I love literature.
We all do.
And I love the heroes and heroines, tragic or triumphant.
We all do.
So here now is the quest, the quest for The Greatest Hero of All-Time.
The heroes will be set against each other by time period, and then the winner of each time period will go on to The Final Poll.
What makes "The Greatest Hero?" In order:
1. Influence on further literature/literary heroes
2A. If a triumphant hero, the actions he/she takes and his/her feats
2B. If a tragic hero, the qualities of the character, and the nature of the fall
3. Individual Taste
The time periods (this is rough, up for reshuffling):
-Antiquity: Beginnings to 476 AD (end of Rome, classic end to the Antiquity)
-Dark Ages: 477 to 1200 (Mostly lore and legends there)
-Medevial Times: 1201 to 1500 (Crusades to the cusp of the Renaissance)
-Renaissance: 1501 to 1700 (Italian Renaissance to Age of Kings)
-Jacobean: 1567 to 1625 (Reign of King James VI, includes Elizabethan Age)
-Enlightenment: 1625 to 1800 (From the first modern philosophers to 1800s)
-Romantic: 1750 to 1880 (From cusp of Enlightenment to 1880s Existentialism)
-Victorian: 1837 to 1901 (Reign of Queen Victoria, Golden age of Euro-Empires)
-Modern: 1901 to present (20th century and beyond)
Post-Modern: 1945 to present (Post-WWII, often nihilistic, existential, etc.)
So explainations about those time periods, and why they are arranged as such:
-Antiquity's pretty obvious...
-To lump everything from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance would likely leave out some great choices, and after the Crusades the nature of the Medevial Period changes, anyway, often there's a split between the "Dark Ages" and the "Higher Middle Ages," that's simply called the "Medevial Period" here for simplicity's sake.
-I made the Jacobean Period a specific time period of its own with the intention that the great theatrical works of that time--the works of Kyd, Dekker, Middleton, Moliere, Marlowe, Shakespeare, etc.--both not be overlooked and not force out other great characters from the Renaissance...characters from just Marlowe and Shakespeare alone could fill a "Hero" category, or even just all Marlovian or all Shakespearean heroes...but that'd leave out the other great figures of the Renaissance, and if THEY were focused on properly, some of Shakespeare's and Marlowe's best heroes might be left out, so we have the split with the understanding that Hamlet will stay on his side of the literary divide of Don Quixote stays on his
-The Enlightenment starts a bit earlier than it is generally placed, mostly so that there's no gap between it's more traditional start and the Renaisssance and Jacobean Periods...that'd lose a few decades otherwise, so it's a tad longer than usual, but not too bad...
-The Romantic Period is pretty self-evident, I think...
-Same with the Victorian Period, that's her reign, gives us both more room and a way of properly distinguishing between the great literary works of the 19th century--some are definitely more Romantic than Victorian, and vice versa--and takes us right up to the Modern Era, so I think that's a good distinction.
-Modernism at 1901 to present shouldn't cause too many waves, I think...
-Post-Modernism is always tricky to define and classify, and here it's no different...some sources would place it around the 1960s, and I've heard as early as the mid-19th cenutry...well, the latter seems far too early, and the former far too late and leaving out some of the best material, so I've given it the relatively-conservative timeframe of post-WWII to the present, and that allows for the likes of Samuel Beckett to give a good example of what I'd interpret as Post-Modernism.
Doubtless those distinctions will not please all, and so that's definitely open for discussion, but for now, let's start off with the ten nominees for the era that kicks us off and can generally be agreed upon time-wise.
One final caveat before we start--no religious heroes or texts, in my experience mixing the religious with the literary in these sorts of competitions is a bad idea, someone says "X wasn't that great of a hero, Y was far better," and someone gets offended by that, so let's just leave them be, plenty of great heroes besides them...heroes can be driven by religious fervor, of course, King Arthur and his Knights are driven by that to a great extent in some of their adventures, but let's keep the Bible/Torah/Koran figures out of this, eh?
The nominees for Greatest Hero of Antiquity:
-Gilgamesh, from The Epic of Gilgamesh by The Sumerians: Ironically, arguably our oldest hero is also one of the most recently rediscovered...Gilgamesh dates back to the Sumerians and nearly five thousand years or so, a demigod, king of the city of Ur, he fights for glory and iommortality with his friend Ekidu the Wildman at his side.
-Achilles, from The Iliad by Homer: The wrath and sheer might of Achilles is a focus of quite a bit of Homer's work, and so are his pride, arrogance, and ultimate fall from grace. Achilles and Hector face off in one of the most iconic one-on-one duels in all of literature, and walks away victorious in battle, but the loser in the eyes of many morally, as he desecrates his foe's body and goes on a rampage, eventually killed by Prince Paris by an arrow shot right at Achilles' heel (get it?)
