Why fictional heroes are mostly single?

[Master of Ossus]

How about in the Jack Ryan movies? He's the hero and he has a family. Also, in "The Insider", though it is based on a true story, Wigand acts pretty heroic, though I don't know if you would consider him a hero. He also has a family and a significant part of the movie focuses on the effect his actions has on his family. Then there's He-Man. Of course, he really is a teenager in a man's body, especially the new one.

With Jack, it's just because he was married in many of the books. He is unmarried in both the book and the movie "Sum of All Fears."

No! Jack is married in SOAF.

He gets married at the end.

[The Yosemite Bear]

In the book he's still married as he got into the CIA, doing some paperwork while working as a teacher of history, (Patriot Games), in Sum of all Fears he is like one of the top folks in the CIA, and it's Domingo Chavez who pop's the question to Mr. Clarks little girl in the book.

[phongn]

With Jack, it's just because he was married in many of the books. He is unmarried in both the book and the movie "Sum of All Fears."

No! Jack is married in SOAF.

He gets married at the end.

He's married before Patriot Games, which takes place years before The Sum of All Fears.

[Master of Ossus]

In the book he's still married as he got into the CIA, doing some paperwork while working as a teacher of history, (Patriot Games), in Sum of all Fears he is like one of the top folks in the CIA, and it's Domingo Chavez who pop's the question to Mr. Clarks little girl in the book.

Really? I thought I remembered that he was married in SoAF's. You guys are clearly right, though. Sorry about that whole thing.

[Mr Bean]

Yes I was given most of Clancy's work as a gift and frankly Sum realy screwed him over besides taking twenty years of the age and unmarning him from his wife it also changed the main villians from cool, Crazy Arab Terriorts(And Native Americans too!) to wimpy neo nazis

[The Yosemite Bear]

Damn that is fucked

I just read the book

[RayCav of ASVS]

Yes I was given most of Clancy's work as a gift and frankly Sum realy screwed him over besides taking twenty years of the age and unmarning him from his wife it also changed the main villians from cool, Crazy Arab Terriorts(And Native Americans too!) to wimpy neo nazis

At least they didn't nuke Denver...

[Sea Skimmer]

Yes I was given most of Clancy's work as a gift and frankly Sum realy screwed him over besides taking twenty years of the age and unmarning him from his wife it also changed the main villians from cool, Crazy Arab Terriorts(And Native Americans too!) to wimpy neo nazis

At least they didn't nuke Denver...

That made of TV piece of crap Atomic Train, had Denver destroyed by an Old Russian nuke. So really Denver was a no go from the start.

[Mr Bean]

I mean come on the Pres was never there(In the book) the nuke was an Old Israly nuke(Like in movie) there was no three scientists, Infact one of the books points was how frightintly easy it is to make a nuke(It adds this is the after-word you can apprently buy every single tool or machine at the Oak Ridge Facility(During Mahhaten Project) from Catalogs today for pretty low prices

He estmated(Minus the Uranium/Plutounium exc) all you would need was 21Mil and you could build-yourself a Big Boy sized nuke all from tools you can leagly buy today

The nuke in the book was with the sec/Defense and interter at the show and the Prez and a his Nation secruity bitch in a cabin when it all goes boom

I miss the old wise-ass druged out tired sona of a bitch Ryan compared to this weak ass new version(Kinda like seeing Vadar in Purple Armor )

[phongn]

For all points and purposes, you should ignore SOAF (either the book or the movie) if trying to research how to build a nuclear device. While Clancy says all the tools are easily purchased, others I have talked to say that they're carefully controlled.

[Cpt_Frank]

Well the individual things probably aren't controlled but if someone buys all that he needs some guys will surely become suspicious, it's the combination.

[RayCav of ASVS]

Yes I was given most of Clancy's work as a gift and frankly Sum realy screwed him over besides taking twenty years of the age and unmarning him from his wife it also changed the main villians from cool, Crazy Arab Terriorts(And Native Americans too!) to wimpy neo nazis

At least they didn't nuke Denver...

