What Happened to Paragon Heroes?

You know, over the years, I’ve changed my mind quite about Paragon Heroes. I used to really dislike them, actually, as I thought they were boring- like comparing a home poker game with a game at a Vegas casino online. Who would want to read about a character like Superman, who’s just way too strong for villains to pose any real kind of threat? About heroes who always make the right choice, and play by the book, when a character like Batman is running around willing to cave people’s faces in for jaywalking? “Now THAT’S a REAL hero!” little me thought.

Let’s define terms: What do I mean when I say “paragon heroes”? What differentiates them from literally every other kind of fictional hero? The idea is that Paragon Heroes will almost always do the right thing and play by the book whenever possible. Yes, every other hero is also trying to do what’s right, but Paragon characters are always at the far extreme of doing what’s right, no matter what, even if it makes their lives and methods harder overall.

Captain America

Captain America and Iron Man are perfect examples of doing Paragon heroes versus non-paragon heroes. Captain America is always Mr. Goody Two-Shoes and stands up for what he believes is right, even if it’ll cost him dearly. He’s willing to lose battles and even die, so long as his principles don’t get compromised. Iron Man, on the other hand, will do whatever it takes to protect his friends and family.

My favorite example of this difference in ideology comes from an exchange between the two characters in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Tony Stark (Iron Man) built a robot named Ultron designed to protect Earth in a way that the Avengers can’t because he’s paranoid of his losing his friends and family. Ultron’s escape leads to this argument:

Iron Man: “How were you guys planning on beating [an alien invasion]?”

Cap: “Together.”

Iron Man: “We’ll lose.”

Cap: “We’ll do that together too.”

My perspective on all of that as I’ve grown up, however, has flipped. Once I stepped into adulthood and began seeing the world with its infinitely complex shades of gray, it began to dawn on me how hard being a Paragon must be. The world is full of difficult choices, corruption, vanity, and selfishness. Most “morally gray” heroes usually just means that they’re willing to splatter blood and gore across the comic pages rather than actually making hard decisions.

That isn’t to say that there isn’t a place for morally gray characters in comics and fiction. Iron Man serves as an amazing foil to Captain America.

One of my favorites is the run of Superior Spider-Man, where Doc Ock successfully mind swaps with Peter Parker (God, I sound like a nerd) and decides to become a hero. Concepts like “human rights” are almost alien to a character who’s used to just doing things and getting results, and so he has no moral qualms with sending out an army of robots to spy on New York’s populace to find criminal activity. That’s an actual moral dilemma of safety versus security, rather than just edgy violence and calling it “gray”.

I think a lot of Paragon characters began to hit home for me once I started learning about politics. Politicians almost always try to convince everyone that all the issues are nuanced while at the same time arguing why they, and only they, are correct in every regard. Then, they inevitably change their positions as easily as water in a glass once the next election cycle comes around.

For me, politics should always be about finding what works and, more importantly, finding what’s right. In other words, Truth, Justice, and the American Way, yadda yadda. It took me a very long time to come to any sort of conclusion about where I stand on issues like abortion, where both sides of the issue depend on where you stand morally rather than your understanding of economics… which not going to get into here because that’s a can of worms not intended for an article like this.

A paragon hero always tries to do the right thing, or at least, the best he can in the current situation. What I find really sad is that in modern media, almost all paragon heroes are being eroded away.

Captain America is the least affected, but let’s start with him. In Captain America: The First Avenger, he’s the perfect paragon hero. He never swears, never talks down to people, never gives up, and is willing to jump on a grenade to save those around him. They even remind people that’s he’s Christian in The Avengers with the line, “There’s only one God ma’am, and he sure doesn’t dress like that.” (He was referring to Thor, by the way).

Then, over the course of ten+ movies, he shifts slightly away from that. He definitely becomes less Christian when he comments on how nice his own butt looks in Avengers: Endgame. Although it did take world-shattering events to finally get him to curse. Aside from that, he never really went gray, the way my next few examples were.

