Writing Fantasy Heroes Read online

  ETHOS AND MYTHOS IN THE MAKING OF A HERO

  In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s Malvolio advises, “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” If you equate heroism to greatness, three paths to heroism are clearly stated in those words. Modern-era writers of heroic fantasy, such as Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien, prefer an accidental or incidental hero, even a reluctant hero: the hero as a pawn of fate.

  History generally does not agree, although it will forgive the occasional sulk. History’s great leaders who profess disinterest and wait to be drafted into service, demurring the while, are nonetheless statesmen or generals beforehand, and this does not occur capriciously, nor happen overnight. Pericles returns to Athens after having been ousted, and when told of wrongdoing by the state in his absence, remarks (possibly apocryphally), that Athens has the government it deserves. After the Revolutionary War, Washington is persuaded to leave his farm once more, step up to leadership—if not to “kingship”—of an America being born. This preference for the “blameless” hero is entrenched in us. We are suspicious of those who seek power. In Homer’s day, the epithet “blameless” introduces a hero whose exploits are not based solely in overweening pride or lust for power. Since ancient times, and still today, heroes must not be self-serving.

  To balance heroism and historicity is to write larger-than-life archetypes believably, to write a door into legends in the making and usher the reader where your hero goes; to invoke realism and fantasy, mated, and thus put verisimilitude in the heroic heart. To do this, we must understand and invoke the heroic temperament: often capricious, sometimes demanding, but always both doing more and feeling more than others (no matter how Stoic in dialogue). To find your hero, you must set a heroic task, as the gods so often do. As Herakleitos of Ephesus says, “Greater dooms bring greater destinies.”

  To summon the hero in your soul you must be honest. You must question and understand this ancient model and, by doing so, surrender to its nature—and your own.

  So what are the mantras, the questions, the answers that wake us to the hero in our blood? For each, this journey is unique. Some writers become the hero in life. Club-footed Lord Byron loves the ancient model so well he goes to Greece and fights the Turks beside those descended from his Homeric heroes; and dies there, of a fever, as fleshly heroes like Alexander of Macedon did before him. Later writers of heroic tales who try this method are legion, including T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), who retranslates Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey from the Greek between his own battles. Hemingway and Conrad and others style themselves adventurers but adventurers, in and of themselves, are not necessarily heroes. Richmond Lattimore, one of the great translators of Homer, says he “lets the work translate itself.” In the Second World War, Lattimore serves in the US Navy, but his translations of the Iliad and Odyssey best define his own heroic nature. Tolkien fights in World War I; his political views, his heroic sensibility, and his understanding of myth are inextricably woven into The Lord of the Rings.

  Some writers never see battle plains in foreign lands or even the battles of the boardrooms or the schoolrooms, yet hear the hero in their blood loud and clear. Robert E. Howard never left Texas and committed suicide by gunshot; his Conan the Cimmerian is a compelling trip into an ancient hero’s mind.

  Heroism is a condition of the soul, not a raft of medals or commendations earned. Tempus says in The Sacred Band (Kerlak Enterprises, 2011):

  “This was what men fought for, what men died for: a chance at life, and to fight on other days—the battle of your choice, of the body, or the heart, or the soul.”

  So what makes a soul heroic? Who is this hero in your blood who can transport you in space and time and, by the honor of such company, ennoble what you do and write? How do we know him or her?

  By asking how the heroic character defines itself, tests itself, grows itself. A true hero searches for redefinition of the self, and society, against a greater backdrop of humanity’s worst and best.

  In The Fish, the Fighters and the Song-girl (Perseid Publishing, 2012), Tempus asks that question, and answers it, in his terms:

  “Then what difference does human striving make: mortal struggle, valor, pain? If you live, then live for the test of spirit, for the celebration of the heart. Live to fight on other days. Lose your beloveds one by one. And remember. Exalt the kiss of friend and horse and wind and sun, which venality cannot cheapen nor stupidity belittle.”

