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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45563
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45563
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

For the recent [writing exercise](https://writing.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2027/) 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Original score: 6