Your Heroes.

[ZaichikArky]

I don't have any "heroes" persay. Just people I really respect..

When I was in HS English class, we had to give speeches about who we respected most. My answer was my grandmother (on dad's side).

She was one of 6 kids who grew up during WWII in Eastern Europe. She's Jewish so she had to constantly be on the move. I don't even remember how many countries she lived in during the war before finally settling down near Moscow after the war ended. She was always starving, but school always was her top priority, even at a young age. Her teachers were wondering why during lunch time she would run home and then come back later. Her mother, an illiterate woman, one day spoke to her teacher after class to explain that my grandma was starving and the only way she could eat for the day was to come home during lunch.  Her father gave her the choice one day when she was a young teenager. He could set up a job for her and she could work and be able to eat, or she could continue to go to school and starve. She chose to continue to go to school . She was always at the top of her class.

 She graduated school with honors, going to medical school where she was studying to be a surgeon. I think that in those days, the USSR put a cap on the number of Jews allowed to practice medicine. I think it was that 1% of Jews could be doctors because Jews made up 1% of the population. Or something like that. I'm not sure if that law was in place when she went to medical school, but it wouldn't have mattered. She was always at the top of her class. She told me that being a gastro surgeon had been the best experience of her life. She was a highly-skilled surgeon and she practiced medicine for most of her life until she followed my dad and the rest of my family to the US in 1990.

She came to America when she was in her early 60s not knowing a word of English. She was retired and she could have chosen to be like any other retired, elderly immigrant. It would have been more comfortable for her to do so. However, she learned English basically on her own after pouring over book after book. She went to Opportunity School,  took many English classes, and spent hours studying grammar books. She loved to learn about history and would prepare lectures for her ESL classes. I remember her preparing one of her last lectures when she was in her mid 70s. It was about the Great Depression.

Now, she is nearly 85. She is very old, sick, and lonely. She can't move very much at all and she can't read well because of her eyes. I've been away from her since I was 10 years old when we move to California and only get to visit her once a year. I feel like the visits are limited... Still, I respect her more than anyone. Her work ethic is something out of reach for me. I feel sad realizing that, but she is someone I aspired to be, but cannot be. I grew up in America, she grew up in the USSR during WWII. I don't have any obstacles to jump through in comparison to her, and I don't think I can ever grow up to be like her. Still, she is inspirational to me.



As for fictional characters... props to Thought for mentioning Ender Wiggan. In 11th grade, on one of those standardized tests, I got Honors for writing about Ender Wiggan when we had to write an essay about "The character in fiction you want to meet the most". My best friend in the class wrote about Hannibal Lecter. No kidding. lol.

I have never considered fictional characters as heroes, unlike everyone else. I don't feel like getting into that too much right now, but I feel that real heroes are real life people who have made a difference in the world. Not characters who make a difference in the pseudo-world, because real life isn't the pseudo-world, it's based on reality, but it isn't. That's why I find characters cool and there are so many I like, but none that I consider heroes.

[Truthordeal]

Damn, Zeality beat me to Mihawk. Oh well, its nobody's fault but my own.

Many of my heroes I know and talk to.

My dad for one, raised me, my brother(22) my two half-brothers(26 and 7) and my two step-brothers(19 and 11) and much of that time he spent as a single working father, working at a prison no less. Times weren't always good, but we never went hungry. He afforded me a decent life, and made sure everyone else was as comfortable as they could be.

I also have a friend who lives in Czechistan(nick name for Czech Republic) whom I met over the Internet. She's had a tough life; the Czech Republic is an abomi-nation(see what I did there?) trying to scratch its way out of third-world status. I'm not sure how comfortable she'd be with me talking about this, so I won't go into details, but it's been rough for her. Despite all of her disadvantages, though, she managed to get into the International Baccalaureate program, and actually passed it and got her Diploma. These types of stories of people overcoming adversities to achieve success always warm my heart, but it's even better when you know the person. There's a type of pride that comes with it.

