Class, Heroism and mobility

[Galactus]

Okay, this train of thought actually started on Scans_daily and mostly concerns superheroes originally, so I'll be using them as an example. I don't think it's something that's *restricted* to superheroes though: It's pretty common in most genre literature.

Basically, heroes tends to be either upper-class from the start (Batman) or become so as a result of their heroism (The FF, and even in some sense Superman, even if he's still farmboy deep down he's still got an entire fortress full of nifty toys) Now, there are logical reasons for this: In the first place, rich people obviously have more time and resources to spend on dressing up like airborne rodents or Robin Hood look-a-likes and fight crime. In the other example it's a reward: Because of their heroic deeds/great personal qualities they earn entrance and acceptance into the higher strata of society. (either explicitly or implicitly) Their class journey parallels their heroes' journey.

In fact, of the mainstream superheroes I can only think of one who started out from a working class background and stayed there: Peter Parker, Spider-man. Who has a buttload of great personal qualities but nonetheless doesen't really make a class journey: Yes, he's college educated, but he's still a relatively low-rung guy on the social totem-pole, and he still has to deal with all sorts of working class issues. He's a hero despite lacking the resources (primarily time and money) that Batman does, and unlike the Fantastic Four or Superman he never manages to leverage his super-skills into anything. He's a hero, that's pretty much it.

This comes back in fantasy too: The hero generally either is already a noble or affiliated with nobility at start or he or she breaks into it during the story. (the farmboy becomes the king)

But the thing is, I think this has some unfortunate implications. Mainly that there seems to be a logic that working-class people cannot be heroes. (apart from Spidey most other exceptions tends to be explicitly political works, ironically either very conservative or socialist) For the first example it's obvious, but for the second on the implication is that if you are a hero you will be rewarded and brought "out". Not only is this kind of skeevy on the "heroes always gets rewarded" thing (which I'm not that fond of) but the underlying assumption seems to be that you can't be a hero and working class at the same time.

Does anyone see what I'm saying?

[MinDonner]

I can sort of see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure it's so much a class thing as a narrative-imperative thing - while many of us like our grey areas, there's a lot more demand for the "good guys get rewarded" trope, which will generally mean fame, fortune, power and so on, elevating any lowly swineherds out of their working-class roots. The preponderance of heroes who start off in the upper classes is a bit more problematic, but I don't see that you can blame authors for not taking the gritty route every time.

Though, Frodo & Sam? Two heroes who didn't gain kingly rewards. And I'm sure there are more out there, if we look beyond the usual cliche'd suspects.

[Galactus]

Yeah, I'm not saying there aren't exceptions (although I'd stick Tolkien in the "conservative" bit, and Sam does move upwards, socially, founding an important and family, etc. etc.)

[MinDonner]

True... but is upward social mobility really an anti-working-class trait? Do we really want a story about a humble scullery maid who has adventures and then decides to go back to working in the scullery?

[Galactus]

I'd prefer a humble scullery maid who goes off to be a hero and then comes back and leads a worker's revolution overthrowing the repressive class-system... :hat:

But yeah, the issue isn't quite that, the issue is that the correlation ends up being that hero=upper class. Which creates the negative reversal that if you're not upper-class you're not a hero, and thus, in the grand scheme of things, no good.

[Mentat]

I think an interesting aspect of this is motivation. Mainly why would you set off to kill the dragon and save the kingdom (or to perform super-heroics). One would normally expect some kind of compensation. Even in Tolkien, if you think The Hobbit, the dwarves and Bilbo don't go to kill Smiaug because he poses a threat to the nearby human communities, but to loot his hoard.

Some super heroes start off wealthy, but I think this is usually more of a trope to avoid looking into their lives too closely than a statement linking heroism to class. Nobody wants to know how Batman pays his bills, so it's easier to just make him a millionaire from the start. Other heroes that rely heavily on gadgets and tech (like Ironman) are also extremely wealthy, to explain them having them. Peter Parker has a day time job, but it relies heavily on him taking photos of Spiderman whom he supposedly "knows" in some way. I'm not a big Superman fan, but I seem to remember something similar happening with him and Clark Kent.

