don't challenge a character with superhuman strength by asking them to punch even harder this time. Know your heroes, and know their struggles.
Or, as Red pointed out in her Detail Diatribe, you give them collateral damage to worry about - innocent people in danger and they might not be able to save them all.
@@cailin5301how does that make them better?
People don’t like antiheroes because they’re challenged. People like them because they destroy challenges easily.
Kinda like how Jonathan Kent died from a heart attack and Clark freaks out trying to save him, thinking because he's Superman there's something he can do to save him
Mob from mob psycho 100 is a paragon who struggles a lot with his feelings, even more than with most adversaries
Paragon might be too strong a term - but when you mentioned the Doctor getting literally millions of planets coming to his aid? Reminds me of FMA (well Brotherhood since I haven't read the manga), when we have all the secondary and tertiary characters lending a hand. The protagonist's kindness being paid back by all the people they've helped coming to their aid - I mean, that just sounds like a perfect scene for a paragon.
And that's exactly why my favorite bit from any superhero movie is Spiderman 2, when Spidey stops the train, passes out from the strain, and all the people on the train stand up to Doc Ock for him.
In that vein, the inversion of this is currently at-play in the draft of my novel. Where the villain is a sociopath who doesn't care who he crushes along the way, and lots of minor characters get caught in the crossfire. And that ends up his downfall - people beneath his notice have an opportunity for revenge by helping the main characters.
The entire train scene. New York standing up to Doc Oct, carrying Spider-Man down the entire train but refusing to look at his face. That scene is so fucking good. I love scenes like that. Where the good, all the little things and the big, impacted so many people - even indirectly - that when they had a chance to pay him back, they did without question.
Fuck I need to rewatch those movies.
Agreed, thongs like those really help to engage the reader or audience to the story. Could I ask if any of you have some time to maybe indulge this idea of a character and story I've thought about for a bit?
My favorite Superman movie is called Superman VS The Elite. It's a film about Superman meeting a brand new group of superheroes whom the public favors over Superman, as they can get the job done without worrying about the morality that Superman is "restricted" by. They think he's outdated and not appropriate for the modern era. Superman sticks to who he is and tries to show the world that old fashioned goodness still has a place in the world.
I think this is excellent commentary on the effectiveness of the paragon archetype. While many view them as boring and no longer interested enough for modern audiences, this movie shows that they can be. I love how the movie comments on both a thematic level within it's own self-contained narrative and also on a meta one with how they show that paragons are still awesome.
I've got Trigun brainrot right now but Vash is one of the best paragons in media in my opinion. He's a gunslinger who refuses to kill, and his choice to be a pacifist definitely has very negative consequences, innocents still die even when he refuses to kill. In fact at times that causes more to actually suffer. Wolfwood is his antihero foil, who is quite willing to kill, and is changed by Vash's ideals, to a tragic end. Everyone should watch/read Trigun, preferably all versions.
Even if he did kill, innocents would still die, best to just not do it.
Finally someone else who knows trigun.
All versions, apart from the life action one
CORRECT. I just finished the OG trigun anime and I fucking LOVED it. (I also spent the whole time explaining the bible symbolism to my wife but that’s a a separate kind of brain rot I have)
How can I say I've never watched it without saying that? Simple.
I thought Vash was female. And an unscrupulous thief.
While I get it's important not to put your characters in boxes, it's also good to know what tropes they fall under so you know what mistakes to avoid.
I wish people would stop trying to avoid following tropes, even if overused. Tropes happen cause they're effective or people like them but didn't know how to execute them. If you try to make a 100% original story, characters and world, then you're gonna fall flat cause that just can't happen.
Zombie stories were massive in the 2010's, but since a lot of people were just latching onto what The Walking Dead and The Last Of Us got right, we got tired of the genre quickly.
The "Trope" is an often used Storytelling TOOL... It's neither good, nor bad. It simply is. Among the Tropes in literature, theater, and Cinema, there are Cliches... Those change over time, often even from one year to the next just inside one Genre. THOSE are the ones that were "done to death", and in the Refrain, get tired and worn out.
The more novel approach to Genre, Storytelling in general, and Tropes most specifically, is to avoid "following blindly"... Meaning, JUST because JK Rowling (for example) wrote a monumentally successful series of Fantasies based on an Orphaned Kid who turned out to be a Prophecied Chosen One (hero), that doesn't mean YOU are going to instantly hit "Best-Seller Status" by writing the same stories with different names and descriptions...
THIS is the problem with "the industry" in the largest sense. It's run by corporations with MOUNTAINS of money "on the line" when a decision is sent into production. Nobody sets out to write and publish a "Colossal Flop"... SO the Corporates hire and insist upon "experts" to find the "formula for success" as if it's something so simple as to be easily and readily boxed, bottled, distilled down, and turned into an objective and quantifiable product.
BUT this is ART. Art simply does NOT work that way. There are a lot of formulas to go around and work with in order to create success. Success, itself, is a relative term.
Tropes are useful, because at a reference, there are assumptions made that allow a writer to SKIP a lot of substance rather than wile away the prose, page after page, just to introduce a Character... You reference in the Trope, and LET the audience ASSUME... It's later on in the story with "show, don't tell" that you "undermine" the trope here and there, to flesh out your Character in interesting and fun ways...
THAT is what makes the story INTERESTING to read. Otherwise, there are only so many ACTUAL plots (less than a dozen) and the ONLY variation from one story to another is how or where (precisely) you shift those plots around in order to create the various Character and Story ARCS that provide the audience with their experience... ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 Alright, but I'm not talking big industry, I'm talking general awareness of what you're working with as a writer.
@@HiThereImLily That's all well and good, and my observation still stands. from the hobby writing to keep household kids entertained or for fun and games at get-togethers with friends or family... all the way to class projects in school, or professionally drafted and rewritten work sent to your agent or publishing house...
It is what it is... and tropes are a tool. ;o)
One of the things I love about Ned Stark is that years after his death, other character still respect his name and the people associated with him. He’s such a paragon that his impact is still felt even after he’s been gone for a long time.
And it creates a nice contrast with Tywin. He might have won the war for a time by being a ruthless asshole but at the cost of destroying his reputation and legacy, which contributed to house lannister slowly losing everything.
@@legrandliseurtri7495 I would rather be a scumbag like Tywin and had my house “slowly” losing everything than being a paragon like Ned and had my whole house losing everything “overnight”. Remember the red wedding? Things turned out so good for the Starks, wasn’t it?
@@nont18411 so you choose a easy choice you sucrifise long good for a shot term satisfaction because being good is to scary and hard for you that is a definition of weak a coward and evil
@@cosmicdoggo9296 At least it means I’m still alive, not being headless like those of Ned and Robb or down in a gutter like Catelyn. I would rather be someone who abuse people and survive than a moral idiot. If I’m in that world, I would love to be more like Ramsay Bolton than be like any one of the Starks.
