Heroes

Hero! A person admired for his achievements and noble qualities or one that shows great courage. A thought suddenly occured to me after watching the 3 July blockbuster movies... I just wanna talk about heroes... What defines a hero? Who can we say exhibit the qualities of a hero?

Perhaps the best way to define a hero is to use reel/real life examples, something that almost everybody can identify with. Let's start with the recent blockbusters... Now Optimus Prime, Harry Potter and John McClane are probably the main heroes of their respective movies... They got tons of courage, undying loyalty, nerves of steel, proficient skills to kick the bad guys' a**es and not to mention the "The World's hope and dreams lie squarely only on my shoulders" look... But wait! What about their accomplices? Without Sam Witwicky & the U.S. Army (I'm rolling my eyes as I write this, it's so propagandistic(sic)...) Optimus Prime and his bunch of merry robots would have been blown to smithereens by Megatron & his goons... Minus Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley & Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter wouldn't even survive the first 30 mins of screen time... Don't forget his merry mates Hermione Granger & Ron Weasley consoled him (i.e. making him stay sane thanks to a certain crush) while coming up with the absurdes(sic) idea of forming a rag tag gurella group called DA... Exclude Matt Farrell, who's actually the nerd cum joker in DH4, and John McClane would be lost in the ginormous universe of tech-speak.

Ditto to Mr Samwise Gamgee... In LOTR, our merry albeit gay hobbits set off to destroy the One Ring. Despite Mr. Frodo claiming the title of the hero (the ending scene @ the White City in LOTR:ROTK), Mr Gamgee is the unsung hero. Despite Mr. Frodo's suspicion & hostility towards the latter as he became more corrupted by the Ring, Sam followed Frodo faithfully to the very end of the road in Mount Doom. He also had to carry Frodo in the last stretch of the journey. The scene that really proved my point is the part in The Two Towers where Frodo almost surrendered the One Ring to the Nazgul if not for Sam's timely intervention in pushing Frodo to the ground. His reward for saving Middle Earth? Almost getting himself skewered by Sting, Frodo's sword... Yup an unsung hero's life sucks... No or little recognition for your contributions. But that's another story for another day...

What about real life? Well let's talk about WWII... While Gen Patton, Ike and their ilk (no pun intended) were branded heroes for their (predominantly) impeccable strategies in ensuring victory for the allies, the unsung heroes on the ground fighting for their lives against the Krauts deserve equal recognition too... But anyone who has a brain know who are more valuable... The few indispensable heroes who "mastermind" decisive victories as opposed to the expendable heroes who fight in numbers and deliever the victories to their country with their blood and sweat and pure grit.

How ironic isn't it? From what I've written, I daresay there are w kinds of heroes. The indispensable hero (usually the main character in reel life) who are absolutely critical and cannot be killed at all costs, and the expendable heroes (usually the supporting characters in reel life) who are the unsung heroes as well. The question now is, which kind of hero do you want to be?