Propaganda Hero

"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact... print the legend."

— Maxwell Scott, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The people need a hero. The war is not going well, and the troops are running out of food, ammo, and steam. The propaganda department is about to fall on its collective sword when in walks a vision: a square-jawed, broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, clean-limbed HERO...to deliver the mail. A hero who is the personification of everything good, true, and pure of the nation, who you can follow into battle and inspire you to fight and die for a cause. Immediately, he is snatched up, given a shave, a haircut, a heroic backstory and put on display. His story might even be true, but that's less important to the Powers That Be than his effect on morale. And even if it is true, it will exaggerate out of proportion, misinterpreting small-scale motives for grand ideology.

Inevitably, our Made Hero will grow into his legend, and eventually even exceed it. On the other hand, if the hero was truly a hero, he will at times express reluctance about his image being used against his intentions and actions, feel guilty about how his actions divert attention from The Real Heroes, and likewise struggle to repress those parts of his life and past that would otherwise fracture the myth. However, the image of the hero takes a life on its own and too many people and organizations are invested in that propaganda for a little matter of personal feelings to get in the way.

Propaganda Hero often arises deliberately, but sometimes it can come up spontaneously with no real grand plan or scheme. It is rooted in both folklore and cultural tradition as well as the engine of political machines, or simply the logic of commercialization and sales. Everybody wants something to believe in, and usually they turn to leaders in Church and State, but when those leaders cannot, for various reasons, suffice as sufficiently inspirational, they or their court scribes have to create something out of nothing, or the people have to resort to their own mythmaking prowess to seek guidance when Church and State authorities are mum.

Related to Famed In-Story, Shrouded in Myth, Historical Hero Upgrade, Propaganda Machine, Captain Patriotic, Corporate-Sponsored Superhero, Engineered Heroics, and Self-Made Myth. See also Cult of Personality, where the leaders of state are made into heroes or gods, either by themselves or their party after the leader's death, and Fake Ultimate Hero, where everything about the character turns out to be a lie. Anyone who attempts to expose the truth about a propaganda hero with Feet of Clay after their death is likely to be kept silent due to The Power of Legacy.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Izetta: The Last Witch: After seeing Izetta's skills against the Germanian Invasion forces, Archduchess Fine ends up turning Izetta into one of these, dubbing her the "Second Coming of the White Witch", and promptly giving her a fancy new white dress to wear in combat. Later in the series, the Germanian Forces come up with their own Propaganda Hero in Sophie, the original White Witch from Eylstadt's legend, brought back through a combination of cloning, Blood Magic, and her genetic memories being restored. The Germanians promptly call her "Germania's Witch", and soon begin publishing her exploits against the Allied Powers in Europe, ranging from successfully defeating and nearly capturing Izetta to launching a terror bombing campaign on Britannia with little to no opposition.
• One Piece:
  • The Shichibukai/Seven Warlords of the Sea are pirates sanctioned by the (generally opposed to piracy) World Government. This is to maintain the appearance of a balance of power with the strongest pirates, to show that pirates still fall under the control of the government, and emergency allies in case of war. The Warlords get immunity for most acts of piracy for their compliance, as well as fame. Eventually, the unreliability and outright treachery of various Warlords convinces the WG that the system is no longer serving its purpose and abolishes it.
  • In the Fishman Island arc, Jimbei points to Luffy that, due to the Fantastic Racism between fishmen and humans, if Luffy wants to beat the Big Bad Hody, he has to come out of it as a "hero" for Fishman Island (as Hody is pretty much terrorizing the populace) or it'll be seen as just more cruelty of humans towards fishmen.
  • Later, the series introduced Sora, Warrior of the Sea, a long running comic strip published by the World Economic Journal, the biggest newspaper in the setting featuring a Marine hero fighting an evil army. The events depicted by the comic are supposedly based on the exploits of real Marine heroes, serving as propaganda to increase support for the Marine cause.
• In Rebuild World, Katsuya's immense talent as a hunter makes him the poster boy for the pro-young hunter faction of Drankam. The leaders of this faction prop him up as a rising star among hunters in order to steer the direction of the gang away from veterans like Shirakabe as part of their perpetual We ARE Struggling Together strife. The pro-veteran side also try to set up the young Togami as a counter-symbol, since he hates Katsuya, but those efforts fall flat.