  By then Tempus is a mature hero, and a complex one. For us to find the hero in your blood, we must at the outset define our terms for this search.

  WHAT MUST OUR HERO BE?

  Let us say first what a hero drawn from the literary tradition is not: a hero is not someone seeking suicide to satisfy inner demons, nor someone bent on martyrdom to further a political or religious agenda or end a life of misery in notoriety; a hero is not a lovesick fool or an angry youth or a misanthrope.

  Heroism itself is not a fig leaf. Heroism cannot be conferred from without, nor reached by consensus; it is inherent in the nobility of a singular human spirit. Or not. The writer of heroic fiction undertakes the task of bringing such nobility to light.

  Now let us say what a hero in the storytelling tradition can be, but may not necessarily be. A hero can be flawed (as we write ours), struggling to meet a personal standard, trying to reach goals beyond those set for him by others. A hero need not be in service to a state or nation in his heart but may be, by design or incidentally. A hero need not be a humble farm boy revealed as descended from a line of kings—but can be (if you really must). However trite that image has become, it is overused today partly because its roots are deep within our literary canon. Reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces can quickly familiarize a writer with the archetypes that populate parallel myths from diverse cultures. And there are many from which to choose.

  So what must our hero be? Brave. Determined. Tender. Observant. Honorable. Resonant. Human. In Homer, the heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey are often shown with tears pouring down their cheeks, grieving for their dead, regretting what they’ve lost; constantly facing annihilation, they poignantly value what they have and what they are. In the Sacred Band of Stepsons series, over the writing of its million words, we have distilled our thinking on this subject to the “Sacred Band ethos”: to meet its standard (and not all of our heroes always do, because flaws are human and our heroes are human), a hero must display unflinching determination and unwavering devotion to a shared ideal and to comrades.

  In Tempus with his right-side companion Niko (Paradise Publishing, 2011), Nikodemos observes:

  Tempus never left a problem for another to solve. Tempus never let the pain or difficulty of an undertaking persuade him not to pursue a resolution his heart thought was right. Tempus never gave up.

  Such a hero must be loyal (although this hero can also be crafty, devious, underhanded, and resourceful, like Odysseus); must be indefatigable unto death; must be increasingly courageous, must eventually be wise. This hero must be able to admit a mistake. This hero must be a caretaker. This hero may be man, woman or child; god or demigod; sorcerer or peasant, but will always harbor a warrior heart. This hero must bring ready rage, cunning battle, acute philosophy and compelling honor to every endeavor. Sacred Banders say, “Life to you and everlasting glory.” Male and female, they fight “to the death, with honor,” yet this commitment is tempered by the caution of “Wanting neither too much to live nor too much to die.”

  In The Sacred Band, Sync, a plain-spoken fighter with no magic powers or deific blood, explains that ethos to two new members:

  The dark horse-tamer, rangy and angular, leaned back against a stall wall and said, “But listen, first. You’re new to this cohort. Let me tell you what it means to me. It’s an honor to fight where the Riddler fights. I always know I’m on the right side. Doing more than other men can do. Sometimes you think it’s more than you can do. Sometimes
it is. He knows us, what we all are and what we all do. He puts us where we matter. We say, ‘It’s better to die for something than for nothing at all.’ If you don’t believe in the commander yet, believe in that. You’ll fight battles others only dream of, find honor and glory most profound—not for some ruler, or town, or city, but for all men. The Riddler says you make the world better one battle at a time. There is no harder life. There is no better one, for men with a certain bent of mind and body, heart and soul.”

  A hero must be tolerant of others’ beliefs, but steadfast in his own. Here is Niko in The Sacred Band, being questioned by the Theban leader, Charon, whose squadron was recently rescued from certain death in battle and is now among Tempus’ forces:

  “Are we hostages? Conscripts? Our goddess, Harmony, is she here with us?” Charon’s craggy face worked.

