Everyman vs Extraordinary - Whom as the Hero?

As I see it, many works, especially in speculative fiction, there are two kinds of main hero.

One is an everyman. This character is nothing overly special and may be salaryman, new intern, or a grunt. This character is placed for the audiences/readers to feel sympathy toward and often project themselves. Arthur Dent archetypes would be good example of this type.

Another is an extraordinary person. This character tends to live out the audience/readers by being extremely awesome or/and very attractive. This character often embodies the a/r's wish. See Escapist Character for details.

Which type would your character lean toward to?

I really need to go to bed right now...

Composites of both are more my favorite. Maybe the everyman was a religious kung fu student or a Le Parkour champion, maybe the superman really did enjoy working at the local newspaper instead of using it as a cover.

You know what I mean?

I have one of each.

I never have Everymen in the first place, really. Most of my premises start with ALL everymen being given extraordinary powers.

When that's not the case, the world is usually fantastical enough that their everyman is different than our everyman.

I think this is a matter of timing more than anything. In Speculative Fiction, your protagonist is probably going to become extraordinary at some point; which choice you make depends where on the road to development your character is.

In real life, I'm quite convinced that most anyone could become extraordinary given the correct circumstances. Not even highly specific or unlikely ones — just having the time and money to pursue the right skills, materials and education.

The "pure" everyman - a character who is not only normal as far as what they can do, but who also has no real personality so as to make them a better Audience Surrogate - is a terrible character in my opinion and I strongly dislike them.

However, as far as the more general debate goes, it doesn't matter. A character is not defined by their powers or lack thereof, which is something I've often felt some people on here should learn. As long as their personality is interesting, I couldn't care less whether the protagonist is "extraordinary" or "everyman" in nature.

I tend to rail against works that feature an all-super main cast, because generally they're completely uncaring about the lives of Muggles. Admittedly, Protagonist-Centered Morality is a problem with fiction in general, but it really grates in those stories.

(Ironically, my favorite comic is very nearly an example of this...well, it appears like that, anyway.)

edited 26th Nov '11 1:54:48 PM by ElderAtropos

Well, when it comes to the main cast, I like to have both involved, though the "muggles" wouldn't be useless. It's no fun if everyone is a super and can do super things, but it's also kind of bothersome if everyone is some no body with no abilities whatsoever.

When it comes to the main character themselves, I have it somewhere in the middle. Usually with someone who has super abilities but doesn't want to live a super life, or someone with no abilities who wants to end up doing something great despite their lack of skills.

And of course most of my "muggles" aren't without some kind of skill. Standing next to an alien boy, a security robot, and a Batwoman copy, I also have a cheerleader that can influence people with cheers and a thug with slight foresight abilities.

I like to give my extraordinary characters some weakness to balance them with my everyman characters—a Kryptonite Factor, Power Born of Madness, or at the bare minimum a lot of Kung Fu Proof Mooks.

I think both have their places and I've created both for different stories.

I think there's something in between both extremes if we're taking Arthur Dent - who really has no usable skills - as the "Everyman" and Escapist Characters as the Extraordinary.

You've got all the heroes who're pretty much normal mundane people with no special abilities but have the skills and abilities to win through the situation. They're not super strong or fast but they are good at what they do. They might be a good fighter or a driver or a scientist or any of thousands of jobs or skills.

They're not completely out of water in the situation (like Arthur Dent), and they come into their own when the chips are down, leveraging their skills to make it through.

We can still identify with them as, aside from their particular skills, they are just like us - normal people who're good at something.

My characters are almost always everymen (for whatever is normal in their society, obviously). For one thing, I find them more sympathetic. For another thing, I don't really like writing from the point of view of someone with a horrible traumatic backstory, or vast power. I don't know what it's like to have either of those things.

I have a mix of them. Bryan is an Everyman who involves from that. Finn is purely Extraordinary.

@Wolf-Yeah...I was sleepy and didn't know a better way to put it.

Even though we all have our own personal strengths, an "Arthur Dent" is perfectly plausible - the guy could be the world's top accountant but if the problem can't be solved with some serious number crunching or an in-depth knowledge of taxation law, then the character's primary skill is no use at all and he is very much a fish out of water; an Arthur Dent.

Of course, the expectation is he's going to have a hell of a learning curve and some serious development by the time the story's over.

Others - like the off-duty cop whose training at least gives her proficiency with weapons - could be an example of someone "mundane" (how many cops are there?) yet with the right skills for the situation.

One of my favourites is from the movie "Gotcha" - Jonathan Moore is college student who lacks the self-confidence to get a date and is not particularly strong, fast etc. He is, however, a regular player of a paintball game where they stalk each other around campus and "assassinate" one another. He's shown to be very good at "killing" and avoiding being killed. When plunged into a (rather dated, now) conflict with KGB agents, his "Gotcha"-playing skills enable him to win through.

He's not quite as "Arthur Dent" as a student who excelled at, say, 10-pin bowling and Advanced Trigonometry would be - he's not exactly useless when on home ground (the very campus he's hunted, and evaded hunters, on) and hand guns are involved - but he's still a far cry from the wish-fulfilment heroes, who drive well, shoot well, appreciate the finest things in life and are witty, confident, suave, debonair and charming, and have to beat off swooning women with a stick just to fetch the paper of a morning. [cough]James Bond [/cough]

And he's certainly not Superman.

My current two works have very different styles of "heroes".

One has a group of "everymen": a few Arthur Dents but mostly "Jonathan Moores" - they have skills, hobbies and equipment that prove useful for the situation in which they find themselves and they work together to get the best out of what they've got. The Arthur Dents learn a fair bit along the way.

The other work has seasoned near-immortal warriors (werewolves and immortals) totally at home in their environment as they've been doing this stuff for years.

edited 27th Nov '11 1:00:28 AM by Wolf1066

I confess myself slightly worried that no one has seconded this.

^ I admit, I do define characters on one axis by their "tricks," for lack of a better word—the things that determine what they can do. On another axis, I define them by their goals and personalities—the things that determine what they want to do. (Of course, tricks needn't be supernatural powers—they can also be training, equipment, or natural aptitudes.)

The assumption that these are in some way mutually exclusive is...bizarre, to say the least. But then I have somewhat unique view on the subject. I write about soldiers and cops. These are, by definition, everyman types engaged in doing extraordinary things.

However, you can sure as hell categorise them as to whether they are "everyman" or "extraordinary" or "Mary Sue" or anything else you like.

Pretty much as you can categorise a story as "Historical Fiction" or "Science Fiction/Romantic Dramedy".

And I personally see nothing wrong with that.

And that to me, is what this post seems to be about - "What category do your characters tend to fall in".

I don't set out saying "all right, I'm going to write a story with an everyman hero". I create the characters and later on, if I wanted to quickly convey to another person what my story's about I can say "an everyman embroiled in situations way out of control" - because that's how characterisation, setting, plot etc happened to come out.

I don't recall anyone here - not even the OP - suggesting that you should 'define' your characters and think of them as some kind of 2-D object. But most people could certainly "categorise" their characters or say how they don't fall properly into one category or another - and why.