Comic Books

• The comic book miniseries The American Way is about a government-sponsored superhero team; the government also sponsors the supervillain team which the superhero team fights. It's all propaganda.
• The Boys: The superheroes are all created by a serum that is dispensed by a MegaCorp that desperately wants to turn said superheroes into human weapons so they can get all the money and power that comes from being a part of US defense spending. Having failed to do that so far, they settle for peddling lame, Silver Age style stories that people eat up and make them imagine the heroes are saving the world on a daily basis.
  • Of particular note is the Captain America Captain Ersatz Soldier Boy, a Dirty Coward whose WWII heroism was faked and pure propaganda (which is incredibly meta, considering Captain America also appears in this list).
  • Soldier Boy's predecessor did participate in WWII, except his team's bright uniforms and flying around gave away their position and got themselves as well as nearly everyone else involved killed. Naturally this was swept under the rug and the one met in the present day is a Dead Person Impersonation with the same powers.
• Captain America was created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon to be an actual propaganda superhero. In a more nuanced example of this trope, this did not originate as state propaganda, since America had not yet entered the war against Nazi Germany at the time that the comic first came up, and Kirby and Simon intended their creation to be a "premature anti-fascist". Of course, when war was declared, Captain America was poised for success as a ready-made propaganda creation right out of the gate.
• In DC Comics Bombshells, Supergirl and Stargirl are intended to be this for the Soviets. When they get used as weapons against their own people they defect to the US. As members of the Bombshells, they're offered stars and stripes uniforms, but refuse them, saying they don't want to be anyone's propaganda tool.
• Marshal Law is another Deconstruction where superpowered beings like "The Public Spirit" are not only total frauds, but absolutely indifferent to the fact that many individuals lost their life and limb fighting in the wars they inspired them to fight.
• Strikeforce: Morituri has in-universe propaganda comics about the characters, which are played sometimes for comedy and sometimes grim irony.
• Über: When the Nazis develop Super Soldiers at the end of World War II, prolonging the conflict significantly, the "Übers" quickly become figures in Nazi propaganda, particularly Siegfried and Sieglinde, both of whom seem to embody the Nazi phenotypical ideal of being blonde, tall, and having a Heroic Build. Of course, since we're talking about Nazis, they're ruthlessly massacring enemy soldiers and civilians alike.
• Watchmen has government-sanctioned heroes like Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian. The former is a Physical God with Blue-and-Orange Morality and enough Reality Warper power to shift the entire balance of power in the Cold War, while the latter is a Sociopathic Hero and rapist war criminal whose actions are enabled by the government so long as he delivers results and projects American strength.
• Wonder Woman (1987): Part of Veronica Cale's attack on Wonder Woman includes accusing her of using her position as a hero to become an icon for young girls and indoctrinate them with Themysciran ideology, including the worship of the Classical Greek pantheon.

Fan Works

• A Thing of Vikings: According to the other councillors, Mulan was made a councillor to keep the people calm, to remind them the attackers were driven off.
• your move, instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue): Thanks to Danzou's influence, Kushina, Minato, and many of Konoha's most powerful shinobi are transformed into these, their images plastered on posters and other merchandise encouraging others to follow in their footsteps. Some of them are shown to be more okay with this than others. These tactics also start working against Danzou when a movement begins to overthrow Hiruzen, taking advantage of Minato's popularity and position to champion him as a potential replacement.

