The Hero has been present in literature for much of the construction of civilization as we know it. If we dig deep enough, we find over four thousand years of records about human figures who face dangers and perform extraordinary feats. The mythological meaning emerged from Ancient Greece, where the hērōs occupied an intermediate position between humans and gods. Often worshipped after death, figures like Heracles, Perseus, or Odysseus became sources of inspiration.After all, the hero is the one capable of doing the extraordinary and achieving what an ordinary person couldn't: killing the monster, facing the gods, saving their people, or even overcoming their own mortality.The Catholic Church subverted the heroic figure and turned it into the image of the saint or martyr, with their stories told because certain conducts and moral values should, according to their speakers, be admired and imitated. In the same period, the first figures of chivalric literature, such as Arthur, Lancelot, and later Galahad, were an important contribution to the later construction of this image: the ideal knight should demonstrate a set of qualities like generosity and honor, but some romances showed them failing in their ideals.On one side stood the man who drew closer to the divine and became sacred. On the other, the hero seemed an imperfect human, a tendency that continued during the Renaissance. Out went the saints, in came ordinary people, but capable of carrying the core of a narrative. Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, reflects dilemmas and values such as individualism in contrast with the valorization of emotions and the expression of personal desires in opposition to medieval norms and socioeconomic structures that led families to arrange marriages or kill each other in the name of political influence and territorial expansion.In the 18th and 19th centuries, national heroes emerged along with stories of revolutions and the formation of national identities, which turned historical figures into collective symbols of example and inspiration. Romanticism continued to explore the flawed hero, full of imperfections that lead the reader to question whether a character needs to be virtuous to be fascinating and, consequently, inspiring.The 20th century brought this dilemma to mass culture. The period was marked by two World Wars, fascism, economic depression, the Cold War, and social transformations. Fiction sought to reflect on these moments through its characters. Cinema, comics, radio, and later television created for millions of people the collective imaginary of superheroes: Superman in 1938, Batman in 1939, Captain America in 1941, Spider-Man in 1962. Ironically, these characters had an element in common with the Greek figures in that they possessed superhuman abilities but chose to use them for the collective good.The post-war world also raised doubts about human virtue. Trust in institutions had diminished, and counterculture movements were on the rise. Heroes adapted accordingly. More morally ambiguous, selfish, violent, or traumatized characters crossed the fields of mass fiction. It was the period of the rise of anti-heroes.Each stage of heroic fiction developed the character around the dilemmas, fears, and values of its era, but all had in common non-interactive means of experiencing the story. Video games brought the most immersive heroic experience that exists to this day: to stop reading, hearing, or watching the hero and instead be the hero in an imaginary world, with a set of structured rules to guide them to their destiny.The plumber who saves the princess, the fighter who defeats the sorcerer, the huntress who eliminates aliens, the time travelers who save the world, and the unreliable narrator who overcomes their trauma. The player could be all of them, take part in their stories, grow attached to their dialogues and dilemmas as if they were there to try to solve them. Even if their role in the outside world was that of a simple office worker or shoe salesman, these stories could inspire them and bring important lessons for their personal lives.The hero's role in a world of cynicismIn recent years, the world has given in to nihilism. A recent piece by Bill McKibben in The New York Times explains: we weren't biologically made to handle so many changes and stresses in such a short span of time, causing physical and mental fatigue that the simple act of sleeping or resting cannot solve, along with higher rates of social isolation and anxieties about the future.Cynicism is a consequence of the torrent of historical events. Ignoring or growing accustomed to it is a non-irrational response to the amount of stress we have come to be exposed to every day. Fiction, including in games, adapted according to the collective imaginary and cultivated more stories in desolate, post-apocalyptic worlds, more morally gray characters, and the recurring absence of happy endings. It's almost as if we had decided that there's no better world, there's nothing to be done, we are doomed, and we should cling to our opiates to live day by day.We're giving in to despair, building the image of a future devoid of perspective. It's why I miss great inspiring heroes in video games today and why the industry should strive harder to bring hope back to players.Games need more inspiring heroesAmong the dozens of new game protagonists of the last decade, I offer two examples of good inspiring heroes in their respective stories.Let's not pretend that Ichiban Kasuga, from Yakuza: Like a Dragon, is perfect. Besides being overly naive, he has a touch of comic relief that sometimes feels forced. Ichiban can be mistaken for a big child at certain moments, such as when he reaches the point of asking for his romantic interest's hand in marriage on the first date. It's as if the writers had decided to give him the treatment Dragon Ball gave Goku and turn his lack of common sense into a defining trait, especially in Infinite Wealth, the eighth main game in the franchise.Despite his goofy personality, Ichiban is a character like many players: someone who loves a series of video games (Dragon Quest), who draws inspiration from