Playing for Keeps and the reluctant hero

The reluctant hero is typically portrayed either as an ordinary person thrust into extraordinary circumstances which require him  to rise to heroism, or as a person with extraordinary abilities who nonetheless evinces a desire to avoid using those abilities for the benefit of others. The book I’ve chosen to write about is Mur Lafferty’s “Playing for Keeps”. The story follows Keepsie Branson; a bar owner in the metropolis of Seventh City. In this city, the law enforcers are not the police department, but superheroes with fantastic powers. Keepsie and her friends have powers too, but they are far less powerful than the heroes who protect them. These people are known as the Third Wave; the third generation of people with superpowers. Aspects of the monomyth can be seen throughout the story. The monomyth,often referred to as "the hero's journey" and is a description of a basic pattern found in many narratives from around the world.

Shortly after the story begins, it is revealed that all of the patrons of Keepsie’s Bar had applied to the Academy which is the headquarters and training facility of the superheroes which is not far from the bar. Unfortunately, none of them passed the test because their powers were too weak to fight crime, or in Ian’s case, “They told me that I was disgusting and unsanitary and clearly couldn’t fight for the city, simply on the basis that the clean-up costs would be monumental. They said they would never need something so foul. But they gave me my very own hero name. ‘Feculent Boy.’ ” (His power is the ability to spray fire hose-strength streams of human excrement out of his hands).

Naturally, Keepsie and her friends share resentment towards the heroes and the Academy. They’re treated as second class citizens because the heroes look down on them and normal people consider them to be freaks. The bar became a hangout for Third Wavers who want to escape the hero worship that is prevalent in this area of the city. They wanted to have nothing to do with, “those damn holier-than-thou superheroes from the Academy”. After Keepsie’s abduction by the super villain Doodad Then Keepsie and her friends become unwilling participants in a plot that threatens the whole city.

  This is the Call to Adventure in which the hero recieves a call to action, such as a threat to the peace of the community, or the hero simply falls into or blunders into it. Keepsie was taken hostage in the beginnig of the story by Doodad and ends up with a device that he has stolen. The reason he did this is that Keepsie’s power is the ability to keep anything in her possession without it being taken from her and if someone did try to steal something from her they would be paralyzed; unable to move until she released them.  The call is often announced to the hero by another character who acts as a "herald". The herald, often represented as dark or terrifying and judged evil by the world, may call the character to adventure simply by the crisis of his appearance. Doodad can be seen as the herald because he draws the main character into the adventure and, coincidentally,  he’s an evil super villian.

When the superheroes are unable to defeat the villains, the third wavers are forced to take action. They are reluctant at first, saying that they’re too weak to fight the ruthless super-villains, but they eventually use their weak powers to overcome the villains that threaten Seventh City. This is an aspect of the monomyth is called the “Refusal of the Call”. In some stories, the hero initially refuses the call to adventure. When this happens, the hero may suffer somehow, and may eventually choose to answer, or may continue to decline the call.
One reason that I find this story so appealing is the fact that the reluctant hero is the one who truly makes a difference. Keepsie and her friends have theses powers that are too weak to use to fight crime, yet they end up using them to save the city when no one else can. Also their powers are not that of typical superheroes such as flight or laser vision. They have very unique powers; for example, Keepsie’s friend, Barry Koleman can remove his limbs to use them as weapons. He can also re-grow them. Peter Ross can gain intimate knowledge about a person simply by smelling them.

Even though you don’t think you can make a difference you could have the most profound effect on the situation. Heroes of this type not only exist in novels and movies, but in real life. Corporal Willie Apiata of New Zealand's Special Air Service gave his Victoria Cross, the supreme military award for valor, to the NZSAS Trust, a charity dedicated to the welfare of SAS members and their families. He ran seventy-six yards over rocky ground through heavy machine-gun fire carrying a severely wounded comrade during the Afghanistan conflict in 2004. "All the people I know who have been awarded VCs are just ordinary blokes," "Just ordinary blokes looking out for their mates, doing what people call extraordinary things." "He is an unassuming, humble man who wants to ensure his mates and the wider NZDF (New Zealand Defense Force) can share his award.” Said Chief of Defense Force Lieutenant-General Jerry Mateparae and the gift reflected on his character.

Corporal Apiata does not feel that his actions were that extraordinary. He was doing what was needed to do in a given situation in order to protect the things he cared about. Keepsie and her friends do the same thing. The theme song, written by Beatnik Turtle has a line in it that really spoke to me. “Heroes are not the ones That disappear when things are darkest. Am I any less a hero because there's no letter on my chest?” To me, it simply means that you do no need to be a superhero with amazing powers in order to make a difference. You can use you own “powers” to impact the world around you.