I’ve been preoccupied this week with the common human fascination for heroes. We’re all dying for someone to swoop in and save the day. Based on a friend’s recommendation, and my own curiosity to find out what all the fuss was about, I read Twilight this week. It’s a romance/thriller written for teens about a girl and her vampire boyfriend. Minus the very minor problem that he’s constantly tempted to permanently dehydrate every human he can clamp his jaws around, the hero in this book is perfect. He’s beautiful. He has supernatural strength. And he’s always there, just in time, to save the girl. Sigh….
Twilight is written for teens, but its appeal is really universal. Or maybe that’s just what I’m telling myself to keep from being so embarrassed about how completely it sucked me in. I was riveted, and not just because Stephenie Meyer is a masterful writer, which she most definitely is.
I don’t go through life longing to encounter a superhero. So I was definitely surprised by how quickly my imagination flew into daydreams while I read about Twilight’s alluring hero.
I want to be really clear that this has nothing to do with romance or love. And it should not at all be read as a commentary on my husband, who, by the way, thinks it’s very funny that I’m so enthralled by a vampire.
This longing for a hero goes much deeper than any dealings with the opposite sex. And men should not be smug about this, looking down on women for being too sentimental. Men long for heroes too, just not the kind that come to the rescue. They want a hero that will lead them into battle, so to speak.
So why is this longing for a hero so universal? And why do we all, men and women, get a dull ache at the core of our souls when we realize there is no hero on earth who can match Spiderman’s lightning quick reflexes, Superman’s amazing strength or Edward Cullen’s uncanny ability to be at the right place, every time?
It all comes down to the hope that there’s more to life than our mundane daily existence. We all want to be a part of something more, something bigger. It stands to reason that if heroes exist, there must be something more to life. We wouldn’t need them otherwise.
The longing for a hero is a reminder to us that we were made for something more. We were made to be a part of an epic adventure with a supernatural hero at its center. It’s just so hard to see that when we’re trapped by daily trivialities. Compare heroic stories with the reality we encounter most days, and it’s easy to give up hope of being a part of anything bigger than ourselves. But our obsession with heroes proves that we still hope.
*Thanks to Bonnie Tyler for the inspiration for this blog title. I’ve had her 1986 hit by the same name running through my head for the last week, as I thought about the whole subject of heroes.
