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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ProfessorCirno" data-source="post: 5495496" data-attributes="member: 65637">It's actually an incredibly modern thing.  The question is this: what makes a hero?Is it your origins? Some stories believe it is something bred in the  bones, something inherent to an individual. The very earliest heroes  were gods and the children of gods; Hercules, Susano'o, Krishna.  Or they were taught by the fey, or were somehow connected to the faerie, as can be seen in some Irish mythology.  Or they had some magnificent destiny pre-plotted before them.  The important thing lying in this is that they were all supernatural, be they fighters or wizards both.  Some power was granted on them.  This, in turn, is what makes Beowulf so damn fascinating, as he doesn't seem to be gifted with any outside power.But that's old storytelling. Post-modernism has subverted traditional  heroic construction and we no longer favor divine provenance (or, for  that matter, prophecy, fate, destiny and other related structures).Today we see a lot more self-built heroes (especially with the  secularisation of literature): characters who have made themselves  strong, tough, skilled through their own efforts rather than the  blessings of the gods or what-have-you. Contemporary and futuristic  heroes are almost all atheists, in practice if not belief. They may have  superhuman reflexes and reactions but this is always 'natural' or, at  most, created by Man/Technology. These are characters that are The Best  Soldiers, The Smartest Hackers, The Most Persistent Cops.So the idea presented in this thread is that Batman and other post-modern style heroes are all down to Earth people.  That's the rub, isn't it, though? They're not normal people - they're  heroes. Heroes are always a little off-kilter, a little out-of-step with  the rest of the world. After all, you have to be outside the world to  change it - and to challenge others who would change the world for their  own ends. Heroes are a kind of autogyro, correcting our equilibrium  whenever some mad king or crazed scientist attempts to disrupt it. After  all, that's where the word "hero" comes from: to protect or defend.That's part of why heroes were all divine or otherworldly in origin: not  just as an explanation of their power, but also to allow them to  reshape the world on their own terms, to fight and defeat enemies in an  acceptable manner. When a normal person kills someone, it's murder; when  a hero kills someone, it's justice.And that's where the problem with D&D comes in.  It takes the post-modernist hero who is non-supernatural, takes the pre-modernist hero who is staunchly supernatural, and then claims that they must coexist (oh, but only the supernatural ones get any power).  In doing so you strip the post-modernist hero of his heroism.  Suddenly Beowulf isn't allowed to reshape the world on his terms; he has to abide by the rules the wizards put down (the same rules the wizards break).That's why this superman / batman argument is a non-argument, or at least in the terms they're being argued.  Superman and Batman are both heroes.  The difference is that Superman is far more pre-modernist and takes his strength from an outside origin, whereas Batman is post-modernist.  Trying to claim Batman is just a normal average Joe is missing every sort of point that could ever be missed.</blockquote>

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