Unclear Description: The Hero

I do think it's a very good idea to mention how we make the divide between The Hero and The Protagonist and what not. Those terms are often used interchangeably by the public.

This brings me to another issue about the trope's definition: Is this trope limited to one character per cast (or Cast Herd, if there's Loads And Loads Of Characters), or not?

The Hero's article does already note Luke Skywalker and his father Anakin as examples of how The Hero and The Protagonist can be two different characters; in this case, within the context of the entire Star Wars series (rather than just the original trilogy), Luke is The Hero while Anakin is The Protagonist (originally a Hero Protagonist, then a Villain Protagonist after his Heel–Face Turn).

edited 10th Mar '12 3:38:53 AM by MarqFJA

Darth Vader was never a Villain Protagonist in the second half of the series.

edited 10th Mar '12 3:41:13 AM by troacctid

His protagonist status is by Word of God. Look it up on his Character Sheet profile.

edited 10th Mar '12 4:02:39 AM by MarqFJA

Darth Vader is the hero, but not really the "protagonist."

The Protagonist is defined as the character that the story revolves around. Anakin/Darth Vader fits the bill, as "[a]ccording to George Lucas, the film franchise is fundamentally about Anakin and his progression from innocence to a force of good, his fall to evil, and subsequent redemption."

edited 10th Mar '12 12:43:38 PM by MarqFJA

Perhaps we should note on The Hero that people use it colloquially to mean The Protagonist, and use the classic definition of hero for The Hero.

I'm in favour of that solution.

I third this solution.

And are well in agreement that The Leader should take The Hero's place on Five-Man Band?

As long as we note that The Hero is usually The Protagonist and The Leader (but not necessarily the other way around), another vote in favor from me.

I don't think it matters what we want The Hero to mean. Everyone is going to just assume that it means the same thing here as it does in the rest of the world (The Leader and/or The Protagonist and/or a "classic" hero). Even if someone constantly cleaned up the examples on the The Hero page itself, people would still misuse it in wicks everywhere else.

But Madrugada's observation above seems right to me; maybe if we put the classic hero trope at A Hero, we could make The Hero be an example-less description/disambiguation page.

edited 13th Mar '12 11:09:45 AM by dna

That reminds me: How come we have The Hero, but not The Villain? Villain simply redirects to Villains, BTW.

For the umpteenth time, The Hero's article description already notes that. I wouldn't having that part pointed out more clearly, though.

And is it just me, or is the description too long/complicated for what should be a simple trope?

edited 13th Mar '12 11:12:06 AM by MarqFJA

Sorry, I should have said as long as we keep that part. And I agree the description is a bit long still. We might be able to move a lot of that to analysis, or just separate it a bit more clearly from the main definition.

I vote in favour of a disambiguation page, too. The "correct" use on this wiki will not make people outside of the wiki use it "correctly", which means people coming from outside of the wiki and starting to edit will be using it wrong often.

I think we need to recognize that this is a fundamental problem with the word that we cannot fix.

Can't we just make the description a little bit clearer and leave it at that? The page doesn't need to have to have a really specific rigid definition - it just has to outline what people generally mean when they talk about "The Hero."

edited 13th Mar '12 4:28:43 PM by abk0100

There's still the need to clarify how this works for a Five-Man Band. Is he meant to be the group's leader, or the lead character?

I'm of the opinion that The Hero (assuming it doesn't get axed for any given reason) has no place on Five-Man Band, because The Hero isn't always The Leader, but Five-Man Band assumes that The Hero is The Leader. And I have been asking several times that we switch out The Hero with The Leader on Five-Man Band's roster.

So, about The Hero's "classic" definition: What is The Hero supposed to be as a trope? What's the relationship between The Hero and Ideal Hero? Or with Hero Protagonist?

And how come we have The Hero but not The Villain? (Note: The Villain currently is a redirect to Film.The Villain)

On my part, I'd like to note that it appears that The Hero was created to stand in opposition to the Big Bad — sort of like "champion of the heroes vs. the villain who is the primary cause of the problems the heroes are trying to solve in this story/arc". Am I right?

edited 19th Mar '12 5:24:53 AM by MarqFJA

^ I believe you've gotten support to change Five-Man Band from The Hero to The Leader. I support this, as well.

• The Hero: A character archetype that faces danger courageously for a noble cause.
• Ideal Hero: A hero with the added distinction of always behaving honorably.
• Hero Protagonist: A hero who is also The Protagonist.

We do have Villains, but I wouldn't be adverse to changing that to The Villain. I'm not sure why it's named asymmetrically like that.

EDIT: Actually, I think this trope was originally Heroes, and was transplanted to The Hero for failing to make it clear it was about the character archetype and being frequently confused with the series.

I don't think that there necessarily has to be a Big Bad in order to have a hero or heroes. A story with No Antagonist can still feature The Hero.

edited 19th Mar '12 7:10:53 AM by ccoa

I would replace the line in the (current) The Hero about the hero being the leader with one saying that he is USUALLY a leader and a link to The Leader.

I think we need to differentiate between articles as Five Man Band subtropes and character archetype tropes. In a Five Man Band there are a limited number of seats, so characters usually take on multiple roles that would be embodied by separate characters in a larger ensemble cast. Five Man Band subtropes are a mix of more than one character archetype trope.

I see the big HERO article as fairly simple. The hero is a character archetype trope, a character that represents the most prevalent or prized qualities of a group (whether an entire culture or a small target audience), possesses these at an exaggerated, almost superheroic level, and uses the same traits to succeed against the odds. These qualities can be anything, so the hero trope can be slapped onto a bunch of other tropes, which is why it seems a larger trope than it is. There are some traits that are more common, because they are more prevalent across different cultures and different social castes.

Bump.

Any opinions on the "champion of good from either a narrative or an in-universe POV, whether or not they're actually The Leader of the good faction(s)" interpretation that I proposed above?

Well, if there is support, then all that's left is to have one of the mods do the change, given that Five-Man Band is currently locked. We'll also need a Special Efforts thread to double-check all The Hero wicks to see which wicks are The Leader, and which are not.

edited 29th Apr '12 5:58:16 AM by MarqFJA

Clocking as inactive.

Okay, while we wait for actual responses on the question I posed in my previous post... Any reason why Five-Man Band hadn't had The Hero replaced with The Leader?

... And how come your post isn't mod-pinked? Or are you not using the "mod voice" option as most mods do when making such announcements?

edited 28th May '12 12:54:24 PM by MarqFJA

It's a matter of choice, but I'd say that pink on something as trivial as clocking a thread is more of an annoyance that of use.

Apart from that, is the The Hero/The Leader question a crowner question?

edited 28th May '12 12:56:47 PM by SeptimusHeap

Someone hooked a crowner while we weren't looking, I see. It would've been nice if they had notified us via making a new post.

It seems unanimous. Should we bumb for more votes?

edited 11th Jun '12 9:23:54 AM by ChaoticNovelist