Azelma wrote:
Personally, I believe there can't be heroes without a cause.
One of the things you learn in Classical Studies is that not only can there be heroes without a cause, but heroism transcends causes. There really is a certain type of "hero personality", characterized by young, restless energy and a desire to test one's character.
Let me throw it at you this way. If there could not be heroes without causes, then heroism would have to be fundamentally linked to absolute cosmic good. But is there such a thing? Is there any place or time that is truly black and white? Or can people be great and larger-than-life in the pursuit of less than pure goals?
Indeed, history is full of such people. There are even many cases of heroes for opposing causes. Take, for example, Che Guevara versus JFK, or Scipio versus Hannibal, or Alexander the Great versus Diogenes the Cynic.
On a less than epic scale, you meet everyday heroes - people who stand out through extraordinary kindness or diligence in self-betterment. People who maintain clarity of purpose and clarity of identity through the smallness and challenge of day to day life. That, too, is heroism: the act of overcoming the small as well as the great.
