Why We Need Heroic Stories: The Courage We Borrow From Fiction

A hill I will die on: we need heroic stories.

That may seem super obvious. After all, the word “hero” has become all but synonymous with “protagonist.”

They are not, however, the same thing. A protagonist is the structural driver of the plot (just as the antagonist is the structural obstacle to that driving momentum). There is no moral or even postural indication implied by the word “protagonist.” There is no inherent structural demand that a story must feature someone of moral courage or virtue. Indeed, antiheroic stories are very much in vogue.

We’re all about the “morally gray” these days. And to the degree, that means “morally complex,” I’m there too. There is so much variety in story, as there should be in its reflection of life. We need the stories that explore and expurgate the shadows. We need the tragedies that cathartize our suffering and confusion.

But in our sophistication, it feels like sometimes we denigrate the truly heroic.

Genre stories like action-adventure and romance—with their all but guaranteed Happily Ever After—are often dismissed as lower forms of art than their more ambiguous or critical brethren. But my view is that the hidden symbolic structure of the story arc is inherently heroic—it is inherently about the clarifying transformation of shedding what is false, walking through trials, and emerging reborn like the phoenix. As we discussed earlier this year, the arc of story works when it walks us through the darkness of the night and back to the dawn.

When that cycle is allowed to complete itself, story offers us a remarkable gift. It shows us what is made possible with hope and courage. And however much we may need the pungent clarity of disillusionment (something that is also inherent to the arc of story), we deeply need stories that ignite the archetype of heroism within our own deep imaginations.

So to that end, today I want to tell you a personal story—about a scary night in my own life and the impact of a heroic story.

How I Just Fell in Love With Asian Dramas

Let’s start with the announcement that I have officially discovered Asian dramas, and I get what all the hype has been about (and, yes, I know many of you are saying, “Girl, finally!”).

I tentatively started the first installment of the 40-episode Pursuit of Jade (which is apparently taking the world by storm right now), and I was immediately swept away. The show is literally everything I love and have been struggling to find anywhere else lately.

Pursuit of Jade is the Chinese historical drama that inspired this reflection on why heroic stories stay with us—and why they matter. (Pursuit of Jade (2026), Tencent Video.)

Set in a slightly fantasy medieval China, it is the story of a young commoner, Fan Changyu, who continues the family business of butchering pigs (an ignominious trade for a young woman) in order to care for her young sister after the recent murder of her parents. She stumbles over a desperately wounded man who is dying in the snow. Out of the depths of her own sincerity and goodness, she risks taking him home and nursing him back to health.

Pursuit of Jade (2026), Tencent Video.

Unbeknownst to her, he is Xie Zheng, a powerful general and nobleman. Keeping his identity secret, he eventually agrees to repay her goodness to him by “marrying into” her family, in name only, in order to get around legalities that would otherwise allow her home to be inherited by her worthless uncle.

Pursuit of Jade (2026), Tencent Video.

Of course, as the story progresses, they fall in love, they get separated, war descends, Changyu goes on an epic quest to become a hero in her own right, she eventually reunites with Zheng and learns his true identity in gorgeously dramatic fashion, and then they must both rebuild their relationship, all while discovering the interwined conspiracy against their murdered parents and saving the empire.

Pursuit of Jade (2026), Tencent Video.

It offers gorgeous visuals, a sweeping soundtrack, humor, charm, an achingly slow-burn romance, and sweeping wartime epicness. I liked literally every character, laughed, cried, swooned, and geeked out multiple times. I binged it all in three days (and then immediately started over).

It’s not a perfect show; it has some structural and pacing issues in the second half. But it sucked me in and gave me a story high like I haven’t had in probably a full decade.

It also gave me a reminder of why stories like this are so much more than just entertainment.

The Night a Wildfire Reminded Me Why Heroic Stories Matter

The night I finished the show, I went to bed like normal, happy and buzzing from the pleasure of the story.

Then at 12:30AM, my phone rang. It was my dad, telling me, “You’ve got fires around you.”

For reference, I live at the edge of a high-risk wildfire area in the hills of one of Nebraska’s relatively few timbered areas. Although fire is always a risk here, this year we’re in the midst of an extreme drought, after a winter with little to no snow both here and in the Colorado mountains. For perspective, some estimates as of mid-June suggest we would need 14 inches of rain in a month to break the drought. If the predicted super El Niño doesn’t positively change weather patterns through this winter, we could reach historic comparisons to the Dust Bowl.

Fire is very much on Nebraska’s mind right now, having already experienced the Morrill Fire—the worst fire in state history in March—and the South Fork Fire—another horrible fire in the Ft. Robinson National Park area that was finally contained in June. Almost a million acres have burned here so far this year.

So when my dad tells me there’s fire nearby, especially on a windy night—I go.

Thankfully, the story gets anticlimactic from here. Although the fire was in the hills just two miles from my house with flames higher than the nearby structures—and on a Red Flag Day, with the wind blowing directly toward my canyon neighborhood—the wind unexpectedly died down for about an hour at dusk, giving neighbors and firefighters just enough time to put it out. It had been out before I even went to bed. My dad only knew about it because he happened to be up at his house some ten miles away, smelled smoke, and checked the local news on the Internet (my fire app never registered the fire or sent me an alarm). By the time I was leaving my house ten minutes later, he had called my neighbor and verified the fire was contained. I left anyway and went over to my parents’ house for the night.

I’ve always had a fear of fire, and living where I do, especially this year with this drought, has pushed and stretched me in many ways. But as I took that call from my dad that night and calmly executed my “go plan” (in what I hope is its only iteration), what kept running through my head was… Pursuit of Jade.

