This is a random synapse firing after reading a Reddit post mentioning that QAnon types were circulating another Day of Reckoning or whatever. The details are unimportant, but this is the standard cult prophecy thing of predicting a Big Day and then, when it doesn’t happen, excuses are mumbled and the Big Day gets rescheduled. It seems to me that the appeal of this kind of thing is that people think they want to live heroically. They do not want to be small, insignificant randomness in a vast, cold, uncaring universe. I can sympathize. If any of us fully grasped how truly vast the universe is and how small we are in comparison, it is frankly mind shattering. Better by far, they feel, to have a prominent role in a Story with meaning; preferably one where glory is assured for those who believe and who are on the right side.
Even when big events do roll around, I think the long term lot of the hero (where he or she lives through it) is life long trauma, and the world rolls on more or less the same. That’s not to say that people shouldn’t step up when there is a need or that we shouldn’t honor those who do. Rather, we should aspire to organizing affairs such that people are not forced into extreme choices. And we should not wish for human affairs to degrade so far that there is a need for heroism. It’s the Salinger line that “the mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause; the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”
Like Candide finally learned, “cultivate your garden.”
Excellent post and spot on with the motivational imperative of the apocalypse..
I think the end of The Return of the King captures the hero’s lot pretty well. Both in how the Hobbits return home to find their society indifferent to the heroic deeds they did abroad and also how Frodo is never quite the same. A magical PTSD of sorts, perhaps?
Somewhat, particularly with Frodo. He’ll never be able to fully enjoy life in the mortal lands. And it’s clear that the life of the Shire where hobbits value family, food, and simplicity is something to be valued. The Scouring of the Shire is pretty good about illustrating what happens when the wider world comes calling.
On the other hand, Sam, Merry, and Pippin seem to do great deeds. Their heroism is glorified, the Shire is better because of it, and they don’t seem to suffer too much. Aragorn, because he’s a wise hero — on account of his bloodline and his own deeds — ushers in a Golden Age until (to Arwen’s consternation) he lays down his life before age can relieve him of his senses.