I think an interesting aspect of super powered humans in comics is that they either act super-heroically out of the goodness of their heart or decide to take the opposite route and rob banks out of greed or use their powers to feed their megalomania, but few of them actually use their powers for personal gain in a legal way (Mistery Men parodied this by having Mr. Fantastic have publicity on his uniform).

[Jon AS]

Even in Tolkien, if you think The Hobbit, the dwarves and Bilbo don't go to kill Smiaug because he poses a threat to the nearby human communities, but to loot his hoard.

And they don't even go to kill him, they want to try to steal of much of it as they can carry.

[kungtotte]

What I think is interesting about

is that Peter Parker is forced to stay in his working-class job because of being a superhero. If he had the spare time to pursue his career entirely he could very well rise above his current station, hell, he could end up being the editor of the newspaper instead of a freelance photographer, or maybe become a world-renowned photographer or journalist. But he's out saving people, so he doesn't have the time to focus on his career, and that is why he remains in place.

[MinDonner]

I'd prefer a humble scullery maid who goes off to be a hero and then comes back and leads a worker's revolution overthrowing the repressive class-system... :hat:

We do need more fantasy books with revolutions in, for sure.

[Galactus]

I think an interesting aspect of super powered humans in comics is that they either act super-heroically out of the goodness of their heart or decide to take the opposite route and rob banks out of greed or use their powers to feed their megalomania, but few of them actually use their powers for personal gain in a legal way (Mistery Men parodied this by having Mr. Fantastic have publicity on his uniform).

I think there's actually a decent set of basic origins. "goodness of their heart" is actually pretty rarely used. More common is trauma (batsie, Spidey) somehow being "chosen", making up for a past sin, and for some people, like the X-men, basically because they have no choice. And then there's people like Heroes for Hire who (naturally) do it for the money.

[Mentat]

I think there's actually a decent set of basic origins. "goodness of their heart" is actually pretty rarely used. More common is trauma (batsie, Spidey) somehow being "chosen", making up for a past sin, and for some people, like the X-men, basically because they have no choice. And then there's people like Heroes for Hire who (naturally) do it for the money.

I don't know... the initial explanation is there but the effect that such a trauma or motivation of vengeance would have on such a character is absent, leading to even the darkest superheroes like Batman being the kind of people who would risk their life to prevent a mugger from falling to his death while his accomplice is hitting him with a stolen TV set. Superheroes seem much more like brilliant paragons of righteousness and justice to me than like traumatized, cornered people on a path to redemption. Of course, this is a trend that has been on reversal since Moore and Miller got to writing comics, but it's still very present in most all of the mainstream.

[Lord O' Bones]

Well, at least we know for sure that this topic belongs in literature. More often than not, in real life, heroes are just some guy/gal down the street.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Galactus,

I'd prefer a humble scullery maid who goes off to be a hero and then comes back and leads a worker's revolution overthrowing the repressive class-system... :hat:

But yeah, the issue isn't quite that, the issue is that the correlation ends up being that hero=upper class. Which creates the negative reversal that if you're not upper-class you're not a hero, and thus, in the grand scheme of things, no good.

Isn't this the same argument a guy made three year's back accusing GRRM of being a closet conservative? You seem to be saying desiring personal social mobility (as opposed to social mobility for an entire class of people at the same time) is somehow

invalid. That if you aren't socialist you're "bad."

Kungtotte,

he could end up being the editor of the newspaper instead of a freelance photographer, or maybe become a world-renowned photographer or journalist.

I always thought Peter Parker wanted to be some sort of scientist. That's what he's studying at Empire State University.

[Tarapas Amran]

I don't know if you talk about Heroes (Superman etc) or protagonists (Kellhus, Jon Snow, Frodo).

If the first, well, most politicians do the same, even if they lead socialist parties they move up the social ladder, whatever background they have. When humans gain powers perk usually follows, which is human nature no matter ones ideology.

The latter I think we have tons of characters from different backgrounds, some die, some go back to the old life and other becomes something else.

I see what you are trying to do but I think your pushing it a bit :)

[kungtotte]

I don't think this is an issue of social mobility as much as it is an issue of social class elitism. We're spoon-fed this idea that if you aren't upper class then you're not worth shit, you should always want to strive to become upper class or at least improve your station in life, because life just isn't worth living unless you've got lots of cash and can consume a whole lot. And I think Galactus' point is that superheroes being of or becoming upper-class is feeding into this idea.