@@nont18411 is it better to be a live as evil or dead but good it all depends on a iduvodual and what you perfer
When I saw the tittle the first thing that popped into my mind was the few pannels of Superman flying to a girl that is standing on the edge of a building and she just says ,,I am not ready to talk" and you see for the next pannels him just floating next to her without a word as the day ends... Moments like this are how you really do a hero, even Deadpool had a moment like that (there was a comic dub that really gave it justice but I don't remember who made it)
Sometimes all it takes is being there when someone is at their lowest.
@@singletona082 perfectly said mate
As someone who usually finds Superman boring *THAT* particular set of comic frames was how you do him well. It leveraged his goodness in a genuinely heartwarming way, made it about the human ability to be there for someone.
Instead of the typical "The invincible flying brick with super-speed saves the day by being an invincible brick with super speed, as expected".
@@AegixDrakan Those really are the best superman stories. Not the specticle. The fact that at the endo f the day he may be a kryptonian and essentially God in physical form, but he has a human heart and struggles all the same for it.
@@singletona082 there are thousands of Heroes that can beat up the bad guy, but there are just a few that will sit with you and rebuild your small personal world
My spin on my paragon protagonist is that he is one under construction.
On the novel I'm trying to write (trying is the word, even though I'm progressing), he has all the right morals to instinctively recognize injustice and what should be done... but not necessarily confidence to do so.
His arc is not necesarily about learning what he has to change about himself. He is wise beyond his years. But I always wondered how heroes like Superman and Captain America are never afraid of getting in the middle of a situation, nor really question themselves when acting out of fear of misreading a situation. A fear a lot of people in real life have, in something as basic as human interactions.
Basically, what I made is a paragon on construction, trying to overcome his shyness.
Maybe frame it so that the audience doesn’t realize he’s a paragon until later on, that would be cool
@@cosmicspacething3474 good idea. But I like the other way better. A twist paragon would be cool. But getting inside mind of a person who wants to be a paragon would be nice to see and in my opinion bring more diversity in protagonists in literature. (also I kinda saw myself in the description of the OP.)
That is so cool, I want to read your take on this type of character!!! Please share whenever you have something to share! Good luck to you bro
Interesting! Happy writings!
Best of Luck Johnny. Definitely sounds interesting. It's difficult to be a paragon & very hard to write a not just likable, but admirable. If protagonist isn't OP then it helps
All Star Superman was one of the most fun stories I've read in a long time.
All Star Superman dispels the myth that a paragon Superman is necessarily boring. The Superman in that comic is both deeply human while also sticking with the higher morals that we expect Superman to adhere to. He never loses a single physical battle, yet seeing his internal struggles and the way he changes (or doesn’t change) others makes him an incredibly compelling character.
Morrison has a six part post on their substack on the making of Superman and The Authority that makes for an informative read.
All Star Superman was the comic that finally made me 'get' Superman. Everyone should read it.
Lux: I could have saved the world.
Superman: If you wanted to save the world, you would have done it long ago.
Lux: your right.
Best Hero victory over a villain.
One of the things I liked was actually a scene in this video. After General Ross presents the Avengers with the Sorkovia Accords, most of the heroes immediately take a position on them. Meanwhile, Steve Rogers is reading the entire book, looking at everything there before trying to form an opinion. Team Cap!
If you're picking sides in the Marvel & DC universes & you're not on Cap & Supes sides, respectively than you're wrong!
@@benparrish672 unless it's the Superman from Injustice, Earth 3, or the Justice Lords or if its Hydra Cap.
@@benparrish672 I don’t like that idea.
It gives the impression that no one else should actually think on the issue
@@pn2294 Not really. First off, as the commenter said, this is strictly within the DC and Marvel universes, not necessarily ours. Second, I think their point was less you shouldn’t think, and more you don’t really need to as much, as you can trust the judgment of these two characters.
Finally, looking at their comment, it’s possible they might be exaggerating a little, so it might not be a good idea to take what they said at face value.
With all that said, I think if the idea is “you can generally trust Cap and Superman to take the right stance on a given issue” I’d say that’s fair, especially if we’re talking within their respective universes.
@@benparrish672 I would argue MCU Cap has a lot more failings than 616 Cap (he's honestly kind of... mid. I dunno. Stark is a good update (he's literally just the OG version updated to modern context), but Cap really feels like he's not pushing far enough ahead to be a paragon in the MCU, he's just a meh action hero instead of being moral good above all else, but also willing to take guerilla methods to avoid collateral damage.
I'm still salty over how bad they did all sides in Civil War VS the comic where it was made obvious Stark was taking a road to hell paved with good intentions and self-destructing because that's just what he does when he realizes he made everything worse, while Steve is refusing to compromise HIS beliefs which lends him as a fugitive, so he has to start considering where his morals can flex and where he won't yield, but throughout all of it he never makes a blatant shitty decision like MCU Cap with Lagos and haring off after a Hydra agent while trying to find the Winter Soldier or picking violence over Bucky.
Like, FFS he literally surrenders himself to Stark instead of causing further collateral damage in 616, where's that concern for innocents in the crossfire again????
Pure heroes are awesome, people need to remember that.
I think what makes The Doctor an interesting Paragon character is he knows what he’s capable and during the Time War he did things that he would’ve never done. And so that’s what makes him a a paragon character. He knows the Darkness in him and so with a smile and a screwdriver her helps people. But don’t forget that his Companions are what keep him as a Paragon character
My Pavlovian response to hearing “a wizard did it” is so ingrained now that I started instinctively bobbing my head exactly on the starting beat 😂
It's an interesting reflection of the personal and social structures people are in
When I met people from different parts of the world I realised that people from poor or dangerous backgrounds are drawn to heros who do the right thing and are king but safer people are drawn to darker heros because they've never had to live a constantly threaten life
I love my morally complex, deep, flawed characters as much as the next guy, but I can't help but just love paragon characters so much when they're done so well. They inspire me to be a better person, and makes me believe that even in a dark, complicated world they're still can be people that represent the best of humanity, kindling some light in the darkness, no matter how hard it can be.
At his best, Superman almost always struggles with his role as protector and hero. But he still doesn't become this moping depressed grunt Zack Snyder tried to portray him as.
@@wjzav1971 I completely agree!
I like them, but they usually don’t make me feel very inspired 🙉. They usually fail at making the world 🌍 a better place in stories designed 👨🔧 to show them making the world 🌍 a better place. 😂
They are nice 👍🏻 stock characters though.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana Far be it from me to dictate how you write your messages, but don't you think you are overdoing it a bit with the emotes, friend?
I, for some reason, love Paragons. They are such an interesting type of character that needs good writing, but when it's good, it's hella good
Professor Geek made an interesting video about how characters like Superman are aspirational because they are want we want to become but can't though we ought to try. Meanwhile characters like Batman and Spiderman are inspirational in that they are flawed like us but they keep fighting the good fight. Basically one is the end goal and the other is like the road we walk.
It's worth noting that the rules change a bit when you're working with lightly dramatized biographies. For example, I'm perfectly happy with the recent Julia Childs and Mr Rogers shows/movies just being wholesome simple characters who are all about the good vibes.