Films — Live-Action

• Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky was intended by him to be an anti-fascist propaganda piece, with the Prince of Novgorod's resistance to the Teutonic Knights being likened to a Soviet v Nazi encounter.^note In real-life, the film played for a short while and was shelved with the announcement of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Then revived again in 1941 to global success when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa.
• Capitão Falcão, from the eponymous film (released in Angophone markets as The Portuguese Falcon) is definitely this - a Captain Patriotic in the service of António de Oliveira Salazar's fascist regime, his sworn nemeses are the dreaded communists and feminists.
• Captain America: The First Avenger: Cap's set up as the poster boy for the American troops, mostly to sell war bonds. Ironically, the men actually on the front line have no respect for a leotard-wearing shill who has never seen combat, but that changes once he actually gets to put his boots on the ground. This is a neat reference to the meta origins of Captain America, where Cap was created in real life as entertainment and propaganda just before the actual Second World War (and as part of the gag, copies of the actual 1941 Captain America Comics #1 are shown and passed around).
• Enemy at the Gates: Vassily's backstory and natural talent are eagerly exploited by the Russian war department, who are desperate for a way to boost morale. At one point Vassily is seen answering fan mail, trying to get to as many as possible, as "I might not be here tomorrow".
• Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers deals with the iconography of the famous flag-raising photograph in Iwo Jima and how the participants of that photograph deal with becoming larger-than-life heroes, especially as they dealt with Survivor's Guilt and post-traumatic stress.
• John Ford dealt with two examples:
  • Most of Fort Apache shows Colonel Owen Thursday as an unsympathetic martinet and deeply unpopular with his regiment who he leads into a futile cavalry charge that gets himself and his men killed. In the film's epilogue, he's glorified into a hero under whose memory the regiment will continue to fight Native Americans.
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) was a pacifist Internal Reformist politician who wanted to bring progress to a small town in the west, but he gets elected out of the notoriety of having shot the outlaw Liberty Valance who was killed by John Wayne's Tom Doniphon. In the end, when he tries to tell the truth to the local newspaper, they insist on destroying it, because a great deal of progress came out of that myth, and nobody wants to deal with pesky things like facts.
• The Red Baron: shows both von Richthofen's ground-breaking tactics... and the calculated manner in which his reputation was built by the German propaganda.
• Robocop:
  • Robocop himself is OCP's greatest creation as he is the only one that works properly.
  • Spoofed with the propaganda-cartoon hero "Johnny Rehab", the friendly face of ethnic cleansing.
  • Commander Cash. Bringing the credit crisis to a super-fight near you!
• The Running Man: The gladiators who chase down the criminals have their own wrester-style personas. It's inverted with Ben Richards, who is falsely accused of murder and slandered.
• Oz the Great and Powerful: The Good Witch thinks of the main character this way when she tells Oscar to save the land from the Wicked Witches, as the people are longing for the legendary "Oz" so much that even just an image of Oz will suffice to liven up their spirit.
• Edge of Tomorrow. Rita Vrataski, the Angel of Verdun (less politely known as the Full Metal Bitch). In a subversion, she's killed a moment after the protagonist encounters her on the battlefield (it doesn't last as he's stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop). It's not surprising that she's this trope as everyone thinks she went from just another grunt to a badass Action Girl who slaughtered hundreds of the enemy in a single battle. Turns out she was also in a "Groundhog Day" Loop and her skills were from being constantly killed and resurrected until she became an Action Survivor.
• Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation: Captain Dax is hailed as a true "Hero of the Federation" after his death. In reality, he detested the Federation and what it stood for. Before the heroes stumble across him, Dax was disgraced and arrested for killing his superior officer because he refused to carry out his illegal orders.
• Inglourious Basterds: Fredrick Zoller is a German private whose One-Man Army exploits in Italy are used by none other than Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels to make him into a Nazi propaganda hero through the Film Within a Film Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride).

