Three of the Irregulars (myself, JP Frantz and Fabio Fernandes) alternate doing the Mind Melds. We pick a topic, pick a set of participants for that topic, send them the questions and then compile, edit and publish the results of those who respond

Emma Newman – “[Our] basic need to see someone being more than we are – but everything we could be – is eternal.”

Helen Lowe – “[Heroes] hold to their course, not because they feel no fear or doubt, but despite it – and because…they are trying to preserve the values and create the world they want to live in.”

Chaz Brenchley – “[Heroism] never was simple derring-do. Heroic action is by definition disinterested; [not] in pursuit of personal advantage…”

Laura Resnick – “[A hero] faces her demons, she grows and changes…and keeps trying until she triumphs.”

Matt Forbeck – “It’s how the hero overcomes [troubles, doubts, and problems that we can recognize and see reflected in ourselves] to do the right thing that makes them worth reading about.”

Jo Anderton – “[A] true hero…[has] to earn their heroic status, and they do that by making choices. Hard ones, and usually when no one else will.”

Chris Holm – “for damn sure [heroes] have their place — so long as they are fully fleshed.”

Raymond Chandler – “If there were enough like [our hero], I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in.”

Maurice Broaddus – “Heroes define the story…through them there is redemption.”

Gini Koch – “The saving needed to be done, and [the hero is] there to do it…straight up heroes will never go out of style.”

Chris Modzelewski – “[Heroic] narrative arcs are centrally concerned with their choices relative to a moral code, whether that code is stated or unstated.”

Peter Orullian – “It’s not about swashbuckling. It’s not Dudley Do-Right. It’s not iron-clad ethics or the absence of flaws…”

Lee Battersby – “a hero chooses to undertake the narrative direction…initiates action with a definite belief in his ability to affect positive change in the status quo…”

Marianne de Pierres – “[We need our heroes] to speak to us, stay with us, change us…”

David Tallerman – “complex heroes…let us, as writers and readers, challenge that process of oversimplification.”

Diana Pharaoh Francis – “heroes are more than the sum of what they do…someone who doesn’t always make the right choices, who sometimes gets tricked, who sometimes doesn’t know which is the right side or doesn’t always want to do the right thing. A hero struggles…they willingly take on the burden of what they do, knowing the cost…They are not perfect. They are flawed. They are sometimes broken. But they are interesting. They are not outdated.”

Hear, hear! Thank you one and all for validating and expounding upon our natural need for heroes.

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One of the most thorough responses I’ve enjoyed in a while. I’m curious, how does SF Signal solicit its responses? Mass email the topic question to all the panel members and post those that reply? Select which to post from those that reply? I ask because this topic has quite possibly the most responses I’ve seen to date.

I am thinking that another example along this theme is the character of Kaladin in the way of Kings.

When we first meet Kaladin he is beaten, and broken, and resolved (despite himself) not to care about anyone, or anything ever again. I actually hated him as a character for the first few chapters of the book.

But as you got to know him, and know more of why he was where he was, and feeling the way he was feeling, the “hero path” became more and more a compelling aspect of the story that Brandon Sanderson was telling.

There are plenty of other examples to choose from as well

There’s something deeply ironic about following up a discussion of Tolkien with a discussion of “No man is a hero to his valet.” Frodo is a hero to his valet Sam – and of course his valet is a hero to him. It is a particularly dark view of the world to think that all people, the better we get to know them, are revealed as grasping and self-serving. I know a great many people who have only gotten more impressive and more heroic the more I’ve gotten to know them. And I think there are a number of authors who feel the same way and base their heroes on those heroic people they’ve known. Tolkien certainly is one; he based Sam on the batmen he’d known in WW1. I think it’s more likely that we don’t think ourselves as heroic as we’d like (Frodo’s doubts are doubtless a reflection of Tolkien’s own) – but other people may know us better in that regard than we know ourselves.