  “You aren’t hostages, not conscripts. Go or stay, but with all your hearts. As for your goddess...only you know if she is here with you.”

  “Do you expect us to swear allegiance to your storm god? Serve him? Serve you? What happens if we don’t?”

  Very carefully, Niko trod this ground. “My commander has been a favorite of one storm god or another for a very long time. We fighters are sworn to our commander, to the Stepsons, the greater Sacred Band, to one another, to our partners—not to a god or place. What we hold sacred is honor, justice, and glory. You need not swear allegiance to our storm god, to serve with us. Fighters are among us from many lands, with many gods and many beliefs. Believe as you will. What is between a man and his god is theirs alone to say.”

  So can a hero be a crusader for a nationalistic cause? Sometimes. Historical heroes nearly always were motivated by nationalism or tribalism, by expansionist intentions, or obligation to a greater whole. Leonidas and his 300 died for Spartan law. Until recent times, conquest, sack and pillage, and the annexation of land and wealth sustained armies and made war profitable. Here modern morality and ancient ethos diverge. Homer’s heroes treated conquered people as plunder, took and sold slaves; humans were pansexual, loving boys and girls, women and men, as opportunity allowed. The women of Lemnos, according to legend, found their men sneaking off to Thrace to dally with Thracian women, so in one vengeful night killed all their men and lived on, man-less, until Jason and his Argonauts sailed to Lemnos in search of the Golden Fleece and mated with them. The offspring of these unions became the Minyae—the legendary race of heroes. Male and female gods and nobles favor some and doom others; equality is no part of the ancient mind. This does not make them less moral; this makes their customs different from our 21st century mores.

  Can a hero be motivated by love? Often. But first define love; understand its uses by society and by the state as well as by the storyteller. Plutarch tells us that Plato of Athens envisioned, and Gorgidas of Thebes concretized, the concept of Sacred Bands—not to create an “army of lovers” for reasons of sexual politics, but to reduce desertion by setting an example of loyalty and fortitude. A warrior is less likely to throw away his shield and run before a lover or beloved.

  Can a hero be motivated by revenge? In myth and early history, they often were. As Tempus says, revenge is a common driver. The Epigoni, sons of the Argive heroes who were killed in the first Theban war, attacked Thebes a second time to avenge the deaths of their fathers. The first line of the Epigoni epic (possibly by Homer) says: “Now, Muses, let us begin to sing of younger men…”

  Can a hero be young? Yes, although youth is not a prerequisite. A young hero must learn to transcend his inadequacies as he matures. Young Alexander (the Great) of Macedon probably had scoliosis and was small in stature; he feared never being as great as his father. This and his devotion to Homer’s works inspired conquests that shaped the world. To support a deformed child in search of heroic exploits, his father Philip arguably created the Companion cavalry (having studied the Theban cavalry) to give his son an advantage: on a horse, Alexander’s twisty neck and small stature were not deadly disabilities.

  Can a hero be a favorite of a god or be tested by a god, be persecuted by a god, or think himself a god (as did Alexander) and still be heroic? Certainly. All of these can make him stronger. Not every hero is an Everyman. Odysseus, for one, was often aided by Athene. The relationship between god and individual is central to the heroic model, whether because of theomachy (battle among gods or between gods and humans), or because of man’s struggle to understand his fate and his place in the universe. As Herakleitos says, “Character is destiny.”

  HONOR AND GLORY

  Akhilleos (Achilles) is told by his mother Thetis that he faces a choice: he may choose honor and glory and die at Troy, so that his heroism and his name will live forever; or he can choose not to fight the Trojans and live a long, uneventful life—but history will not remember him. Akhilleos decides to sail to Troy, but while encamped on the beach argues with Spartan Agamemnon over division of plunder and slave girls. He feels that Agamemnon has purposely slighted and publicly dishonored him by giving him less than his fair share. For most of the epic he sulks by his ships and it seems that he will choose not to fight after all. But when Patroklos (his companion, cousin and lover) takes the shield and armor made for Akhilleos by the god Hephaestos into battle and is killed in his stead, Akhilleos’ anger becomes overwhelming and he joins the fray. Then, as his mother predicted, he is struck in the heel (his only vulnerability) and duly dies a hero.