Literature

• Nineteen Eighty-Four: Winston Smith invents the heroic "Comrade Ogilvy" out of whole cloth as part of his job at the Ministry of Truth.
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky has Ivan Karamazov narrate the Nested Story of the Grand Inquisitor where an Inquisitor in Spain remarks to a Jesus returned to earth that he has become the Propaganda Hero for the Church and that they will use his image to propagate whatever actions they deem correct or necessary for their organization, even if they have to recrucify Jesus to do it.
• Ciaphas Cain: Cain's reputation is at least in part built on this (as well as on his extremely impressive — if accidental — actual heroism).
• Halo: The novels establish that with how badly the war was going, the success of Spartans on their missions was publicized by the UNSC to keep morale up. Given their limited numbers and the danger of their missions, this also led to an unofficial policy of only reporting lost Spartans as MIA.
• The Hunger Games: Katniss' formidable fighting skill is entirely overshadowed by the sympathy she draws from the populace. Both sides try to exaggerate and embellish her reputation — inventing star-crossed romances and so forth — and both meet with mixed results due to her bitter, taciturn, rebellious, survivalist-but-self-sacrificing nature...which is why the people truly love her.
• Cassius Mass, The Fire Count, is an Ace Pilot who has racked up an astonishing 400 kills during the war against the Commonwealth in Space Opera series Lucifer's Star. Only later does he find out that much of this is due to High Command sending his group against soft targets with the best equipment to raise morale. Even so, his Archangel squadron quits itself astonishingly well in the last battle of the war. It still leaves Cassius as the Sole Survivor.
• The Lost Stars: Ten years before the Battle of Ulindi, Dupree's unit managed to Hold the Line against heavy Alliance forces for six hours. They were interviewed extensively by news crews and promised early discharge from the armed forces as a reward. As soon as the news crews left, their discharges were canceled, and they were sent back to the front lines.
• In Maoyu, Hero was this before the story began, as the human leaders cast him as the human savior against demons. Reconstructed after allying with the Demon Queen to Save Both Worlds, as he is increasingly aware of his status as a Propaganda Hero. He also begins to take control of his own propaganda in the guise of Dark Knight, Demon Queen's loyal and fearsome servant.

Live-Action TV

• In Game of Thrones, many old noble families trace their lineage to mythical heroes. Skeptics like Roose Bolton, Jaime Lannister and Sandor Clegane (on the Blu-Ray History & Lore) believe that these heroes were made up to increase the mighty reputations of these families.
  Roose Bolton: The children sit wide eyed and nod along, agreeing with the lesson forced upon them; If a giant bows to a Stark, so should you.
• In The Boys (2019), a Captain America Captain Ersatz called Soldier Boy is said to have been the first superhero created by Vought and is seen to have his own statue in New York. Unlike his comic counterpart, this version is implied to have made a significant contribution to the Allied victory.

Podcasts

• Red Panda Adventures: "The Saturday Serial" has the Canadian government creating their own superhero for propaganda and war bonds sales in the early days of World War II. This hero is modeled after the Red Panda and called the Red Ensign after an unofficial nickname for the Canadian flag at the time. The government even goes so far as to suggest that the Red Ensign, and the actor who portrays him, is the Red Panda. The Red Panda himself doesn't mind much, since he prefers anonymity and a pretender takes the spotlight off of him and the Flying Squirrel. This changes when the Red Ensign starts doing publicity events, which endangers any potential audience who will be close by, if not the targets of, anyone who takes a shot at the Red Ensign, either not knowing or not caring that he isn't actually the Red Panda. Despite their efforts the Red Ensign is murdered, though it's kept quiet and the Flying Squirrel expects they'll continue to hear about his exploits, whether anyone is using the identity or not. In time, the identity would be adopted by John Archer, a Ridiculously Human Robot who briefly filled in as the Red Panda, and is someone the Red Panda and Flying Squirrel trust.

Poetry

• The Aeneid by Virgil was state propaganda promoted by Augustus to link the emerging Roman Empire with the antiquity of Homer, and likewise displace Remus and Romulus with Aeneas as the new founder of Rome.^note The Julio-Claudian family of which Augustus was a descendant claimed descent from the Trojans and even claimed to descend from the Goddess Venus, both origins linked Augustus and Caesar to Aeneas, thereby creating a continuity of the ruling family with their ancestors, and insisting that the foundations of Rome were imperial rather than republican. Aeneas likewise embodies virtues more amenable to Roman piety and values, being stoic, determined, and obedient to family and gods, differing from the Homeric attitude to Greek heroes (capricious/violent/inconsistent).
• On the flip side, Pharsalia by Lucan made Cato into a propaganda hero with Caesar being made into a villain. Lucan was a critic of Emperor Nero (who claimed descent from Caesar and Augustus) and eventually fell victim to his policies. Its glorification of Cato as an embodiment of Roman virtue and defiance against encroaching reforms by ambitious usurpers is no less generous to Cato than Virgil was to Augustus.

