openingyourselfuptojoy | Meta Wednesday: Heroes!

Finn often gets a lot of crap in the Glee Fandom for being Glee's White Male Savior. But is that really the case? Let's discuss the concept of Finn-as-a-hero here.

~~(also dat ass WHOOPS)~~

Tina's entire character arc seems to revolve around heroism and saving others, often at her own cost. She's the one who encourages others to chase after their dreams, and more often than not, is the one who makes those dreams happen. Yet, compared to Finn, who seems to always be praised for his heroism, Tina's is rarely noticed or even mentioned.

Let's discuss this.

The first episode that ever gives Kurt a storyline is one that puts him in the role of a hero--albeit, an unconventional one. Still, Kurt saves the day for the McKinley High Titans, and some have argued that all of Kurt's storyline is season two is, in fact, the Hero's Journey, complete with the dragon (Karofsky) and the princess in the tower (...Blaine).

Let's discuss this!

Or so they say.

Let's discuss that here.

(copy and pasted directly from someone's tumblr):

"Noah Puckerman really is the “hero” of glee club. He came back when Finn didn’t want to ruin his popularity, he found a 12th member when the club needed it, he was the one who got the jocks back on the field to perform the thriller number, he did everything in his power to stop Rachel getting a nose job, he dressed up as a woman because he thought it would help win Nationals. Any thing I’ve left out?"

So, let's talk about this, shall we?

Discuss anyone/anything I've forgotten here.

At the end of season three, she was accepted into NYADA, became prom queen, moved to New York, and sacrificed love to get there.

The entire story started with a focus on him and his dreams. He started the Glee club, discovered its stars, and ended season three with a teacher of the year award.

We don't have to just talk about heroes, you know. Anything else you feel like mentioning, just put it here and we'll talk about it. :D

Watched "Journey" again this week and it struck me that the gold dresses turning up again in "Choke" may have foreshadowed Kurt's not getting in to NYADA. Gold = personal victory that goes unrecognized by TPTB?

Remind me what happened the previous time they wore the gold dresses?

They wore those dresses for their Regional's competition in season one. The ostensible 'moral of the story' was that, official win or lose, it was still a victory for New Directions because the journey is what mattered most, not the goal. And we saw with how petty the judges were, that there was some truth to it. Even after coming in last Rachel declares to Shelby that ND won, even if it wasn't recognized.

It also brings significance to Burt telling Kurt in "Michael" that (paraphrasing) 'no matter what happens now, in this moment, you won.'

So, I'm thinking Kurt's not getting in is foreshadowed and fits with previous Glee themes. It didn't feel like it at the time. I was shocked, but with retrospect, I can see it. IDK.

(Ugh, lost internet & doing this on my phone. Autocucumber be kind!)

I like this! So gold is a sign of self-belief that goes unvalidated by the people in power? That would also fit with Rachel's gold stars. Rachel knows she's a star, she knows she has the talent and the potential, it's just not being recognised by anyone else as yet (but she knows it will be someday). Kurt in that audition know what he can do, he knows he can pull that performance off brilliantly and prove that he's a star, but NYADA still doesn't accept him. Series 1 dresses- New Directions know they're good enough, the know they performed well enough that they could beat the other teams but the judges place them last.

(Belatedly) I love your connecting this to Rachel's gold stars. It renews my hope for Kurt to still have a big unambiguously recognized victory moment at some point, since Rachel does get into NYADA, and ND does get to win Nationals.

This may sound weird, but bear with me.

Everyone's a hero. And no one is. That's what makes Glee so amazing. You can make an arguement for every character's growth and developement into a hero. That's because, just as in life, there is no set MAIN HERO. Everyone is just human, and we are all the hero of our own story but we also act as support staff and villians in *other* people's stories. Sometimes we even self-destruct and become our own greatest villains.

Everyone has their own shades of gray, so no one is a perfect hero but no one is a complete bad guy either. Sue, Karofsky, Sebastian, our Big Bads, turned out to have hearts underneath all that horribleness. Breakable, human hearts.

So I could have a discussion with all of these posts, arguing how Chara X is the hero and not be wrong about any of them. Because they ALL are.

I really want to have a whole discussion about this, but I'm really tired, so for now, my main thoughts are: I feel like any given story has one hero, and heroes shouldn't be confused with good guys. Even if a story has many good guys, and even if the bad guys have depth and good qualities, there's still probably only one hero. However Glee seems to have shifting storylines over time that throw different characters into focus, so I'm not sure who would be the hero of the entire series. In the pilot I would have picked Will. At the end of season three I'd say Rachel. When Kurt returns to McKinley singing As If We Never Said Goodbye, it's him, and for a brief moment when Mike sang Cool and stood up to his dad, it was him. It kind of feels like Glee is a series of short stories, not a novel. But Kurt is always MY hero.

Suggestion: everyone is the hero of their own story.

By that I mean everyone is the main character in their own life story.

Glee switches viewpoints a lot, so the audience isn't limited to seeing (for example) Rachel's story of high school with Rachel's knowledge from beginning to end. Rachel, Finn and Mr Schue might be the three leads but we (as the audience) still have knowledge of other characters that none of these three are privy to. Kurt's heroic moment cited above, for example, came from an episode where we saw things from Kurt's point of view. We saw his conversations with his father that episode because Kurt was the main character (or hero) of that storyline. Had that story been told completely from Finn's perspective, perhaps we would have come away thinking that Finn was the hero, who had overcome his own fears and prejudices to help Kurt and ultimately (as the team captain) lead his team to victory. Had we been in Puck's head at the time he might have been the hero, overcoming his jealousy of Finn, prejudice against Kurt and desire to be noticed/ celebrated to play his part as supportive friend team-mate. (This would be similar to the storyline we did end up having with Tina in Props.)

So, I would propose that everyone is their own hero and we get to see that because the format of Glee allows us to see these characters from their own points of view. Finn's heroism is the most frequent because we follow his story a lot when he's interacting with other characters (plus he's a character that others in high school would look up to and crave acceptance from). An easy example would be Sectionals in series 1, where Finn comes across as having saved the day despite the fact that by the time he arrives with a song and an idea, Rachel and Quinn had already got the club under control and had sorted out the majority of their set. He is the hero because we're told the club needs him, we see him struggling with whether to go or not and he arrives after a pep talk from Mr Schue, ready to take charge. If we had instead seen Quinn struggling with self-loathing and the news being out, being talked into continuing with Glee club and collaborating with Rachel to get last minute set list together before setting out on stage to sing back up for the star singers, our impressions might have been different. Equally if we had been with Mercedes that episode we might have seen more of her struggle in giving up her solo to Rachel, watching Rachel take the house down with it and then go onto perform with everyone else as just another supportive team member.

Meta Wednesday: Heroes!

Finn Hudson--HERO

Tina Cohen-Chang--HERO

Kurt Hummel--HERO

Blaine Anderson--HERO

Noah Puckerman--HERO

Other

Rachel

Will

Other Meta!

Gold! Re: Other Meta!

Re: Gold! Re: Other Meta!

Re: Gold! Re: Other Meta!

Re: Gold! Re: Other Meta!

Re: Gold! Re: Other Meta!

HERO - Everyone and No one

Re: HERO - Everyone and No one

Re: HERO - Everyone and No one