Hero Stories and the Latest Star Wars Movie

There are only so many story plots in the world. Very limited. I have one book that puts the number at 36, 8 of which are anachronistic now[i]. There are just a couple of those that involve a hero sacrificing for a greater good. But we actually see that story fairly often.

Last week Mr. Spherical Model and I went to see the latest Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker. I’m about to do something of a review—trying to avoid spoilers, but be forewarned nevertheless.

movie poster
image from IMDB.com

About halfway through, a light came on for me. Suddenly I understood, on a larger scale, what story was being told. It’s what I’ll call The Hero’s Story. The list includes Harry Potter; The Hobbit; The Lord of the Rings trilogy; Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight series, Mistborn trilogy, and Steelheart trilogy; the Eragon series; How to Train Your Dragon; The Ranger’s Apprentice series; and a great many others in the sci-fi and fantasy genres, especially. There are some elements you can expect:

·        There’s the hero, who starts out as little known or cared about. Possibly an orphan. Parentage possibly unknown.

·        The undeveloped hero discovers a special skill or power.

·        The hero goes through a development or training process, usually with a mentor or trainer.

·        The hero’s special skill or power develops beyond what one would normally expect, often surpassing expectations—or even abilities—of the mentor or trainer.

·        Nevertheless, the hero doubts himself/herself. Often this is related to learning about parentage and wondering whether heritage is destiny.

·        The hero may even give up temporarily, but will return to use his/her special skills in an epic battle for the sake of all the other people depending on him/her.

·        There may be a parallel anti-hero story—a similar character with similar skills, who is on the side of evil.

·        The hero wins against the otherwise undefeatable adversary. This may require significant sacrifices—and possibly his/her own life, although more likely the loss of someone close to the hero. But the hero must win or the story fails to meet the contract between the writer and the reader. In the battle between good and evil, good always wins.

How does this fit in Star Wars? In the original trilogy (episodes 4-6), Luke was the insignificant orphan. He is mentored and trained in The Force by Obi-Wan Kenobi. He starts out pretty ragged, but gets better. He uses the force at the end of the first movie to destroy the death star.

A lot of the training goes on in The Empire Strikes Back (maybe still the best—at least of that trilogy) by Yoda. He leaves for a while, frustrated in his lack of progress, and distracted by the need to take action elsewhere. At the end of that movie, he learns that he is the son of the arch villain Darth Vader. Back before all details could be leaked on the internet, that was truly a stunning moment in the theater.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke is a force to be reckoned with. Only he has the power to take on the evil emperor and Darth Vader—the essential meta-battle going on while the military battle takes place outside.

There’s another element we’ll see repeated: Luke sees some good in Darth Vader, his father. Instead of simply hating the evil and fighting it—or giving in to join it, which would make the story not even worth telling—he invites the evil villain to give up his evil ways and join forces for good.

I saw this element as not very believable in that original trilogy. And if we’d seen, at that point, the killing of the children that Anakin Skywalker, AKA Darth Vader, did in the second trilogy (episodes 1-3), it would have seemed even more implausible.

And yet, we see this possibility of redemption come up again in The Rise of Skywalker. This time—because we’d seen Kylo Ren murder his father, our beloved Han Solo, I did not see it as even a remote possibility. And yet it’s a valuable part of the story, approached rather believably I thought. (I hope I’m not telling too much here—not saying what the result is.)

one of the duels between Kylo Ren (left) and Rey
Disney/Lucasfilm image found here

In both Darth Vader and Kylo Ren, the story includes their succumbing to the dark side because they saw it as inevitable; they did not believe they had the strength to resist, so they bought into the idea that attaching themselves to the bad guys is the necessary choice—and not really a matter of choice. But it is a matter of weakness. And this is an idea worth exploring further sometime, when we’re using the story to understand evil in our own world.

Anyway, each individual Star Wars movie, if it’s going to work, is going to be its own hero story, or an obvious part of a larger hero story, as in the cliffhanger ending of The Empire Strikes Back.

In the newest trilogy, Rey is the unknown hero this time. She’s an insignificant orphan, making a living as a scavenger when we first meet her. She learns of her powers in the first movie—and uses them against a much more trained adversary, and wins that first battle.

In the second movie, The Last Jedi, Luke is her mentor/trainer. At the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker, Leia is her mentor/trainer. We can see that Rey is extremely skilled. Still, she is frustrated at her lack of progress—and she’s worried about her destiny, because she has discovered her heritage. (I won’t mention it here, but apparently those who speculated that having her and Finn be actual nobodies was not really the point of the second movie.)

