: Re: Adding depth to two-dimensional heroes from myths For the recent writing exercise I wanted to tackle Beowulf's character. In the original saga, the hero Beowulf comes to the aid of king Hrothgar

@BetL639

Vote Up Vote Down

The 2007 CG Beowulf film provides an example of giving the character depth without making him secretly evil or conniving. Beowulf is genuinely a heroic warrior, but he has four flaws: he exaggerates his successes, but more critically he lies about his moments of weakness, he lusts for glory, and faced with an attractive woman his brain turns off.

In the film, after Beowulf defeats Grendel he goes to kill Grendel's Mother, but instead she seduces him, promising him glory and fame if he'll give her a child to replace the one he killed. He accepts (weaknesses three and four), but is unwilling to admit he did it (weakness two). As a result, the child has a chance to grow up and, being a shapeshifter, be the dragon that Beowulf later fights to a mutual kill. Because he refused to admit his weakness, (most of) his people are unaware that the Mother is still out there as a potential threat, and thus unknowingly stumble into the situation where he has to face the dragon to save them.

He spent the intervening decades having realized he screwed up, but was unwilling to correct the problem, and in doing so came to realize that the personal glory he'd sought was empty. Christianity, with its emphasis on humility, had been introduced and spreading, so not only was he feeling like a fraud internally, not even his reputation and things he did do bring him any comfort because that sort of braggadocio may have once been the standard that heroes aspired to, but it wasn't any more.

(0)

Login to post a comment!