5 posts tagged “heroes”

When you’re lying awake in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, you start thinking of things. Where do those bats that are flying by outside live? Who first came up with the idea to harvest, roast, grind and brew coffee? Eventually my mind turned to the books I’ve been reading.

The last half dozen books I've read have all been about outcasts, men and women who strike out on their own, against what is expected of them from families, friends and society. They are mostly outlaws; either literally or societally. They are heroes, not only in the sense that they are the subject of books but in the classical sense of Gilgamesh and Odysseus.

 

In the case of Moll Flanders her journey is laid right out in the full title of the book:

The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and dies a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums . . .

Born in prison to a criminal mother who was transported to the colonies it seemed Moll Flanders would lead a similar life, or one locked in servitude to the rich. But she persevered, striking out against her lot in life, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and coming out fairly ahead. Hero may not be the first word that comes to mind when most people think of Moll Flanders (perhaps anti-hero is) but when society itself corrupted a hero must take whatever steps are necessary to achieve freedom; even if that means picking pockets for a living.

 

John Wilkes Booth on the other hand was a hero in his own mind. To him, shooting of Lincoln was akin to Beowulf slaying the Grendel. From his perspective he alone was in the position to strike down the tyrant and it had to be done for the glory of Dixie. With help of sympathetic southerners (mostly strangers) Booth used his charm, good looks, fame and skill as an actor to not only kill the president but to evade capture for nearly a fortnight. He suffered immensely but did not complain; in the face of impossible odds kept up the fight for his life and his beloved confederacy for he felt, ne knew, that his actions were just. Never mind that he was also the most reviled person in the country and people burned letters and autographs from him fearing that someone would find them and think the possessor to be a Booth sympathizer.

 

I'm not even sure I can articulate what I feel about Gogol Ganguli and path he walks. His journey is perhaps the most obfuscated in this group. Considering himself more American than Indian; yet considered an outsider, looked on as a thing of curiosity by Americans who seem to consider him more Indian than American. Gogol is a man in-between worlds, not comfortable with his parents Bengali traditions or his adopted American ones. He rejects his name, his namesake, the path set before him and wanders his own road.

 

Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy (All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing & Cities of the Plain) are about the death of heroes and the emptiness that takes their place.

The series starts off with All The Pretty Horses which fairly drips with romance and introduces us to John Grady Cole, the "All American Cowboy", a 16 year old boy who sets off for Mexico in search of a life that he sees fast disappearing from his beloved Texas. What he finds in old Mexico damages him and destroys his notions about the world, he returns broken but still the hero; out there alone, searching for his own light to bare against the darkness of the coming void.

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In the second book, The Crossing, we meet two brothers, Billy & Boyd. Almost on a whim, 16 year old Billy desserts his family in an effort to return a pregnant wolf he has captured to the mountains of Mexico. He returns to find his family, save his brother murdered. Billy again crosses into Mexico (this time with his 14 year old brother) in search of the killers and stolen horses. Over the course of the book, they each meet their heroic destinies. By the end of the book, with the outbreak of WWII you can feel the modern world creeping in, swallowing the world these boys, these teen aged men, loved and will always love.

In Cities of the Plain the modern world has all but devoured the lifestyle these men hold in such high esteem, the romance is gone. In its place is whisky and whores. The world has changed. As Stephen King would say "The world has moved on." As McCarthy puts it in the final chapter "They all just seemed to be waiting for things to be a way that they'd never me again." These solitary men, brothers of sorts have found each other while working on one of the last ranches in the south west in the years after WWII. Unable to stay down when faced with destruction of themselves and their way of life these both Billy & John Grady hold on to the last vestiges of their way of life but their stubborn refusal isn't enough. By the end, the sweeping romance of All The Pretty Horses is gone. A fading memory. Something people talk about, not sure if it was ever real or just stories told by old men around the campfire.

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In thinking of this topic it came to me that we as Americans are lacking in this department. Our concept of the heroic individual has been compromised. We have become of nation of sheep, herded not by shepherds but one another. The people who strike out on their own path are ostracized while those who compromise their very essence for the sake of fitting in with the crowd are praised.

America was influenced by the concept of individualism. People came here to make their way against oppressive religions or regimes. To be an American was to be an individual yet part of something larger. Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost the ideal of the rugged individualist as the American idol and replaced it with Kelly Clarkson.

By virtue of being archetypal, heroes are both revered and reviled by those around them and nobody in this era of media saturation and scrutiny wants to undergo that. Can you blame them?

So lying there in bed, awake past 3am, I decided to add a few more books to my reading list.

 

 

I tried to write this post yesterday but I just couldn't find the right words; I'm still having trouble finding them but I might as well put something down.

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the death of an important man in my life. I had never met the man and even though I was just a teenager when he died I felt like I knew him. His influence on me was great. He caused me to think about things I wouldn't, look at them in a different light. Had he lived he would have been the George Carlin of his generation.

The man’s name was Bill Hicks. He was a standup comedian.

