Over the course of the class I’ve developed some new favorite heroes but many of them were my favorite before and after our discussions I’ve liked them more and appreciated them more. I have always been a big fan of Greek Mythology so Achilles and Perseus have always been two of my favorites. I like Perseus’s story and how he was just an average person then came to fame because of his great skills and it always helps to be half God. Achilles is a great warrior and I like his attitude how he doesn’t just bow down to authority all the time because he is supposed too. But above all my favorite hero is V from V for Vendetta. The reason I like V so much is because he didn’t care if people knew who he was or anything he just wanted to give everyone the opportunity to form their own opinion. That movie has so many different messages in it that can be interpreted anyway and it is very poetic. Also I would have liked to discuss more modern day human heroes, I know that is hard to do because usually it’s the legacy someone builds and they aren’t a hero until after that or even death.

King Leonidas was who I wrote about in my first blog and I would say he has monomyth characteristics so I would say it could be applied to him in a way. I would say Leonidas would be thought of as a great hero compared to stuff we have talked about. All of his qualities represent someone who is strong willed and will fight for his people until death. Lastly I would categorize him as a tragic hero because his main flaw was his pride and he also knew that him and his men would die at the end but he still went up against one of the strongest armies.

Sacrifice is a huge thing to do for someone you care about. People sacrifice many things for ones that they love so that the one they sacrifice for can live a better life or even live in general. In my opinion a very huge sacrifice would be giving your life or going to jail. In the case of Notorious BIG a very good rapper, his best friend took a wrap for him so that Biggie could continue his rap career. D-Roc was his name and Biggie and D-Roc were caught in possession of an illegal gun. THe officer knew that it was one of theirs so D-Roc knowing the Biggie had prior arrests took the fall for Biggie so that Biggie could continue his rap career. This is a very large sacrifice because not many people would want to waste years of there lives in jail for a friend.

Another great sacrifice would be in the Field of Dreams when Kevin Costnar destroys his entire farmland to build a baseball field for ghosts that only he and his family can see play the old game of baseball. He risks his families life as well as their home and all of his income on this field. After his field is built and people start to see the old time baseball players, many people drive up to the field to watch their old favorite players play the game they love. THe people pay him and he is able to kee pthe farm and his family. This sacrifice however risky at first was a benefit in the end.

Martin Luther King Junior was a very courageous man and had many inspiring quotations as well as views on how the world ought to be. My favorite quotation from this man would be “There can be no dissapointment where there is not deep love.” This quotaion came from a letter he wrote from a Birmingham jail to his fellow clergymen discussing how his church needed to have better structure. This quotation makes a perfect correlation to his life as well as many other people’s lives. As a human being you only truely get dissapointed in the people you love and care about. If you do not know who the person is and they do something stupid that does not effect you in any way, you would not be dissapointed. Hebecame dissapointed when his fellow movement followers did not uphold his peaceful protest motion. The same way in which Ghandi went on a hunger strike to show his dissapointment in his followers for using violences to recieve what they wanted. This quotation relates to me and to all of us because the way we view others is based on how much we actually care for them. The more love that you put into a person and the more you care about them, the more dissapointed you will be in them if they do something that is not right.

In October of 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech at Notre Dame and during this speech he said “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.” This is an interesting quote to me and can be related to many different things in today’s society. I think that what he means by this is that if someone isn’t willing to make a sacrifice or put his life on the line for something then its not worth living. Basically he is saying if you’re not living for something then you’re not living.

This can be related to many different things today whether it be soldiers going to war and fighting for their country or even your average person that uses something as motivation that they are passionate about. I think everyone should care about something enough that they are willing to die for it such as what he did. If someone in today’s society wants change to happen and they would die for it to happen then that is someone living to the fullest. I believe not enough people today know what they are even living for or don’t have something they care about enough to be willing to sacrifice themselves for this happening.

Captain Miller from Saving Private Ryan and Katniss from The Hunger Games have a lot in common.  Miller lost his life fighting to save someone else.  We see in the hunger games that Katniss is prepared also to die for someone.  A major difference between the two is that Miller is dying for someone he doesn’t know and Katniss is risking her life to save her family.  Ironically and sadly Katniss survives even though she is prepared to die and Miller dies not ever being able to see his wife, which he so longed for.

We see Miller sacrifice his pride on what he calls a “Public Relations mission.”  We also see him sacrifice his soldiers, and his life.  It is easy to see that Miller was a true soldier and hero as he displayed all of the traits of a hero.  Selfless, determined, caring, strong, and a leader, without Miller the last of the Ryan brothers may have never reached home.

