The Hero Wannabe

 You know, overall I think I had a good week. Things are okay. 

There was a time I considered making a Note about Dramatic Irony and applying that to Wheel of Time, but I think I’ve expounded on that in the series, though I don’t think in those terms. We will be talking about Wheel of Time though, just not that aspect of it.

I did kind of want this to be ‘Gawyn Trakand SUX’ but I’ve found that there has been a lot of digital ink spilled on the topic in the fandom so I’ll try to not make it so repetitive.

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The Hero Wannabe

You know, something I think about ever since reading The Faithful and the Fallen is the idea of the guy who thinks he’s the ultimate hero, but isn’t. It’s a fairly common occurrence in real life, if you know where to look (mostly the Internet). You know, those people who shout very loudly about how he or she is right and taking down THE SYSTEM when really this person’s just making things worse? Yeah that guy.

And since I’ve also recently finished The Wheel of Time, I’ve been thinking about those characters, and you know what? Gawyn Trakand SUX.

[rubs forehead] I said I was going to try not to do that okay, so:

Faithful and the Fallen has a character named Nathair who thinks he’s the Hero. And Wheel of Time has Gawyn who also acts like he’s the Hero. Neither of them are, and it’s played for drama in both cases. 

Nathair thinks he’s the Chosen One, in part because he’s told so by his advisor who he thinks is an archangel-type being and he seems to be fulfilling all the criteria. He leads a crusade to conquer the continent and get all the magic artifacts. It’s about halfway through the series that he finds out that he’s not the Chosen One, he’s the in-universe equivalent of the AntiChrist, a pawn of the Devil meant to try to bring about the end of the world. This causes, as you can imagine, quite a bit of a breakdown, but he continues to side with the villains. He tells people it’s because he thinks they might be right, but in his POV chapters it’s obvious that it’s mostly because he feels he’s come too far and doesn’t want to let go of everything he’s earned. He gets the chance to redeem himself several times and he just doesn’t, remaining a villain until the end.

He gets a pretty awesome fight scene before he dies too.

And then there’s Gawyn Trakand. He’s the prince of Andor, meant to grow up to be his sister Elayne’s chief guardian and warrior when she becomes queen (only women can take the throne of Andor). He and his brother Galad go to train with the Warders of the Aes Sedai (the wizard people) while his sister and love interest, Egwene, are training in magic. He becomes increasingly frustrated when Elayne and Egwene are sent on secret missions for months at a time that he doesn’t hear anything about, and so when the head of the Aes Sedai is overthrown he sides with the rebels, kills his sword fighting instructor, and works for the new leader Elaida (an arrogant and selfish woman who he has never actually liked or trusted, I should mention).

At some point after his mother, the Queen of Andor, disappears, Gawyn hears a rumor that Rand, the Dragon Reborn, is the one who killed his mother. And so because he decides that Rand killed his mom, and also is probably behind his sister and love interest’s disappearance, he swears he’s going to kill him. When Egwene and Elayne both assure him that Rand didn’t do it, Gawyn still insists that he did and has to be talked down from his death oath.

It’s some time after this that Egwene declares her love for him. I don’t get it. He basically spends the rest of the story doubting her decisions, doing what she tells him not to, and assuming he knows best. Gawyn also has a pretty cool sword fight before he dies.

Basically, Gawyn sees himself as the Hero, fighting against the forces keeping his family apart and him from his love. Like many protagonists, he’s pretty headstrong and impulsive, but he tends to also be skilled and strong enough to pull it off.

And thinking about why one of these works for me and the other doesn’t, the obvious answer is that Nathair is a villain. You are not supposed to agree with all that he does in the story. In fact, it’s supposed to be obvious, more as the story goes on, that he’s not doing the right thing and you become repulsed by the person he’s become. 

The problem with Gawyn is that the story tries to act as if he’s not kind of a monster. What are meant to be tragic flaws are more just really stupid and nonsensical decisions. He kills his fencing instructor, who he was shown to be friendly with, and apparently shows little to no regret about it. He sides with a horrible person he doesn’t even like because he thinks Siuan is keeping too many secrets about his sister and would-be girlfriend. He fully intends to kill Rand for something he thinks maybe he did, despite people he trusts who know Rand better than he does telling him that he didn’t do it. And when he does get together with Egwene, and she’s in a position of authority, he undermines it by not doing what she says just about every time she asks.

We aren’t necessarily supposed to agree with him–but we are supposed to see him as sympathetic. Which he’s not–he’s just some douchebag who, by virtue of his skill and strength and convictions, thinks he’s the Hero. And Nathair is like that too, but the narrative pulls the rug out from under him and shows him that he’s not. Gawyn doesn’t get a moment like that, at least not one that feels satisfying.

I think the idea of a character who thinks he’s (or she!) is the hero is a really neat one, especially since we have so many people around us today who seem to act like they’re the protagonists in their own stories rather than trying to be decent human beings. And we’re having a lot of discussions these days about what does or doesn’t make a heroic character in fiction, especially in regards to expectations from the past. I like the idea of an entitled character thinking he’s the Hero, and then he’s just NOT. But it’s annoying when the text doesn’t realize that the fake hero is actually just a terrible person.

You don’t need to give a moral judgment on each of your characters, to directly tell the audience if you approve or disapprove of his or her actions. We’re talking about writing fiction, not a morality pamphlet. But you do have to at least acknowledge gaping character flaws and realize when the character comes across as not at all sympathetic but an entitled douchebag. It makes a great villain, but it doesn’t make a great love interest, especially if he doesn’t reform or redeem himself before the story’s end.

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