The following thoughts will help any reader to understand why it is important to me that the Alipang Havens saga should not be lost and forgotten.
I’m so tired of simplistic stories about pure goodness fighting against incurable wickedness! I’m so tired of reading about heroes and heroines who have no faults! I’ve got an absolutely _brilliant_ idea:
As a daring innovation, something that’s _never_ been done before, I’ll make up a story about a hero who _isn’t_ perfect! My hero-- no, wait a minute, I think I’ll call him an ANTI-hero! My anti-hero will be a trickster: not a weakling, but a man who prefers outwitting his enemies instead of slugging it out with them toe-to-toe. He’ll even be capable of pretending to make peace with his enemies, in order to pull off a treacherous nighttime sneak attack.
Oh, I’m loving this, it’s so different and refreshing! I’m surprised that no one thought of anti-heroes before. My pattern-setting anti-hero will also be capable of disastrous failure; in fact, I’ll say that _everyone_ who goes with him on his journey will be killed! People are going to admire me so much for my stroke of genius in creating the anti-hero, because _they’re_ also tired of perfect heroes and heroines! I can start a franchise, and…
Wait a minute, my cellphone’s buzzing.
What? Say what? (PAUSE)
Er, um, well, folks, that call was from the Greek bard Homer, who lived centuries before the birth of Christ. I’ll have to cancel my claims of a fabulous, unprecedented franchise about the daring concept of an anti-hero. Homer tells me that everything I just was describing has _already_ been used, in _his_ epic about some guy called Odysseus.
Anti-heroes predate Deadpool. Anti-heroes predate James Bond. Anti-heroes predate Billy the Kid. Anti-heroes predate the English language, predate Christian civilization, and probably predate written language. All the whooping fanfare claiming originality for “characters who _aren’t_ perfect” is a fraud. But cynics who prefer and promote anti-heroes _need_ to continue hyping that fraud-- because, under the cover of the deceitful understatement “not perfect,” they offer characters who are far _less_ good than the most average, un-spectacular man or woman chosen at random from a shopping-mall crowd.
That’s what was happening back in 1970, when Webber and Rice boasted that their “daring” rock opera was treating Jesus Christ “as a MAAAAAAAAN.” They knew all along that they _weren’t_ merely recognizing Jesus’ humanity; they were intentionally making Him out to be an _inferior_ man, with all the whining they had Him doing. In any city or any farming region on Earth, you could easily find plain mortal men who are _better_ in every way than the wimp that Webber and Rice presented as Jesus.
Anti-heroes will be admired by effete souls who aren’t in any danger from evil predators at present. Anti-heroes will also be admired by many who are _themselves_ the evil predators. But in “The Screwtape Letters,” Mister Lewis observed that in times of great peril, it becomes a lot harder for people to go on refusing to see how precious and vital the unselfish valor of _actual_ heroes is.
It was no accident that novelist Leslie Charteris decided that his action hero Simon Templar would carry the nickname of The Saint. In his introduction to a re-release of the first “Saint” novel, Charteris spoke his mind about cynical fiction; and this was in 1980, proving again that “not perfect” protagonists are SO NOT refreshing or new or bold. Charteris wrote:
“The fiction world today needs a Saint more than it ever did. For too many years now, that scene has been dominated by the anti-heroes: those grim gray operators in a sunless sub-culture…It made morbidly fascinating narrative, but it never gave anyone a lift until it climaxed in the hyper-gadgeted parodies of 007 extravaganzas.
“I was always sure that there was a solid place in escape literature for a rambunctious adventurer such as I dreamed up in my own youth, who really believed in the old-fashioned romantic ideals and was prepared to lay everything on the line to bring them to life. A joyous exuberance that could not find its fulfillment in pinball machines and pot…
“I still cling to that belief. That there will always be a public for the old-style hero, who had a clear idea of justice, and a more than technical approach to love…”
Let no cynic attempt a “Gotcha” on Charteris’ reference to “the OLD-style hero.” I never said that the anti-hero concept was literally _older_ than heroic idealism; but anti-heroism ceased to be any sort of novelty before there were printing presses. Anti-heroes (well, apart from Odysseus) are junk food, their lack of nutrition disguised by heavy application of spices like pornographic sex scenes.
If I were in deadly peril, I would greatly prefer to have The Saint, or Captain America, within range of my cry for help, rather than a whole army of self-serving, amoral anti-heroes who would as soon throw me under the bus as pull me out of its way.
Therefore, I _will_ write stories with heroes who, although of _course_ they have human shortcomings, are never SO degraded that I have to start using the words “not perfect” as an evasive euphemism for “worthless.”