This question about destiny came up in the Harry Potter series—where you see a lot of these hero story elements. While his parents are mostly heroic martyrs to the cause against evil, he has the elements about himself that concern him. He speaks Parseltongue—the language of snakes—which identifies him as Slytherin-like, and therefore likely to choose the dark side. Fortunately, his mentor, Dumbledore, advises him that who we are isn’t determined by some destiny we have no control over; it is determined by the choices we make.

Eventually Rey realizes that her choices do indeed matter more than her bloodline.

You know going in that she will win the final battle against the ultimate evil. That is giving nothing away. It’s the getting there that is interesting.

I’m interested in hero stories, because, in a world where truth and goodness—even reality—have been made relative, it’s harder for a younger generation to understand meaning and purpose. They long to be important—to be a hero in their own story. Failing to find that in work or other pursuits, they might spend endless hours experiencing a hero’s success in a computer gaming world. (I wrote about this here.)

Being the hero in our own story is actually important for all of us. We need to know our purpose. We need to find meaning in our lives.

Our life mission and our special power or skill will be related. Sometimes we learn our mission by noticing our developing skills. Sometimes it’s the other way around; we develop the skills we need in order to meet our mission. We find meaning in our life when our unique contribution and mission meet.

I’m going to take one tangent here, in this partial movie review. It’s about the actor who plays Kylo Ren. I’ve seen Adam Driver in other things (I recommend Silence, in which he plays a missionary to Japan several centuries ago). I respect him as an actor. But I’m puzzled at making him the “leading man” possible love interest of Rey. He isn’t an attractive person. I remember being shocked the first time he took his helmet off in The Force Awakens—a helmet he didn’t need, as Darth Vader had needed his; it’s just a personal prop. That first view was surprisingly disappointing. This was the son of Leia and Han? Really? Were we supposed to see him as attractive, and I just didn’t happen to? There’s always that possibility, because of taste differences, and my being in an older generation.

Fortunately, when son Economic Sphere and his wife came for Christmas, they had already seen the movie, so we could discuss freely. Mrs. Economic Sphere, suggests that this was purposeful. Kylo Ren was always intended to be inferior. She may be right. He’s undisciplined. His anger gets out of hand with various tantrums in The Force Awakens. In all of this trilogy, there are rivals not quite willing to accept his leadership, where there really weren’t any to Darth Vader in the earlier trilogy. He seems to idolize his grandfather but can never measure up to his stature, although his size and build are probably adequate.

He also seems to miss the fact that his grandfather joined Luke against the emperor at the end of Return of the Jedi. And my very observant DIL also noted that Kylo Ren probably got swindled when he acquired that Darth Vader helmet he reveres. Remember, the face and helmet were separate parts, as we saw just before Darth Vader’s death-after-redemption. On the funeral pyre he’s not wearing the helmet. And yet, what Kylo Ren has is a battered—presumably because of the funeral pyre—helmet attached to face part. DIL concludes it must be a fraud.

There’s a Studio C skit that emphasizes the sniveling weakness of Kylo Ren, called out by Rey, included below. Worth watching for a chuckle.

Anyway, while this might not be my favorite Star Wars movie (I still prefer The Empire Strikes Back, and the non-trilogy prequel Rogue One is probably in second place), the good guys win—with some sacrifice along the way, but still very decisively, as it should be. And it’s a fun and interesting ride getting there.

Speaking of riding, Finn gets a great scene in which the bad guy controllers can’t shut down the speeders, because Finn and crew are not riding speeders. Fun moment to watch for.

Also, let’s note for the sake of the real world, the central controllers are the bad guys. Enough said about that for now.

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[i] The 36 are listed in the appendix of Theme and Strategy by Ronald Tobias, Writer’s Digest Books, © 1989. The Hero’s Story, as I describe it, is from my own understanding and reading experience.

Start with Ourselves

During weeks like this, when the news is covering mainly one horrible event, it can wear on a person.

One response is, as Mr. Rogers’ mother advised, to look for the helpers. And there have been many. Stories of heroes, in Las Vegas, who acted instinctively to do what would help others—those are the stories that really tell who we are as a people. Here’s one.

Johnathan Smith, hero
image from CNN

The less helpful response is to insist that anyone who doesn’t believe in taking all the guns from all the law-abiding citizens lacks compassion. And I feel the urge to respond. If pinned down, these gun haters aren’t against all guns; they’re against anyone but the government having them. Because they won’t be against police and military having them—unless they’re in favor of dying defenseless. So, they’re really just against non-government citizens having weapons to defend themselves. I’d like to know why they suddenly trust the government so much.

There’s talk of outlawing the bump stock, apparently used in the Las Vegas shooting to make a semi-automatic rifle fire almost like an automatic rifle. Fully automatic weapons are already outlawed. The NRA is not against outlawing the bump stock. Most shooting ranges already forbid them. If a person isn’t trained in rapid fire—the kind of training you might get in the military—it’s easy to lose control and shoot the ceiling or anything (or possibly anyone) within range.

