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Reluctant heroes are classist as fuck (also racist, sexist, and generally any other -ist that is employed to defend and preserving systemic inequality)- a ranty thread: #TwitterOfTime
I grew up reading fantasy and absorbed the message from an early age that people who want power (eg Saruman, Boromir) are evil and those whom reluctantly have it thrust upon them are good people (eg Aragorn, Frodo).
This seems like common sense, and of course there are ambitious slime balls out there seeking power for their own ego. But it is a logical fallacy that everyone who is ambitious is a slime ball, and those given power without seeking it are virtuous (and inherently competent).
This is the age-old narrative of the aristocracy. If it shows bad character to seek out power that fate did not bestow upon you, then the poor are trapped in a bind where they must either be poor or evil.
Sure, there is some luck involved, but if you’re born poor, most people won’t change that through meekly accepting their lot. The reluctant hero narrative is historically a narrative of the British upper class and serves the aristocracy by keeping everyone in their place.
Why are Chosen Ones are always farmboys? This makes working class kids feel they could be chosen for power, and will be if they virtuously labour hard and most importantly don’t question this bullshit. It makes pre-ordained power look like it’s handed out to the underdog.
It’s never handed out to the underdog in real life. The meek don’t actually inherit the earth. Billionaires’ kids do. That is literally how inheritance works.
If you’re like me, you don’t dislike people without power. The opposite! You just don’t like people being blatantly ambitious. But obtaining power you don’t have in the real world requires a lot of bloody effort, which requires motivation, which is literally what ambition is.
There are no ta’veren in real life. Farm boy Rand wanted Tear’s grain to go to Illian so people didn’t starve. Lucky a mystical force dropped the power to make this happen in his lap. You want to deal with poverty in the real world - I feel it’s odd I have to say this, but
herding your own sheep is not going to do shit for feeding the poor. Reluctant heroes are TERRIBLE role models for real world kids, unless all you care about in this world is superficial politeness and not the actual quality of people’s lives (beyond your social circle).
Reluctant heroes serve the status quo no matter who they are. Like, your hero can be a black lesbian, but if she is also reluctant, she is modelling docility, and it is the norm of docility that translates to the real world, because the Chosen One part is pure fantasy.
Hence, even if you think you support equality, if you are tearing down those who set out to obtain power purely because they seek it, you are adopting criteria that penalises those with less power to begin with.
Rand and Perrin and Mat’s reluctant heroism is the epitome of privilege. I don’t hate THEM for it, I just hate the trope. By normalising docility they make everyone who seeks power look like an arsehole. In the real world, who does that serve?
So if Egwene’s questionable choices (and there are some) grate on you because she seeks power, but Rand’s don’t because he’s so sweetly reluctant to take the power fantastically dropped in his lap, maybe think about that, and how
you are adopting the kind of moral framework that keeps everyone in their place, by rewarding those who mind their own business with social approval, and disapproving of those who challenge the status quo. End rant.