I also wonder if it's a cultural thing too- the simple wholesomeness of Bake Off is starting to catch on in American television but it does seem very British
true, though i think they have different purposes. just happy, feel-good noise, rather than deep and compelling stories, y'know?
Mark from Invincible seems like an interesting take on the paragon hero concept (with the caveat that I've only seen the show, not read the comics). He has a strong moral compass and always wants to do the right thing, but actually _doing_ that ends up being a lot harder than he originally thought. At first, just because the reality of being a superhero involves a lot more death and failure than he'd realized, and then because of the impossible situation his father put him in.
If you can you ought to read the comics because its wild or watch comicsexplained explanation of invincible granted he does add his own opinions here and there but he atleast summaries the comics just enough for you to get whats going on
Yeah, the comics version of Mark is a lot more selfish though it’s very subtle at first
@@pn2294 And he had every right to be selfish considering everything he’d been through.
Also, I love how in the end, he became borderline evil as well considering he established himself as an dictator emperor.
Ah, this brings to mind my favorites - the Elric brothers and Winry Rockbell. SPOILERS FOR FMAB:
Their entire arc revolves around them trying to find a way to regain their bodies with the firm resolve to never kill, not just because they're the "good guys", but because they have been through the horror of human resurrection and its devastating effects. They're always determined to help whomever they can, whilst driven by the firm belief to never kill, even when they're in the direst of situations and even when their enemy is willing to kill them. They inspire others around them, even gain some former bad guys as allies in the process and have never been responsible for the deaths of any of the homunculi; Edward also refuses to use his estranged father as a toll for regaining Alphonse's body despite Hohenheim willing to sacrifice himself, and they ultimately succeed in their quest. Winry herself refuses to kill the very person who was responsible for her parents' murder and even helps heal him, while being clear that she isn't doing this out of a passive will to forgive, rather knowing that it is the right thing to do no matter how painful it is. It's not a simple matter of good guys "not killing" and being morally pure - these characters are traumatized and human, and simply do not want anybody else to suffer what they've suffered.
That feels weak to me. It’s basically just doing half the effort of being good.
I don't know if I'd call the Eric brothers paragon heroes, as much as I love FMA. The whole story is a redemption arc that starts with their sin, and several of the other major characters have a similar arc. Edward, especially, is short-tempered and arrogant. He has lots of positive qualities, as you say, but he has a lot to learn about morality.
@@pn2294 They go through great lengths to never hurt any villain even when they posed an extreme risk to their own lives. Kimblee for example almost killed Ed and left him to die while he was impaled with steel beams. Ed still refused to harm Kimblee or use the Philosopher's stone to heal himself as he didn't want to use anybody's life for his own, and healed by using his own soul, at the cost of his lifespan. Ed even refuses to use his estranged father for the toll to get Al back, even though their father was an immortal. That is some severe dedication and anything but weak.
YES. This is what I love to see! Heroes being heroes!
Man it's been a while since I've seen my beloved Doctor Who in a video essay. I miss that show being good. It's been such a long while.
I feel like a lot of writers feel they need to include a paragon hero guy who has all the good personality traits so they have more freedom to make the other heroes flawed, and then...never go back and add interesting character traits to the hero, because they assume that will compromise his paragon-ness.
In fairness, sometimes that initial feeling comes from managerial pressure to include a Good Example to soak up the heroism, so Concerned Parents or other "moral guardians" don't cause a shitstorm. (Not all publicity is good publicity.) But that doesn't stop these default-settings heroes from being okay at best.
I recently read the book Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini. The book is nearly a hundred years old by this point and for some reason the main character, Peter Blood, really struck a chord with me.
Blood is nearly too perfect, he is a doctor, a experienced soldier, a cultured gentleman and smart as a whip. But the thing that gets him into trouble is his good heart. He gets arrested and convicted to indentured servitude in the Caribbean because he took care of wounded rebels in England during a rebelling against the king.
He throws away his chance for a pardon, later in the story in order to save his crew and deserts his service as a privateer for the French navy when he realises that the French commanders are using their commission to plunder Spanish settlements and enrich themselves instead of actually pursuing strategic goals.
Blood’s problem is that he is a good man in a corrupt world. He doesn’t need to be riddled with character flaws, because most of his conflicts are a direct result of him trying to do the moral thing in a setting where those in power don’t play by moral guidelines.
Superman will always be my fave paragon, but that's mostly because his struggle with being part of diaspora is deeply relatable
"You abandoned me Clark, and for what? To save some random people who "needed" you!? Why Clark?" Lois's voice trembled yet she retained an air of authority in her voice "Why?!" I lashed out in rage "Tell me this Lois, If I had never decided to go down this path, If I decide to not use my powers for good then how many more people would have died horrific deaths at the hands of Darksied? You think this is easy??? What's to say you wouldn't have died if I didn't decide to become super man". I don't really know much about Dc but I thought this was an interesting little interaction between Lois and Clark that uses the principles in this video
I feel like something else needs to be added here: paragons work best when they are facing tyrants, because it creates an unstoppable force/immovable object problem. Neither the paragon nor the tyrant have any flexibility: which basically means you can increase the tension in the story as much as you want. Unlike other good characters, the paragon won't compromise with the baddies. When the goal of the baddies is "force everyone to follow our rules": this means the paragon provokes the villainous forces to becoming more angry and violent out of sheer frustration. Whereas other heroes might instead work within the system the villain has set up, or subvert it in ways that the villains don't really notice. But the paragon's blatant refusal to engage with the villain's system at all will make them and anyone associated with them into a target. If you want to drive your villain to do truly unspeakable things, matching them with a paragon hero is a good way to get them there. But, that will typically mean that other characters around the paragon suffer... at least in the short term (since it's also true that frustrated villains tend to make mistakes). This is actually how a lot of the early Superman stories worked: because the villain was usually someone with a tyrannical disposition and good PR. Supes had to first expose and provoke the villain, usually through his alternate Clark Kent persona. But exposing the villain's dastardly deeds usually put people at risk: the villain's underlings, random civilians, or indeed his friends. Much of the tention was then derived from whether Superman would be able to protect the people that *he had himself put in danger*.
So does that mean that even the argument that paragons are morally simplistic is a result of bad writing and confirmation bias rather than something intrinsic to the archetype?
Absolutely. That uncompromising approach to morality is both a strength and a weakness of paragons and can make them very interesting. It can also lead to self-doubt as the paragon sees what happened as a result of that lack of compromise and make them question if they really did the right thing. If they really want to be the hero and save everyone, does that make them a failure if they didn't fully foresee the consequences of their actions, even when it _does_ manage to save more people than if they did nothing, but doesn't save _everyone?_ (I'd hope it's obviously no, but that uncompromising approach may make the paragon think it does. It also brings up questions like utilitarianism and the trolley problem.)
The Elric brothers from Full metal alchemist brotherhood are a perfect example of paragon characters. They stay true to their morals and abstain from taking or using human lives for their own personal reasons, even if it costs them a lot.
