Daenerys Targaryen (books): Though initially motivated solely by revenge and personal survival, she stops long enough to overturn several existing social orders in order to improve the average quality of life. An arguable example, since no one in ASoIaF is particularly heroic.
Both Dany and Jon, to point to obvious examples, are almost classically heroic in their actions and cbffvoyl gurve fgnghf nf zrgnculfvpnyyl qrfgvarq urebrf. Samwise, Brienne, Stannis, Ned, &c. are pretty straighforwardly heroic. The universe is written with a bell curve rather than bimodal distribution of morality, and it assumes that things like nitty-gritty politics actually matter, so it’s easy to pattern-match it “there are no heroes,” but I don’t think that’s particularly true.
I find it difficult to pattern-match any of the characters to the classic hero template, especially when you compare them to traditional hero archetypes such as Green Lantern or someone like that. As I said, Dany is initially motivated by personal survival, with a dose of revenge fantasy on the side. Her actions are impressive, but hardly selfless. Her motivations do change as her character develops, at which point she begins to think in terms of social structures and armies—again, as opposed to a more classical hero who would think in terms of beating up bad guys in person.
You are right about Jon being more of a heroic archetype, but even he ends up making several distinctly un-heroic choices that cause a lot of damage to the… well… not the “good guys”, exactly; I guess you’d call them the “comparatively less bad guys”.
Ned is probably the most heroic character in the entire story, which is why ur trgf xvyyrq bss engure dhvpxyl. Urebrf qba’g ynfg ybat va gur jbeyq bs NFbVnS.
Oh, and I am reasonably sure that the [quasi-]supernatural properties of any of these characters will have little, if anything, to do with their ultimate fates (other than in terms of PR). At least, this has been the pattern so far.
Both Dany and Jon, to point to obvious examples, are almost classically heroic in their actions and cbffvoyl gurve fgnghf nf zrgnculfvpnyyl qrfgvarq urebrf. Samwise, Brienne, Stannis, Ned, &c. are pretty straighforwardly heroic. The universe is written with a bell curve rather than bimodal distribution of morality, and it assumes that things like nitty-gritty politics actually matter, so it’s easy to pattern-match it “there are no heroes,” but I don’t think that’s particularly true.
I find it difficult to pattern-match any of the characters to the classic hero template, especially when you compare them to traditional hero archetypes such as Green Lantern or someone like that. As I said, Dany is initially motivated by personal survival, with a dose of revenge fantasy on the side. Her actions are impressive, but hardly selfless. Her motivations do change as her character develops, at which point she begins to think in terms of social structures and armies—again, as opposed to a more classical hero who would think in terms of beating up bad guys in person.
You are right about Jon being more of a heroic archetype, but even he ends up making several distinctly un-heroic choices that cause a lot of damage to the… well… not the “good guys”, exactly; I guess you’d call them the “comparatively less bad guys”.
Ned is probably the most heroic character in the entire story, which is why ur trgf xvyyrq bss engure dhvpxyl. Urebrf qba’g ynfg ybat va gur jbeyq bs NFbVnS.
Oh, and I am reasonably sure that the [quasi-]supernatural properties of any of these characters will have little, if anything, to do with their ultimate fates (other than in terms of PR). At least, this has been the pattern so far.