So there’s a good chance there will be some agreement on this. At the very least there may be some control over where such items can be owned or used, since they make a legal weapon into what is essentially an illegal weapon.

I don’t know how the debate will go. What I expect, though, is that when a murderer doesn’t have access to one way of killing, he will find another.

What we really need is a better way to identify the kind of mind and heart willing to mass murder. I don’t know if that’s possible. Isn’t that the idea of the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report? I don’t think things went well when interventions pre-empted actions.

Even better would be creating minds and hearts that don’t go so far awry.

Scarlett Lewis, the mom of one of the Sandy Hook Elementary victims, says that gun control isn’t the answer; misuse of guns is a symptom of a larger societal problem. She suggests teaching young people social and emotional learning. A program she promotes focuses on five points: how to have positive and healthy relationships, deep connections, coping skills, resilience and compassion.

Lewis believes we can see the end of these killings, if we teach every child how to cope with anger, how to be compassionate, and how to love.

Getting out of savagery and up to civilization is a simple but not easy process. We live in a fallen world, with too much evil. A lot will still go wrong. But we can start with ourselves, and with helping and encouraging those around us. The basics include those things that get us beyond our selfishness, the things we get from the Ten Commandments: honor God, life, family, property, and truth. A person who follows this path doesn’t plan and carry out savage atrocities.

During the LDS General Conference last weekend, Elder M.Russell Ballard said this:

We need to embrace God’s children compassionately and eliminate any prejudice, including racism, sexism, and nationalism. Let it be said that we truly believe the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ are for every child of God.

I testify that “the trek continues,” and I invite you to stay on the gospel path as you continue pressing forward by reaching out to all of God’s children in love and compassion, that we may unitedly make our hearts pure and our hands clean to receive the “multiplicity of blessings” awaiting all who truly love our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son.

The Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher
photo from Wikipedia

On Monday, April 8, we lost a great champion of freedom, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She was 87. I thought I’d take a moment to remember her and her heroic contributions.

The Economist starts its piece on her this week with this truth: “Only a handful of peacetime politicians can claim to have changed the world. Margaret Thatcher was one.”

When she was voted into Britain’s most powerful position in 1979, that country’s top tax rate was 98%, which had put the brakes on job creation. She drastically cut income and corporate taxes, while simultaneously cutting government spending—from 44.6 per cent of GDP in 1979 to 39.4 per cent of GDP in 1991. (Our economy works best when government spending is held well below 20%; Obama likes it at 25%. So you can see Britain was in bad straits.) She led Britain from a declining country, with ever lower standard of living compared to the rest of Europe, to an economy growing at 3% per year throughout her decade-plus. In fact, for two decades (good decades for the US), Britain’s standard of living rise exceeded the US, Japan, Germany, France, and Italy.

She came at a time when the country was in the throes of union-induced misery. The unions had a stranglehold on politics, politicians, and private enterprise. It took an iron will to stand up against them. She did it with good grace and humor—very much like her US counterpart of history, Ronald Reagan.

Like Reagan, she was highly quotable. One of the famous ones is, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

I love this two-minute clip of her standing up against socialism in parliament:

 

Here are a few more favorite quotes:

To those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: “You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning.” [at Conservative Party Conference 1980] 
 

[on whether to have UK join Europe in a common currency]: No, no, no.
 

Ronnie [Ronald Reagan] and I got to know each other at a time when we were both in Opposition, and when a good many people intended to keep us there. They failed, and the conservative 1980s were the result. But in a certain sense, we remained an opposition, we were never the establishment. As Ron once put it: the nine most dangerous words in the English language are “I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.” As usual, he was right.

 

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult,

is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

 

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

 

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be

nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

 

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. 

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women,

and there are families.

 

I just owe almost everything to my father and it's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.  

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

A good source for pages more of her gems is BrainyQuote.

For a larger taste, I suggest a speech she gave here in the US, at Hillsdale College in November 1994, on “The Moral Foundations of Society.” I think I would like to make her an honorary member of the Spherical Model think tank. She

Statue of Margaret Thatcher at Hillsdale College
Photo from Hillsdale email newsletter 4-8-2013

understood the basic truths.

Here’s an observation that concerns me as I reflect this week. Decades of southern hemisphere practices (on the Spherical Model) build up problems, piling them into mountains. A leader who understands freedom, free enterprise, and civilization comes along every once in a generation, and turns things in the right direction. Evidence accumulates to prove that the principles our Constitution writers recognized are true, that they lead to thriving in every sphere. Nevertheless, as soon as the heroic leader no longer holds the world on his/her shoulders, the enemy slides back into their previous positions, as though trying to erase the good times, denying they happened. And problems mount again.

