 |
| "Man of Steel" |
As a dark fantasy writer,
I’ve written before how the forces of good and evil stand so strong in our
minds and attract us to the “superhero” or fantasy concept; of people having
abilities or cleverness beyond our own to achieve the defeat of an evil
entity. While I’m a strong proponent of
the importance of a well written, but not necessarily understood antagonist,
the protagonist gleams as always as the lead character in most stories.
I use a flawed, anti-heroine
in my stories, but I don’t deny the strength of the old-fashioned, manly, good
looking, noble, standup, fight-it-out for the people we see like favorites in
comics like Superman, Batman, or in stories like King Arthur being the picture
of chivalry (and infidelity in some books, but never mind).
What keeps drawing us to
these characters, now remade many times in blockbuster films after originating
in simplistic comic books? Answer: At some point to me, it brings back the kid
in us, an innocence, when we could really believe a really good guy would
always win, and do it the right way, not by a slaughter, but catch the bad guy
and bring him to justice. That’s the way
the world is supposed to be.
Another draw to these awesome
powerful protagonists is their great power, especially the nearly omnipotent
Superman. I don’t know a guy that
doesn’t like Superman (or a girl that doesn’t like the actors), and want to see
him defeat the challenge posed by either native Kryptonians as in “The Man of
Steel” or Lex Luthor to find some kryptonite in traditional Superman
stories.
As a writer of a complex,
dark lead character and a bona fide “Game of Thrones” nut of the series and the
books, I like to think of the strong good guy model for stories as going back
to the basics. (GRRM obviously isn’t
sold on the good guy thing). We fans of
fiction like good guys. And yes, we
still like the really, really good guys, that play by the rules and are always
awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment