Adding depth to two-dimensional heroes from myths
For the recent writing exercise I wanted to tackle Beowulf's character.
In the original saga, the hero Beowulf comes to the aid of king Hrothgar to defeat two monsters. Then, after a period of 50 years, he faces a third monster.
I wanted to create my Beowulf around these 50 years of pause. Clearly he must have done some interesting deeds in such a long period, but none worthy of a hero of his caliber. Luckily for him, a slave finally steals a cup from a dragon's lair. The monster awakes bringing destruction all around, and Beowulf has to defeat it.
The twist is that in my version of the story Beowulf forces the slave to provoke the dragon.
My issue is that mythology heroes like Beowulf are largely two-dimensional. This is a requirement to make them the absolute moral reference. On the other hand, to reveal that a hero always had a Machiavellian side, would require depth, and thus question their value as absolute reference.
My question is: in the context of a mythological tale, how to expand the dimensionality of the hero so that he can be turned into a scheming villain, without losing its value as absolute reference, nor altering the setup of the story?
To clarify, I thought of three approaches, but they seem to fall short of the initial goal:
- The extra dimension come from a different aspect of the story altogether. For instance, Beowulf is still the compass of morality, but he is not immune to boredom. In my opinion this has the risk of turning the hero into a clown.
- The extra dimension is given by the divergence of the world and the hero. The hero does not change, but the world does. Beowulf has always been a scheming villain, but this was accepted in the past, and now it is frowned upon. This seems to require rewriting the setup of the story, which was not my original intent.
- The extra dimension is a result of the hero's actions. Beowulf regrets his past actions, and the guilt corrupts his soul. This would be great, but it would also imply that his initial actions were far from being a great moral reference, as the story would otherwise suggest.
4 answers
(Warning: I haven't actually read Beowulf.)
Option #3 sounds like your strongest choice. Start by accepting the myth as fact: leave all his initial deeds as they are, and assume he acted in character then. Think about how his deeds might have changed him.
The "boredom" angle is one possibility. Here's how another might work:
The king himself needed Beowulf's help against two monsters. Now Beowulf is known throughout the land as a great hero. He's gotten used to fame and attention. It's made him proud. Maybe even arrogant.
Now? He hasn't had any noteworthy accomplishments for a long time. People don't remember his name anymore. Baiting the dragon is his chance to get back into the spotlight. He may even tell himself that it's necessary - that the dragon would have found a reason to attack eventually, and no one else has the skills to defeat it.
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On the other hand, to reveal that a hero always had a Machiavellian side, would require depth, and thus question their value as absolute reference.
My question is: in the context of a mythological tale, how to expand the dimensionality of the hero so that he can be turned into a scheming villain, without losing its value as absolute reference, nor altering the setup of the story?
You're dealing with an oxymoron. You can't have a scheming villain and an archetipical hero in the same character, at least not with some serious mental gymnastic.
You could portray Beowulf as scheming, while leaving his peers and subject in the dark. This will make the in-world inhabitants of your novel to treat him as the mitical hero he's supposed to be. Of course, the audience will notice the duality of the character and he will lose his "absolute" value.
What you can do is exploring dark sides and flaws without compromising the heroic aspects. You will still lose the archetipical hero traits, making Beowulf a tragic or modern hero rather than an archetipical one.
Regarding your options:
Boredom is actually a perfectly nice reason for him to "seek" adventure. It wouldn't make him a clown. Boredom can be interpreted as wanting something more, a longing for greatness. This can be written as an aspect of Hubris (Wikipedia): a common characteristic of both tragic and Greek heroes, loosely translated as arrogance and pride. In this instance, Beowulf does not scheme for evil intent, he schemes because he genuinely believes that he's entitled to do great things, so he seeks them out. He cannot live content of what he has.
I agree that this option requires rewriting too much of the setup, so I'd avoid this too.
This is similar to the approach taken by the CG movie about Beowulf (again a wikipedia link). In the movie,
Beowulf never slays Grendell's mother, but lies with her in exchange for a golden horn. The dragon that attacks him later is actually is own son, a shapeshifter.
While you don't need to follow the same route, the concept here is the same. The older Beowulf realizes that his actions weren't so morally uptight, and he rises to the chance to set things right in his old age. Depending on how you do this, you could preserve the "absolute reference" value of Beowulf, at least for the modern audience.
Nowadays it is widely accepted that heroes can fail, but they are still heroes if they follow a "redemption arc" of some sort.
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Make Beowulf more complex, which was your goal anyway.
Consider Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) on NCIS. The ultimate cop: But he isn't. When his wife and child were murdered by a drug dealer, and the drug dealer escaped justice, Gibbs (an Army sniper) secretly hunted the man down in Mexico and put a bullet in his head. With no regrets.
Consider Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) on 24: A hero, but will resort to illegal means, including torture and murder, to stop imminent terrorist acts (The show's hook is that scenes are continuous for 24 hours). Also, no regrets.
Viewers love this stuff, but a trick of fiction is what allows that: In both cases, the viewer is shown that the people being harmed are definitely guilty bad guys that deserve it. Now, characters within the narrative might not be able to know that, but the viewer believes justice is being served even if the law is being broken.
And that is one way to make Beowulf a deeper character. Yes, he did those things, and the way they are told he is the moral reference. But, we learn, Beowulf serves a higher purpose than just morality; he thinks the purpose of moral rules is to get us to do what is right, but the rules are not perfect. So he makes things right even if that demands breaking a moral rule. And if that condemns his soul, then he will sacrifice himself to what is right, because that is what a hero does.
He is not constrained by rules that would prevent that. What is more important? Telling the truth, or saving an innocent life? If he must lie to save an innocent, he will lie, and take the stain it creates on his soul. If he must coerce a thief into stealing something, in order to save a village, he will. No regrets.
It would be better for your readers if the thief/slave is clearly a vile person, perhaps enslaved for committing a murder. If not, go the opposite way: The thief/slave is actually a good guy, and Beowulf doesn't coerce him, but more convinces him to do the right thing and earn his freedom, or something like that.
Beowulf considers himself a true hero, and if others wish to write him as an absolute moral reference, so be it. In a way, he still is; we learn he is smart enough to realize the moral rules can lead to evil consequences, when breaking them would prevent those evil consequences. So he tries to follow the moral rules, but in the end, like Gibbs and Bauer, he sees his role as thwarting evil and protecting as many of the innocent as possible, full stop.
If you want to extend the myth, the only thing that weighs on his soul is failing to do that. And such a failure is responsible for the 50 year gap: It isn't told, but he failed to save people he loved, and the reason they died was his fault, his miscalculation. And though he prevailed, in grief he withdrew from the Hero game, accepting no more missions. But after some years of staying out, he decided he could not stand by and just watch evil win, when he could prevent it. He felt compelled to serve, but had to be smarter about it. Hence, your story.
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You are mistaken in your basic assumption regarding what gives characters depth. If heroic Beowulf is in your story secretly a bad guy, that in and of itself doesn't make him three-dimensional. That just makes him a two-dimensional bad guy instead of a two-dimensional good guy.
What makes a character three-dimensional is internal conflict. He knows what he should do, but for some reason he struggles with doing it. Or, two seemingly positive ideals point him towards different paths, and he doesn't know which he should follow. Or he wants to do something even while knowing he shouldn't. Etc.
What internal conflict you give Beowulf is up to you, and it would be paramount to the story you wish to tell.
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