So the problem really is with consumerist culture, not social mobility, and it doesn't really have anything to do with socialism.

Kungtotte,

I always thought Peter Parker wanted to be some sort of scientist. That's what he's studying at Empire State University.

I think so too, yeah. He gets bitten by the spider on a class trip to some sciency thing. I just used the newspaper stuff because it was close at hand, he obviously likes photography since freelance photography really isn't an occupation you choose for the hell of it.

What he wants to become is really beside the point, the point is that his superhero-ness is preventing him from pursuing his dreams the way a non-superhero could, and this makes him different from all those other superheroes because they are either born into riches or get boons by virtue of being what they are. And that's interesting to me, that Spiderman is the only working-class superhero.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kungtotte,

So a story where the "hero" goes out gets into adventures, improves the world, deals with personal conflict and adversity, and goes back to his/her home recognizing they've got it pretty good as it is would be a radical departure in SSF literature?

What he wants to become is really beside the point, the point is that his superhero-ness is preventing him from pursuing his dreams the way a non-superhero could, and this makes him different from all those other superheroes because they are either born into riches or get boons by virtue of being what they are. And that's interesting to me, that Spiderman is the only working-class superhero.

Oh, no question. It is clearly an interesting aspect of the Spiderman Mythos. I remember an episode of "Spiderman and his Amazing Friends" (NBC cartoon from the early to mid 1980s) where there was an elaborate explanation for how Spidey, Iceman, and Firestar had an elaborate computer system in Aunt May's house. It turns out Tony Stark installed it for them when they helped him out in a jam. I always wondered how they got Aunt May out of the house for weeks at a time for the installation and what her power bill looked like when they used those systems.

[Krafus]

In fantasy, at least, I think some authors choose members of nobility as main characters because they want those characters to have a certain skill set and amount of resources right from the start of the story - and/or do not want to spend time/pages showing how their characters acquired those skills and resources. It's normal for a nobleman to be trained in swordsmanship, horse riding, reading and writing, etiquette, heraldry, etc. and for him to have lots of cash to acquire fancy horses, quality weapons and suits of armor, etc. But it would be rather incongruous for a normal peasant from some small backwater village to know/own all or even a part of that at the start of a story, no matter how noble of spirit said peasant might be.

For instance, look at Wheel of Time. Over the years, I've seen plenty of people displeased with how quickly Rand, Mat and Perrin became highly skilled fighters, or complaining about Mat acquiring the memories that made him a military genius being a deus ex machina. But no one that I can recall complained about characters of noble background like Lan Mandragoran or Toram Riatin being blademasters, or Davram Bashere being a great captain, or Elayne Trakand having knowledge of politics and rulership that she shared with Rand in The Shadow Rising.

[Galactus]

The upper classes in a feudal society were there because they were born there, and that's it.

Actually, while the nobility tended to pretend that, they really weren't. Nobel families rarely lasted more than three generations, so in order to get people to do all the jobs that could only be done by nobles there was a pretty steady, if small, influx of new blood into the nobility.

The static nobility we usually think of didn't really come into existence until the 19th century, at the same time as they were losing all practical relevance.

[Zap Rowsdower]

For those non-Americans on the board, John Stossel is a prominant American journalist and libertarian.

A number of years back he did a TV broadcast where he complained that in most movies the villains were usually a rich capitalists of some sort.

In my own viewing experiences I have also noticed that in many movies the greedy entrepreneur is displayed in a somewhat negative light. Like in slasher movies, where characters who partake of promiscuity, drugs, or alcohol usually meet bad ends, the man who intends to make a profit usually meets a gruesome demise.

[stupidguy]

For those non-Americans on the board, John Stossel is a prominant American journalist and libertarian.

A number of years back he did a TV broadcast where he complained that in most movies the villains were usually a rich capitalists of some sort.

In my own viewing experiences I have also noticed that in many movies the greedy entrepreneur is displayed in a somewhat negative light. Like in slasher movies, where characters who partake of promiscuity, drugs, or alcohol usually meet bad ends, the man who intends to make a profit usually meets a gruesome demise.

Hmmm thats interesting.

Lex Luthor, Kingpin, Lannisters, Sauron. All those guys were rich.