  As Tempus says, “Sometimes a man does what he'd most like to avoid.”

  Randal, the unassuming warrior-mage of the Sacred Band, in his own mind more an Everyman than a hero, says this in The Sacred Band about honor and glory:

  Because the Sacred Band was the best that a man could do. Try your damnedest in the face of everything. Never falter in your loyalty or betray your oath. Live and die, shoulder to shoulder, back to back. For the honor of serving by your partner's side. For the glory of dying by your partner's side. Honor and glory meant everything to these men.

  Great heroes have flaws. If a hero is perfect, invulnerable, then he is free of challenge and also free of honor. What is effortless is not honorable; difficulty wins glory and brings the hero to life. The more endowed the hero—with special weapons, special attributes, or special favors from the gods—the more daunting are the battles he must win to attain honor and glory; neither one accompanies easy victory:

  “If the gods sent you to fight here, then the gods are fools,” says Theagenes, words very soft, just a rasp that won’t carry, careful not to dishearten his men, behind. “What’s the price for this help? There always is one.”

  “The price?” Softer still, the Riddler answers: “You’ll lose all your pairs tomorrow, every one.” He snaps his reins. The chariot horses, with Crit and Strat in tow, move closer to the Theban: one step; two; and halt.

  “Then why are you here? We don’t need help counting. You came to tell me this, Tempus, Riddler—whoever? What’s the point?”

  “The point is life. Let me spare twenty-three pairs of yours destined to die on tomorrow’s battle plain and all my Sacred Band will stay and fight beside you, till the end. And I, myself. And mine. And what price there is for that, you and yours will not pay it.” Tempus’ head inclined to his partner, almost imperceptibly: Nikodemos, motionless, attentive beside him like a ready falcon or a hunting dog. “I’ve eleven pairs here of mine...and this chariot. I promise it’s enough for what’s in store. We’ll see to all the rites, as you want them. And some will be left who remember.” (from The Sacred Band)

  Victory, for the heroic soul, comes at a cost. A hero knows remorse in the wake of triumph, or honor of the most rarefied kind is never his:

  The chapel is dim, full of the god. So many of Tempus’ own ghosts are here. He bows his head and greets them one by one. Shades and revenants from years gone by crowd in, murmuring like the dead he carries in his heart. A gilded chariot gleams in the chapel’s soft light: a prop for a show he disdains, in these days when it is so hard for him to keep man an
d god separate, distinct from one another; when so many, many wraiths come with him, walk with him, ride with him from battlefield to battlefield, war to war. (from The Sacred Band)

  Today the human race is composed of eight billion twins raised apart, squabbling among themselves for survival or fame or fortune; among so many, true honor and glory is even rarer than when our species first found its voice. Nevertheless, the hero in your blood can speak to the hero in theirs; even at its simplest, heroism and the quest for honor and glory can inspire, ennoble, enthrall—and terrify. In The Sacred Band, honor and glory is both deeply personal and shared among a group intent on changing destiny:

  Glory wears a dreadful face today as war takes a different turn. Long spear, thunking into flesh. A youth staggers backward, impaled, whimpering. Spear pierces flesh between the nipples: mortal strike. Swords slash necks and arms. A shield-holding line drifts right, each protecting his open side. Too many open sides. Too many. Sharp phalanx just being born: an unholy advantage—new and deadly, sparking strategies so much newer and deadlier still.

  The Sacred Band of Thebes, heroes all, are holding steady, each pair fielded, intentionally, with the stronger bonded to the weaker; each pair tight together while the enemy—so many, many, with gross force of numbers—overcomes their inspired battle. Sometimes, not even inspiration is enough.