the game that marked his childhood to see the world, to the point of looking at his own journey as a "hero's journey."The hero accepts taking the blame for a crime he didn't commit and spends 18 years in prison, expecting to be welcomed with celebration when he's released. As we know, eighteen years is a long time, and Ichiban, upon leaving prison, finds himself in a world he doesn't recognize and must confront the reality that his clan no longer exists, and his father figure supposedly sided with his enemies.The story of Yakuza: Like a Dragon is full of twists and betrayals, but it's Ichiban's journey in search of the truth. Each step tends to bring him a new burden to carry. Despite the challenges, he remains with the same charisma and loyalty from the start of the plot, even when he sees his own imperfections. The ending is also not happy, but the following game shows how Ichiban managed to move forward by doing what he knows best: helping others.He dedicates his days to fixing the damage left by decades of conflict and reintroducing former yakuza into society, just as he himself had the opportunity to do. Infinite Wealth brings new twists. Despite not carrying the same weight as its predecessor, it leaves a clear message about maintaining resilience in a world full of hate.We shouldn't reduce this to naivety. Kasuga knows the evil of the world and knows that people lie, betray, exploit, and kill. His virtue is the refusal to turn the knowledge of a bad world into certainty about all of humanity. On the contrary, his hope that the world can be better than the environment where he grew up is the engine for him being who he is, despite the circumstances, and for caring about convincing his adversaries that they can choose another path.It may sound idealistic to look at the world we live in and say "Ichiban Kasuga is an inspiring hero", but the most important lesson the character teaches us across two games is to not allow yourself to be shaped by the world's evil; instead, try to shape the world around you despite its inherent evil.This, however, isn't the only way to build an inspiring hero.Clive Rosfield, from Final Fantasy XVI, takes an opposite path to Kasuga's. He's marked at the start of the game by his brother's death and Rosaria's fall after his own family's betrayal. Enslaved by the invading empire, Clive spends thirteen years longing for revenge and leans on the oath to kill Joshua's murderer to survive. His arc during the first half of the game is seeded by hatred.The search for the truth about Rosaria's fall leads the hero to confront the relationship between Bearers and the population of Valisthea. Bearers suffer systemic persecution, are enslaved, treated as subhuman, used as merchandise, and left to die when they can no longer use magic. Several times, the title repeats, in the main plot or in the details, the image of one of them suffering at the hands of their masters.Clive, under Cid's influence and through his experiences and journey of self-discovery, decides that the system that enslaved him is the problem to be fought. Where Cid believes that everyone should die on their own terms and offers refuge, Clive offers a new perspective by proposing a world where everyone chooses how to live. Refuge, for him, isn't enough. It's necessary to have and provide the hope of changing the world, attacking the structure that seeds and sustains inequality in Valisthea, even if the consequences are worse in the short term.His personal resentment and desire for revenge, in the end, become collective responsibility for his peers. The side quest structure of Final Fantasy XVI is the best demonstration of this philosophy, where they give up great gameplay rewards in favor of transforming the stories behind them and the way our decisions change lives into the "true reward," with some triggering new quests to dive deeper into the world and the characters.Clive and Ichiban are part of the collective imaginary of heroism archetypes. They differ because Ichiban sees change in people and believes in their ability to correct their own mistakes, and Clive sees a society with distorted values and decides that it doesn't need to remain organized that way. Ichiban is mundane and closer to the post-Renaissance; Clive has powers that place him closer to a mythological figure in the middle ground between human and god.Both are imperfect and capable of expressing weakness and good and bad emotions. If Ichiban's flaw lies in naivety and impulse, Clive doesn't humanize his enemies, to the point of not expressing remorse for killing Hugo Kupka, while also defining his own worth based on what he can do for others. Depending on the perspective, it'd be possible to see him as an anti-hero.The two are also characters who change lives and inspire with different models. Ichiban has the kindness, maturity, and acceptance that the world can be better because people aren't irreversibly evil, and that we can make a difference with small individual actions, even when the surroundings are full of hate. Clive has the determination, courage, and understanding of the ability to transform the world if we're capable of identifying the structural problems that make our society worse, confronting them, and providing due support to the victims of inequality.The example of heroism as a response to collective nihilismIn September of this year, authors Astra Taylor and Naomi Klein published the book End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World. The work addresses a politics marked by the constant perception of collapse, with climate crises, growing inequality, wars, deteriorating material conditions, and the existential threats of artificial intelligence, seen as a natural course and causing certain groups to stop imagining a shared future and organize around survival, hierarchy, exclusion, and giving up on the idea of saving the common world.We mentioned above the physical and mental exhaustion that the endless torrent of events and stresses causes in the human psyche. Klein and Taylor's book points to another side of the spectrum. The groups with the capacity for mobilization and political power to establish substantial