Character Traits of Hero

Character Traits of a Hero

Last time I introduced you to the concept of a character. Today I want to introduce you to a heroic character and talk about how to make heroes.

In our post modernist Western world we appear to have forgotten the discussion of morality. It seems archiac and repressive. But the reality is that each of your characters will exist with their own morals. And those morals will help define them as a character.

When culture forgets what a hero looks like along with the concept of moral codes, we lose the example of what a hero can be.

Think of the newest set of Star Wars movies…

Han Solo left the fight, no suprise there, his character was the least invested of the original three main characters. But as a lead character, we the audience had hoped to see changes of loyalty. Luke Skywalker also left the fight... which meant he abandoned not only a cause, but his sister. Abandoning family doesn't fit with the original Luke Skywalker that Obi Wan Kenobi trained. Princess, now General Leia - is the only one who stayed with the resistance… and she is nowhere near the focus of the film. I do understand that things could have been changed because of actress Carrie Fisher’s passing away - but part of being a good writer is finding the most interesting angle on the story. And if you’re going to have two of the three characters give up the fight - then you should be focusing on what the one remaining character is doing and why they have made that different choice. It also heightens the story stakes as well, something we’ll talk about in another post.

Because the Star Wars were sequels and part of a series, the characters were already established and most of us thought the evil empire would be gone. (Or at least my brain did.) By not making the focus of the story established characters, in an already established universe... I would consider the newest Star Wars trilogy a massive misstep. Like the type of misstep that makes you trust your evil son with serious daddy issues and get chopped off a bridge, falling into massive darkness because your ex wife/girlfriend/fiancee/baby momma (???) pleaded with you to try and convert your son back to the Light side of the Force.

I brought this in, not for a rant, but to show you that we have lost our way with heroes. Many people believe Disney did this purposely... but I see it as a wider piece of culture. It is a modern effort to make the heroic quest fit our current society of shifting values the concept of “hero” had to take a hit, because a heroic figure (regardless of gender, society or story setting) has to take a stand.

And standing up for something makes you a target.

Nechema Tec was a Holocaust survivor and scholar who focused on the question, “Why did people rescue the Jews when there was so much risk involved?”

She also wrote the book Defiance, based on the true story of the Bielski Partisans. The purpose was to show that not all Jews were helpless victims, like the predominant scholarly narratives were describing.

Nechama Tec found 5 qualities that make altruism among those who were rescuers. Altruism is an act that we choose despite the risk to ourselves in order to promote someone else's welfare. At the end, rewatch the trailer and see if you can find Nechama Tec’s 5 Qualities of Altruism.

1. Individuality - they were unique and seperate from others.

An example of this is that Luke Skywalker knows he's different from those around him in the farming community where he grew up.

2. Independence - they were comfortable with acting alone, had strong self reliance, and a deep need to follow their personal beliefs and values. (ie: They were acting on their values, not spouting them off as proof of their goodness.)

3. History of Altruism - they had strong values and had a history of acting on them, particularly around the idea of protecting the needy. (You can have a value or a moral code, but if you're not acting on it then you’re violating that code.)

The best example I can think of is during the story of David and Goliath.

David, who's a teen is asked by the adults around him, "What makes you qualified to take on the this massive giant named Goliath when we, the adults are scared?” Teen David who was on a toasted cheese run delivering food to his older brothers told the king, “Your servant has killed both lions and bears and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.”

Even if you're an atheist can you hear the average pizza delivery guy saying something like that? There's intense conviction about what has gone wrong (defiance of the divine) and this no-name teen with his little sling shot is just, “Lemme at ‘em!!!!”

Adults, who are scared whiney bullies: What? C’mon kid. Let's see your qualifications! You're too young to have any. Go home.

And David goes, “Killed a lion, killed a bear, protected the sheep. And when one of those pedators messed with the sheep, I went after ‘em and rescued the lamb. Qualify that! I'm gonna lock and load my sling. Get outta the way when he falls.”

4. Modesty about Acts of Rescue -

From: Altruism and the Holocaust from research by Nechema Tec

“People tend to take their customary, repetitive acts of behavior for granted, and do not regard them as extraordinary, even though they may seem exceptional to others. The rescuers' past history of helping the needy might have been in part responsible for their modest appraisal of their life-threatening actions. This modest appraisal was expressed in a variety of ways. Most rescuers (66 percent) perceived their protection of Jews as a natural reaction to human suffering, while almost a third (31 percent) insisted that saving lives was nothing exceptional. In contrast, only 3 percent described the saving of Jews as extraordinary.

For example, to this day, Pawel Remba limps from an injury that occurred when he smuggled Jews out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising. For this and other acts on behalf of Jews, he was awarded the Yad Vashem medal that identifies him as a righteous Christian. (Yad Vashem, an organization established in 1953 in Jerusalem as a memorial to European Jews who perished during World War II, also pays tribute to Christians who saved Jews.) When Pawel and I met, he categorically denied that he or others like him were heroes: "I would absolutely not make heroes out of the Poles who helped. All of us looked at this help as a natural thing. None of us were heroes; at times we were afraid, but none of us could act differently.”

5. Spontaneity - heroes are the minority who when confronted with an opportunity to take action against the status quo - choose to take that action.

Here is the story of Dr. Kanani Kitchen, MD and how she learned to see the signs and signals of human trafficking and is consistently making the choice to take action, even when others don’t believe her.

Nechema Tec says,

A study I conducted of 308 Jewish survivors, 76 percent said that the aid they had received happened without prior planning. (From Altruism and the Holocaust)

With human trafficking, you must act quickly or you will lose the opportunity to act at all.

6. Unversalism/Empathy - 

Nechama Tec writes, “So strong was the need to help among the rescuers, so much was it a part of their makeup, that it overshadowed all other considerations. When asked why they had saved Jews, the Poles overwhelmingly emphasized that they had responded to the persecution and the suffering of victims and not to their Jewishness. What compelled them to act was the persecution, the unjust treatment, and not the people themselves.” (From Altruism and the Holocaust)

This is a radically different perspective of heroism. It’s research that shows how a hero is made, not always from deeds but a combination of personality and events.

Joseph Campell, a scholar who studied mythology recognized this process with a series of story steps called "The Hero’s Journey” or the “Monomyth.”There's a diagram below.

One more addition… the circular process of the hero’s journey works for healing trauma and PSTD too.

Trauma seperates us from ourselves. PSTD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder separates us pulling us between the safe now and the past danger through the use of intrusive flashbacks.

Healing begins with processing the incidents or situations through being brave enough to start the healing.

Healing always dips those going through it into big emotions and confrontations with the events which caused the pain.

As they and those around them move through the healing process (some welcome this process, others get dragged through it), there's a certain point where they move from the healing process, to the process of return.

The process of return, means in this context, that we are moving through healing but the goal has shifted from the injury and pain of the traumatic incident to returning to a whole healed, but braver different person who has new skills and will be ready to handle new challenges.

Writing can be healing.

You can be a hero if you choose to be - even if you’re writing through fiction.

Your stories are amazing!

Chronic Writer