Performing Acceptable Breaks From Reality, Part I

In response to my post on the difference between fictional glass (easily broken by the hero jumping from a window) and real glass (hard and sharp), I received the following comment:

'Heroism demands such scenes and I think they are acceptable by the audience and readers also.'
--Cifar Shayar

There's a lot to be said for good escapist entertainment. Stories may be the way we as a species reinforce our social norms and defining narratives, but they're also a way for us to escape to a landscape that is more thrilling, more emotionally intense, and most importantly, less messy and painful and complicated than our everyday existence (when fiction is messy and emotionally grueling, we can shut off the movie or close the book).We gain satisfaction from seeing Bond bring down the bad guys, and we feel that satisfaction on a visceral, biological level.

So why do we see heroism as entwined with over-the-top action? I think this stems from the place of the 'Hero' in our storytelling culture. Joseph Campbell highlighted the fact that all cultures share a Hero's Journey arc in their mythology; the Hero stands for all of us, and is a vessel for our values and aspirations. We need this character to accomplish larger-than-life feats because that is their job-- to show us how to overcome the seemingly impossible.

At the same time, we don't necessarily need action to make our hero extraordinary. They can be extraordinary smart, or brave, or empathetic, or talented in their particular area. Decorating their journey with enjoyably over-the-top action tropes doesn't make them a hero in and of itself. It's their resourcefulness and resilience in pursuit of a worthy goal.