changes have come to accept these catastrophes as inevitable, preparing to survive them and take advantage of them to expand their economic and political power.The globalized future ceases to exist, and in its place comes fatalism and the survival of the fittest, with a focus on self-preservation. More barriers and more inequality are built, with groups acting to accelerate the deterioration from which they intend to escape, watching the world burn from a view protected from the flames. Left out are more vulnerable populations, treated as sacrificial lives.This phenomenon causes the erosion of the prospect of a common good. A society that imagines a collective tomorrow has reasons to build things that will outlive individuals, such as institutions and infrastructure. Fatalism bets on collapse and opts for individual solutions. The authors counter this philosophy with the concept of "hereness", aiming for a commitment to this world and the people involved in it, recovering the ability to imagine a shared future and act to build it, despite crises and uncertainties.The Western world is sinking into nihilism and hopelessness. Social and economic conditions lead to greater isolation, and globalization suffers attacks like never before in decades. Recent generations, much poorer than their parents and grandparents, have little or no positive perspective for the future and have gradually given in to more risky behaviors, such as gambling and volatile investments. Young people and adults have surrendered to mimetic behaviors of collective hate on digital platforms, deepening the abyss of social division by age and gender.We're losing our ability to dream of a better tomorrow or, at the very least, a less miserable one, and turning to cynicism and hate as coping mechanisms.If we live in a time when we're seduced by the idea that nothing matters, that individuals are powerless before great leaders, and that the only response is to give in to chaos, works of fiction need to rescue one of the oldest roles of heroic fiction, with characters capable of continuing to act despite how many times they're confronted with enough reasons to give up. Figures who stand against the odds, act for the collective good, and are capable of establishing substantial changes.I'm not suggesting that studios adopt militant practices or give in to pressure from organized groups. The problem of modern humanity is deeper than how a particular party or politician behaves, despite political decisions being at the heart of the problem. The dilemma is existential, a confrontation between despair and hope, in which, today, we're giving up our ability to dream to the certainty of a bad and irreparable world.The history of humanity shows how we've drawn inspiration for millennia from heroes and historical icons to overcome challenges, progress socially, and evolve as a species. We are, without a doubt, in a moment when we need more examples capable of touching our hearts. Video games, through their immersive-interactive characteristic, are the best medium for building these heroes and moving us with their stories.Good heroes also require good villainsTwo decades ago, fiction, especially in games, has frequently worked with an archetype of a redeemable, sometimes sympathetic villain. There's no demerit in this choice: Emet-Selch, from Final Fantasy XIV, is one of the best antagonists a work has ever produced. Characters like Ardyn Izunia, Dr. Maruki, Fou-Lu, or Renoir Dessendre possess qualities, even when cast as villains, that allow the audience to sympathize with them, and a well-written, melancholic villain is more engaging than an individual who does evil for pleasure.Over-relativizing the villain, however, has a price and can sometimes create a character as forgettable as the generic antagonist who only appears in the last episode. The villain becomes weak, irrelevant, and their motivations, however noble they may seem, won't always convince the audience. Great heroes require an antagonistic force as strong as they are, and one isn't always created through empathy.Take the example of Ryo Aoki, antagonist of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Aoki is ambitious, has a clear political project, and makes a dozen unforgivable decisions throughout the plot. The player reaches the top of the Millennium Tower wanting to defeat him for all the atrocities committed, but the villain has a personal relationship with Ichiban Kasuga. Even if the audience sees him as irredeemable, the hero still treats him as the same individual he knew eighteen years ago and never loses hope that there's still something good in him that could save him.When Ichiban finally convinces Aoki, the villain is stabbed by one of his followers and dies in the hero's arms. The anger concentrated by the player is transferred to his killer. Not because they sympathized with Aoki, but because they were rooting for Kasuga, and in seconds, everything he fought for during the entire game slipped through his hands.In Final Fantasy XVI, Ultima is the creator of humanity and conceived it so that its evolution would give rise to Mythos, a host capable of sustaining enough magic to absorb the aether from the Mothercrystals and cast the spell that would revive his race. Many fans questioned the antagonist's lack of expressiveness and emotion, but he was made to sound distant from his creation. Ultima is incapable of understanding human emotions and considers emotional bonds and unity as obstacles that must be cut or manipulated.Clive and Ultima represent, in essence, a philosophical clash. The hero wishes to free the Bearers by destroying the Crystals to force the reconstruction of the social structure in favor of equality. The villain sees humanity as a disposable means to his goal and represents the hyper-dimension of the enslaving philosophy that permeates Valisthea to the position of a god.Clive's strength comes from the qualities Ultima rejects and fails to understand how essential they were to his plan. It was the autonomy and unity of humanity over centuries of evolution that made the creation of Mythos possible. That's why it's inconceivable to him that Mythos