Tough. Stiff upper lip. Never cries, never loses his cool, never loses his temper. Never has mental illness, never suffers mental trauma. Handles everything. Knows how to do everything. Never gets in over his head. Never relies on others for help.
The answer to this problem is that few action heroes have all of these traits, but a fair number of them have most of those traits. When people think of an average action hero, the fact that each individual hero lacks a small portion of the traits is going to get averaged out, so the “average” hero has all the traits even though each particular hero only has most.
As for the Death example,
I’m sure there are occasional negative portrayals … but those seldom qualify as “characters.”
basically defines away the counterexamples. People saying that death is normally portrayed as cruel and evil probably are thinking of those examples, even if they don’t count as “characters”. Furthermore, excluding examples that aren’t “characters” inherently stacks the deck towards happy Deaths because making Death have feelings is characterization, so the same example wouldn’t count if Death is evil but would count if Death is affable.
I wasn’t excluding evil deaths on the grounds of being simplistic; I was referring to a depiction of death that appears for a few minutes in a cartoon to chase someone down, or something of that nature. I’m sure I’ve seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he’s chased by the grim reaper, and I have a few childhood memories of cartoon characters being chased by Death on TV. But none of these depictions lasted more than a few minutes. I’m excluding them not on the grounds of being simplistic portrayals, but on the grounds of them making very brief appearances with little lasting significance.
The answer to this problem is that few action heroes have all of these traits, but a fair number of them have most of those traits. When people think of an average action hero, the fact that each individual hero lacks a small portion of the traits is going to get averaged out, so the “average” hero has all the traits even though each particular hero only has most.
As for the Death example,
basically defines away the counterexamples. People saying that death is normally portrayed as cruel and evil probably are thinking of those examples, even if they don’t count as “characters”. Furthermore, excluding examples that aren’t “characters” inherently stacks the deck towards happy Deaths because making Death have feelings is characterization, so the same example wouldn’t count if Death is evil but would count if Death is affable.
I wasn’t excluding evil deaths on the grounds of being simplistic; I was referring to a depiction of death that appears for a few minutes in a cartoon to chase someone down, or something of that nature. I’m sure I’ve seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he’s chased by the grim reaper, and I have a few childhood memories of cartoon characters being chased by Death on TV. But none of these depictions lasted more than a few minutes. I’m excluding them not on the grounds of being simplistic portrayals, but on the grounds of them making very brief appearances with little lasting significance.