What is it about a hero?

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Diviner

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Absurdly behind most Americans, I have recently read Michael Shaara's Killer Angels. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain blows me away. (I now have to see the movie Gettysburg, which I also missed.) What astounds me is that this is a real individual, as heroic and fine as any fictional hero of fantasy or anything else. No, he was not such a great husband, but what an amazing man! Perhaps Shaara's picture of him is a bit starry-eyed, but he convinced me.

What is it about a hero that leaves me spell bound and gasping? Men can be admirable in many different ways, but few are admirable in almost all ways. Rarely, except in fiction, do I come across men with the qualities of leadership and courage, good sense and virtue that Shaara attributes to Chamberlain.

How many of you have been inspired by a hero only to discover through your research their clay feet? Certain characters in my work, like Captain John Smith, suffered under my close scrutiny. Have any of your heroes kept their bright luster the deeper you delved?
 

Doogs

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Have any of your heroes kept their bright luster the deeper you delved?

I've tried and tried to punch holes in my opinion of Publius Cornelius Scipio (Roman general who ultimately defeated Hannibal...and my MC), but it's hard. He brought intelligence, cunning, and creativity to Roman military doctrine. He was an intellectual. By all accounts he was a decent man. No doubt some of his decent acts were contrived and/or later elaborated upon, but so were George Washington's, and playing it up for posterity doesn't change the innate decency. About the worst I can say is that his two sons were flakes, but that seems to happen quite often with the offspring of prominent figures. And his youngest daughter, Cornelia, got all the good genes anyway;).
 

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I was really impressed by the Irish explorer Earnest Shackleton. This guy was an amazing explorer that worked for it instead of being born to it and distinguished himself through failure. Unlike Scott who pressed on to the South Pole in bad weather and made it, but died with 6 members of his team after planting the flag, Shackelton had the courage to turn back just 97 miles from his goal, unwilling to risk the lives of his men for his own glory. He wrote his wife that it was better to be a live donkey than a dead lion.

A couple of years later he was responsible for one of the greatest survival and navigation stories in history when his ship was trapped and crushed by sea ice on another trip to the pole. The story of how he kept his men alive in the Antartic for months, and then braved some of the most dangerous waters, waves, and weather on earth (in a 20 foot life boat no less) to reach South America and get help for his men when they ran out of food, is one of the most exciting and inspiring I've ever read.

I just love this guy. He never lost a man and all of his crew were rescued alive. The only disapointment is how many of his crew died over the next two years in WW 1. If you haven't read it and you like real life adventure, the book South is a marvelous read.
 
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