Theatre

• William Shakespeare's history plays were propaganda for the Tudor regime. His Henry V is often considered his most patriotic work, and it ensured that Henry the Fifth and his victory at Agincourt remained a highly popular image for British soldiers well into the 20th Century.

Video Games

• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • Although the Hunters are presented as a benevolent organization to Zeta's public, they are actually just muscle for President Zazz's imperialistic agenda in reality and are often ordered to commit atrocities against any settlements that defy Zetacorp. Whenever a Hunter dies in the line of duty, Zazz will publicize their deaths and present them as martyrs to induce Patriotic Fervor among the citizens, but privately can't even be bothered to remember their names because he sees them as nothing but disposable pawns.
  • Detritus-11 was deliberately programmed to resemble Zazz's past self as the hero of humanity and was created to make Zetacorp more popular despite the company's oppression of Zeta and Vulcanite's citizens. However, Zazz is quick to order Eleven's execution when the latter tries to do the heroic thing by opposing Zetacorp's atrocities.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, The Warrior of Light's fame as Eorzea's greatest hero has every Grand Company on the continent climbing over each other to get them to join their ranks to bolster their country's position. During important missions like Operation Archon, they're asked to rouse the soldiers with their "stirring gesticulation" out of hope that their fame and status as The Paragon would do what a general could not. Alphinaud also has the Warrior of Light use their status to help him recruit adventurers and soldiers to join the Crystal Braves.
• In MediEvil, Sir Daniel Fortesque was given this treatment posthumously, as legends of the Battle of Gallowmere play him up as a heroic general who led the charge and died in a Mutual Kill with the Evil Sorcerer Zarok. In reality, Dan was killed by the very first arrow loosed during the battle, and Zarok had escaped. The PSP remake MediEvil: Resurrection, which portrays Sir Dan as a Lovable Coward, outright states that the legend of Sir Dan was fabricated for the sake of morale — Dan was a fop who the King had appointed based on tall tales, and the King lionized him to inspire the populace and avoid embarrassment.
• The Overwatch short Shooting Star reveals that Hana Song aka D.Va is this to the Republic of Korea. The media hypes up the supposed glamour of her lifestyle to keep up public morale and to keep people from realizing just how bad the situation with the Gwishin attacks actually is. Hana Song has no illusions about how dire things are and is actually quite the workaholic off-camera. She only acts bubbly in public to keep everyone's spirits up.

Webcomics

• In Sleepless Domain, magical girls are the primary and most visible line of defense against the monsters that attack the city each night. Because of this, the girls enjoy a celebrity status and there are television shows, such as the Daylight Update, dedicated to their exploits. Magical Girl Conspiracy Theorist Rue calls the D.U. propaganda, controlling public perception of what magical girls do to downplay how serious it is. The slightly more grounded Heartful Punch expresses a similar sentiment, that groups like the Foundationists and even the City Defense Department have a vested interest in keeping magical girls perceived as perfect warriors instead of human beings.
  Heartful Punch: The idea that we're just as flawed as anyone else... I don't think they like that. Because then we don't exist to just fight and die for them.
  • Sylvia/Alchemical Air appears on literal propaganda: A government poster promoting the benefits of registering as a magical girl, such as private school, an income, and a lower fatality rate. When Tessa transfers to public school after most of her friends and teammates, Sylvia included, die in the line of duty, she sees this poster still on display and makes sure to tear it down.

Western Animation

• Wing Commander Academy. In "The Last One Left", Maverick and Maniac are captured by a group of ex-Confed and Kilrathi Space Pirates, and are shocked to find their leader is Daimon Karnes, a Not Quite Dead Propaganda Hero who became so disillusioned with the war he turned renegade. Karnes and his pirates end up getting killed by the Kilrathi, but when Maverick and Maniac report to Admiral Tolwyn he orders them never to speak of what happened. "People need heroes."