Looking around at some of my fandom merch, I’ve come to realize that one of my favorite types of characters is the naive paragon who slowly comes to learn about the darker, more painful and morally complex parts of the world, but instead of losing their drive to do good, they have to come to better understand what “good” is and might struggle with that, but manage to keep their genuinely kind nature throughout. Sometimes these characters even up up switching sides along the way and it’s amazing.
Another type I really like is the paragon who faces the horrors of the world, does completely break, but is pulled back to themselves by the more cynical people who they impacted in the past have come to believe in them. I’m not sure they still count as paragons at that point if they have a brief period of completely turning away from their morals, but to see the others they impacted willing to help and see them regain their values and hope is also super satisfying.
There are certainly morally gray characters I love, but sometimes a darker story needs someone who can either push their way through the pain or get back up again when they fall.
I love All Might and Deku from MHA.
While they are clearly flawed individuals, and their chronic hero syndrome is very much depicted as a flaw, they are also both paragons through and through.
In the 6th season, resident jackass-with-a-point Bakugo actually points out how they're a horrible duo to leave alone, because they won't put the breaks on each other's relentles selflessness.
Deku in particular is an inspiration to the people around him, owing to his compassion and determination. As early as S2, he forgoes doing the smart thing (winning the sports festival for the publicity boost) in favour of beating sense into his classmate.
The brilliant thing is that while his status as a real hero often causes issues (at one point he almost irreparably damages his arms), it also has positive pay offs.
A great example is in late s6 (therefor spoilers)
Basically, in the first half of the season, EVERYTHING goes to shit. Due to Shigaraki escaping from the hospital raid, and subsequently doing a sevenfold jailbreak, releasing thousands of villains into Japan, many heroes are quitting their jobs, civilians are forming mobs to defend themselves, and it's total anarchy.
In the midst of this, Deku leaves the school and goes on the hunt for Shigaraki, running himself ragged trying to stop every crime he comes across and fighting off multiple hitmen sent by AFO.
Eventually, his classmates catch up, and a fight breaks out, his class trying to stop his self-destructive behaviour. Ironically, his heroism has both put him in a difficult position AND has a positive pay-off.
In general, the show portrays quite well how, even with prodigeous power, you can't save everyone, and this helps humanize Deku and All Might.
I think paragon heroes tend to be more interesting than antiheroes myself. I love stories that explore the idea of what it means to be good.
I really love when the paragon is being tested by the events of the plot-can their light persist against the darkness of the world around them?
I think my favorite paragon hero is Sora from Kingdom Hearts-particularly KHII. He’s thrown into this dilemma where defeating the monsters, and saving people helps the villains get closer to their goal, and that is really cool.
An amazing example of the "paragons influencing the characters around them", The Expanse's James Holden (as paragon) affecting Amos is a beautiful example of this. Holden is usually a paragon (with exceptions), and Amos struggles with telling right from wrong at all, and their combined arcs are some of the best i've seen in sci-fi
This makes me think of Vash from Trigun. Not exactly sure if he'd classify as a paragon, but he's got to be close at least. He starts out making you laugh, and as time goes on, he warms your heart. His pacifist approach to helping and saving people takes a large toll on him, but he refuses to kill anyone. Even though it's like the wild west where death and violence are everywhere.
Captain Carrot of Discworld fame is a fun paragon character. I heard Pratchett planned for him to be the main character of the City Watch books, but then realized they would work better with Vimes at the center, leaving Carrot free to be as paragony as he likes.
My favorite paragon character is Sailor Moon. The series was a formative one for me, coming along when I was 11 and hasn't aged too badly. All of the characters have their own virtues, but she is the axis that they revolve around.
Loved this one! My favorite stories center around heroic characters, and I've kinda gotten burned out on "gritty reimaginings." Sometimes life is hard enough as it is. Sometimes what I want from a story is to be inspired and feel like the world could be a better place. In my own novel, I've really enjoyed the experience of exploring a group of different "good" characters all dealing with the fallout of a significant event, and how they each process their emotions and responses differently.
Also, extra thrumbs-up for the return of "A Wizard Did It", been missing that. ;)
Also, also, makes my nerdy-soul happy to see all the board games behind you!
A fav paragon character for me is Sun from Black Summer. I appreciate the difficulties she goes through as being very morally good while surrounded by amoral people, and how it gets her hurt but her faith in other people and value in their life isn’t shaken
i loved the fight of superman and darkseid on the animated cartoon. At one point, darkseid thinks he has the upper hand, when superman says something along the lines of how everyone is so frail to him, and how he has to remain vigilant every waking hour to not break people or use excessive force. That fighting against darkseid was that once in a lifetime chance of cutting lose for once.
It's just so fun that, after a paragon having to be thoughtful and restrained for the longest time, the star aligns to allow him to fight unabated. And often we associate a paragon character to privation, and denying temptations, a lot of passing up opportunities for pleasure because they conflict with goodness, so to make 'pleasure' and 'good' align for once is so cathartic. For those that played final fantasy xiv, its that last fight of endwalker, the duel against your rival at the end of the universe, one opportunity to explore pleasure and not have to worry about anything else.
I love the Paragon character type so much. Captain America has always been one of my favorite characters and people always question that/kinda make fun of me for it. But to me the idea of whats right/wrong is more elementary and childish (depending on the story). The idea of how to do good despite everything the story throws at you is such an interesting story and is much more relatable in my life than the basic what's good/wrong.
MCU Cap was... meh, but I'm putting that on the bad MCU writing trying desperately to recycle the comics' plots without realizing what made them work and without giving them the good buildup leading to it.
Cap was done so, so dirty in MCU in the Civil War arc, regarding his morals and where the lines he won't cross are, and conversely Stark is _too_ principled to have 616's desperation and "I'm willing to get in bed with the devil and sell all my soul as long as the Avengers get to stay safe", which are the two pivot points that the comics' Civil War hinged on, the fact that it was more than just... the nothingburgers that the MCU sold.
I was so hyped up for him all the way up to Civil War, but now I'm kind of side eyeing Endgame at all, because... I don't trust the MCU writers with Steve.
Do they fix their writing in the Endgame arc?
An interesting example of a moral paragon is Job in The Book of Job. Confusing read, but in the end you find that Job is a paragon perhaps moreso than even God in that story. He comes to the terrible realization that doing morally good things gives no tangible rewards in this or the next world. And yet, he refuses to do moral evils, presumably because doing good is still desirable over doing evil. We’ve been creating paragons for thousands of years and I think we will continue to do so because it helps us understand the human condition.
YES! This! So much this. (Bible spoilers ahead.)
Yahweh is a douche of godly proportions to Job. He never considers it might maybe sometimes who knows be wrong to put your best guy through hell on Earth just because of a bet you took. He never makes ammends for everything Job's lost, just taking the easy way out and going "Aw. You lost your family? There there. Here's another one for you. Happy now?". And in the end he doesn't even answer Job's question, resorting instead to "Dow dare you puny little mortal question your creator?". It's no surprise a god like that would choose David (another douche of biblical proportions) as his anointed one.
