feotakahari (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feotakahari) wrote2019-10-08 11:22 pm
feotakahari) wrote2019-10-08 11:22 pm
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Inspired by a post by L.B. Lee
I was in primary school when I developed my dislike of the Hero's Journey. Unlike a lot of folks, I didn't focus in on sexism or racism. It was actually a form of ageism.
You see, there were two rules I internalized regarding mentors:
1): Mentors are people who used to be heroes once. They fought evil and defeated it.
2): Mentors die fighting the villain, who will then be defeated by the current hero.
I got to thinking, this doesn't end, does it? The heroes, I like, they'll become mentors. Then they'll die fighting the next villain, but not before training another hero. And that hero will also become a mentor, and also die fighting a villain . . . None of the heroes will ever get a "happily ever after." They'll never get to settle down, live peacefully, and die in their sleep. Every hero lives under a ticking clock.
Then I got to thinking, is this why so many villains are former heroes who went evil? There's this thing where if evil wins, it will rule the world forever, but it never wins, because there's always a hero who'll rise up to stop it. If stopping evil means sacrificing a mentor, generation after generation after generation, then what happens when evil wins? Does that mean no mentor will ever have to be sacrificed again? Did a hero grow old enough to become a mentor, realize he was supposed to choose another hero and doom them to a mentor's death, and refuse to have that blood on his conscience, even if it meant siding with evil?
Again, this was me in primary school. I've always been Like This.
You see, there were two rules I internalized regarding mentors:
1): Mentors are people who used to be heroes once. They fought evil and defeated it.
2): Mentors die fighting the villain, who will then be defeated by the current hero.
I got to thinking, this doesn't end, does it? The heroes, I like, they'll become mentors. Then they'll die fighting the next villain, but not before training another hero. And that hero will also become a mentor, and also die fighting a villain . . . None of the heroes will ever get a "happily ever after." They'll never get to settle down, live peacefully, and die in their sleep. Every hero lives under a ticking clock.
Then I got to thinking, is this why so many villains are former heroes who went evil? There's this thing where if evil wins, it will rule the world forever, but it never wins, because there's always a hero who'll rise up to stop it. If stopping evil means sacrificing a mentor, generation after generation after generation, then what happens when evil wins? Does that mean no mentor will ever have to be sacrificed again? Did a hero grow old enough to become a mentor, realize he was supposed to choose another hero and doom them to a mentor's death, and refuse to have that blood on his conscience, even if it meant siding with evil?
Again, this was me in primary school. I've always been Like This.
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If we asked, folks would give some kind of waffle about how it was somehow innately viscerally satisfying to people and I was like NO IT ISN'T LOOK HOW ANNOYED I AM but that's not a fight you win when you're a kid.