Real Life

• The word Propaganda originates from a Catholic Church group called Committee for Propagating the Faith (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide), whose main function was to spread the faith in non-Catholic nations. Later historians argue that Patron Saints, pious Kings, Popes, and devout nuns have at various times become heroes for propaganda use by the Church, and one of the techniques used by the Church in modern times includes distributing comics showing famous saints and likewise using many saint iconography interchangeably with Jesus.
• The use of propaganda for modern use comes from The French Revolution.
  • An example of this is the conversion of the Ste. Genevieve into the Pantheon, a hall of fame mausoleum where the Great Thinkers, Philosophers, and Politicians could be interred. Both Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were interred there.
  • The painter Jacques-Louis David played a major role in creating paintings on classical themes, such as Lucius Brutus and the Horatii, that linked contemporary Republican sentiment with their classical predecessors. His most famous work, "The Death of Marat", made a martyr of Jean-Paul Marat and made Marat into a Christ-like figure of veneration. Indeed, after Marat's death, the First French Republic promoted a cult of Marat, where busts of Marat replaced those of Jesus Christ in many parts of France and he became a secular saint.^note This was a deliberate co-opting by the state of Marat's genuine popularity among the public. Marat was the most controversial and extreme Rabble Rouser who was outside the mainstream of the Jacobin Club, and someone even Robespierre would not touch with a ten-foot pole. Upon his death, and after David's painting, they went all-out in promoting him into a Hero.
  • Maximilien Robespierre was rather fixated with finding the Ideal Hero for the French Revolution. His reputation of humility precluded him from actively promoting a Cult of Personality, but he settled on Viola and Bara, two Child Soldiers who illegally joined the armies by lying about their ages and ended up KIA. David, Robespierre's friend, worked on paintings showing Bara's death and Robespierre intended to inter the bodies of both children into the Pantheon, noting that the French Republic alone could boast having "12-year-old heroes".^note Robespierre's downfall happened ironically in the week before the ceremony was completed, and after being politically discredited, the propaganda attempt was blocked.
  • Napoléon Bonaparte, former Jacobin that he was, engaged Jacques-Louis David and other painters to propagate for a new cause and hero...himself, creating an authentic pre-20th Century Cult of Personality in the process.
• Soviet Union:
  • This is what happened to Aleksei Stakhanov in Stalin's USSR. After winning a coal extracting competition, he was presented as an insanely productive miner, to serve as an example to other workers, with the purpose of making them work beyond their production quotas and show the world how performant the "New Man" was. He made a comfortable career for the regime thanks to that. Of course, decades later, his alleged exploits were proven greatly exaggerated, but a city is still named after him. In some countries like France, someone who works beyond reason is called a "stakhanovist".
  • The Soviets later elevated cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin as a hero for the Soviet Union, and in his case, he remains someone who really did something to merit his elevation and was genuinely popular among the people. Other attempts to elevate Soviet heroes include athletes and war heroes (such as Vassily mentioned above, but he was merely one of many).
  • Perhaps the most notorious case is Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov. His legend includes heroically fighting in the Red Army, getting captured after being surrounded, vastly outnumbered and rendered unconscious, fleeing from a German concentration camp by hooking up with a local girl and Buried Alive, fighting just as heroically in the French Resistance, with daring raids and taking part in liberating a few key cities towards the end of the war, and becoming a personal friend of Charles de Gaulle who specifically wanted to meet him during his later visit to the USSR. There are monuments and museums of him in Azerbaijan and France, complete with photos, medals, and memorabilia... Then the Russian and French Wikipedia's articles about him were deleted after the editors found out that likely nothing of what is known about him is true.
• John Henry, the famous "steel drivin' man" of song and story. From what little is known, he really did win his famous duel against the steam drill, a truly herculean feat that required him to swing a twelve-pound sledgehammer in each hand. While it's probably not true he then "laid down his hammer and died" afterwards, the steam drill was able to repeat the feat the next day and John Henry was not. Over the years, various people have re-purposed an event that was probably staged to settle a bet into everything from the story of a generically American folk hero to a specifically African-American folk hero to a heroic labor action. As for the real John Henry, his name appears in the pension records of the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad, and the Norfolk and Western Railroad later named a powerful experimental locomotive after him.
• Rosie the Riveter, the fictional embodiment of America's homefront war effort in World War II.

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