@@juliahenriques210 Yeah so God is a very odd and inconsistent character in this story. He agrees to have Job essentially tortured into misery, manifests and (in some readings) rebukes Job for protesting, but then immediately tells Job’s friends that they were wrong to say Job deserved to be punished and that they need to convince Job to sacrifice on their behalf so that he is appeased.
It can be helpful to learn of some of the book’s historical background as it likely was a story taken from the surrounding cultures and adapted for Hebrew purposes. Yale Courses has a nice set of lectures by Christine Hayes on the entire Hebrew Bible. Highly recommended.
Yeah as cliche as it is, good deeds don't reward you and they do often get punished. The only real reward is feeling good about yourself, maybe the good deed will cause a transactional relationship but don't bank on that for obvious reasons. It's what makes paragons so powerful, they regularly sacrifice shit because they're simply good.
A great example of a paragon character in fiction is George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, with the central conflict being that he's so willing to do good to help others, he sacrifices his own hopes and dreams to do so. It's the price of him doing the right thing, and ultimately causes him to snap. It's also a great example of another way to deal with paragon characters - to have them go through a crisis of faith. How do they react if everything they've done has been (seemingly or in reality) for naught.
Very underrated example.
A really interesting example of a compelling character arc for a paragon is Adora from Shera and the princesses of power. Her entire character arc is about valuing her own needs and wants in addition to those around her. While she is pretty much always morally right, she actively hurts people she loves with her actions (namely catra and glimmer). Great paragon character with a compelling arc too!
Ah I'm so glad someone else thought of Adora! definitely one of my favorite paragon characters!
Drew Hayes wrote a series called Super Powereds in which the mc is a paragon.
I don't have time to write up a full essay, but this is what I noticed about his character:
1. He inspires a kind of pity from those around him.
2. Nobody trusts him until they get to know him becaue he is so innocent.
3. He has a path filled with turmoil, yet was shown to be a paragon back then.
4. He's surrounded by dynamic characters. One is an extreme introvert telepath, one is a stuck up brat, one is a deceiving con artist, one is an insecure teen with an alter ego. He stands out as the main character _because_ he contrasts so well.
(I highly recommend the series)
I do like Paragons (Cap was my favourite MCU Avenger). I just hate when they're boring, OR when on top of being a Paragon, they're also so OP that there is no struggle to do good, and everything is just a minor inconvenience to them (ie, a lot of Superman stuff)
Basically, I like Cap because he's good, but has to work for his wins. He has to struggle against forces that are stronger than him, and put himself at risk, and seek allies who can help carry him across the finish line.
Wheras I tend to find Superman boring because most of the time it's just "oh hey, the invincible super-speed flying brick saved the day again because he can just super-speed his way to the problem and tank everything, easy peasy." There's no drama, no struggle, no question of how he's going to manage the task, no question of if he'll do the right thing, or manage the task. We already know how he's going to manage the task. Outside of a few well-done superman stories, everything about him is so obvious as to leave no uncertainty.
Unless they leverage the fact that there's only one of him and he can't be everywhere at once, meaning that we're worrying about how other squishier people are going to cope *without* superman. THAT'S when it's interesting, and not because of him, but because of his absence.
So Cap isn’t a Mary Sue in this instance?
@@pn2294Cap isn't a Mary Sue period because he is supposed to be an ideal to be achieved not an embodiment of the author/audience power fantasy. He is designed that way from the start.
Batman is more of a Mary Sue by this metric
@@grandempressvicky6387 I’m not seeing the difference
The Doctor is an interesting case because how Paragon he is varies across regenerations. The third happily continued working together with and being friends with UNIT after they committed genocide in his third episode, because it would help in his essentially selfish goal to get his Tardis working, and stuck with them long after he achieved it. Admittedly he did also make the Brig better over the course of their relationship, but still he's a lot more grey than say the 10th.
Another good example of a Paragon to me is Steven from Steven Universe. Especially in Steven Universe Future when they really explore the psychological cost of everything he's been through and how much his self-worth is tied to living up to that legacy/expectation. It's something about him that gets tested time and time again as the show goes on, and you watch him get more and more drained by the things that seemingly came easy to him.
Like you said, it explores how difficult it is to keep choosing good. Both when facing seemingly insurmountable odds that The Good Way will work, and also the straight-up stress of being a paragon.
Because he is The Guy Who Saves Everyone, someone who can "always find a way," as the opening says, he needs to maintain that identity to keep the good he's done stable. For many characters in the show, Steven's way only works because Steven doesn't fail. It's a heartbreaking expectation to carry because any mistakes he makes or how guilty he feels or how tied he is to the problems in the first place, he has to remain a paragon. And he's just a kid, at his oldest in the show he's 16, shouldering the weight of the universe on his shoulders.
I think it's an excellent examination/exploration of this archetype, and worth mentioning, so behold this comment :P
Also thanks for mentioning Donna Noble and her insecurity. I think The Doctor's constant complimenting of her, which largely is brushed off or passed over, really plants the seeds of Donna's self-esteem issues. Then when Metacrisis Doctor finally starts to get it, saying how she feels out loud until she communicates how much it upsets her to hear it and immediately going "But look at what you did!" and reassuring her and once again telling her how great she is.
AND THEN!!! Once she "awakens" as The Doctor Donna her line about how she's "The Fastest Temp in Chiswick" shows the audience that she finally understands it. She always had value and was always important, even without the genetic jiggery-pokery from The Doctor. Nice to have a woman's self worth not immediately and exclusively tied to a man's influence and actions lmao.
Great character, great example of how paragons can change people. Hell yeah.
I think Steven from Steven Universe is set up to be a paragon character too, but he's that way because he's a literal child. It's a really interesting take on the paragon, as someone who does right out of childish innocence and then must *choose* to do right as they mature and discover the dark truths of their world.
Favourite paragon would be Tenma from Naoki Urasawa's Monster, a 74 episode show of someone doing the "right thing" and suffering the consequences almost every time.
4:08 I don't know why but Elijah's shit eating grin at Mount Doom when he puts on the Ring ALWAYS gets me. ALWAYS.
Maybe because this is the only time he grins. Most of the time Frodo has a desperate, cryface look or a stoned out face. Which is honestly not Elijah Wood's fault, its how the character is written. In all honesty, I always found Frodo to be the most boring, dull and annyoing character in TLOTR. Its come to the point where whenever he and Sam show up in the second and third film, I think to myself "Ugh, them again. Can we skip forward and follow the Elve, the Dwarve, the Ranger and the Wizard again, please."
@@wjzav1971
The thing about finding annoying Frodo and Sam in the second and third film is because their journey and plot line are the least existing and appealing action-wise. Their chapters in the book are a mental, psychological and moral struggle more than anything really. Meanwhile, everyone else is partying hard exploring cities, killing orcs and stuff.
@@ultimateshipper8997 I wouldn't mind physical or mental struggle but Frodo becomes just so unlikeable that I don't give a damn. Its been too long that I read the books, so I don't quite remember but in the films it manifests in Frodo yelling at Sam every once in a while which culminates in Frodo actually believing that Sam ate their last rations, casting him out and trusting Gollum who, you know, tried to kill them. I don't care if Frodo was inlfuenced by the Ring, that was just damn stupid.
