A Hero for Our Times

[Guest Emu on the Loose]

I'm not even sure why Hawkwing is a hero in the WoT world to be honest :P At the time he wasn't particularly well-liked by alot of people (particularly Aes Sedai, for obvious reasons) and all he did was conquer to add to his Empire. Why he should be a famed hero over people like Mabriam en Shareed is a bit strange, particularly since she was ta`veren also. And once he died, all his states fell into a giant civil war, so he didn't even leave a lasting legacy. Just a bit strange for everyone now to think of as a hero.

 

"Empires" are not en vogue in Western culture right now, but they are at the heart of the human experience. Great empires, be they "us" empires or "them" ones, inspire the imagination like nothing else. RJ probably knew that, and he definitely understood what a legendary figure Hawkwing would have been to subsequent generations. It's not just anyone who can unite a bickering continent full of petty peoples mired in endless mediocrity.

[Val Mickey]

A quick reminder for those who came late : Heroes should be from post 999 AD. So no Hannibal, and no Spartacus, and sorry, no Jesus, no Arthur.

 

Hitler ruled out since he committed suicide.

[Wonzer]

Are we looking for hero-like leaders?

 

Then Churtchill (Leading England in WW2) or JFK (Prevented nuclear war during cuba crisis)

 

or hero-like soldiers?

 

Simo Häyhä (505 confirmed sniper kills wich is a world record and did it in under 100 days in winter war, also had some 200+ kills with submachine gun)

[Durinax]

Fidel Castro

Tito

[Knobs Mahoney]

"the man could sway even a enemy into following him in the early years and won the harts of his nation just like a ta'veren, but then began injecting amphetamine in 1937 and became addicted soon after by the time he died his doctor was giving him like 5 or 6 injections a day. so by my definition he was crazier then LTT when he died and as for this"

 

Meth. Not even once.

[Knobs Mahoney]

A quick reminder for those who came late : Heroes should be from post 999 AD. So no Hannibal, and no Spartacus, and sorry, no Jesus, no Arthur.

 

Hitler ruled out since he committed suicide.

 

Jesus still qualifies...He isn't dead.  ;D

[Random Man]

El Cid Campeador. He'd fit the "Hero" archetype as set forth in the WOT books.

[Val Mickey]

Jesus still qualifies...He isn't dead.  ;D

 

He wasn't born after 999 AD. Napoleon, Ehud Barak, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, Akbar the Great, Queen Elizabeth I. People like that.

 

Knobs, what you said is a matter of faith. There may be many people who disagree with you. Please refrain from posting religious statements.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Joan of Arc

 

Charles De Gaulle

 

Ned Kelly ( :D)

 

Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Yi Sun-Sin

 

Manfred von Richofen

 

Richard 1 (Lionheart) (anyone with a name Lionheart has to be in there  ;))

[General Cauthon]

Genghis Khan. When he died his Empire stretched from China to East Europe. Unless I've forgotten somone, that makes it the biggest Empire in our history, EXCEPT the British Empire.

[Durinax]

Genghis Khan. When he died his Empire stretched from China to East Europe. Unless I've forgotten somone, that makes it the biggest Empire in our history, EXCEPT the British Empire.

The mongol empire was the absolute largest, especially in land mass, it had the most area.

 

the british was large because they conquered small areas here than tehre along trade routes and spanned different time zones, it really wasnt that large

[Random Man]

Genghis Khan. When he died his Empire stretched from China to East Europe. Unless I've forgotten somone, that makes it the biggest Empire in our history, EXCEPT the British Empire.

The mongol empire was the absolute largest, especially in land mass, it had the most area.

 

the british was large because they conquered small areas here than tehre along trade routes and spanned different time zones, it really wasnt that large

Actually, the British Empire was the largest one in history, according to the Great Wikipedia. At its height, the British Empire covered one-fourth of the Earth's land area, weighing in at over 33.6 million square kilometers (13 million sq. miles). The Mongol empire at its height covered about 22 percent of the earth's land area, and weighed in at about 24 million square kilometers (9.3 million square miles). Don't forget, Australia and Canada aren't exactly small places.

 

Regardless, I'd say that Ghengis Kahn's accomplishments were a pretty good real-world parallel to Hawkwing.

[Durinax]

Genghis Khan. When he died his Empire stretched from China to East Europe. Unless I've forgotten somone, that makes it the biggest Empire in our history, EXCEPT the British Empire.

The mongol empire was the absolute largest, especially in land mass, it had the most area.

 

the british was large because they conquered small areas here than tehre along trade routes and spanned different time zones, it really wasnt that large

Actually, the British Empire was the largest one in history, according to the Great Wikipedia. At its height, the British Empire covered one-fourth of the Earth's land area, weighing in at over 33.6 million square kilometers (13 million sq. miles). The Mongol empire at its height covered about 22 percent of the earth's land area, and weighed in at about 24 million square kilometers (9.3 million square miles). Don't forget, Australia and Canada aren't exactly small places.