That made of TV piece of crap Atomic Train, had Denver destroyed by an Old Russian nuke. So really Denver was a no go from the start.

Joy

What is with the need of ignorant Hollywood producers to nuke Denver? (no I am not calling Clancy an ignorant Hollywood producer!)

I have honestly never seen Atomic Train. They preemted it because of the whole Columbine thing.

I do remember a trailer for it though. In it they showed the director or producer guy. He said something to the effect of, "I am not making this to scare people; rather, I am merely showing that what happens in this film could infact be reality." My reaction was somewhat similar to the following:

BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS

Even Jay Leno lampooned the film! Man, this guy must really feel like an idoit right now, and rightly so!

BTW, is it just me or is it a total rip-off of Under Seige 2? (I have a distinct feeling that it isn't just me....)

[Perinquus]

As a married man with kids, I would point out that we have too much to protect.

Heroes are invariably people who risk everything for some cause (a rather disturbing archetype when you think about it, because whenever that cause isn't yours, such a person looks an awful lot like a fanatic). Such a person cannot have a family and be a good man, because a good man recognizes his responsibility to his family.

The difference between a man and a boy (besides the size and price of his toys) is that a man understands his responsibilities. Action-movie heroes are invariably teenaged minds in adult bodies: it's a wet dream for geeky teenaged fanboys to see somebody as shallow and one-dimensional as themselves in a fully grown adult body.

So a hero can't have it both ways. If he's a family man, he has too many responsibilities to run off risking everything (and worse yet, putting them in harm's way). If he runs off risking everything, he sure as hell can't have a family; it simply wouldn't be fair to them. And if he has a family and decides to risk his own safety and theirs over his pet crusade, he's not much of a hero.

That's why there's only one kind of family-man hero in action movies: the guy whose wife and kids get blown away in the very beginning of the film by the bad guys, so he must spend the rest of the film wreaking terrible vengeance upon the bastards who did it (a la Charles Bronson movies, "Gladiator", etc).

I kind of disagree. I think most heroes are single because, as someone else has already said, they want to show the hero's journey from a young, insecure individual to the hero that he becomes. Very young characters of this sort tend not to have formed deep romantic attachments yet.

Also, stories that have a romantic angle tend to appeal to a broader audience. Having the hero single allows his romantic adventures/misadventures to be shown. (Incidentally, this allows the writes sometimes to use the angle that the tough, fearless, great hero who defeats his enemies with aplomb still has romantic troubles just like the rest of us, and this makes him seem more human, and thus, lets audiences identify with him better.) You can't deny that the romantic appeals even to the most macho guys if it's well written and not corny - after all, every guy likes the idea of getting the really great, beautiful, sexy woman.

But I don't really agree that having a family automatically precludes a man's being a hero. As a family man, true, he has responsibilites, but there may be even greater responsibilities that he has to meet. In other words, he may become a hero because the threat he must face is so great that if he just stayed home and played the husband and father, the consequences to his people, and even his family could be disastrous. When a hero in literature or film faces one of those world-threatening crises, then staying home and putting his family first might actually be neglecting his responsibilities to his family, because the danger threatens them right along with everyone else, and the hero, by virtue of being hero material, has talents uniquely suited to deal with it.

This is also a common motif in literature - the hero who really just wants to stay home and look after his family, but a great danger arises, and his sense of duty compels him to go off and be a hero. If he stays home and does nothing while others are suffering and dying to fight this threat, he then feels like a coward and a shirker, and can't live with himself, so off he goes. The wife, in this case, may be either the understanding, loyal woman, who realizes that, though she wants him to stay home, he wouldn't be the great admirable, noble man she fell in love with if he did that, so she supports him. Or she may be the kind who can't understand, and leaves when he puts other responsibilities over that of husband (think of Grace Kelly's character in "High Noon" for an example of this).