@@wjzav1971
Yeah, that was totally made up for the movies, I guess PJ meant to convey Frodo's increasingly physical and mental deterioration, being worned off and scared. In the end, as you said, he just come off obnoxious, lashing out and having coffee withdrawal kind of reactions.
Regarding the paragon hero, I really like that you present the Doctor as a paragon. Regarding character arcs, every Doctor (except 13th, which isn't weel written. :/ I really hope they'll fix that in future Big Finish audio dramas) has one. One of the most compelling to me was the character arc of the Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston.
He goes from a complete journey, from a war survivor who struggles with his PTSD and has a very cynical view of the world, and can feel a bit cold and harsh, but his relationship with Rose seems to humanize him, and in the last episode, when he is faced with the same choice he had to make at the end of the time war : killing everyone to defeat the daleks, he can't do the same choice anymore, and states that he prefers to be a coward than a killer.
It kills me that Thirteen had such poor writing because Jodie herself and her Doctor were so amazing and really deserved to be in better stories. It got better towards the end but it's kinda awful that her best episode was her last episode.
@@ShinGallon tbh, I thought her last episode was bad and representative of her era. She doesn't have much agency and she is eclipsed by previous doctors for most of the episode.
And her death doesn't come at the consequence of a choice she makes regarding a morality choices, like the previous Doctors of new Who did
@@erin_3569 Good point. I just...really want to like her episodes more than I do, because I like her Doctor so much. Chibnall's a terrible showrunner and not a great writer, sadly.
I think my favourite paragon hero is James Holden from the EXPANSE series. His inflexible morality is treated both as a good and a bad thing, as he refuses to let the world turn him into a bad person. And yet, he still changes over the course of the story, when he sees the consequences of his choices. Great balanced writing for a great character.
A lot of the struggle with writing a paragon style hero is that it is difficult to believe in their struggles against the enemy. The fact of the matter is that when you do good, real good, people appreciate and reciprocate that. If you do good at work, you get raises. And if you don't, then you punish the wrong of your higher ups by leaving, and then they will be more likely to appreciate the next person who goes above and beyond. If you do good for a neighbor,they will generally return the favor. When you do good, good is generally returned, and that helps make up for the harder times in life. If it didn't work this way then life would be a lot harder than it already is. By extension, when a character is the embodiment of some ideal of good, it feels contrived when someone is set against them.
My favorite paragon character is Vash from trigun. the guy wouldn't hurt a fly, but he is constantly trying to find a way to foil his brother who is equally evil and actively trying to do him harm. And the people hate him because he has done terrible things because of who and what he is in spite of his intent. This is the same struggle that is mirrored in captain America. The sakovia (sp) accords were made because of the damage heros do when trying to save people. In the Incredibles it is the lawsuit of a guy being saved that didn't want to be saved, which then brought out resentment for the pain and trauma not properly compensated as a result of heros being involved. If you are going to have a paragon, the situation of the consequences of well intended actions is often a better foil than the actual antagonist. Syndrome is a bit part who brings a face to the situation, but isn't the problem himself. Tony was the face of the accords,but the accords were the struggle not cap v iron man. Vash has his confrontation with knives, but the issue is how people react to unregulated power regardless if it takes the form of Vash or knives.
But when you have superman vs a cartoon villin who can't really cause harm to Clark, and when we know how it has to end... Yeah, it isn't compelling. And when the villin gets a win against the paragon, we often equally write it off as being unrealistic. But take a literal cartoon character as ridiculous as Vash and put him against a situation rather than a person? That becomes compelling drama. The hero can't be beaten by a person, because the paragon is undefeatable, and we want to believe that. But fighting against natural boundaries, limits and laws... That is compelling because we have all faced that moment of moral judgement where doing wrong is the easier path sometimes. Or if you can't win, why not take what joy you can from the situation before it destroys you anyways? These are the human questions that paragons can explore best. not good vs evil, but perfect vs good, or good vs mediocrity, or finding good in a universe that simply doesn't play by social rules and doesn't care about your human story.
I love this one, idk why, but I just love characters who always strive to do good and positively influence others. I also like seeing the interesting stories that can be made with them involved
Edit: Learning about Lyra makes me want to check out that story. Good showcase of paragon having inner conflict
Bold of you not to mention Sam Vimes!
My favourite moment of his is in Thud! when he's describing reading his son his favourite book, every night, at 6 o'clock, and goes on to talk about how, maybe, he could be two minutes late. Maybe five. But if you'd go to five, you'd go to ten, then half an hour, so he can't make any compromises or any excuses. It extends to pretty much everything he does, and that's what makes him the hero.
On another note, I'm an enjoyer of Arknights, which features the heroine, Amiya. She starts off as more of a person with ideology but little power of her own. Sure, she's a powerful caster, but that means little in the face of societally and socially instituted cruelty and hatred that pervades her world, and for a long time, she feels she can't save anyone. Everyone she tries to help dies anyway and she's unable to do anything about the people causing it. Still, she persists, people start believing in her as the story goes on, her cause becomes a movement, and eventually, after many battles and sacrifices, they start to get some wins.
One of my favourite stories is How to Train Your Dragon 2, which I now realise puts Hiccup in the paragon role.
His outlook and approach to peace isn't wrong, but he learns that leadership isn't as simple as having positive ideals. It feels like an incorporating-the-shadow type of story more than anything
Superman has and always will be my favourite paragon character. What breaks my heart about the Snyder films is they had something there… they had the ingredients of a paragon facing a world that does not want him to be one. And they got Captain America so right in the other side of the DC/Marvel world. Someone who doesn’t change because the world is bad, but forces the world to change. “Sometimes you have to plant your feet and tell the world, no, you move!”
I was literally wondering how long it would be till you would just onto Nebula after your debut video essay. Glad to see you've joined up with them!!
The funny thing is, you can see the difference in both of these writing approaches in Captain America. Markus and Mcfeely (Cap trilogy, Infinity War, Endgame) said that when Joss Whedon wrote Cap in the first two Avengers movies, he made him too much of agoody-two-shoes who always follows the rules instead of the guy that lied to the government 4 times and straight up disobeys direct orders in the first half of his first movie
i was rewatching merphy's avatar series yesterday and this reminds me of how aang was constantly finding ways he can do his duty as the avatar without crossing his morals and believes as an airbender.
One of my favorite series growing up was the Prydain Chronicles. Taran always strives to be good and do the right thing, but he still has a reasonably compelling arc over the series, from naïve foolhardiness to tempered maturity, from ignorance to wisdom. Heck, despite its simplicity Taran Wanderer is still one of my favorite books. There's something relatable about soneone struggling to find themselves and do right by those around them, even when it's hard
Taran takes a journey from the first book where he wants to be "more than an assistant pig-keeper" who wants to be a knight or other hero. He meets Prince Gwydion, who appears to be everything Taran idolizes. In time, he wants to learn about his parentage in the hope of being someone who could marry a princess (who is something of a girly tomboy), and he even gives up on that when he believes he is the long lost son of a dirt poor farmer, working without complaint to improve his "father's" house and land. Of course, the man was lying to get someone to become his free servant, but even when Taran learns that, he instinctively wants still to help him. By the end, when Taran is told that he is a prophesied king, Taran is upset, because he doesn't feel noble or virtuous, even though he is. It's quite the arc.
