The Reluctant Hero

My favorite is probably Han Solo. We love that they have the same doubts and fears that we all do. And sometimes they are driven by something other than righteousness or the need to save somebody they care about. That's the great thing about Solo. He's originally motivated by money and then slowly becomes a true convert to the cause. But, as to when we stop loving them, when Han became more of a straight-forward good guy (ROTJ) he was a lot less interesting. I still wanted him to have the shadings and cynicism that was so much fun before.

I'm not sure what it says about all of us. But I think one thing it says that's reassuring is that even if you don't feel heroic or don't even feel the desire to be heroic you have the ability to be so if the circumstances call for it. Just because you're not the first one through the door doesn't mean you can't save the day. I think that probably resonates with most people.

Reluctant heroes tend to be popular because they often feel the stress of the situation they find themselves in which makes them a tad more human and easier to see ourselves in. My favorite would be John McClaine from DIE HARD and through almost all of that film you get the sense that he would prefer to be anywhere else other than that building, but he has to save the day mainly for a woman who he isn't even on very good terms with.

To name another one who's a bit different than McClane it would be Freddie Heflin from COP LAND. The guy spends most of the movie with his head buried in the sand as to the corruption around him. Even when he's ready to play ball with Internal Affairs he is turned away and mocked for not wanting to help earlier. His last stand in that film is one of the better reluctant hero moments ever.

This is why the Star Wars prequels will never have tha same impact as the originals - who the hell is going to cheer for Anakin Skywalker? Note to George Lucas: not a good idea to make your 'hero' a whining murderous punk.

Favourite reluctant heroes of mine:

Sanjuro (from Sanjuro and Yojimbo)
Neo (in the first Matrix)
Marty McFly (Back to the Future)
Leon (from Leon)
Lionel (from Braindead - or Dead Alive as you Yanks call it)

But of course, Han Solo takes the prize as the quintessential non-hero type. And yes, he SHOULD shoot first.

The myth of the reluctant hero came to prominance as a reaction to America's tardy response to WW2. The architype is one big apologia for the lazy, selfish and apathetic.

I think that this is well worth talking about when we're thinking about WW II era movies. Look at Casablanca--it shows a character who has gone from active involvement to disengagement, then back to activism (presumably--who knows where Rick and Frenchie really went). Given the year that the movie was filmed, this isn't an apology but a call to action. Then, you get a whole series of films during the early year's of the war that support Andrew's (if I may) observation. America might be late to the dance (without ever getting into the nitty gritty of why that was so), but now Americans are going to kick some ass and put things right.

But that doesn't explain Han Solo in Star Wars, does it? Is Han's character just the result of an hommage to wartime filmmaking? Or is the American psyche so scarred by staying out of WWII until Pearl Harbor that we have to keep cranking out movies justifying it to ourselves?

If we really wanted to find someting dark in these characters, maybe it's more a justification for our current apathy. "Sure, I'm just sitting around right now, doing nothing about anything that's going wrong in the world. But if I decide to get up, then I'm really going to kick ass. Just wait. Pass the goobers."

To me, Indiana Jones, encapsulated the reluctant Hero perfectly.

Archetype. Prominant. I can spell!

The Americans, or at least their movies, seem to have a problem with their heroes. On the one had you have the frontier spirited independant man - utterly free and not straining under the yolk of the oppressive ideologies of the old world he has escaped from. On the other you have the patriotic soldier man, ready to fight and die selflessly for the ideology of the flag he unquestioningly swears fealty to. The two don't seem to mix.

Is the reluctant hero, when he finally starts to fight, gaining his morals or losing his freedom?

WWII helped strengthen the power of that myth in this country, but it wasn't really a starting point. There were elements of the reluctant hero in Huckleberry Finn and Tom Joad. If you go further back, what is Achilles, but the epitome of the reluctant hero?

The whole notion of a reluctant hero plays well with the self-deprecating humor that pervades American literature (and has since become influential overseas). We tend to like our heroes with a wink and a smile or at least a healthy dose of self-doubt. It's probably our Puritan beginnings and some residual hangups with self-satisfaction and pride.

Achilles might be a stretch too far. Greek heroic figures were very different to mordern ones. Achilles was the Greek's hero, as Paris was the Trojan's (have i got the sides the right way round?) but neither was 'The Hero' of the story, only great figures moving through history doing great deeds.

The modern hero, at least in movies, tends to be strongly associative with the audience. what the hero does is 'right' and is what the audience wants and aims to do. The audience identifies with the hero, and wants to be them.

The Greek hero was someone for readers to compare their lives to, rather than simply want to be like.

The relationship between the audience and their heroes - the purpose of the hero - is different in that subtle but, i think, important way.

And anyway he was a poofter.

Certainly, the conventions of the Greek epic and the narration of the Iliad are different from those of, say, Die Hard. But my point is that WWII wasn't the genesis for reluctant heroes in literature/film (for something slightly more current than the Iliad, but less so than my other examples, what about Shakespeare's take on Prince Hal in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2?). They were always around. As with everything else, they've just adapted.

Spider-Man and Snake Plissken are my two favorites.

I wouldn't call John McClane a reluctant hero. His character didn't change and become heroic, he was already a heroic man who was given the opportunity to shine.

Indiana Jones is a big boy scout.

Sure, him and Superman.
He's the complete opposite of the reluctant hero. He goes after trouble, smiting nazis in the name of archeology. "It belongs in a museum!"

Other mistaken reluctant heroes in this thread:
Neo- He is just some guy who is told he's the chosen one and accepts. He never decides to turn his back on what is right.
Batman- He makes the decision to fight crime. It's his entire life. How is that reluctant?