My residence hall has a male custodian named Mario. He managed to escape the bloodshed Bolivia during the time of the civil wars, got his American citizenship and found work. The life of a janitor isn't the most prestigious one, but he is a man who actually enjoys his job. He is very much, to use Zeality's jargon, in the Springtime of Youth.
 
With Sajianta, my friend and Mario, I'm surrounded by spirited people, all of whom I look up to.

If I were to make an entry for every historical figure or modern political figure that I thought of as a hero, I'd be here all day. So, I'll just make a list at this point:

• Jesus(of course)
• Winston Churchill
• Rudy Giuliani
• Henry David Thoreau
• Francis Marion
• Al Sharpton
• Greg Mortenson
• Teddy Roosevelt
• James K. Polk
• Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda
• Ibn Sina
• Caesar Augustus
• Leonidas and Xerxes of Persia
• Issac Newton
• MLK
• The Founding Fathers(just throw them together, too many to list)

As for fiction, I haven't really been inspired by any characters here recently(except Mihawk, but Zeality beat me to it). I have been on a bit of a One Piece kick here recently, so out of all of them, probably Usopp.

I know I've forgotten someone...

[Sajainta]

With Sajianta, my friend and Mario, I'm surrounded by spirited people, all of whom I look up to.

Did you mean that as a comparison, that I also have people I know personally who I look up to?  Or did you mean to say that you look up to me?

It's "Sajainta", by the way, but no biggie--a lot of people make typos on my name. 

[ZeaLitY]

Villains

Queen Beryl (Sailor Moon)

She's such a regal villain, and one can imagine that she turned to darkness in her suffering over not being with Tuxedo Mask. I love her dub cue.



Guren (Naruto)

Guren made the latest Shippuden filler arc. She's a villain with a tragic past who finds her conscience, all while being a badass screen presence. She's a very refreshing strong female character.



Vegeta (DBZ)

He's a neurotic bastard, but a highly-motivated, high-functioning neurotic bastard, and that's awesome.



Grand Admiral Thrawn

What's not to like? He's a professional, consummate, erudite individual, and he's unleashing his will upon history with an artist's touch.



Hollow Ichigo

Hollow Ichigo is incredibly charismatic. He's perpetually, sadistically joyful, and is an inexhaustible well of resolve and will to fight compared to his host, Ichigo. He dominates Bleach when he's on the screen. His mannerisms and laughs are like lightning.



R'as al Ghul (Batman Begins)

He's so disaffected by the death of his wife due to crime that he's become head of an international secret society willing to commit mass destruction to effect justice upon the world. While his sense of justice skewed and his methods dirtied by innocents, I admire his diamond-sharp will and clarity. He is exactly where he wants to be.



Benjamin Linus (LOST)

Linus is the great saint of teleology, doing everything because it justifies the means. Emerson plays him with fantastic skill, making some of Linus's darkness come from a place of human frailty and his own frustration with the island.



Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez

Grimmjow is a force of nature. Ruthlessly cunning and believing himself superior to others because of his ambition, he faced a life of loneliness in Hueco Mundo until meeting a few others, who nominated him their leader in their quest for power. After some time, they realized their power had stopped increasing, and asked Grimmjow to devour a piece of them so that he could continue growing. He chided them for being weak, saying that anyone who wished to give up could go die in a ditch somewhere. He then devoured them, reminding himself, "I am the king!!"

He's neurotic, yet energetically passionate; he's ambitious and arrogant, yet emotionally vulnerable. And though an ambitious arrancar, he maintains his own ethics, preferring to only fight on even terms. His life is a brilliant blue streak of searing spirit, born from solitude. His will is indomitable. He's a beautiful person.

<3  



Makoto Shishio (Kenshin)

Shishio was a revolutionary assassin resisting the Shogunate. But once the Meiji Restoration was assured, he was betrayed and set alight. From this hell was born a cold, perfected ambition, fueled by the fires of his own dark wishes for revenge and power over Japan. And during his rise to power, he achieved a relationship of true love with Yumi. Make no mistake; Shishio is evil, believing weak people in the world should be exploited until death. But this is a result of his own suffering and damage, which confirms his underlying humanity.



