The Tragic Hero

What's your definition of a tragic hero? If it's what I think it is then I would say Joe Pike from Robert Crais's Elvis Cole series-

***SPOILER ALERT****










Pike is an Ex-LA Cop- His partner killed himself, and he found the body- now its been awhile since i read it, but Pike made it look like he was responsible for the death and made it look like his partner was killed so his wife could get his his pension- and he recieved in turn, the contempt od his fellow cops- he left the department in disgrace so the man he admired would not be thought of badly and his family would not suffer- that's what I call a tragic hero.

That's every good main character in M/T/S.

My first thought, though I don't know if this is what you mean, is the villain in the movie Gladiator. I know it's not a book, but that was a character who was just destroyed by life, and I felt so sympathetic for him that I ended up really disliking the movie because he was so vilified.

Another example that almost works, but doesn't quite, is the villain in a manga series called Monster (one of the best stories ever, btw). He only sorta counts because one of the great mysteries is whether or not he's truly evil, as in if he was born evil, or if the horrible events that happened to him throughout his life caused him to become something that should be pitied instead of hated. That dichotomy was awesome, and I won't tell you how it turns out, but that question of whether or not he was actually more of a tragic character than an evil one was probably the coolest thing about the story.

If you're interested in the hero arc, you should read a book I just finished called "The Writer's Journey," by Christopher Vogler. This will help you identify and establish the heroic traits in your character. It also helped me with the heroic story arc. I'd never really thought about story arc that much. It's a fabulous book. In the book that I have coming out this fall, my hero (anti-hero, really) pretty much follows the tragic arc, ending up, not dead, but removed from society. You can have a tragic hero without a death. I think. Being cast out of society is also considered a tragic end.