Chapter ten, “Never Stand Next to the Hero”, of Thomas C Foster’s book “How to Read Literature Like A Professor” discusses the roles and dangers that go along with being close to the Hero or protagonist. This can apply to family members, allies, those of romantic interest, and close companions. Foster elaborated on characters that meet these qualifications, specifically in epics. However the analysis can be easily applied to almost any story with a defined hero.

         The first thesis Foster presents on the topic is that a hero’s men, one hundred percent of the time, get killed and quickly replaced. He relates this to the famous epic; “The Iliad”. Foster states that the average space between a charioteer of Hector’s being named and their death is about five lines. This is absurdly short and makes me wonder why bother even adding the characters if you’re just going to immediately kill them off? The reason, and the one who is truly to blame for these deaths, is the hero, simply off the fact that they are a so-called “hero”. The hero cannot, and will not, die half way through the story because they are destined to complete a quest or overcome some power. If an ordinary character can complete the same task as the hero, without dying, then there is no need for a hero. Therefore each character that falls only makes the hero appear stronger and more heroic.

         But what if the death of a character hurts the hero in some way? In some cases it may appear as if the hero is devastated and/or held back by the death of a character because it was, say, of a loved one such as a parent, sibling, or romantic interest/significant other. However the death is most likely benefiting them in some major way. Authors often use the death of certain characters as symbolic lessons and plot devices. A death can cause a fiery rage to build in the hero giving them the strength and courage to avenge the fallen. Sometimes hero’s rise because of a death or their relationship with death. Two hero’s who are heavily tied to death are Harry Potter and Hercules. Harry Potter is known as “The boy who lived” because he was meant to die as an infant but his mothers love protected him from harm and evil. Therefore if it were not for his parents’ death, which is symbolic of strong unconditional love (specifically a mothers love), Harry Potter would not exist. In contrast, Hercules being the son of Zeus and a mortal woman was technically a mortal but had the powers of a god and was in fact stronger than most gods. Because of his powers Hercules became the greatest hero ever known in mythology. He was so highly regarded that the gods decided to reward him for all of his heroic triumphs. At the time of his death while his mortal body fell to the underworld, the gods brought his soul up to heaven to live eternally as a god.