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The Problem Of The Morally Gray Hero.

Increasingly in mainstream fiction works, there arises quite often that there’s a character who is one of the heroes or protagonists, sometimes even the main lead, who the creator paints in such a light, you wonder through the extent of the work if he is actually good or evil.

This character quite often fights the bad people in the story, but he will do anything to defeat them, and in the end, if he does, he sometimes kills them with no remorse.

Sometimes he descends so far in his rampage that the story becomes more about him killing bad guys than actually being a true hero, and the shadows of gray over him just increase and grow darker.

There are four examples today I would like to pick on.

These examples are from modern movies.

These four are as follows:
The Black Knight/Batman,
Deadpool,
Ronin,
and Wolverine.

Some of you might agree with me wholeheartedly that these do not belong on this list. Depending who you are, you might resent that I’ve placed others on this list, even protest against it.

However, just mentioning the topic for most people, I think they would heartily agree that these heroes are morally gray characters, and it would pop into their minds all the many thousands more.

Of course, it is not a new invention.

So I’m here asking, what is the purpose?

Do people relate to down-to-earth figures who make mistakes and fail?

Well, maybe. After all, we’re all humans, finite and flawed, meaning we won’t only make one mistake, we’ll make a hundred.

And yes, I get that these supers are also human, so of course they would make mistakes and sin.

However, why do I want to know, does Hollywood show their faults in their quote in quote heroes? Why are those heroes in such stories that can save everyone but have a terrible relationship with their own family? Aren’t they supposed to be Super human?

It of course depends on the reader. But I haven’t seen the stat that says that a relatable hero on the gray side is what everyone wants.

Maybe it is, but not for me personally, and there’s actually good reasons why.

So before I delve into the four gray-colored heroes, I would have the above mentioned, let me point something out.

In fiction, especially fantasy, do these flawed characters make the story better?

Or are they more actually in the way of a great tale?

I want to propose the latter.

However, you might cry out, but what stories don’t have these characters?

And I’m going to try to give you an answer.

Let’s set before us as an example the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I’m referring to the books if you know the story.

Though the author stated it was not an allegory of the Bible and wasn’t meant to be, I am prepared to say that in these stories that some of the good characters bear Christ-like figures, especially three, and these are the three that are the most considered to be the lead characters.

These three are Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn.

They perhaps show hesitation or despair, then make what they think are mistakes, like when Aragorn leads the fellowship almost right into the hands of the orcs of Isengard, which leads to the breaking of the fellowship at the falls of Rauros.

But Gandalf tells them later it was for the good of them all, and even maybe the only way that Frodo had a chance.

These characters are not morally gray, and they carry the weight of the story, but they make it better by not being compromised.

If you argue that this is just one story, then think again.

There are dozens, maybe hundreds.

If you say that it’s just any story, then think again, again.

This story is worldwide recognized as being one of the greatest books, not only in fiction, but of all books of all time.

The second example is Susan Penvensie in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe compared to its sequel, Prince Caspian.

In the first book, yes, she doesn’t believe and wants to go back, but she finally finds her courage and strength.

Compare it to Prince Caspian, she becomes more distant, even stating that she had come to believe they wouldn’t go back to Narnia before they were suddenly whisked away.

Both books are classics, but in the first book, when she is less doubtful, it is the more read and better beloved.

This might be because Susan is less in the gray area, and this even less affects the entire second book.

Of course, C.S. Lewis was different because he later shows how Susan completely abandoned Narnia in the Last Battle, but the fact remains.

To be clear here, I’m not saying a compromised character is always a bad thing.

I just think they should decide which way they’d rather take if they choose good, then they ought not to depart from it.

In the same way that they choose evil with certain expectations like in this story to repent, then they shouldn’t turn back.

Take Narnia again for example.

One of the characters named Edmund is morally gray and betrays his family to the White Witch.

Later, he sees his mistakes and is rescued and repents after that though in all seven books or all five that he’s in, there’s no shadow and he’s not compromised.

The other two siblings in Narnia never even give a shadow or a hint of this gray morality, and those are Peter and Lucy.

Example one, Batman/The Dark Knight.

To be honest, I’ve never watched or read a DC Universe movie or book, but I’ve heard enough to know I don’t want to.

Batman’s villains that he faces are evil, and there is no doubt that they need to be destroyed. But in the manner that Batman does it is what is gray here.

He kills the villains. He there’s no speeches of forgiveness that he offers, and no court cases condemning them.

Instead, they suffer a very visibly dark death in an alley of Gotham.

If this already wasn’t questionable for a hero to do, consider his pride when fighting against a fellow superhero named Superman, whom he murders, and the statement that about sums it all up.

“I will be whatever Gotham needs me to be.”

Example two, Ronin/Hawkeye.

Let us flip things to a different pendulum.

The character who wasn’t morally gray was a superhero in the Marvel Universe on the Avengers team. He was the only one possibly besides Captain America.

His name is Hawkeye, and he is an archer.

Well anyways, in the third Avengers, this superhero group faces off with a creature whose name is Thanos and who gets the power to destroy half of the universe.

Sadly, he kills Hawkeye’s entire family, Hawkeye grows sad and then angry and takes out his revenge by killing his enemies. Hawkeye’s family is restored, and he tries to be a hero once again.

But so far, he hasn’t been very redeemable.

But did this story make the story better?
I doubt it.

Example three, Wolverine.

The Wolverine was a member of the X-Men group who was declared illegal by the government.

But if they don’t fight, the world will be taken over, so the X-Men disobey the government and fight against the bad guys.

But because they’re helping people in doing so, the government comes against them and tries to kill Wolverine.

And he responds thinking it’s the only way to live and that is to kill the police who come after him.

He also killed bad guys.

The more they come after him, the more he kills.

And that’s how the story in its entirety is rather a bloody mess.

The story sadly is not very redemptive, and the good parts of Wolverine are overshadowed by his morally gray expanse of shedding blood.

Perhaps the only people who actually think that this is a good story are those who desire blood on film.

The greatest thing that points to him being a hero is that he fights evil or people rather than him.

But these he kills often without regret.

Example five, Deadpool.

This one I personally do not consider a hero, and I hope you don’t either.

I think of him more as an anti-hero.

He murders both villains and heroes, except Wolverine, who he can’t kill because of his healing powers.

Basically, how I would view him is that there’s nothing redemptive in this story, and him being an anti-hero doesn’t in any way make you more attached to the story.

Now consider Spider-Man and Captain America.

These most beloved perhaps of the Marvel trilogies or even stories, we don’t see shadows of gray in them.

There is a place for a character that strays, but this should be in a context where either the character returns, repents and walks a clean slate, or where he falls completely and becomes at that point the villain of the story.

If you have read this all, then you can see why I don’t like morally gray bad guys, whether they do these things for their survival, for revenge, for other people, or just for blood.

Morally redemptive is the one who is willing to lay his life down to save the world.

Just as we are to be, our characters should lift us up and show us how to be imitators of Jesus.

For a good story and an example of a superhero who is not morally grey, check out my book, The Black Rider Series.

https://jackwalkerbook.com/product/black-rider-season-1-extended/