Fallen Heroes

As you might imagine, this post will be all about heroes.

Remember when you were a little kid, you had a hero, or multiple heroes that you looked up to? (And even as an adult, when you go to leadership seminars or personality training, they ask you about them in a questionnaire or face to face) I remember one of my heroes, believe it or not, was Bill Cosby. Yup, 1:00PM on weekday afternoons in the summer, I would turn on the Cosby Show, whichever season it was, and catch up on the latest happenings with the Huxtible family, whether it was Theo getting his ear pierced, Vanessa sneaking out to a concert, or Denise bringing home a husband and a stepdaughter, Olivia (who turned out to one of the funniest characters on the show). I loved Bill Cosby. I thought he was funny, charismatic, successful, and most importantly, family-orientated. He was at the head of a very loving, supportive family that got along great, so much so I wanted to be with that family. I wanted to be Bill Cosby when I grew up, wanted to sound like him, make jokes like him, click my dance shoes as well as he did, and be a doctor.

So you can imagine, then, why I felt betrayed, confused, and skeptical after I heard about Bill's sex scandal several years ago. I had built such a high regard for Bill that I didn't think he was capable of anything but good; indeed, I needed him to be good-natured, to be good, to know that there solid symbols of good in this world. Haha, looking back on it, that seems a little too idealistic, expecting one guy to be good. And Bill is still an all-right guy, everybody makes mistakes. But I think that for me he proves an important point: Heroes can fall; they can become fallen heroes.

Our media is inundated to references of fallen heroes: "The old king is dead. Long live the king." (Coldplay- Viva La Vida), "Not a real hero." (Spellbound), "I'm not a role model" (Charles Barkley), "Our hero has been slain!" (Warcraft III- Orcs). Every superhero movie you've ever gone to has facets of a fallen hero, who encounters seeminly insurmountable obstacles and needs to overcome in the face of adversity. There is, however, one major difference between the comic book heroes and heroes in real life:

Real life heroes do NOT always come out ahead by the end of the movie. In fact, in the 2 examples I'm about to discuss, they are guaranteed to fall and remain fallen.

Heroes- the TV show. I have never felt such a rollercoaster of emotion about any TV show, and that's INCLUDING the Cosby Show (Cosby show was more of a subway ride then a rollercoaster, straight line, no bumps, know what you're gonna get). Heroes started out on an emotional high for me, when in early 2007 (Coincidentally, also around when this blog was created) I heard about the show from a friend of mine, who in passing hinted that I should watch the show "for my own good." Never one to pass up anything for my own benefit, I went on nbc.com to catch up on the show, and the rest was addiction. I literally could not stop watching the show. The first night I started watching at around 9:30PM, watched the first six episodes straight till about 3:00PM in the early morning. This was when I had roommates in college living in the same little room, too, so I had to go the extra mile to put on headphones and not disturb them, but those were the sacrifices I was willing to make. I think being allowed to watch the first, O, 19 episodes of the season whenver I wanted and having them at my fingertips didn't help the addiction.

As good as the first season of Heroes was, it has been that disappointing ever since. Looking back, there were signs, little hints that the show would not ever be as good at the end of season 1. First of all, Sylar visiting his mother- I kinda get the closure part, but was that necessary? Then the ending: Overly hyped, lots of build-up towards it where the heroes finally all meet up in New York- didn't go so hot. Yes, the prophecy came true, but did we really need all those heroes there? Like Jessica/Mom, was it really absolutely crucial that she get in some extraneous punches on Sylar before Hiro plunged the sword into his heart? And Linderman, the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-healing bad guy that was such a key villain the entire season, was killed by......DL????????

Even then, I didn't recognize the fallen heroes for what they were. The 2nd season was still on my list of priorities, I planned my schedule weeks ahead to catch the season premiere. The 2nd season was not average, it was POOR. Random characters, people who shouldn't be dying getting killed off, people who should be dead coming back from the dead (DL), it was atrocious. Unlike Bill Cosby, I did not recognize the fall for what it was at first, so there was no gigantic shock, no stunned silence as I slumped back into my seat. Only until the 3rd season did I finally give it up: I realized that Heroes had become like a movie trilogy: Producers cashing on one great first season/movie by mailing in 2 subsequent ones. Big flaw with Heroes: stale characters. Sylar wasn't big and bad enough anymore, so they had to make him good for a while to accentuate the badness. Peter's powers were too great cuz he just sucks up everybody's powers, so we need to take them away for awhile. Claire: what can you really do with a character who's only ability is a defensive one (to heal?) And how flying guys can there be on one show? AND WHEN WAS ALI LARTER'S CHARACTER GOING TO DIE FOR GOOD SINCE SHE WAS THE WEAKEST CHARACTER SINCE THE VERY FIRST EPISODE???? (I'm not bitter at all).


Anyway, since this is a fantasy blog, here are some Fantasy heroes who have fallen (Criteria for fantasy "hero" is someone who legitimately carried fantasy teams for an entire fantasy season at some point.

Rafael Furcal: Best Role: 2006 Season, 113R's, 15 HR's, 37 SB's, .300 AVG. Shell of his former self, gets about a hit per game (hence his .249 avg). It's like Quicksilver became just Silver: Only 4 out of 8 in SB attempts, can't run when his back is killing him.

Russ Ortiz: Best Role: 2003 Season: 21 W's, 3.81 ERA, 149 K's. Yes, chances are, even if he was a hero he was a hero for a sparse number of teams in 2003, but he did contribute. Took the loss tonight despite dropping his ERA to 3.47 on the season. He's fallen all right, he's just struggling for one last battle before giving it up..

Magglio Ordonez: Best Role: 2003 Season: .320 AVG, 38 HR's, 116 R's, 135 RBI's. Reverently referred in to in "Fantasyland" as a fantasy DEMIGOD, Thor has lost his thunder bolt as Ordonez no longer hits for power, no longer steals any bases of any kind and recently was benched. That's the problems with heroes in fantasy baseball: Besides being tarnished by PED's, juiced ball's, and corked bats, they also contract a 35-and-older disease where they're doomed to fail.

Vlad Guerrero: Best Role: 2002 Season: ..336 avg, 39 HR's, 111 RBI's, 40 SB's. It's sad, really, the Impaler seems to have been impaled.

Fantasize on,
Robert Yan