But really, if you look, you can find heroes who were family men. In literature, think of Odysseus, whose greatest desire was to return home to his wife and son. Somebody's already mentioned Jack Ryan. Half the cowboy heroes played by John Wayne were married men.

And of course, real life abounds with married men who were heroes. Garry Gordon, and Randy Shughart, the two Delta Force snipers who were awarded posthumous Medals of Honor both had wives. The astronauts who took part in the dangerous early years of space exploration were all married men. George Patton, had a wife and children, and still went off to fight the Nazis. So did millions of brave, but unsung American and British and Russian soldiers who went and did their duty, despite the fact that they would certainly rather have stayed home. But they knew the Nazis had to be defeated or the world would not have been a fit place for their families to live in.

[Master of Ossus]

It is also possible to have heroes only because they do have families. People may turn into heroes in an effort to protect their children, like in the movie "Signs."

On the whole, though, heroes in most books and movies begin, at least, single.

[RayCav of ASVS]

May I interject this suggestion:

Who's to say the average family man isn't a hero for taking care of his family?

[Perinquus]

May I interject this suggestion:

Who's to say the average family man isn't a hero for taking care of his family?

Actually, I reject the use of the word hero in this instance, just as I reject it's use for sports figures and such. This is not to denigrate a family man in the slightest. I have the greatest repsect for a man who honorably and lovingly fulfills the obligations of a husband and father. Too many men don't these days.

But a hero is someone who does things that are truly extraordinary and and admirable, and usually at great risk to himself. A family man is only doing that which is expected of a good man who has taken on those responsibilities. Heroism though, is not merely doing your duty, it is doing that which is above and beyond the strict call of duty. Heroism is so admirable precisely because it is so rare and because it sets a bar that is higher than most will ever reach.

I am something of a stickler for the proper use of words. I think that to use them to describe things which they were not intended reduces and diminishes the ideal. To describe a famous athlete, for example, as a hero, I really think does a disservice to real heroes like Alvin York, Audie Murphy, or the unsung heroes who fought back against their hijackers on September 11th, who at the cost of their lives, prevented their plane from smacking into the White House or some other target. These are people who faced danger beyond anything most of us ever will, and who faced it with great courage, and sometimes gave up all their tomorrows as result. They made that ultimate sacrifice, or at least risked making it, and they did it with full knowledge of the possible consequences. That's something rare and extraordinary. It need to be recognized as such.

I really think we need a word for them alone, something that recognizes the true magnitude of what they did. That word is hero, but we mustn't diminish it by applying it indiscrimitately. For others -- people who, while still thoroughly admirable, have not quite attained that lofty status, let us use other, more appropriate titles.

[Sea Skimmer]

At least they didn't nuke Denver...

That made of TV piece of crap Atomic Train, had Denver destroyed by an Old Russian nuke. So really Denver was a no go from the start.

Joy

What is with the need of ignorant Hollywood producers to nuke Denver? (no I am not calling Clancy an ignorant Hollywood producer!)

I have honestly never seen Atomic Train. They preemted it because of the whole Columbine thing.

I do remember a trailer for it though. In it they showed the director or producer guy. He said something to the effect of, "I am not making this to scare people; rather, I am merely showing that what happens in this film could infact be reality." My reaction was somewhat similar to the following:

BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS BS

Even Jay Leno lampooned the film! Man, this guy must really feel like an idoit right now, and rightly so!

BTW, is it just me or is it a total rip-off of Under Seige 2? (I have a distinct feeling that it isn't just me....)

No, they really are totally unrelated expect that both have trains in them, and in Atomic train the thing derails about an hour into the film. Atomic train has no real villian and people only use guns once, and thats unrealted to the main plot.

It was a load of crap. The nuke is said to be very old and thus unstable, yet in reality the older a weapon gets the less likely it is to go off, even when correctly detonated.