In The Hunger Games it is ironic that her sister gets picked for the draft even though her name is only entered in the draft once. It is clear that Katniss is a leader from the beginning when out of love for her sister she volunteers in her spot.  Katniss may have not been prepared but she was willing to sacrifice herself.

Even though Miller didn’t have a choice whether or not he went on his mission for Ryan and Katniss had a choice and even volunteered they are both heroes for sacrificing their lives for others.

William Wallace from the movie Braveheart I think is a hero who made great sacrifices, including sacrificing his life, for the people of Scotland to have their freedom. Leonidas from the movie 300 reminds me very much of William Wallace. Leonidas dies fighting in a war against the Persians for his people of Sparta. Both of these heroes died with pride and stood for what they believed in when they were about to meet their death. At the end when William Wallace was brought before the English to be tortured and then decapitated, he stood by his beliefs and nothing else mattered. He was willing to sacrifice his life for freedom and was not even scared to die. Leonidas was very much similar to William Wallace when he made his sacrifices. He was not afraid to die for the freedom of his people. Something that Leonidas has to sacrifice that William Wallace did not was family. Leonidas had to leave his wife and little boy to go fight in the war against the Persians. Leonidas at the end is given two options. He has to either concede defeat and they can walk away or die fighting. Leonidas chooses to die fighting because he has too much pride to admit defeat and go home. That is his hamartia. He chooses war and sacrifices his family and his life. William Wallace and Leonidas are both great heroes that have had to make great sacrifices to accomplish great deeds.

Every hero has to sacrifice something at some point whether it be their life, family or freedom among other things. Often times these sacrifices are what makes them a hero even more so then some of the incredible things they are able to do. I believe that the ultimate sacrifice someone has to make is giving their lives for either someone else or for what they’re fighting for.

An example of this would be Danny Archer in Blood Diamond. Danny Archer played by Leonardo Dicaprio was in the military and was born and lived in Africa. The whole movie he searches for a huge diamond that was found by an African man who was working for the Rebels after his village in Sierra Leone was raided and captured. Danny Archer freed this man from jail after he heard of this diamond. The whole movie they searching for this diamond while also trying to help Solomon get his family back. At the end of the movie they do find the diamond where Solomon had buried it. When they find it they have to fight off some military men who also wanted the diamond. During this altercation Danny Archer gets shot in the side but they do kill all the other men. When Danny, Solomon and his son are going to the helicopter to get away with the diamond Danny has to stop because he can’t make it. He gives the diamond to Solomon and tells him to go and buy his freedom and take his family somewhere safe. He watches the sunset on the side of a cliff as he fades away. He sacrificed his life and what he had been looking for, for so long and gave the diamond away for someone else to be free.

In the novel To Kill A Mocking Bird, we see Atticus Finch make many scarifies, lets focus though on the sacrifice he by taking on the case. By taking this case on it makes it unpopular in that publics eye because of the topic and the heavily racist community in Maycomb, Alabama. He also knows because of the publics opinion this also could have an affect on kids as well. But Atticus knowing what the “right thing” to do is, he takes on the case and fights for the life of an innocent man.

A real life and prominent attorney (like Atticus) we can compare to this situation is Thurgood Marshall. Known most notably for his role in the Broad vs. Board of Topeka Education in 1954. The case ruled that separate but equal was not constitutional because while children were being taught separately it certainly was not equal. Like Atticus, Marshall sacrificed a lot by putting himself in the public eye. He first off put himself in harms way. As we saw with many civil rights leaders they were targeted for violence. During that time we saw everything from brinks being thrown through windows (as happens in the movie Remember the Titans to the coach) to bombings and house fires to lynchings. Marshall scarified all of that for like Atticus as cause he knew was right and absolutely worth fighting for.

Sir Gawain from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a noble knight that follows the rules and regulations that is instilled in him from the Edicts of courtly love and chivalry. At the beginning of the novel Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Arthur and his knights are having a extravagant feast during the Christian holiday Christmas. While they are feasting, a man in all green from head to toe, the Green Knight, comes and proposes a wager to King Arthur. The Green Knight wishes to allow one man to strike him one time with his axe, under the condition that he be allowed to return the blow the following year by New Years. The Green Knight does this in order to test King Arthur’s Court. Because Sir Gawain is a great knight he sacrifices himself accepting the challenge from the Green Knight instead of the King. Sir Gawain makes sacrifices everyday as a knight in order to protect others even if it means risking his own life. The Avengers is group of heroes that bands together to take down Loki a villain that is very harmful to the world. These great superheroes sacrifice having a normal life and dropping everything in their lives and leaving loved ones to help keep the American people safe from Loki. Both Sir Gawain and the Avengers are very courageous heroes and sacrificed different things to fulfill their duties.

The Avengers