-Oedipus, from "The Oedipus Cycle," and most prominently from Oedipus Rex, all of which is by Sophocles: He's abandoned as a baby, he's adopted, he solves a riddle, he becomes king, he kills his father, he marries and sleeps with his mother, he finds out, he gouges out his eyes, he dies. That's Oedipus' tragic tale in a nutshell...and what a tragic tale it is. Oedpius is established from the start as a relatively benevolent king, a man of the people, and so to see him fall and lose not only that great status but his good name, eyesight, and life is a saddening thing for the audience. One of the first great titans of literature, Oedipus' mark has carried through to modern day, as he's found a place in psychology--The Oedipus Complex--and continues to live on as the tragic King of Thebes.
-Antigone, from "The Oedipus Cycle," most prominently from Antigone: Antigone is a character so powerful for her time that some have gone so far as to proclaim her the first truly feminist character in history. That's up for debate, but what isn't is that she's one of the strongest female characters in Greek literature, with her efforts ranging from attempting to help her disgraced father Oedipus to attempting to go against the State and King Creon and bury her dead brother to a romance that's star-crossed enough to make Romeo, Juliet, Lancelot, Guinevere, Tristan, and Isolde all sit up and take notice.
-Odysseus, from The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer: "Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end..." So begins one of the greatest works in world literature, and one of the most memorable character introductions of all time. Odysseus was a player on the Greek side of things in The Trojan War, and the Trojan Horse is partially attributed to him, but it's his exploits in the years that follow that have kept Odysseus immortal in literature: battling Polyphemus the Cyclops, tying himself to the mast of his ship to avoid falling prey to the Sirens' Song, his stay with the sorceress Circe, making it home to his kingdom of Ithica and defeating the hundreds of suitors that came to try and claim his ever-faithful wife Penelope for themselves...the stories themselves are legendary, and together they weave one of the most influential pieces in literary history, as nearly every character since who goes on a long journey may be said to be "embarking upon an odyssey," and all owe a bit of tribute to Odysseus and Homer.
-Hercules, from Greek Mythology: We know who he is. We know he's the son of Zeus, incredibly strong, generally has a good heart (unless driven insane by his stepmother in order to kill his wife) and that there was that fun-for-kids-but-nearly-completely-wrong Disney film about hiom in 1997.Really, Hercules (or Heracles, if we want to use the Greek name) doesn't need much of an introduction--he slew the Nemean Lion and Hydra, he retrieved the Golden Apples, cleaned the Aegean Stables in one day--quite possibly the most, erm, "interesting" heroic feat of all-time--and so on. He's Hercules, the Greek Superman--or perhaps Superman is the American Hercules. Either way, you know him, and, really, for a character that needs no indroduction, he certainly got a long one--and one well-deserved.
-Aeneas, from The Aeneid by Virgil: Only fair to give the Trojan side (and the Roman authors) a bit of representation here, with the great survivor, Aeneas. With the world around him...he survived, really, that's what may be attributed to Aeneas, most certainly--he's a survivor, someoen who just refuses to say die or quit and, from a literary point of view, he gives some good resolution as to what happened to the Trojans after the War and does show that in an era dominated by the Greek heroes, the Romans had their heroes and poets as well, as Virgil completes onf of the first--and perhaps the best--trilogies in history with a bang.
-Medea, from Medea by Euripides: Medea appears here and there in many bits and pieces of Greek mythology, but it's her place in this play, as the "witch-wife" in this story that cracks the list. Jason and the Argonauts go a-questing for The Golden Fleece, and Medea helps...but in doing so commits a rather heinous action--dicing up the son of one of the pursuing kings and throwing the body parts into the ocean--that brings shame upon Jason forever. As a result, Jason neglects and allows her bad name to go on, ruining her life and her children's lives, moving them to Greece, where they're looked upon as barbarians. Medea does her children a favor, after so much wrong has occured and Jason has had an affair, by making sure they don't grow up in a poisoned household...by dicing THEM to pieces and gives as a "gift" to Jason's new wife-to-be a crown...that sets her body ablaze in a horrible, agonizing death. Medea is THE anti-hero of the Ancient World, and yet she does all of this after her good name is ruined, her life ruined, the prospects of her children's lives are ruined...an anti-hero, but a TRAGIC figure nonetheless.
-Electra, from "The Oresteia Trilogy" by Aeschylus, Electra by Sophocles, and Electra by Euripides: With arguably the three greatest playwrights in Ancient Greece telling her tale, it's pretty safe to say Electra's an electric character (get it?) and a pretty enduring one at that. With the murder of her father Agamenon and the apparent death of her brother Orestes, Electra seeks revenge against the apparent murderer, her own mother. With the King dead and the Princess vowing to avenge the death and usurpation of the throne (that sounds vaguely familiar...hmmm...) Electra sets out on her path, finds Orestes to be, in fact, alive, and the two join to slay their mother and avenge their father's foul and unnatural murder (wait...), but naturally this vengeance can't go unpunished. Oedipus has the Oedipus Complex and The Oedipus Cylce, and Electra has The Electra Complex and The Orestia Trilogy--not to mention one of the most enduring outings for a female hero in the ancient world.
-Other (Name and give a description)
So, go on and vote for your choice, and as soon as the winner is declared, the next Period's heroes will be voted upon (you can suggest some for for those outings as well, just below here.)
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Originally Posted by Roptat Lenz
For the greatest hero from 476 AD onward ....
