Lots of thoughts here. One is that over the course of our lives we encounter so many stories that they need to have variety, and Tolstoy’s point makes pure heroes less appealing: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Heroes and conflicts in children’s stories are simple, and get more complex in stories for teens and adults. This is not just about maturity and exposure to the complexities of life and wanting to grapple with real dilemmas, it’s also about not reading the hundredth identical plot.
Milton’s Lucifer was also my first thought reading this, but I’m not sure I agree with your take. I think the point, for me, is that he makes us question whether is actually is the villain, at all. The persuasion element is, I think, an artifact of the story being told in a cultural context where there’s an overwhelming presumption that he is the villain. The ancient Greeks had a different context, and had no problem writing complex and flawed and often doomed heroes who fought against fate and gods without their writers/composers ever thinking they needed to classify them as villains or anti-heroes, just larger-than-life people.
Perhaps it’s just my American upbringing, but I think I want to live in a world where agents can get what they want, even with the world set against them, if only they are clever and persistent enough.
I’m American too, and I don’t want that. At least not in general. I do share the stereotypical American distrust of rigid traditions and institutions to a substantial degree. I want agents-in-general to get much of what they want, but when the world is set against them? Depends case-by-case on why the world is set against them, and on why the agents have the goals they have. Voldemort was a persistent and clever (by Harry Potter standards) agent as much as Gandhi was. I can understand how each arrived at their goals and methods, and why their respective worlds were set against them, but that doesn’t mean I want them both to get what they want. Interpolate between extremes however you like.
Lots of thoughts here. One is that over the course of our lives we encounter so many stories that they need to have variety, and Tolstoy’s point makes pure heroes less appealing: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Heroes and conflicts in children’s stories are simple, and get more complex in stories for teens and adults. This is not just about maturity and exposure to the complexities of life and wanting to grapple with real dilemmas, it’s also about not reading the hundredth identical plot.
Milton’s Lucifer was also my first thought reading this, but I’m not sure I agree with your take. I think the point, for me, is that he makes us question whether is actually is the villain, at all. The persuasion element is, I think, an artifact of the story being told in a cultural context where there’s an overwhelming presumption that he is the villain. The ancient Greeks had a different context, and had no problem writing complex and flawed and often doomed heroes who fought against fate and gods without their writers/composers ever thinking they needed to classify them as villains or anti-heroes, just larger-than-life people.
I’m American too, and I don’t want that. At least not in general. I do share the stereotypical American distrust of rigid traditions and institutions to a substantial degree. I want agents-in-general to get much of what they want, but when the world is set against them? Depends case-by-case on why the world is set against them, and on why the agents have the goals they have. Voldemort was a persistent and clever (by Harry Potter standards) agent as much as Gandhi was. I can understand how each arrived at their goals and methods, and why their respective worlds were set against them, but that doesn’t mean I want them both to get what they want. Interpolate between extremes however you like.