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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3318794" data-attributes="member: 4937">Except that special forces do take high casualties.&nbsp; When your success depends entirely on a plan working right, one slip up, one bit of bad luck, one bit of bad intelligence, one bad plan from higher up and you end up in a massacre high degree of training or not.I'd argue the same thing.&nbsp; In my opinion, the citizen soldiers of Rome, the rowers of Athens, or dare I say the volunteers of the USA were and are being more heroic than Odyseus or Heracles.&nbsp; That's because culturally I admire the virtue of the ordinary, in the same fashion that Gandalf and Aragorn consider Sam and Frodo more heroic than they themselves are.&nbsp; But the classical hero is not man but superman.&nbsp; In the classical model, the heroes of the LotR is not hobbits, but Aragorn because it is Aragorn which possesses the virtues of the classical hero - &quot;the hardiest of mortal men&quot;, the great captain, the fell and heavy handed swordsman.&nbsp; The word 'hero', as used by the greeks, is an answer to the question, &quot;How should I live my life?&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; The answer is, &quot;You should strive to obtain the virtues demonstrated by the protagonist of this story.&quot;&nbsp; The hero must not only be virtuous, but superlative in virtue and typically of cultures with heroic moral standards - martial virtue.&nbsp; The idea is that the protagonist has a degree of virtue which exceeds that of any of the hearers, and that the hearer is inspired thereby to try to live his life 'better' (whatever is considered 'better' by the culture that tells the story) even if - and perhaps because - he can never match what the hero does.&nbsp; The influence of the heroic is still pretty profound on our culture.&nbsp; Every comic book, every action movie, depends on a 'hero' of this classic mold who does things that require a more than mortal prowess.&nbsp; D&amp;D models that 'cinematic' hero, the hero of the Illiad or Song of Roland, quite well.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3318794, member: 4937"] Except that special forces do take high casualties. When your success depends entirely on a plan working right, one slip up, one bit of bad luck, one bit of bad intelligence, one bad plan from higher up and you end up in a massacre high degree of training or not. I'd argue the same thing. In my opinion, the citizen soldiers of Rome, the rowers of Athens, or dare I say the volunteers of the USA were and are being more heroic than Odyseus or Heracles. That's because culturally I admire the virtue of the ordinary, in the same fashion that Gandalf and Aragorn consider Sam and Frodo more heroic than they themselves are. But the classical hero is not man but superman. In the classical model, the heroes of the LotR is not hobbits, but Aragorn because it is Aragorn which possesses the virtues of the classical hero - "the hardiest of mortal men", the great captain, the fell and heavy handed swordsman. The word 'hero', as used by the greeks, is an answer to the question, "How should I live my life?" The answer is, "You should strive to obtain the virtues demonstrated by the protagonist of this story." The hero must not only be virtuous, but superlative in virtue and typically of cultures with heroic moral standards - martial virtue. The idea is that the protagonist has a degree of virtue which exceeds that of any of the hearers, and that the hearer is inspired thereby to try to live his life 'better' (whatever is considered 'better' by the culture that tells the story) even if - and perhaps because - he can never match what the hero does. The influence of the heroic is still pretty profound on our culture. Every comic book, every action movie, depends on a 'hero' of this classic mold who does things that require a more than mortal prowess. D&D models that 'cinematic' hero, the hero of the Illiad or Song of Roland, quite well. [/QUOTE]

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