“The stuff” being the nerves and nads to voluntarily give up one’s life to save others. I speak of fictional characters (obviously, look where we are!) and ai would like to discuss who has more or less of it.I envision a 5n 8 point scale. Examples below:
0: Dr. Smith from LOST IN SPACE. Craven, treacherous, and given to panic. If enemy attack is imminent should be locked in his quarters as having him on your side is like subtracting one.
1: Kaylee from FIREFLY. Won’t set out to betray you, but despite good intentions likely to break and run under fire. Can fight a little if her back is to the wall. Redeemed by being cute as a button and sweet as key lime pie. Useful outside combat.
2: Jayne, also from FIREFLY. Useful in combat but will always look out for himself first. Probably not going to even entertain a fight unless he has good reason to think he’ll win, or if it’s somebody he owe’s a favor to…
4:Angus MACGUYVER. Willing to put himself in mortal danger for the greater good, but always has a clever plan in mind and assumes he can extemporize a olution to any problem. To date has alway been right; whether he’d walk into a trap he himself judges to be inescapable has not been demonstrated.
Nella Darren, from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION: Has *proven *that, when ordered for righteous reasons to risk death, she won’t break.
Original!Spock from STAR TREK: Has proven that he will, voluntarily and without being ordered give up his life so his buddies can escape an otherwise certain death. Would receive the highest rating except that he was gonna die either way.
7: Buffy Summers from THE ADVENTURES OF WILLOW ROSENBERG: Has proven that not only will she sacrifice her own life to save someone she loves (with no expectation of clever escape or miraculous resurrection), but that she’ll do it even when it was possible for her to live (unlike someone on level 6, who was going to die no matter what).
Note that to get the two highest ratings characters have to actually die. Moreover, if the character was planning or even hoping for a last minute escape, they’re disqualified from being a 6 or 7; likewise if they know ahead of time that they’re going to be brought back to life.
John Sheridan (Babylon 5): Went to Z’ha’dum after having been informed by Kosh that he was going to die if he went there. Took along a *White Star *full of nukes as a last resort fully expecting to have to use them. Destroyed the Shadow capital city in a final suicide attack. Died (kinda) and revived for a defined period. Solid 7 or 8.
How would one rank The Doctor? One could argue that he’s willingly given up his life more than once…but always with the knowledge that he’s going to get another one…
I think it depends on the number. Ten clearly thought of regeneration as death. He was terrified of it; he wept openly at the prospect; he railed against the unfairness of it when he walked into it for Wilf’s sake.
And at least one Doctor’s forced regeneration – Three? – was treated as an execution.
And yet Eleven was pretty calm about regeneration. But even that is hard to judge, because until an hour before regenerating, he had thought that he was out fo regenertions and wold be dead dead this time. He’d thought so for hundreds of years and had time to grieve the finality of it; learning of a reprieve must have been elating.
I’ll give Eleven a 5.5. Staying on Trenzalore was going to his death, and the miraculous rescue was not merely unlooked for but, he must have believed, impossible. All the other incarnations are too inhuman in this area to make a judgment.
Anyway, first one that came to my mind was Aslan. The death scene is completely heartbreaking when you read it the first time, but it gets undermined by the fact that he is actually Christ and totally knew that he was able to come back. Whether this same logic undermines the central premise of Christianity itself, I’ll leave to you.
If you had watched the show, you’d know their dragons aren’t exactly cuddly. I take it you missed the part where one of them burns a three year old child to death and the father lays her charred bones at Danny’s feet.
From Steven Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Beak. A slightly mentally challenged mage who literally burns himself out channeling his magic to shield the army he’s a member of from chaotic sorcery that would have killed them.
Spike gets a 6 in my book. I think his thought process was “Either Buffy and I die, or only I die.” Still noble and all, but not the very highest level.
(He wouldn’t have cared about the rest of the group dying, except maybe Dawn.)
I will watch GoT when I am assured that Lena headey appears naked, and not before.
Actually I have watched a couple of episodes. I was bored, so I stopped. See also: THE WIRE.
I left Aslan out on purpose. He’s far, far less human than even the Doctor. He may understand humans, but humans can’t really understand him.
That said, I’ll ignore my last sentence and say Aslan gets no stuff points whatsoever for letting the White Witch execute him. He was dead less than a day; he KNEW e would be dead less than a day; and he manipulated the situation for just that end. He suffered some pain, maybe, but ultimately he was no more brave than Superman is for walking into a firefight (which is exactly as brave as I am for walking into a volley of soap bubbles.)
I wuld say the notion that Jesus knew and was in control of everything was going to happen undermines the premise, but I don’t think that premise is central. I tend to believe that in the earliest stories, Jesus did not not (certainly not with the surety that Aslan does) that he’d be back. He trusted that his Father had some osrt of plan but did not know (or perhaps did not understand) the details. The whole scene in the Gardenof Gethsemene makes more sense if he honestly does know know what is going on–only that God wants him to die. I think as the myth and theology grew over the years, the concept of Jesus expanded so include the Trinity, which when one thinks about it makes the sacrifice seem kind of pointless.
Most comic book superheroes: 8. They’re willing to do what is needed to save lives.
However, they tend to come back from the dead, so that undermines the heroism, a little.
(Real life policemen, firemen, ambulance drivers, military personnel, etc.: solid 10. They do it, and know full well they aren’t coming back.)
(Okay, fine, there are a few cowards in the bunch. Sheesh.)
Indiana Jones: 7. (“Prepare to meet Kali…in Hell!”)
Tarzan and John Carter: 5. They act heroic, but the writer is on their side. You can’t really claim self-sacrificing heroism when there’s a Deus Ex Machina at the end of every chapter.
Pretty sure he loses points because he has cancer. IIRC.
I’m thinking Dumbledore, sacrifices himself to keep a rotten kid from becoming a murderer. Without any of that “oh, I’m Maiar so I get to come back” crap.
Spoiler for the very last episode of Person of Interest:
John Reese - 7. Not only did he sacrifice his life to save the world, but he did so by willingly taking the place of his best friend, and died with a smile on his face.
He also tried to ram a defense satellite that was about to nuke earth, and was only saved at the last moment.
Basically, anyone who says the phrase “ramming speed!” while commanding a vehicle or vessel not specifically designed for ramming deserves at least a 6.
I would rank Harry Dresden as a 7 for arranging his own assassination. Sure, he came back, but he did basically die first, and he had no idea that he was going to be saved.