I became familiar with his work back when Comedy Central would show standup comedy on a nightly basis. In three and four minute clips I would watch and memorize his routines; commentary on religion, politics, advertising and smoking. He would cut to the bone of whatever he was joking on with laser precision.

In 1993, about four months before he died he made an appearance on the David Letterman show that never aired. Letterman pulled the clip fearing the religious jokes were inappropriate for late night TV and until late January 2009 it was never broadcast.

Letterman put on an anniversary show and dedicated what seems like about half of it to having Hicks' mother on the show, apologizing to her for his mistake and finally broadcasting the censored clip.
(Here is a link to an article about the show which contains full clips of Letterman and Hicks' mother as well as the cut routine. The 'lost' Bill Hicks routine.)

I came across a quote in a book recently that I really feel fits Hicks like a glove.
"...who loved mankind so fiercely he could not do otherwise than despise it."
If you look up his work you are likely to come across several rants and jokes that really demonstrate that.

I've been reading all the comments in the "Heroes: Discuss" group and individual posts and my head is reeling. So much information, so many theories....
Adding my comments to the fray...

If Sylar did in fact learn to play dead from a roach then the possibilities are endless. Who is to say he couldn't break open a fish and learn to breath underwater?

Who is Claire's father? My money is on Linderman who will soon become a living breathing entity on the show.
I also suspect that Linderman has some sort of power as well, what it is I don't know but I suspect that he is The Flash.

Did anyone read this weeks comic yet? The guy that tries to take Ted, I think that's Linderman too, and that he has escaped using this Flash abilities.

Continuing on the topic of Linderman, I suspect that he is working against HRG somehow. Going back to this weeks comic the mystery man that tries to take Ted says he "won't let them do to you what you did to me" or something like that.

So...if HRG took Claire when she was a baby after thinking her parents were dead and Linderman turns out to be her father, Linderman has understandable anger towards HRG and his organization.

OK, so...The Invisible Man.
He calls himself Claude Rains which was the name of the actor who played The Invisible Man in the movies. The Invisible Man is a thief and crazy, so far the Heroes Invisible Man is a thief, will he also turn out to be crazy?

Regarding the death of a character, I think they are going to cop out. Last week I posted a comment on Jen's blog that I'll just repost here as to how I think they will cop out.

....I have developed a theory about the Nikki/Jessica character.

I theorize that her two personalities are going to merge and create a whole new personality (see the Odetta/Detta characters who merged to make Susannah in Stephen King's "The Drawing Of The Three") that will be somewhat stable but also capable of great violence.

Once her personalities merge into one she will still retain her super strength which is her true power (the comic shows her ripping  a safe open with her bare hands).

So...in case you didn't get that, they are going to "kill off" one of her personalities and call it the death on the show.
 
If that doesn't happen I don't know who it will be, I know it won't be Peter and here's why.
In the episode where Hiro comes to him in the subway car he says 1) "you look different without your scar" meaning that at some point in the future he will have a scar; with two weeks to go before the explosion it isn't likely that Peter will get an injury that will scar up in that time and 2) "you told me many times how you felt lost before it all began."

Anyone else have some thoughts on it?

My up to now non-blogged about but much talked about project of upgrading one of my DVR's is complete!
From 40 to 160 hours.

This brings me to a grand total of 530 hours of recording space.

I like to keep entire seasons of shows on a DVR so when I have a question about something, or just feel like watching a really good episode of something again I have it right at my finger tips.

I had to upgrade in this case because 24 is coming back this week and it will be on opposite Heroes when it returns from break and none of my other DVRs (I've got four, all networked together) had the space to keep an extra 24 hours plus the other stuff that's on them.

I had been trying for weeks but the stupid machine would only read my 160gb drive as a 30gb; last night after finally reading the software instructions I got it working!

Crisis averted!

Now I can watch the entire season in May once it's over. But then again I suspect that Jen will be blogging about it quite a bit and that might make me watch weekly, or bi-weekly.

I don't usually write about My Shows but I feel compelled to do so after watching last nights Heroes.
My thoughts are as follows:

I totally saw that thing with Jackie getting it from Sylar instead of Claire way back in what ever episode when that whole train thing happened.

Eden can do Jedi mind tricks, awesome.

The guy who plays Chandra's colleague has to know more than he is telling Mohinder about his fathers work.

Peter telling Ando that by himself he is pretty much nothing, just some guy, and Ando responding in kind. Funny, telling, endearing.

The painting that Issac painted that Mr. Benett called useless, it looks like something that was on the cover of one of Micha's comic books. Me thinks that it is either the thing that destroys New York or a villain for another season.
(On that same note, I suspect that Radiation Guy also might be what destroys New York.)

Are Mr. Benett, Eden & The Hatian going to try and rehabilitate Sylar and turn him good?

Thinking back to last weeks episode...Mr. Benett has known about the mutants for some time, since Claire was a baby, does he have a power? How did he get it? We need a "16 years ago" flash back episode.

Are we going to have a Justice League of NBC?

I'm happy we are going to see what happened to out heroes "6 Months Ago" but damn it! I want to see what happens next!