[Sea Skimmer]

For all points and purposes, you should ignore SOAF (either the book or the movie) if trying to research how to build a nuclear device. While Clancy says all the tools are easily purchased, others I have talked to say that they're carefully controlled.

Its not even that, Clancy tried to explain some of that away by bringing in a German who knew of an unguarded stock of such tools. But the fact is, a bomb that old would need its uranium reprocessed to work, and that would have required a large factory that you can't easily hid inside a hill. The Russians did it under a low mountain, but that took years and tens of thousands of slaves.

[phongn]

Well the individual things probably aren't controlled but if someone buys all that he needs some guys will surely become suspicious, it's the combination.

There are certain individual things neccessary for the construction of a nuclear device and little else. Said items are under a watch list.

[Mr Bean]

There are certain individual things neccessary for the construction of a nuclear device and little else. Said items are under a watch list.

Though if anyone is watching at least before 9/11 is anyones guess, Or do I need to remind you of the person who almost managed to get thier hands on some Live Polo but was thwarted not by the Goverment Oversight groups or the Cops but rather the Post office as the person back the box wrong

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

As a married man with kids, I would point out that we have too much to protect.

Heroes are invariably people who risk everything for some cause (a rather disturbing archetype when you think about it, because whenever that cause isn't yours, such a person looks an awful lot like a fanatic). Such a person cannot have a family and be a good man, because a good man recognizes his responsibility to his family.

The difference between a man and a boy (besides the size and price of his toys) is that a man understands his responsibilities. Action-movie heroes are invariably teenaged minds in adult bodies: it's a wet dream for geeky teenaged fanboys to see somebody as shallow and one-dimensional as themselves in a fully grown adult body.

So a hero can't have it both ways. If he's a family man, he has too many responsibilities to run off risking everything (and worse yet, putting them in harm's way). If he runs off risking everything, he sure as hell can't have a family; it simply wouldn't be fair to them. And if he has a family and decides to risk his own safety and theirs over his pet crusade, he's not much of a hero.

That's why there's only one kind of family-man hero in action movies: the guy whose wife and kids get blown away in the very beginning of the film by the bad guys, so he must spend the rest of the film wreaking terrible vengeance upon the bastards who did it (a la Charles Bronson movies, "Gladiator", etc).

I kind of disagree. I think most heroes are single because, as someone else has already said, they want to show the hero's journey from a young, insecure individual to the hero that he becomes. Very young characters of this sort tend not to have formed deep romantic attachments yet.

Also, stories that have a romantic angle tend to appeal to a broader audience. Having the hero single allows his romantic adventures/misadventures to be shown. (Incidentally, this allows the writes sometimes to use the angle that the tough, fearless, great hero who defeats his enemies with aplomb still has romantic troubles just like the rest of us, and this makes him seem more human, and thus, lets audiences identify with him better.) You can't deny that the romantic appeals even to the most macho guys if it's well written and not corny - after all, every guy likes the idea of getting the really great, beautiful, sexy woman.

But I don't really agree that having a family automatically precludes a man's being a hero. As a family man, true, he has responsibilites, but there may be even greater responsibilities that he has to meet. In other words, he may become a hero because the threat he must face is so great that if he just stayed home and played the husband and father, the consequences to his people, and even his family could be disastrous. When a hero in literature or film faces one of those world-threatening crises, then staying home and putting his family first might actually be neglecting his responsibilities to his family, because the danger threatens them right along with everyone else, and the hero, by virtue of being hero material, has talents uniquely suited to deal with it.

This is also a common motif in literature - the hero who really just wants to stay home and look after his family, but a great danger arises, and his sense of duty compels him to go off and be a hero. If he stays home and does nothing while others are suffering and dying to fight this threat, he then feels like a coward and a shirker, and can't live with himself, so off he goes. The wife, in this case, may be either the understanding, loyal woman, who realizes that, though she wants him to stay home, he wouldn't be the great admirable, noble man she fell in love with if he did that, so she supports him. Or she may be the kind who can't understand, and leaves when he puts other responsibilities over that of husband (think of Grace Kelly's character in "High Noon" for an example of this).

