The ‘Misleading’ Concept Of Good, Bad And Heroism

I am going to start this composition by saying that i used to dream to become a hero when i was a child. It is because i grew up in an environment that everyone of us want to be a hero. We used to watched movie and also TV program that potrayed how powerful the hero is. It’s always interesting to watch them won againts the evil, so no wonder every children at that age were dreamed to be a hero. However, it is that simple to define the hero?

The hero used to defined with a person who fought againts the evil who tried to dominate the city or world, and the evil is always presented as the monster or human with ugly features. In research that held by Steve Taylor PhD, in his books he defined the concept of heroism: good and bad is not that simple to defined, we have to look up on some aspect on how the good and bad is formed in human nature. But before we discuss about the good and bad, let’s look on what is the definition of heroism.

Heroism is defined as an act who always concern for other people in need and knowing there is a personal risk and do it without expecataion of reward. So the hero is someone who ready to risk his own life before another to fulfill or protect that should have to protect. If we talk about hero it is always related to word Good and Bad.

It is dangerous to over-simplification to believe that some people are innatively behave good while others are innatively bad or evil. Because good and bad is not feature that human get when they were born, it is often shaped by enviromental factor such as an abusive childhood, or social learning from a family or peers.

Good is defined with person who have ability to emphatise and feel compassion to other people, and sometimes ready to sacrifice their own well-being for sake of the others. In the other hand Evil is defined with a person who are unable to empathise with others. As the result, their own needs and desires are paramount importance. They are selfish, self-absorded and narcissistic. In fact, other people only have value for them to extent that they can help them satisfy their own desiress, or to which they can exploit them. They often think other human beings are just objects to them, which is what makes their brutality and cruelty possible. Furthermore, there is no clear line between good and bad, the line is permeable, it means that people can cross back and forth between it. People can be good as the saint or bad as an evil in the same time.

The Heroism Concept In Medieval Era Texts

Bewoulf

Bewoulf is the oldest texts in English literature history. The story is tells us about the Hero named Bewoulf who fights some monsters who threaten their people safety. The heroism act in bewoulf is written in an old english language that containts more than 3000 lines. In my opinion, the concept of heroism in bewoulf is devided into 3 main points that represents every villain in the story. First, Grendel is represent as The Isolation, We all know that Grendel is the first monster that bewoulf had to fight in poems, if we see from another perspective is why grendel is attacking the danes is because he is envy on the people who really likes to party and gather around, it is because he is so lonely, he feel isolated because of his presence, so no wonder why people scared of him because of that. Therefore, he start ti kill everyone. Second, Grendel’s mother is represents to Vengeance, after the death of Grendel, Grendels mother is going mad and go to attack the danes as Vengeance to the death of her son. And the last monster that bewoulf fought is Dragon, The Dragon itself is represent as the Greed, the reason behind the dragon attack is because he is mad because the thieft rob some of his gold, so he is angry and start to attack people. The Concept of Good and bad in Bewoulf is ambigouos, because if we see from different perspectiv all these 3 monster have their own reason why are they act furious. And if we look up in the poem bewoulf was killed 30 swedes warrior, it is the same amount of victims o Grendel in his first raid on Heorot.

King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table

King Arthur and The Knights of The Round Table is the story of king arthur that tell us about how King Arthur and his Knights fights againts the Saxons, the Bad King or Queen that tried to taking their land and tried to kill Arthur. In this story King Arthur is the one who see as the good one, he has loves his land and also fights againts the people who try to take it. But when we talk about the evil one, there are a lot of a character who act bad in this story. Everyone of them have their own motives and intention, such as taking lands, fall in love with the King or Queen, or even just envy with the King.

The Heroism Concept In Post Modern Era

Jhonny English Strikes Again

Jhonny English Strikes Again is the fim that tell us about how the british agents who have a mission to find the mastermind of the cyber attack that happened to britain parlemen. In this film English have to fight againts Jason Volta who trying to take all around the world with his technology. The sides of good and bad in this film is ultimately clear, because we can clearly see the Volta’s motive, that is to dominate the world, which is totally wrong, so we can crowned the volta as an evil one in this film.

Harry Potter Franchise

Harry Potter is the film that tell use about how the boy named Harry Potter fights againts the murderer of his parents who try to take over the wizardy world. In every series of the film, Harry and his companions as the ‘white’ wizards have to fight againts the Voldemort and his followers or ‘black’ wizards. The Concept of good and bad in these film is quite clear, if we see on how the evil way on to fulfill their intention is killed everyone who try to stop them, it’s clearly bad.

To conclude, I think it is not right to say that people is born bad or born good, because good and bad is the feature that human get when they were born, people can be good as saint or bad as an evil, because the concept that said before has many faults, because peace can not be reach by killing ‘evil’ people.