wouldn't want to serve him and become his vessel. Final Fantasy XVI, in the end, is a clash between freedom and servitude, with its central figures each representing the ultimate expression of these ideals.The current feeling of end-of-the-world desolation, however, had a response offered over thirty years ago, with the villain who best fits the nihilistic concept of our collective imaginary and the sense of letting the world burn and watching from afar that End Times Fascism denounces.After obtaining power equal to that of gods, Kefka Palazzo wins, destroys the world, and reigns from the top of his tower. With his ambitions achieved, the antagonist of Final Fantasy VI is haunted by fatalism. Impermanence, for him, eliminates the meaning of existing, culminating in the question: "Why create anything knowing it will be destroyed?"At this point, Kefka represents the most extreme vision of collective hopelessness. A society depends on the belief that it's worth building tomorrow for us to take individual and collective actions that outlast our own existence and limitations. There's no point in investing in a world that seems doomed.While the book points to the selective survival of "our own" at the expense of "everyone", Kefka completely abandons the "we" and represents absolute surrender, existing only in the "I". With the power to decide who lives, who dies, and which communities continue or cease to exist, his purpose becomes plunging the world into despair.For more games that fight despairKefka wouldn't be so memorable if there weren't a counterpoint to the villain who conquered everything only to discover life's lack of purpose. Unlike other titles, Final Fantasy VI doesn't have a fixed protagonist, though Terra Branford occupies that place as a reference. The game is composed of an extensive cast of characters, each with a personal arc, motivations, and dilemmas they face throughout the plot. Alone, none provides the counterpoint. It's the union between them and their individual and collective experiences that give purpose to the final battle.When she wakes up in the World of Ruin, Celes finds herself on a planet she no longer recognizes. Continents have been deformed, cities have disappeared, thousands of people have died, and she's on a deserted island with Cid. Depending on the player's choices, the experience is so devastating for her that she gives in to despair and tries to take her own life.Upon surviving the fall, Celes finds a bird with Locke's bandana, which rekindles her will to live. The heroine crosses the sea, and her decision to move forward, despite the apocalypse, helps rebuild the hope of the other heroes. Terra finds orphaned children in Mobliz and decides that protecting them is reason enough to keep fighting. Strago recovers his purpose when he discovers his granddaughter is alive. Locke continues the search to resurrect his beloved, despite the end of the world. Sabin and Edgar never gave up fighting, and Cyan, living in seclusion, exchanged letters pretending to be a young woman's deceased husband to cope with his own grief over losing his wife and son.The heroes, when confronting Kefka, recognize the finitude of time and the impermanence of life, but refuse fatalism and choose to keep hope alive where the villain believes none exists. The World of Ruin arc leaves the message that, when there's no hope, it's up to us to build it.A similar lesson was taught in another Squaresoft game released in the same period.Considered by many to be the best RPG ever released, Chrono Trigger builds its epic adventure on the refusal of nihilism and apathy in the face of the end of time. In it, a group of adventurers travels to the future and discovers that the world was destroyed in 1999. Almost a millennium after the era they came from. They could simply return to the present, live their lives to the fullest, marry, have children, and leave the problems of the future for the future, but chance gave them the agency to, upon discovering the coming ruin, decide to prevent it even when it will occur long after their deaths.They could be wrong, and perhaps Lavos was an inevitable catastrophe, but the group chose to turn the evidence of the end of times into fuel to keep hope alive.ConclusionThe expansion of borders, the growth of social inequalities, institutional crises, declining economies, wars, economic instability, artificial intelligence, climate change, polarization, and a dozen other themes have fueled cynicism and hopelessness. The world seems broken, and the response has been "there's nothing to be done". This notion is also learned from culture, through mass communications, but also through works of fiction that offer imaginary models of dystopia.Dystopia, now, sounds like reality. It's the moment for fiction to follow the opposite flow and cultivate a wave of agency and hope, offering new imaginary models to think about what a person can do in the face of circumstances that seem immutable and turned against them. More than at any other moment since the birth of the video game industry, we need characters who offer the courage to look at them and see an example for making differences in our interpersonal existence.We don't need a perfect protagonist who convinces the player of their ability to fix everything; only figures who teach how much it's worth trying and living. Characters aware that the world can be cruel, unjust, hard to transform, but who continue to believe in the possibility of building something better.Ichiban Kasuga and Clive Rosfield belong to worlds that gave them every reason to give in to despair. They chose to keep trying. The cast of Final Fantasy VI faced the literal end of the world and found ways to rekindle hope. Kefka represented the extreme of the individualized nihilism that haunts us today, and the question of why build anything knowing that everything will one day be destroyed stopped being a video game narrative to become the way many — with or without power — have come to see reality.Thirty years later, we need games with protagonists capable of answering that question for new and old audiences.
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