Millions Knives (Trigun)

The cute thing about Knives is his low pain tolerance. When Vash shoots him in the leg, he totally, utterly, loses it.



Crocodile (One Piece)

Crocodile is a cool customer. His most admirable qualities are his will, calm intellect, and unrelenting thirst for adventure and power.



Blackbeard (One Piece)

Blackbeard, hah! Blackbeard is awesome because he's such a damn fine dreamer. Like Luffy, he wants to be the Pirate King, but he has no bones about how he goes about getting there. He's an hilariously positive guy, and even shouts words of encouragement to Luffy when they first meet.

"All that stuff about a new pirate age, it's bullshit. A MAN'S DREAM NEVER DIES!"

How refreshing that the enemy of a dreamer in a shounen manga is a villainous dreamer pursuing the same objective, and one who respects the hero for his own dream, too!



Donquixote Doflamingo (One Piece)

Look at this man:



Seishun.

Deidara (Naruto)

Deidara defined style. "Art is a bang!"



Vile (Irregular Hunter X)

In Irregular Hunter X, Vile is a playable character. And the storyline? Discovering that Sigma and Mega Man X are locked in a struggle for control of earth, Vile...chooses neither. He decides he's going to defeat them both and take everything for himself. Yeah, awesome. The music created for him in the game echoes this badass quality.



Kane (Command & Conquer)

Kane is a model villain, achieving an ambition he feels will benefit humanity through calculating strategy. And he has fun with it!



Barbossa (PotC)

Barbossa possesses such flair, style, and self-humor. He's an epic villain.



Davy Jones (PotC)

I AM THE SEA. And he became that way because of an unrequited, betrayed love.



Emperor Commodus

There's a scene near the end of Gladiator in which Commodus, addressing the imprisoned Maximus, asks Maximus if he thinks he (Commodus) is afraid to fight in the Colosseum. Maximus looks at him and smiles, saying, "I think you've been afraid all your life."

That touched upon the human condition so well, and illuminated the frailties of poor Commodus. Yes, this world is frightening. It's one of death, uncertainty, and suffering. To cast one's dreams into the wind is to overcome fear, first of all. As Patton said (and I'll paraphrase), every intelligent person fears, and the more intelligent they are, the more they'll fear; bravery is thus acting in spite of that fear. Commodus tragically lets that fear rule him, even though he has become the most powerful man in the entire world. There's a bit of Commodus in all of us.



Spring Breeze Dancin' and Kitty Lily (Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon)

Ah~

They arrive to Japan in a massive spaceship with a huge offensive power-beam
Shoot it, and it turns entire regions into beautiful stages
For their exquisite performances~

It's refreshing like a spring breeze; it's the glorious springtime of youth!



Captain Ahab

The power of obsession.



And...

I forgot a Hero last time. It's...

Howard Jones

Howard Jones carved out his own distinctive style of synthpop in the 80s, and devoted most of his songs to exploring facets of the human condition. His humanist, almost..."enlightened" take on some things betrays the fact that he's a very, very precious person. The world is better because of his music. His song "Pearl in the Shell" woke me out of a deep funk in early 2008; it was pure nightmare fuel. If you'd like to see it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnWKkxyx-qI&fmt=18

It's a caution to not refrain from following ones talents and pursuits because of fear of misfortune. To keep one's pearl in the shell is to effectively suffer a premature death.

[FaustWolf]

ZeaLitY, did you leave out Sephiroth!? For shame!  

Fictional Villain -- Sephiroth

Curious picture to choose for Sephiroth, for...obvious reasons. But I think what I admire about Sephiroth is not what he was, but what he could have been. When you get right down to it, it's easy to be a Sephiroth. It's easy to focus on the negatives in our lives, and just let it corrode us until we go crazy and become vindictive.

