Heroes?

If you were going to write a novel, story, short or novella, what would your ‘hero’ be like? Think about that for a moment.

I have read many fantasy novels, comic books, graphic novels and the like and I would have to say that most of them are made of powerful stuff—butt-kickers extraordinaire! That seems to be the way to attract the most followers, having a character that is skilled, capable and honorable. I echo these sentiments. 

I was talking with a few friends yesterday and the subject of heroes came up. We began discussing the subject and ultimately, it came down to discussing certain indestructible characters in comics and movies. My friends all admitted that these types of characters were kind of ‘boring’. Being able to defeat every villain without so much as breaking a sweat was not entertaining to them. Again, I concurred.

This got me to thinking in retrospect at what types of characters I had created for CotFK. In all honesty, not a one of them is omnipotent. As a matter of fact, the ‘main’ character is the polar opposite: a naïve, insecure elf who overcompensates for his shortcomings and lack of melee prowess with magical items and alchemical elixirs. Don’t get me wrong, he has the stuff of heroes, I would not write about farmers who have no skills at all picking up weapons and somehow knowing how to defeat monsters and skilled combatants! That would be silly, right?

On the contrary, most of my main characters are quite capable in combat (otherwise, it would be a short novel) and can handle themselves against all odds…but not without effort! I think that is the key here. I made a concerted effort to make the characters somewhat ‘real’ by allowing them to get hit and injured and at certain points, become severely wounded. They were not indestructible from word one. 

Where they go from here, however, is another story…literally.

I would ask the readers and subscribers here to answer this one question: who is your favorite hero/heroine and what is your favorite quality about them?

Until next post...

See you in Wothlondia! Cheers! 

Please visit MY HOME PAGE to enjoy an extended reading experience, see direct links to purchase Covenant of the Faceless Knights and to see what else Ashenclaw Studios, LLC has in store in the future!

 

All maps, names and content copyright Ashenclaw Studios, LLC 2011 unless otherwise noted