That's a series I haven't thought about in a long time.
I just finished rereading Elantris so Raoden is the top paragon on my mind as I watch this. I have heard people call him boring. I love him! The whole, he does the right thing but it costs seems to be the most played up one with him. As always thanks for the excellent content!
Thats why I love fanfiction, giving character development to the paragon
Your videos are always so good to watch
I love that you can take a step back and calmly prove your point without having millions of flashy things
(dont get me wrong the editing (and jokes) are great
I enjoy the way you look at things from an emotional, relatable level
pls keep making more videos
Wildbow's web serials do this a lot--Ward and Pale feature characters that are absolutely trying to do good, or are abiding by their moral codes, but they're limited by their own traumas or restrictions. They're constantly challenged by the temptation to 'make the easy choice' by sacrificing their ideals.
Was looking for the obligatory Wildbow mention, dudes probably the best superhero writer
Worm is one of my absolute favourite stories, because you see why the anti-hero is making the choice to commit a 'necessary evil' each time they do it, and she's so very persuasive in her reasoning to herself, that it can take a long time for the reader to take a step back and realise that no, it actually wasn't the best choice.
You have paragon heroes, glory-hound heroes, ruthless utilitarian anti-heroes and punch-clock 'just doing my job' heroes against not just psychopathic villains, but ruthless utilitarian 'greater good' villains and some villains so idealistic that it makes the heroes question themselves.
Hm, its interesting thinking about the paragons role. I've read two book serieses where the paragon character was a veiwpoint character, but actually had more impact by how they influenced their anti-hero best friend than by what they actually did themselves.
But one story where that isn't true is Rise of Phoenixes. Ning Yi is a paragon, and while he does transform some people around him, one of his great struggles is that he can't transform the world enough to keep those people safe (and often by being close to him, they are endangered). That, right there, is what he wants more than anything: to at least make the world safe for the people he cares about, but even more than that, to be able to have a family, again. That drama does such a good job of making Ning Yi relatable because doing the right thing always, always costs him.
I think that might be a key with paragons. Make doing the right thing cost something, at least some of the time.
Something I'd love to see an episode on is writing in a way that leaves things open. I play a lot of Destiny and they have a particular writing method that allows them to give the illusion that things are planned out much better than they actually are. I think they've even got a name for it, though googling that name hasn't turned up anything. Open door writing or something like that? Writing in a way that leaves things open and vague.
Just cause a character has a pure heart or stands for stellar morals doesn’t mean they don’t experience conflicts or don’t have room to grow. Good morals doesn’t mean they are perfect. A paragon can always learn from their friends and their own failures, mistakes, and hardships. Which makes for great internal conflict and character arcs. The possibilities are endless.
My favourite paragon character is The Doctor I really like how he inspires people to do the right thing and that he sometimes struggles with doing the right when things aren’t always black and white and he always tries to do the right thing even know he never gets a reward or recognition for it
Except Frodo wasn't the paragon, Sam was. Sam never fell to the ring and never gave up, not for a lofty purpose but because helping his friend was the right thing to do.
That said great video. Personally I like the paragon best as a measuring stick. Not the protagonist but a force in the world to show what the ideal would be to see how the rest of the world measures up to this person. Superman needs to be the best of the heroes so the other heroes have a comparison, not in power but in action. Actively choosing to do what Superman wouldn't is a choice that means something in the setting. All-Might in My Hero Academia is another great deconstruction that doesn't undermine his Paragon status but rather shows how it can negatively impact the world around him in spite of him doing only good and working to save everyone he could.
A hero archetype I personally love is the hero their friends can’t respect.
Those who sacrifice themselves, but end up hurting those they love. Which sometimes ends in a betrayal in order to save the hero. Sacrifices shouldn’t be a norm.
Sora is absolutely my favorite paragon of all time. His story leans into two things, the first is your point #5, the way he affects everyone around him is a large part of the moral message of the story. He's there for people when they need him. The second thing they do is shape his personal arc around his maturity and self esteem. The Kingdom Hearts story is one about growing up and all the hardships with it. The author doesn't want kids to grow and become hardened so he shows how Sora is able to grow while still being a paragon.
I'm waiting so hard for your on writing 3 book, it will be so useful
There is a paragon character in Spanish literature - El Cid Campeador, the example for all Spanish knights - and he fights with the Moors for three years, guerrilla-style, against the will of his king, cheats the money-changers to get the money for his raid, extremely brutal fighter and killed his father-in-law on a petty duel. And still, he is a paragon because he is completely honest and noble. He is so honest and noble, even the Moors acknowledge that and offer help when El Cid's daughters were kidnapped. So paragon could be not even a good and nice person.
I like the use of My Hero Academia here. Deku is very much a paragon inspired by a paragon and goes into one of his character flaws; he never thinks of himself or his own safety. It's also shown that he takes it to extremes and gets criticized for it in-story alot. Bakugo's growth is shown in him see in wanting to save Deku from himself.
Also What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way? is one of the best examinations of Superman.
I think my favorite paragon character from TV is Jack from LOST. It was a smart writing choice to make him a doctor because embedded in his core traits is that medical ethos of "first, do no harm." He's always wanting to make the right decisions (it was his job as a surgeon) and do good, but as the person all the castaways looked to as a leader, he felt a responsibility towards them, and it gives him a "savior complex." That, along with the intrinsic challenges of surviving all the crazy on that show made him a hero who was flawed and not boring.
Another thing I do to make my own paragon characters make mistakes and have flaws not related to the values they champion. Like being hot headed, lacking in caution, etc. They still choose to do the right things every time but they don’t always go about it in the right ways. HelloFutureMe brings up Ned Stark and he’s a great example of this. Robb is also similar.
As far as I understand it there is significant overlap between a paragon character and a mentor character (influencing the other characters rather than having their own arc, seeing through the Lie that others believe). It would be interesting to know where they differ, in your opinion, given that you haven’t mentioned it yet.
And again, a very insightful and helpful video, kudos!
I quite enjoyed how they used the paragon theme in Once Upon a Time through the Saviour.
Firstly we have Emma Swan who had ended up in jail and had a criminal past, giving birth to her son Henry in Jail. Her paragon-ness shines through in Storybrooke because she has this sense of righting an injustice in protecting Henry from Regina and then by the end of the season and into season 2 has to come to terms with being a literal magical embodiment of goodness and love. By season 4 we learn that she had all of her potential for darkness displaced into Maleficent's child and ironically it is this knowledge, coupled with her innate goodness that actually drives her to turn dark, killing Cruella in a scene that should be a straightforward disney-hero-killing-villain, but since Cruella can't actually kill anyone she is at Emma's mercy and is defenceless when she dies. Emma also kills her with magic which in world this a sure fire way to turn it dark and blacken her heart. Then by the season finale she embraces the Darkness to become The Dark One so that Regina won't fall again, but because of her extra-goodness she becomes this strange utilitarian character who does have a dark plan but never really becomes evil. It's only through the eyes of the other characters expecting her to be evil now that she is particularly dark and her worst crime is turning her love interest into a second Dark One which makes him lose the internal battle with the darkness he had been wrestling with from his former villainous ways.
In Season 6 they make Emma even more interesting by comparing her to other saviours, Aladdin and Rumpelstiltskin, both of whom were severed from their fate: Aladdin did so by choice because the burden of being the Saviour was too much for him and had started to take the physical toll that Emma also began to suffer, and Rumpel being severed as a baby by his mother because his destiny was to die saving the lives of children, sending him on a spiral to become one of the darkest souls in all the realms.
Emma now sees the consequences of both fulfilling her destiny and being severed from it and it's very clear throughout the season that she has just about had enough of "never getting a day off". Twice that season she has an opportunity to escape her destiny but both times she does not because doing so would have let her son commit murder or meant the permanent erasure of all the realms of story. She also realized that the only way to win the final battle is not to kill her opponent because that would darken her soul which is the only way to snuff out the light. In fact the final battle is won moreso by Rumpelstiltskin doing the right thing than by Emma being triumphant in a physical conflict with a dark antagonist.
What's also interesting about Emma is that she is the daughter of the ultimate paragons of true Love, Snow White and Prince Charming but we learn through their backstories that both have done the wrong thing, especially Snow who had murdered Regina's mother and deviously tricked Regina into being an instrument of that murder. There is a great scene where Snow asks Regina, The Evil Queen to kill her, and in examining Snow's heart, Regina learns with glee that the murder has created a spot of darkness on it. The moral victory here is actually Regina's and in one of the most powerful scenes in the show, she delights in relating to Snow how she will only grow darker and ultimately bring down her own family without Regina having to do a thing.
This adds a new dimension to the conflict between good and evil in the show because evil doesn't have to actively conquer good, light can snuff itself out by doing dark things, which puts a much greater burden on the paragons of good in the show because they have to actively do good instead of just not being bad.
The point about the Doctor's role in changing the people around him reminds me of Luffy from One Piece (Spoilers for approx the end of Dressrosa below)
One of the running themes of the show is how Luffy, through his singleminded determination and strange insightfulness and charisma draws in those around him. There's a moment where fleet after fleet of pirate crews that Luffy and the Strawhats befriended pledge themselves to the crew, against the will of Luffy, making him the unintentional leader of a giant armada.
Sometimes, you gotta show what the Hero would do without powers as well. "What would you do if no one was looking" applies to this as well.
I'm just thinking of Rengoku Kyojuro from Demon Slayer, and how his compassion and morals is what spurs the main character's progression as a person and his journey, largely due to Rengoku's death because he kept those principles and that kindness.
I saw a video which explained how Rengoku differed from other shonen protags (sure he isn’t the protag, but a good contrast to him in this regard) that he actually loses.
Like take Naruto or Deku who has the dream to be the best in something and so is Rengoku (all of them for different reasons of course), but Rengoku fails because his father couldn’t care less and even with that he’s still stands and never gives up.
These Shonen stories usually have the “if you put all of your effort into it, you can win”, but sadly reality isn’t like that and it would be a better advice how to face with failure and stand up after it.
You have absolutely changed my writing for the better dude. I appreciate everything that you do 🙏🏾
What I love about the Doctor as a paragon, is how his values are confronted against the amorality of others. Some of my favourites episodes are the ones were he's faced with the intolerance or cruelty of humans beings, and just loose is temper because he cannot stand anymore the suffering and lack of empathy around him. Like in the Rebel Flesh / The Almost People, in which Eleven is faced with the horrible treatment given by humans to synthetic live forms with their consciousness. Or The Beast Below, with the torture of an innocent space creature. He has such peaceful ideals that it is almost painful to see him confronted with the worst of humanity. But it is also because he's so moved by it all that he's inspiring others.
Even when he act "bad", like in the "The Waters of Mars" scenario evoked here, it's because he cannot stand more deaths, more suffering. Ten decides that he can choose to change time and became a sort of God at that moment because he's not able to just live and let's all those people die, just because Time says they did. All the bad decisions of the Doctor are guided by his will to save and help others more than anything, or his incapacity to stand more of a cruel and unjust situation. I just love him so much as a character ...
I honestly think one of my favorite parts of his character is 12's rejection of the title of a hero in Death in Heaven. After the suffering caused by his inflated reputation on the town of Christmas over centuries leading the Church of the Silence on a mad quest to kill him, he stops trying to pretend he's a larger than life demigod of some kind, and accepts that he's a simple traveler who just tries to help wherever he can.
I'm so glad for this video!
Yesterday I was ranting about how every story needs to be gray these days (exaggerating of course, I know is not true) and wanted to write a more "classic" hero. This gonna be useful as hell.
Shigeo Kageyama from Mob Psycho 100 is definitely a paragon character, his conflict coming primarily from becoming a more mentally healthy person. This video helped solidify him as my #1 favorite protagonist
10:23, so like the scene in the 2002 Spider-Man movie wherein New York comes to Spider-Man’s aid against the Green Goblin
Ive been watching your content for 5 years, and I truly admire your consistency in creating great videos! 🙏🏾
That's why I like Sword & Sorcery stories There's no thinking and pondering involved if a maiden need saving the mc saves her if a monster needs slaying the mc slays it end of story.
I don't think people understand how hard is being "purely good".
Even if you're 100% morally right, you can't make others act like you, and if you don't make people become better people, you acting good is meaningless because evil acts still will happen and you would watch them happen on the sideline. If you force your idea upon others, you are bad. If you don't try to convince others, you are bad. Let's say you can do that, then who is there to save you if you are going to die for others, or letting you take necessary breaks? Who is the hero's hero? To put simply, there is no way to be "purely good", but you certainly can TRY. Trying to navigate the nuance of reality and reach your own goal, that is good enough imo.
I'm so glad to see a video on this subject from you! While I enjoy some delicious moral conflict and ambiguity in my stories, I've always had and probably always will have an extreme soft spot for "Labrador" heroes, lmao 😅 also, I am totally adopting that term now. Characters who inspire everyone around them to be better, and whose struggles come more from their emotional reactions to a reality which is complicated and sometimes cruel in face of their kindness, who continue to CHOOSE to be kind and good anyway, to the best of their ability-they just resonate with me, and with the curent media landscape, and many people in general turning away from this kind of characterization as "bland" or "boring", it's nice to see people defending the heroes that I love.
I've always loved Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks. Who comes into the town with optimism and hope but also great inteligence for people. He's constantly challenged to leave the little lies of everyone alone, but its only through uncovering the darkness behind the little lies that the truth comes out.