Flawed Heroes

Some of my favorite books are the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. I recently read a review or summary that mentioned "flawed heroes" in the book. It occurred to me that the term "flawed hero" can have two different meanings.

There seems to be a desire these days for flawed heroes, more so than in decades past. I'm not an expert, but from what I know this is seen in comic book heroes among other arenas. Early on, comic book heroes were never seen much to have character flaws. More recently, we have stories including Superman having an illegitimate child. The reason these flawed heroes are more present is because we supposedly can relate to them more. After all, we ourselves are flawed. What the creators of these flawed heroes would have us believe is that these flawed heroes are like us in that they do some bad things in addition to the good (and that it's normal and okay to do some bad things), and that they're different from us in that they have superhuman abilities or are, in the very least, in exceptional circumstances. Otherwise, they would be us. Additionally, we see flawed "heroes" in our everyday life, in the form of adulterous sports stars, corrupt politicians, drug-abusing musicians, and more. People who have the opportunity to show a good example frequently do the opposite, and are excused and even praised for their flaws by many around them.

However, as I said earlier, there are two types of "flawed heroes". Taran, the main character of the Prydain Chronicles, can rightly be described as a flawed hero, but of a different sort. His flaws are clearly illustrated; he is impetuous and foolish, sometimes petty and jealous, and makes many of the mistakes that we all do as he learns. His mistakes, though, come from a lack of maturity and growth, and not from acceptance of doing things he knows are wrong. This flawed hero experiences shame and regret, and then resolves to be better. Over the course of five books we understand that he matures and overcomes his flaws. When we relate to his experiences, we gain hope that we can overcome our flaws and become the people we desire to be.

That's the sort of flawed hero we need.

We should expect to often see flawed heroes; after all, the only true flaw-less hero to whom we can look is Christ. The rest of us are flawed. When we look at other people, either real or fictional, what is important is that we gain hope through the virtues they display and through the difficulties they overcome, including their own character flaws. What this life is largely about is overcoming sin through the Atonement of Christ. What will stop us from accomplishing this is if we accept sin, if we look up to others and say, "Even he does these bad things, so it's okay if I do some bad things also," or in other words, accepting our flaws because our heroes accept theirs. What will bring us to accomplish our goal is becoming a hero despite our flaws.

Last thoughts for now:
Our goal remains the same: exaltation in the kingdom of God. We ought to make sure that our "heroes", our role models, are people who instill in us a desire to accomplish that goal. If we look up to people and through their shameless wrong actions they discourage us from overcoming our own difficulties, well, they're not heroes at all.