Superman

Zack Schnyder’s movies tend to be dark. As in literally, very dark. With muted color pallets and constant rain. It’s peak edge. Man of Steel is a lot of people’s favorite Superman movie, and fair enough. It looks good, and Henry Cavill does an amazing job as Superman (he’s also shown in interviews that he himself is a huge nerd who actually loves the source material for the characters he plays).

However, at the end of that movie, Superman ends up snapping the neck of the villain, Zod. He trashes a trucker’s truck for being rude to him and a waitress. He doesn’t save his Dad from a hurricane because his Dad doesn’t want him to because it might reveal him for who he is. It’s a very strange set of decisions that combine to make a unique movie, if not the most heroic version of the character.

The version that I’ve been enjoying recently is Superman from the show Smallville. I’ve been watching it through for the first time recently, and I’m almost at the end of season one (it’s been so weird watching a show with more than ten episodes a season). Basically, it’s a “monster of the week” type show but centered around Clark Kent’s life in a small little town.

While the special effects range from “decent” to downright silly, and the writing on occasion pulls typical coming-of-age-story cliches, there are several things that make this show stand out. The first is how they portray Clark himself.

First, the show gives up really quickly, trying to make it seem like Clark is ever going to lose a fight. He’s Superman. So how do you write a story where the main character can never lose? Smallville does it by making the central conflicts be things Clark can’t punch.

The main one being his love interest, Lana Lang. She had a boyfriend, however, named Witney. Witney’s portrayed as a typical jock-bully kind of character in the pilot, but over the season, they’ve matured the character and given depth to an otherwise box-standard bully. Since he’s actually not so bad of a guy, Clark can’t just swoop in and take Lana- not because he doesn’t want to, but because it’s wrong. And Clark always does what’s right.

That’s what makes him paragon, and that’s how you make paragon characters interesting. You make the conflict internal rather than external. A fight between what the character wants and what the character knows he should do. That’s why I don’t begrudge Man of Steel for the direction it went in because that internal conflict is still present, but Superman is still trying to do what’s right no matter what.

Now let’s rip into two instances of this being done wrong- where paragon heroes of the past were eroded away in spite of everything established in the lore before: Luke Skywalker and new Star Trek.

Star Wars

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a movie that was pretty poorly received by the fans, and it’s not hard to see why. Luke Skywalker, farmboy turned heroin Episodes 4 – 6, is the classic paragon hero. He’s incorruptible by the temptations of evil, runs headfirst into danger to save his friends, and is willing to believe that his mass-murderer of a father can still be pulled back from the dark side no matter what anyone else tells him (I have personal qualms about this, but that’s beside the point).

When we meet the character again in The Last Jedi, he’s depicted as a miserable, depressed old man who’s tempted to murder his nephew in his sleep because he had evil dreams. This is what I mean by the erosion of paragon heroes. Modern media loves to take characters who consistently stood up for what was right and flip their entire personalities upside down, even if it makes no rhyme or reason.

Star Trek – The Paragon Setting

Star Trek… well, don’t even get me started. Star Trek was always supposed to be an optimistic look at the future. It’s a show that’s progressive in a way that actually means something. Earth has become a paradise. Race, ethnicity, and religion no longer divide people or cause judgment. People treat each other with respect and dignity, and excellence is rewarded. Compared to a lot of fantasy universes, Star Trek is actually one that’d be nice to live in.

Compare it to modern Trek, where characters swear, murder, lie, cheat, and steal their way across the galaxy… where the socially awkward are berated and sneered at, and deaths are punchlines… where characters who can barely make it through conversations without anxiety attacks are told they can be leaders… where our protagonist and “hero” thinks that an unprovoked first-strike policy and mutiny are acceptable solutions to her problems.

Sigh. What I’ve learned from growing up is that good heroes are not boring, far from it. It’s infinitely harder to write, and for writers who seem to have never gotten past their edgy 13-year-old selves, it’s basically impossible. That’s the state of modern Hollywood, I fear. It’s full of writers who have lived in a world of vanity and privilege and are unable to comprehend what real relationships are like and what it means to be a decent human being.

Which is really, really depressing.