But like all of us, Sephiroth had huge positives in his life that he might not have fully appreciated. He was just the damndest strongest and most talented soldier ever -- or at least others thought of him that way -- and he commanded so many people's respect. His great tragedy lay in the fact that he didn't leverage any of that, and he might not have even realized how lucky he was (though I haven't played Crisis Core yet, so that might change things). Sephiroth could have been the hero in Final Fantasy VII, if only he had the attitude to grasp it.

May all of us keep Sephiroth's example in our minds and hearts, and look at what we can leverage in life --our talents, our relationships. Each and every one of us can do something for the betterment of the human condition, and that's unambiguously worthwhile.

Plus, maybe Seph's a damn good dancer...?

[ZeaLitY]

Ah, whoops. Yeah, he's in my list; I just glanced over the picture. I've got small thumbnails for each of my heroes and villains lined up in my life spreadsheet file (where I keep track of exercise, scheduling arrangements, etc.).

Nomura said Sephiroth's will is the strongest in the entire FF7 universe. Wonderful.

[Radical_Dreamer]

Out of curiosity, why did you place Ahab as a villain?

[ZeaLitY]

Oh, just because most people see him that way. I only had to read the abridged version of Moby Dick in high school (I'm now reading the entire thing), so I have no idea if he commits any villainous acts that were excised for a high school audience yet.

[Uboa]

(I figured it was about time I got around to posting here.)
I have already written about two of my heroes on Compendium.  I'll link to those posts here:

John Muir

My Grandpa:  Moreso than any other person I've known during my time on this earth, my Grandpa could really roll with the punches life threw at him.  He was not without his quirks, like anybody else, but in addition he always exhibited the undeniable quality of having it together.  He just did not let anything get him down, and to be capable of that is always something that I have aspired to.  

I'm only going to address one other hero here; one whom I've mentioned to some, so I thought some elaboration and clarification may be in order.  I love the show Homicide: Life on the Street.  I love all of the well-written, and well-rounded characters on that show, especially the female characters who are portrayed as *gasp* real women!  There are so many potential heroes to choose from on that show, from the powerful and razor-sharp force of nature that is shift commander Al Giradello, to the acutely intelligent and rationally nonchalant Sargent Kay Howard, who serves as such a stabilizing presence on the force even when the guys have it out for her.  But, the person who I would call a hero on the show is probably the second most well-developed character on there, and that is Detective Frank Pembleton.

Frank is such an amazing and unique character in that he carries this certain dynamic iconoclasm about him, which is something that typically benefits everybody in the Homicide unit.  His stark individualism and perfectionism often sets him at odds with many members of the unit, however the fact that he tends to keep his distance from his peers prevents this from becoming too big a conflict.  He is sometimes prone to making rash judgments about some people, but I don't think there is one time in the duration of the show where he does not recognize when he has been hasty in his judgment and recants when necessary.  He is a masterful interrogator, and has the reputation for being able to produce confessions in "the box", the fabled room in which the detectives have it out with the murder suspects.  His triumphs in interrogation stem from his uncanny ability to get and stay within a suspect's mind, almost as though he is able to entirely release the spell of his ego and let his unadulterated genius take over.    

Frank's personal development, like that of the rest of the characters, is realistically subtle even over seven years (seasons).  The highlights of his personal development always seem to center around compromises he makes for the better.  This is actually what makes Frank such an appealing hero to me, because not only does he have the drive and the ability to be an amazing detective and person, he also navigates his sometimes audacious tendencies in such a way that prevents him from making potentially terrible mistakes.  

This is one of my favorite episodes of Homicide, available for free on YouTube.  A fan posted it and it has yet to be taken down.  This is a great episode for Frank; one which ties together many of the transformations he undergoes over the previous five seasons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhplAN8ie2w (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuvYmFF_ngQ (part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0iowaC5tRc (part 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUY0E3W6duU (part 4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAapkxxsuaw (part 5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPXxilw8AlE (part 6)