How do we get a critical mass of heroes to overcome the ubiquitous tyrannists? We need more Margaret Thatchers. We need more Ronald Reagans. We need them in leadership positions. But we also need many more smaller heroes, regular people whose voices may not carry as far, but who recognize truth and stand up for it—we need those heroes to prevent us from sinking ever downward.

I have answers about what the necessary principles are; many of us do. I don’t have answers about how to get the word out on what the principles are. I just try to be one of the quieter but needed voices.

We Need Heroes

Yesterday an everyday kind of hero saved lives at a community college near us. The CyFair* campus of Lone Star Community College is the one closest to us (15 minutes in good traffic), and all three of my children took classes there. At last count, 14 people were injured in a mass stabbing. Four of them were life-flighted to a hospital with a trauma center; two of these were in critical condition (at this writing no one has died). Another eight or so were taken by ambulances or cars to nearby hospitals for treatment of lacerations. A couple more were checked at the scene and declined the need for additional medical help. So far I haven’t heard the names of any victims; that info might get around in the next day or so. But I think I would have heard if anyone I knew, or their children, was hurt. It may be that there won’t be many degrees of separation, however. This was too close to home.

Life Flight at Lonestar CyFair College
photo from ABC13 News

One of my favorite people, Elaine, teaches there, and I knew her schedule included Tuesdays. So when I first heard the news of mass stabbings at Lone Star CyFair, I texted her while at stoplights, needing to know that she was safe—and her husband who also teaches and works at the college.

By the time I got home, five minutes later, I still hadn’t heard from her, so I tried Facebook, to see if she’d get the message sooner; I was starting to worry, even though five minutes isn’t a very long wait time for a text message return. Within another minute she had texted that she was safe. We followed up shortly, and I learned from her that the incident happened right outside her classroom. She arrived right after the attacker fled, so she wasn’t in danger, but, as she said, the scene she came upon

was sobering. One of my students was holding paper towels to a girl's throat. It was in the Health Science center, and a lot of people seemed to know how to administer first aid while waiting for the paramedics. In retrospect, I'm rather impressed.

The perpetrator had apparently started slashing people randomly in the building and outside, as students were moving between classes. One of Elaine’s students saw him start to run and figured out what was going on, and immediately took off after the guy and tackled him. Others joined in and helped apprehend him until police arrived, preventing any further injuries.

It takes a special person to act that way on instinct. He could have backed away. He could have gone toward the injured to help them (others did). He could have called 911 (others already were doing that). All of those would be considered natural and positive behaviors. But he ran toward the danger, because he saw that was the most urgent need at the moment. And seeing the need, he had to act. We are fortunate to have heroes like him among us.

This is Elaine’s post Tuesday evening:

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say that I am SO PROUD of my students, especially the ones who aided the victims and helped tackle the assailant. For every act of horror there are countless acts of love. Be part of the love.

Everyone was put on lockdown almost immediately afterward (including nearby public schools), until there was certainty there was only one perpetrator, the one who had been apprehended. And then the campus was evacuated for the day. I’m thinking the next time Elaine’s class meets, they all deserve to be honored with some sort of medal.

I don’t know if we’ll learn a motive. Reports I’m hearing are that the assailant was odd; people knew him as the guy who carried a monkey sock puppet around with him and talked to it. That seems to indicate mental illness was involved. He admitted to police that he’d had fantasies of stabbing people to death for much of his life, and had been planning this assault for some time.

I don’t know how we identify the dangerously mentally ill before they act out, but that does seem to be the common factor among all the recent such incidents.

For now, we are grateful there were no deaths, and we pray for a full and speedy recovery for all the victims. And we pray that a sense of safety and peace can return to those who were traumatized. Special thanks, after the quick action of students, to the campus police, and to paramedics and other emergency personnel who did their job quickly and thoroughly.

*********

I had intended to post about a different hero today. On Monday we lost a great lady in Britain’s former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. But I’ll save honoring her for another post.
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I'm adding this information one week later: April 16, 2013 (the day after the Boston Marathon bombin). I wanted to correct a piece of information that was initially incorrect. The assailant at CyFair was not the person who carries around a monkey sock puppet; apparently such a person does exist (and probably is looked at even more cautiously now), but he was not involved and there is no reason to believe he intends violence. The actual perpetrator, as far as we know so far, did not show outward signs of his mental illness, although he admits to violent fantasies from an early age. So the question of how to identify such potential criminals is still without answers.

One more addendum: My friend Elaine honored her heroic class with a batch of brownies as they debriefed during their next class time.

 

* CyFair is a shortened name for Cypress-Fairbanks, the name of this northwest section of the greater Houston area.