Archetype

In almost every work of fiction there is a heroic figure. There are lots of different characteristics that all of these figures share. In this essay I’m going to talk about each of these characteristics, and give examples of characters in fiction who possess these characteristics.

A lot of heroes have very serious personalities and are very much loners. This is sometimes because the hero has gone through some sort of traumatic event in their life which has caused them to become the hero, but also made them become very serious and want to be alone at all times. This sort of characteristic is usually changed throughout the course of a story as the hero meets new people and usually develops some sort of love interest. So, while they usually change their minds about people by the end of the story, this is a characteristic shared by many different heroes. A good example of this is the hero Batman, he is a very serious person, very dark and brooding, but he has a lot of different friends who help him and he even developed a love interest which caused him to lighten up a bit.

Strength is a very common trait with heroes. A hero is supposed to be a character that can take whatever comes to them. So, a lot of heroes are very physically strong, like Superman or Thor ( The Marvel version not the one from Norse mythology ) and they can take a hit and fight villains. Also there are a lot of mentally strong heroes, which means that they can keep fighting no matter what happens to them and they don’t break. A good example of a mentally strong hero is Luke Skywalker, who started his journey after his uncle and aunt were burned to death, he even had to see the their charred corpses, also he is mentally strong because he continued fighting even after he found out that Darth Vader was his father.

Heroes have to be very courageous, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do the things that a hero does. A hero has to be brave and be able to do the things that would terrify any normal person. If the hero isn’t courageous they wouldn’t be able to do the things that scare them in the story. An example of a very courageous hero would be Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings or another example is Indiana Jones.

So those are just some of the traits that many heroes possess in a lot of fiction. There are many other traits, but these are just some of the common ones with heroes today. In this essay I talked about multiple traits that a lot of heroes have.