I find myself conflicted about the message of today\u2019s chapter. Not everyone can be a hero, and not simply in the \u201cbecause they don\u2019t have the ability\u201d sense. Even if every single person had the potential to be an actual hero, logistically most people cannot be heroes. Heroes are dependent upon others to grow their food, produce their clothing, and build their shelter. Luke Skywalker needed the factory worker who bolted together his X-Wing. Without a vast support crew, he\u2019s just a kid swinging around a lightsaber on his uncle\u2019s farm. If everyone was a hero, society would collapse. Heroes are great because they direct all of our effort, which we have focused into them.<\/p>\n
I realize self-actualization doesn\u2019t necessarily mean becoming a hero. It can just mean \u201cbe the best damn sidekick or factory worker or accountant you can be!\u201d It is a worthy goal, and it makes life sweet, and everyone should strive for it. But so much focus is put on \u201cbeing the hero\u201d in all the media we consume that it probably pushes far more people into attempted heroing than it should.<\/p>\n
But looking over the whole of the Self-Actualization arc, I don\u2019t think the message is \u201ceveryone must be a hero, or they are a failure\u201d. Hermione, ultimately, remains a support character. She simply becomes a much better<\/em> Hermione. Maybe the message really is \u201cbe the best you can at what you are\u201d, and her focus of not being trapped in Harry\u2019s shadow constrained my view of the situation. I tend to over-empathize with fictional characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I find myself conflicted about the message of today\u2019s chapter. Not everyone can be a hero, and not simply in the \u201cbecause they don\u2019t have the ability\u201d sense. Even if every single person had the potential to be an actual hero, logistically most people cannot be heroes. Heroes are dependent\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-production-notes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":706,"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions\/706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hpmorpodcast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}