It’s a vicious cycle. A villain is found or created and he or she creates havoc amongst the locals, terrorizing them until they can take no more. Then, the hero is called to come and save the day. Whether the call comes from within or an outside influence is of little significance. There must be a confrontation in which the hero faces the villain and eventually triumphs. And when the hero retires, and it isn’t long before another villain takes the place of the previous one. But what would happen if the hero were considered a villain? The epic, Beowulf, describes this cycle as the main character, Beowulf, fights the evil monster Grendel and his mother, defeating them both before ruling as king into old age. As he is coming upon his final
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In Grendel’s eye, heroes are utterly ridiculous as well as selfish. He sees their Gods as an excuse to undertake otherwise questionable or foolhardy endeavors, as exemplified on page 89 when Unferth limns, “You think me deluded. Tricked by my own walking fairytale. You think I came without hope of winning - came to escape the indignity of sorrow by suicide.” (89 Grendel). It is here that Grendel realizes the folly of heroes: they live with the idea that they will be forever memorialized with a heroic act in the name of god. Initially, he thinks that there maybe is a god, and the way he looked was punishment by that god for some undisclosed affront. But that opinion soon changes when, on page 74, he visits a dragon and the dragon declares, “‘What god? Where? Life-force, you mean? The principle of process? God as the history of Chance?’ In some way, that I couldn’t explain, I knew that his scorn of my childish credulity was right.” (74 Grendel). After this discussion, Grendel understands that this so-called God that the humans worshiped was not the cause of his flaws, rather that he was a product of unlucky circumstance. It is here that Grendel emotionally separates from religion, opting to take a cold, detached view on the world. And, without an explanation for his looks and finally seeing the real motivation of heroes, he begins to spiral down the path of a savage predator than a
In Grendel’s eye, heroes are utterly ridiculous as well as selfish. He sees their Gods as an excuse to undertake otherwise questionable or foolhardy endeavors, as exemplified on page 89 when Unferth limns, “You think me deluded. Tricked by my own walking fairytale. You think I came without hope of winning - came to escape the indignity of sorrow by suicide.” (89 Grendel). It is here that Grendel realizes the folly of heroes: they live with the idea that they will be forever memorialized with a heroic act in the name of god. Initially, he thinks that there maybe is a god, and the way he looked was punishment by that god for some undisclosed affront. But that opinion soon changes when, on page 74, he visits a dragon and the dragon declares, “‘What god? Where? Life-force, you mean? The principle of process? God as the history of Chance?’ In some way, that I couldn’t explain, I knew that his scorn of my childish credulity was right.” (74 Grendel). After this discussion, Grendel understands that this so-called God that the humans worshiped was not the cause of his flaws, rather that he was a product of unlucky circumstance. It is here that Grendel emotionally separates from religion, opting to take a cold, detached view on the world. And, without an explanation for his looks and finally seeing the real motivation of heroes, he begins to spiral down the path of a savage predator than a