If you were to describe what it means to be a hero, based on how they are portrayed in western movies, books and comics, you would have to conclude that fighting is an essential component. It is rare for that narrative to have any competition.
However, there are alternatives out there. Two such examples are Marvel's X-men and the BBC's Doctor Who. Both try to present heroic characters who seek solutions through non-violence, reasoning and discourse. Though they aren't always perfect examples - with some large inconsistencies, such as the pacifist idealist Professor Charles Xavier having his own team of fighters - the fact that someone is trying to present alternative courses is important.
It is becoming inevitable that movies see their disputes settled with violence (Blair, 2013). That is a pattern that needs to change. Western culture has become so immersed in the idea of the 'action hero', that is becoming blind to the dangers of the violence, blind to the cost of violence, and blind to the bravery required to be peaceful.
In Marvel's X-Men, this struggle is best represented by the competing methods of Xavier and Magneto. Xavier seeks to be a teacher, while his friend and rival Magneto seeks to be a liberation fighter. Both of them struggle for the same cause, but via very different end goals. Xavier wants a peacefully integrated world in which his people will be safe, while Magneto seeks to ensure his people's safety by possessing the power and dominance to enforce it.
The problem they face is that, on the surface, violence is the easier course. In fact, Xavier runs his own team of fighters, trained to defend humanity. More often than not, it is this team that saves the day in a fight, rather than Xavier's own ideals.
The troubling part is that this kind of failure, in real life as well as pop cultural portrayals, is taken as proof that idealism is flawed and that violence is ultimately necessary. That troubling interpretation is itself missing the point. As a monk tells X-Man Wolverine in an episode of the X-Men animated series:
'It is often the braver man who chooses not to fight.'
The dangers you face multiply greatly when you reject fighting and violence. You expose yourself to a great number of dangers that might be easily subdued with violence, but you do so to avoid the long term damage wrought by such actions.
Doctor Who is one of the best shows on television for demonstrating this struggle. The Doctor, the time travelling, regenerating, protagonist, stands against violence and war wherever he finds it. But the show doesn't shy away from the difficult situations that are created for The Doctor by his unwillingness to use violence.
The Doctor Who 50th anniversary episodes, 'The Night of the Doctor' and 'The Day of the Doctor', really lay bare his commitment to non-violence.
In 'The Night of the Doctor', the Paul McGann portrayed Doctor is an idealist. He refuses to fight. He identifies himself by his unwillingness to take up arms, even as the Time War is beginning to rip reality to pieces. That path, however, leaves him isolated, faced with prejudicial hatred he cannot overcome, and eventually leads him to his death in an attempt to rescue a single person.
His successor, John Hurt's Doctor, lays down the title Doctor, in order to become a warrior and fight in the Time War. He is able to find a way to stop the threat to the universe that the war presents, in one cathartic act of violence. But violence is never that simple. He must make a utilitarian decision: kill everybody belonging to the two warring factions, including his own people, or watch the whole universe be consumed in the flames of war. The choice he makes, to kill, is a decision that haunts him for the next four hundred years.
These narratives get to the heart of the matter: to fight is the easier path for the immediate future, but there will be consequences. Every 'victory' will be won at great cost, possibly at the cost of things irreplaceable.
When you choose the path of violence and destruction, you destroy not only the danger of the present, but also the innocent possibility and enormous potential of the future. Both X-Men and Doctor Who attempt to show us the forces at work in this struggle. By taking the path of violence, an aggressor takes upon themselves the burden of all of the lost possibilities. The burden of the peaceful is the fear, the intimidation and the threat of death, for themselves and their loved ones; fears they can only face with ideas, reason and compassion.
The difficulty, and the fear, that comes with peaceful ways is what makes it the braver path. As X-Men and Doctor Who both try to show us, there is plenty for our art and culture to explore in terms of heroes, without resorting to the short term cathartic satisfaction of violent resolution.
References
Andrew Blair 'Why does every superhero film have to end in a big fight?'; 13 November 2013.
Marvel's 'X-Men: The Animated Series'; season 4, episode 13, 'The Lotus and the Steel'; 1996.
Steven Moffat's 'Doctor Who: The Night of the Doctor'; on the BBC; 14 November 2013.
Steven Moffat's 'Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor'; on the BBC; 23 November 2013.
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