You see, a guy like Han solo is a reluctant hero because he has made the decision NOT to do the right thing. But then he is eventually drawn to the side of right and valor.

If reluctant heroes didn't exist in works from places other than post-war America that might hold water. But since it's a concept that's been around for a much longer time, with contributions from many nationalities, I don't see how this holds up.

I think the reluctant hero has gained in popularity in modern times mainly because it has more shading and ambiguities than your average straight-arrow hero. That's not a hard and fast rule. You can make a straight-arrow very full-bodied and intricate. But I think, in general, the reluctant hero is always more interesting because he's allowed to have doubts and desires and other plans. It feels more real to us. It's so easy to identify with someone who doesn't claim to be a hero (and even have aspirations of being a hero) but becomes one while we watch. That's just a more interesting and resonant journey than someone who knows what they're doing is right all the time and must do it because it's what needs to be done.

I want to throw in another favorite: J.J. Sefton in Stalag 17.

I think the self-deprecating hero (Indiana Jones), the conflicted hero (Spider-Man), and the out-and-out reluctant hero (Han Solo, Rick Blaine) basically come from some of the same impulses, but you're right - they can act pretty differently.

Jones is motivated by very pure impulses, as is Spidey. The difference is that when Jones has a bad experience, he keeps trucking on, laughing at himself. Spidey can only do that to a point before trashing the costume and saying, like that guy you know who swears off alcohol every weekend after a bad hangover, "I'm never doing that again." Then the noble impulses get the better of him, and he puts on the suit again.

Unlike Spider-Man, who can't help but act on his principles, Solo and Blaine are totally reluctant - they don't even want you to know that they have principles. They probably wouldn't be heroes at all if extraordinary circumstances didn't motivate them to show their true colors. Each would be happy just making some cash, but some woman/cause got in the way.

The worst example is Mel Gibson in The Patriot, who blathers on about pacifism for half an hour when we know well and good he will inevitably start kicking ass. It's completely unconvincing and a waste of time.

My fave reluctant hero is Peter Parker aka Spider-man... With great power comes great responsibility...

My original post was, let's say, a bold generalisation, and one that busied itself about the modern American film notion of hero. Your exceptions and qualifications are, of course, dead on so I'm not going to try too hard arguing with them.

But yes, I do believe there are often dark things wriggling around behind a society's idea of a hero. Even this notion of 'doing the right thing' carries lots of hidden assumptions and baggage about what the right thing is - as shown by the psycho killer heroes of the 80's and Mel Gibson's various 'historical' movies.

Agreed. And it's the dark wriggling stuff that makes life so interesting.

Yet where do we find him when the poem opens? It takes Patroclus' death to move Achilles back to battle. Prior to that, I'd definitely call him at least temporarily reluctant. Being a reluctant hero doesn't necessarily mean that you're cowardly or avoid conflict. Sometimes, it might just mean that you tend to take risks for your OWN benefit, but ultimately act in the interests of others after a change of heart (see Rick, Han Solo, etc.).

The Bible is packed full of 'reluctant heroes', with Jesus chief among them.

I vaguely recall a few in Egyptian mythologies, too.

Can Achilles really be called a hero though? The poem itself is about the rage of Achilles, how he saw the war as not worth fighting until his friend was killed and the bloodlust took him. It was about the destructive power wrought by a man who didn't do it because it was right or wrong, but because he was PISSED OFF. He knew he would die if he killed Hector, but he did it anyway. No thought required.

Plus, the Gods pretty much manipulated everything. If you ask me, Hector was the only real hero in The Illiad, and look where that got him!

Yes. In fact, the term can be applied to him in the following ways:

1. In the classical Greek sense, he fulfilled the role by simply being an important mythological character and an offspring of a mortal and a nymph. He's about as good an example of the term in its original usage as you'll find, in fact.

2. He's as close as we get to having a central character in the Iliad. Thus he's "the hero" of the story, in the "protagonist" sense of the word, just as Hamlet and Macbeth are the heroes in their respective plays, despite not necessarily being "heroic."

3. Achilles ultimately proves to possess some qualities that the Greeks valued - his friendship/romantic relationship with Patroclus spurs him to action, he gives Priam back the body of Hector, and he faces certain death nobly. He was what you might even call an early nihilist when the Iliad begins. He develops into something more heroic.

Would Ash count as a reluctant hero? It seems like he was always motivated by self interest but he's sort of seen as a hero figure now I think.

Ash from the Evil Dead series? I definitely think so. He's reluctant to the point where he's practically a parody of the reluctant hero.

My favorite reluctant hero is Malcom Reynolds from Firefly/Serenity. I particularly like him because he was once a true, patriotic hero (volunteering to fight for the Browncoats) and is now fallen, not wanting to be the hero again. I think he reflects the way I and many people grow up: believing strongly in a cause, in righteousness when young, and then falling, and fighting that desire to stand up for something again, afraid of being knocked down, just wanting to say "fuck it" and look out for number one. Still, we can't help but care again.

I think reluctant heroes are so popular because we feel they reflect ourselves. Moreso than 'heroic' heroes who always do the right thing and are unwavering, reluctant heroes are shaded, as pointed out above, and therefore more human.

He's definitely reluctant, but does he count as a hero? In the first Evil Dead he was a sniveling coward until everyone else was dead or dying, he really only fought when it was the only way to save his own hide. And in Army of Darkness pretty much all his actions were motivated by his desire to get the hell out of there. Can you be a hero if you're mostly motivated by self interest?