Batman. Hero. Dark. Brooding. Has crossed some lines. Buffy. Her epitaph read “She saved the world. A lot.” She was good, a savior, but she had a darkness within her. Dexter, had a dark passenger within him. Well, he was an actual murderer. But he believed he followed a moral code. His example may be too much. How about we throw Elsa Bloodstone into the mix. A monster hunter dealing with her own rage and trauma.
Being a hero isn’t always about doing good for the world and being a voice for the voiceless. Sometimes being a hero turns you into a villian. At times, that villian title is capriciously ascribed. Other times, it’s actually earned and accurate. Sometimes, it’s just gray. Shades of gray. And, not in the 50 shades kind. Although, well, I’ll let that go.
Here’s the deal:
“whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster” Nietzsche
I myself like to say
“be careful when you look for trouble, cause trouble will find you”.
Monsters are everywhere you look. Monsters are in everyone, to some extent. Including onself. If you go fighting, taking on too many monsters, you may just trigger your own to come out. They say tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are. At least, my mother always warned me thus. Well, tell me which monsters you’re fighting out there, and maybe I can say what are your own inner monsters.
Categories: Culture, identity, Leadership, mental health, Pop Culture, Psychology, society
psychologistmimi 
Yep Some Studies Show That Core of What Separates
Altruistic Heroes From Selfish Callous Villains Is Yes
of Course Empathy
And Compassion
So Large The Hero
Has Difficulties Separating
Their Selves With Empathy and
Compassion For All Others So Yes
Even Like Mother Teresa It’s Possible
to Go to The Dark Side And Lose That Faith
of Empathy
and Compassion
For All Through And Through
Yep We aRe Only Humans With
Limitations And With Enough
Chronic to Acute Stress
All the Sea Creature
May Be Lost
From Just
Another Empty Shell of
What Came Before on A Beach
Balance It’s All About Balance For
Every Human Living Lamp oF LiGHT for Real..:)
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Michael C. Hall carried Dexter as an actor – the code helped, but he was an attractive person in a role deliberately designed to elicit sympathy in a gray area.
I wondered, when the final season came out recently, if they were going to rehabilitate him permanently – with girlfriend and son. But now I think maybe him realizing he WAS a monster, and allowing himself to be killed WAS the point to that extra season.
It tugged a lot of heartstrings – we all hate that so many people get away with so much – and now worry about his son, cast adrift with NO guidance. I’ve wondered if they’re going to do anything with the Harrison character.
But Dexter failed his code – and eventually realized it wouldn’t get better. I dunno. He was an attractive character – and there are still an awful lot of bad guys out there.
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So true. Fighting monsters can turn you into one. I think those who are being saved have a hand in this transformation.
Anyone who claims to be able to save you is a person to watch out for. A hero to one person may be by definition the destroyer of others.
Hero-worship seems to require a certain level of black and white thinking. You are either good or evil, and everyone knows good is valuable and evil dispensable. So in fighting evil, as we see it, we dehumanize the other and sometimes do things that we would never condone otherwise.
At the same time these kinds of hero to villain transformations or twin side of one person a la Jekyll and Hyde can make for some of the most fascinating fiction.
The cult of hero worship we practice online and in the media as well, picking the stars and favorites and gurus of the moment, affects our perception of the value of those who do not meet our lofty criteria. And those who achieve fame can find that it makes them do what they would not otherwise do.
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So true. We often become that which we hate most.
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Sadly so!
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