 

Regardless, I'd say that Ghengis Kahn's accomplishments were a pretty good real-world parallel to Hawkwing.

I hate to count the whole of canada, does that include when canada and AUS where totally independant only under britain by a few written words? cause if it doesnt than only a tiny bit of Canada would be included and about half of AUS

[Val Mickey]

Okay, so we have Sir Winston Churchill, Chesty Puller, Mahatma Gandhi, The Red Baron as finalists. I'll let this thread for a few more days for new nominees.

[TheDecline01]

As A French, and corsican, I have to quote Charlemagne and Napoleon Bonaparte. They may have killed people here and there, and being not totally cool to their people, but hey, if it is a comparison with Heroes like Arthur Hawkwing, those 2 stand there.

 

On a more personal note, I want Roger Federer being a hero of the Horn too.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I think we need to apply the same criteria that The Wheel supposedly would - a person whose actions corrected a drift in the Pattern.

 

Sometimes the Pattern might drift too far to the orderly and sometimes too far to the disorderly.

 

So, it's not about who you think accomplished the most "good" but whose actions created the best balance.  Order taken too far becomes tyranny and oppression.  Disorder taken too far becomes license and anarchy.  Somewhere in the middle is supposed to be something called "responsible freedom."  One example of that is being free to speak your mind while being responsible enough to not yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

 

Applying that criteria, Stalin, Hitler, Tito, and Castro do not qualify.  Their rule and the societies they built allow no dissent; provide no outlet for human grievance; pressurize all human disagreement until it leads to violence, chaos and atrocity.  They'e examples of the worst of both worlds or philosophies - oppressive order leading to licentious chaos.

[deviant728]

I was under the impression heroes were spun out to affect the pattern. Hawkwing's empire had to cover all of the countries in the books in order for him to want to conquer more and send his armies to Seanchan. That set in motion all kinds of events, culminating in Falme/the Return/ Mat's marriage, etc. We don't know enough of the details of the other heroes to say definitively in what way they changed the pattern, but they all did in some way in order to bring about the current chain of events.

 

If what I wrote above is true, then heroes should be assessed based on their effects on history, not necessarily their personal attributes. Did Hitler, in attempting to bomb Britain, mean to set off an international arms race that culminated in a man landing on the moon? Not likely, but you can make a compelling argument that Hitler played a large part in bringing it about.

 

If what I wrote above is false, then we have to judge hero-worthiness based on their character alone and there is no way we will ever know the depths of any historical figure enough to know whether they are worthy or not.

[Durinax]

I think castro should count: he stopped very negative american influence in cuba. And only became a bad leader after the americans trained cubans in warfare and sent them back to cuba to try to destroy the castro leadership. The only reason things are so  bad there is because of the US and the blockades. So by the same criteria you cannot include and cold war US presidents due to the fact they more than willingly stopped trade and purposefully made things bad for countries tehy believed had a good chance of falling under communism

[Red Hand Man]

John Muir.

[maradon]

Okay, so we have Sir Winston Churchill, Chesty Puller, Mahatma Gandhi, The Red Baron as finalists. I'll let this thread for a few more days for new nominees.

 

I think Napoleon, Nelson and Wellington to a lesser extent should be included as key figures through the British empire era. Then perhaps Richard the Lionheart, as he was so adored by his country, Washington and Lincoln need to be there as well. And as joke ones; Mick Dundee, Paul Gascoigne and Adam Sandler (for filling my life with so many amazing films).

[Majsju]

What exactly did Richard lionheart do to eserve being considered a Hero? He won one major batle against Saladin, but failed the one thing that was his reason to go to Palestine - conquer Jerusalem.

[Crael123]

gosh i feel so stupid i dont know half the people you guys are talking about

[Duskfire]

Napoleon should definetly be there. In fact, I would sya he is close to being ta`veren, with how influential he was just not in warfare but in areas of current European life.

[Knobs Mahoney]

.

[Knobs Mahoney]

Jesus still qualifies...He isn't dead.  ;D

 

He wasn't born after 999 AD. Napoleon, Ehud Barak, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, Akbar the Great, Queen Elizabeth I. People like that.

 

Knobs, what you said is a matter of faith. There may be many people who disagree with you. Please refrain from posting religious statements.

 

It was more a joke than anything else. You could tell by the smiley face posted at the end of it.

 

Sorry if I ruffled your feathers there, Dorothy.

 

And anyway, whether you consider someone's belief in Christ (or Buddha, or the Spaghetti Monster) to be a matter of faith or not is irrelevant. It would still be their opinion, and everyone who has posted anything in this thread has posted their nominations based upon their own opinion which they arrived at after interpreting various facts and readings.

 

So in closing, I'll post whatever I like. I'll still allow you the right to be presumptuous though...deal?