“Ecglaf’s son, Unferth, who sat at the feet
of the lord of the Scyldings, unlocked his thoughts
with these unfriendly words-for the journey of Beowulf,
the brave seafarer, much displeased him
in that he was unwilling for any man
in this wide world to gain more glory than himself:”
The other night, my favorite person in the world came to me and told me how much she was hating life. According to her sensitive teenage mind, everyone at school hated her, her teachers were out to get her, and she found failure no matter how much effort she put into every aspect of her life. It sounds like the typical teenage crisis, but I knew there were reasons for the things she was feeling. She had just broken up with her boyfriend of one year, and at our tiny high school, that was enough to create a campus-wide drama. Ferguson had both teachers and students in a "F*** the police" rant, and ever since my sister took a stand on the opposite end of the field (our dad's a cop, after all,) she's felt like a target of harassment. It's been a rough semester. But I can't help but feel like part of Brittany's problem lies not in her failure, but in her success.
Allow me to brag on my little sister for a moment. Brittany is not the average high school student, nor was she ever an average person. When Brittany was little, she would draw like one possessed. I'm sure she would've been perfectly content if all our parents ever bought her was crayons and endless paper. Her artistic ability surpassed mine when we were about 14 and 10 (which drove me crazy, since I was an aspiring artist myself) and drew the attention of her peers and teachers. On top of being an incredibly talented artist, Britt's always been a great student, a loyal friend, and a goody-goody like myself. She's also gorgeous. What's not to like? Well, I have a theory: modern society doesn't like epic heroes.
Back in the day, and I do mean waaaaaay back in the day, there was a pretty standard cookie-cutter for the main character of a myth or a legend. The epic hero was a figure who symbolized the epitome of human potential: they were strong, fast, kind, self-sacrificing, invincible in battle, wise, and morally upright. Myth, legend, literature and film were filled with characters like this until the mid 20th century. They were designed to embody the ideal member of a particular society. Hercules was the ultimate Roman, Beowulf was the ultimate Anglo-Saxon, Finn McCoul was the ultimate Celt, Superman was the ultimate American. You were supposed to admire these characters for their greatness, and aspire to be like them.
But something revolutionary happened in the last century that changed the face of heroes. Somewhere along the line, we decided that perfect heroes were too boring and unrelatable. A hero with flaws is more interesting, and realistic. One of the reasons that Spider-Man was such a success was the fact that he was a normal kid. He didn't fit the superhero standard of the day, he was nerdy, awkward, and partially guilty for his uncle's death. Don't get me wrong, Spidey's great. But he's not Superman-level perfection. People love him for that. Just like how people started liking Batman more when he got dark and creepy. Flawed heroes don't make us feel bad about ourselves by comparison. Who wants someone perfect to aspire to, when you can celebrate normal, and therefore celebrate yourself? Ever since the 1960's, people don't want superheroes anymore; we want normal, messed-up people doing cool things. The 60's were the beginning of that whole "individualism is super great, you're special for just being you, here's a trophy just for showing up" thing. I have a big issue with this sort of cultural thinking because it devalues accomplishments. So instead of looking up to people who do well, we want to criticize them and make them small, so we feel better about ourselves.
So I began this post with a quote from Beowulf, where the author describes the character Unferth. Unferth is a slimy, jealous hater who feels threatened by Beowulf, the all-around-nice-guy who has come to rescue the Danes from an unkillable dragon. He's the only character in the whole story who doesn't like him, and literally the only reason he dislikes him is because he's so great. Throughout the story, he belittles Beowulf's accomplishments and tries to find fault in him. Readers are supposed to hate Unferth, but here's the thing...we're him. When someone gets a good grade on a test we failed, we're conditioned not to congratulate them, but to curse them. We hate pretty girls, muscular men, and rich people without knowing anything about their personalities. We can't feel happy for others' success because we're too focused on how it makes us look by comparison. It's like our gut reaction is "Oh no, you can do something I can't. Now I look bad. I want you to fail at something so we're even again."
Okay, so how does this all relate to my little sister? Well, she had a lot of victories this semester. She got a sweet new job, which sets her apart from the majority of kids at her school. She's been taking art classes at the college, and is pumping out more masterpieces than ever. After dumping her super clingy boyfriend, she didn't act all dramatic and obnoxious, she treated him and his friends with compassion and class. She's pretty unhateable, making her an easy-target for haters (if that makes any sense at all.) People are going to be watching her, looking for things to point out and criticize. They want to do whatever they can to drag her down, so they can feel just a little bit better about their own mediocrity. Dozens of little Unferths waiting to yell "HA! You're not so great after all!" at the kind-hearted Beowulf.
Maybe we should be mindful of the reasons we dislike people. Are we disliking character flaws? Or the way they make us feel when we compare ourselves to them?
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