Personal Musings

This blog is intended to be just a jumble of thoughts that hit me and need not necessarily mean anything.

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Location: Kerala, India

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Sunday, August 06, 2006

WHY Super-heroes are a failure

Looking at the title itself, I think, many of you must be wondering what utter non-sense this is. But then, many things that look like non-sense end up having much more sense later on.

Super heroes are supposed to be characters that fly around doing impossible things. People have used super heroes for motivation effectively. For instance, "If Superman, who doesnt know that under wear must be worn before pants can do it, then so can you." Super heroes are super heroes, because
  • they do impossible things.
  • they fight for the notions of truth, justice, et al.
  • they come from seemingly innocuous back ground and use some of their talents, though exaggereated heavily, to become famous.
  • they are the creation of some person who is obsessed about one special trait.
  • All commercial super heroes, started decent and then became prey of commercialisation.
But if you notice carefully, all the characters were made in situ. The story revolves around their surroundings. What I am syaing is that the superheroes functioned and usurped their current surroundings for all the things they did.

All superheroes were lonely people. Some of them identified their special traits very early in life. Others just stumbled upon them. But whichever way it goes, it was something great which they suddenly got.

The main problem with these superheroes is that they are not trained. They just happen to possess what ever special thing they have. I will accept that superheroes were made because some body wanted to put their imagnation to the extreme. But you dont get special powers unless you are trained. I am happy to believe in a Jackie Chan movie in which he flies from top of building (into a net) than a super hero simply because the kung fu movis show level oftraining involved before these people show their stunts.

No man has ever gotten anything without a mentor. Ok, Ok. There was some one as a mentor for many of the heroes involved. But what did these mentors do? They did not teach them hw to use the powers. They were in most instances only motivators. But the heroes never recieved a well-organozed learning strategy.

I have been blabbering about training a lot. But what is the real significance of training? Take the case of ean Claude van Dam's martial arts movies. Specifically I want to say about the one with coumingtang. There the master trained the student to deal with the fight. His training strategy not only involved giving special skills, but also sharpen the already existing skills. (remember the scene where van dam was blibd folded and asked to serve tea. this effectively helped him win the fight even though the opponent had put chemical in his eyes and he turned partially blind). Similarly, in Yodha, mohanlal was trained to fight and protect appukuttan. The character Akosoto was given skills and also the training to use them. That is where our superheroes lack.

Our superheroes know their skills. They have been fed with various concepts of truth, justice, etc. by simple common people. The people who were metnoring probably had no idea what the capabilities of the person are, and how can you improve upon them.

Another problem with super heores is that they were all loners who sddenly emerged out. Since they were loners, they start reading the signs wrongly. World out there cannot be mastered if you are a loner. This is a simple fact of life. What these people needed is just a set of people who can show them around. Not developing super powers and end up saving the world.

The main objective of such a person is to project his own inherent weaknesses of loneliness and so on onto the world. Frankly speaking, world doesnot need some one to save it. Humanity may need, but humanity is way too small. As the scientists try to put it we have been here only for 6 seconds if we consider that earth was created in a day. The real quality that must be cultivated is to understand the right thing to do and do it. do it not becuse it satisfies a fancy condition called justice, but do it because the soul says "do it".

"WE can become responsible fo our actions, only when we are aware of our actions. All the training that is given to us is just to do that. Be aware. "

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