But really, if you look, you can find heroes who were family men. In literature, think of Odysseus, whose greatest desire was to return home to his wife and son. Somebody's already mentioned Jack Ryan. Half the cowboy heroes played by John Wayne were married men.

And of course, real life abounds with married men who were heroes. Garry Gordon, and Randy Shughart, the two Delta Force snipers who were awarded posthumous Medals of Honor both had wives. The astronauts who took part in the dangerous early years of space exploration were all married men. George Patton, had a wife and children, and still went off to fight the Nazis. So did millions of brave, but unsung American and British and Russian soldiers who went and did their duty, despite the fact that they would certainly rather have stayed home. But they knew the Nazis had to be defeated or the world would not have been a fit place for their families to live in.

Hmm... I think I quite disagree with the reason they want to show the hero's journey from a young, insecure individual to the hero that he becomes. How do we explain heroes that stay single in their adulthood like Tony Stark (Iron Man), Professor Charles Xavier, MacGyver, The A-Team members, and Captain Kirk.

But the "romantic story" reason does have a point. Maybe on of the reasons they prefer unmarried hero so they can involve some romance in the plot....

An interesting note though: Usually when heroes are married, their spouse is also hero (except Spider-Man. Well, but I think Mary Jane is pretty adventurous and doesn't mind to be involved in hero business.). Examples: Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey, Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Green Arrow and Black Canary, etc. Most of them doesn't have kids, though.

Now, about real world heroes. IMHO they are different than fictional heroes. Usually real world heroes are normal people (who married and have family) who perform great and heroic deeds, such as wartime hero like Patton. Meanwhile, fictional heroes are main characters on a storyline with constant danger and adventure in their life.

[2000AD]

Its obvious. You go out and save the world/galaxy and while doing this you attract the attention of an attractive woman who wants to have sex with you. You have two options:
A) Just have sex with her and she's never mentioned again.
B) Marry her and either tie yourself down to one woman or risk her being killed so you can get a new revenge plot for your next movie.

Take James Bond. He sleeps with just about every girl in the films. Although he was married once she was quicly killed off (for revenge against Blofeld plot and so that he can sleep wth other women again) and he was only shown mourning her once (start of For Your Eyes Only) If he married everyone he shagged then he'd either have a load of graves to visit or a huge amount of divorce orders in the courts.

Darth Vader did get a girl (Padme) albeit when he was still Aniken and i remeber hearing about Palpitine having concubines or wives and i'm pretty sure you can see one in RoTJ coming off the shuttle and when he turns to talk to one at the end of a scene in the throne room.

[Master of Ossus]

I think a really great Bond villain would be one of his illegitimate kids, coming back to collect back-pay on child support so he can invest it to take over the world (mwahahahaha).

[phongn]

There are certain individual things neccessary for the construction of a nuclear device and little else. Said items are under a watch list.

Though if anyone is watching at least before 9/11 is anyones guess,

Before. Long before.

Or do I need to remind you of the person who almost managed to get thier hands on some Live Polo but was thwarted not by the Goverment Oversight groups or the Cops but rather the Post office as the person back the box wrong

Source?

[Sea Skimmer]

There are certain individual things neccessary for the construction of a nuclear device and little else. Said items are under a watch list.

Though if anyone is watching at least before 9/11 is anyones guess,

Before. Long before.

Or do I need to remind you of the person who almost managed to get thier hands on some Live Polo but was thwarted not by the Goverment Oversight groups or the Cops but rather the Post office as the person back the box wrong

Source?

I'd also like to see a source for that.

Course, simply having the live virus is only half the story, weaponzing it is the hard part. And far more places posses Polio then have the components for a nuclear device.