16490732_sNow, don’t get upset men, I am talking about fiction books or film of course, fantasy really.

Physical Attributes

I struggled with what picture to place with this blog because I know everyone’s has his or her own ideal physical attributes. While searching, I found men of every race, height and size, all with their own appeal. So I opted for some male eyes. And they are quite male! I think we can all agree there are many men who would fit our requirements, so let’s just generally say we want our heroes to light our fires!

Heroic Actions

The heroes in our novels are often mildly heroic. Maybe they save the heroine from a bad guy or two or fight in a few small battles. But we aren’t talking your standard run-of-the-mill hero here. We are talking about a staggeringly mind-blowing epic hero. I want a hero who staggers across an entire continent, escaping capture from villains and overcoming obstacles to drop the ring into the Mount Doom. (The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. By the way, thank you Frodo for doing that!) When, an alien mother ship and its daughter ships hovers over the earth with plans to destroy the human species, I want a hero who will fly into the ship in a kamikaze attack to annihilate it, saving the world from imminent destruction. (Independence Day film script co-written by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin). In short, saving the world is essential.

Personality

I am really tired of heroes who are jerks. A hero who starts out sleeping with every woman in eyesight is no hero at all. A hero who treats the heroine with disrespect sucks as well. Heroes should be at least slightly discerning in their tastes and basically decent chaps, okay? At least the epic hero we are talking about here should be. Do what you want with small time heroes. This hero doesn’t lie, doesn’t get mad for idiotic reasons, and doesn’t change his personality as the story moves through. He is kind, works hard, cares about people, is hopefully brilliant, and we like him from start to end. My mind-blowing epic hero usually starts out as a common man who stands up to do great things when great things need to be accomplished. I’m sure that many of you men would be that hero if the necessity arose.What is your hero like?

Lilo