Pursuit of Jade (2026), Tencent Video.

How Stories Shape Courage Before We Need It

At this point, after about 40 hours of the show, my brain was well steeped. I could hear the music. I could see the characters as they faced their hardships and stood up to them with courage and steadfastness. I could feel the legacy of their epicness running in my blood as I faced what, as far as I knew in that moment, could be a huge threshold in my own life.

And… I was so thankful. Even in the midst of it, before I knew everything was going to be okay, I was so grateful that this story was what I was carrying with me into the uncertainty and pressure of that moment. The images, the emotions, and the archetypes it gave me that night were a portal to my own courage and steadfastness. In the days afterward, as I processed the adrenaline and what was now a very real experience living in my nervous system (versus just a vague fear), I felt the power of what this story—and other unabashedly heroic stories like it–give to us.

They give us a vision of the hardships we may have to walk through—and they imprint upon us the promise that we can walk through.

I’ve been talking a lot lately about mythic storytelling and trying my best to explain exactly what I mean by that.

For me, my experience that night perfectly sums up the ultimately ineffable experience of “mythic fiction”—of stories that bypass the rational mind and mainline into the imaginal unconscious—that portal to the prelinguistic, perhaps even pre-conscious, archetypal experience underlying all of life.

Man and His Symbols by Carl G. Jung

The power of these stories is not in their mastery of technique or form—or even of symbolism itself. As Jung would tell us,

[A] symbol always stands for something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. Symbols … are natural and spontaneous products. No genius has ever sat down with a pen or a brush in his hand and said: “Now I am going to invent a symbol.” No one can take a more or less rational thought, reached as a logical conclusion or by deliberate intent, and then given it “symbolic” form. No matter what fantastic trappings one may put upon an idea of this kind, it will still remain … linked to the conscious thought behind it, not a symbol that hints at something not yet known.

The power is in the direct ability to communicate with a deeper part of ourselves.

It was not my rational understanding or even my deep appreciation for Pursuit of Jade that gave me courage and resolve that night. It was a sense of archetypal recognition of the capacity for heroism within myself that resonated with the symbolic imagery. Like a tuning fork calling forth the same resonance in other instruments, the story had strummed a chord in me.

I suppose the bottom line is this: stories evoke and activate archetypes.

They are an inevitably subliminal technology.

Even though a heroic throughline underlies the shape and structure of story itself, individual stories may evoke evil as well as goodness. They may evoke cowardice and cynicism and nihilism; or they may evoke heroism and courageous hope and the sincerity of goodheartedness.

I believe these things are part of story’s greatest gift to us–because we all need these things. We need them in the weariness of the everyday grind, and we need them on those rare and scary nights when the alarm goes off, and danger seems to be at our door.

6 Ways to Write Heroic Stories That Inspire Readers

We’re all writing different stories (both in our lives and on the page). Some of those stories are blatantly archetypal: “adventures in which good triumphs over evil, and they all end in a kiss.” Some of them are heroism even in the face of hopelessness. Some of them end triumphantly; some of them end with only the glimmer of defiance as a howl against tragedy. Some of them are answers; some are questions. Some are redemption, and some are resolve.

All stories have the capacity, if their authors choose to exercise it, to tap that symbolic resonance within readers and raise them into their own archetypal experiences of heroism, courage, steadfastness, and grace. Here are six perspectives I think are helpful in getting there.

1. Channel Heroism Before You Write Heroic Characters

Ultimately, the ability to create stories of this resonance depends first and foremost on our capacity as authors to face and tap these forces within the flow of our inspiration. Often, we find our relationship with some of these archetypes in the actual writing—the daydreaming, dreamzoning, outlining, plotting, drafting, even the editing sometimes.

This isn’t a relationship we can always cultivate consciously. The true primal force of these archetypes is something we contact from the backs of our minds and the sides of our vision. It comes to us not so much because we intend it, but when we are an empty vessel, waiting to be filled.

2. Write Heroic Archetypes, Not Just Heroic Actions

Creating heroic characters is not a simple matter of writing people who do “heroic” things. Although the “form” of heroism can create good stories that impact readers, there is a different caliber of storytelling that happens when the character is a Hero (or whatever other archetype) versus just someone doing heroic stuff.

Certainly, one of the reasons Pursuit of Jade touched off something raw and real in my response was that even though it offered many of the same heroic elements as other similar stories, it felt like it embodied those elements in a way that otherwise too often feels like a checklist. Pursuit of Jade is full of tropes, but (at least for me) most of them felt like they were presented with a sincerity and honesty that returned them to the deeper territory of archetype.

3. Remember Heroic Characters Come in Many Archetypal Forms

Writing Archetypal Character Arcs (affiliate link)

Amidst all this talk of heroic archetypes, let me be clear that I’m not saying all moving stories must feature Hero archetypes. The Hero is but one archetype among many.

The Archetypal Life Cycle system that I share in my book Writing Archetypal Character Arcs focuses on six central transformation archetypes—Maiden, Hero, Queen, King, Crone, Mage. Every one of their arcs requires tremendous courage and heroism, as do steadfast archetypes such as the Child, Lover, Parent, Ruler, Elder, and Mentor.

And, of course, there are many archetypes besides that touch off deep and powerful experiences with audiences. Even dreadful archetypes such as the Tyrant or the Tempter—when truly tapped as part of the story arc—can ignite valuable responses within those who witness them.

4. Focus on the Feeling Readers Carry Away

Heroic stories need not always be happy. They need not offer answers. The truth of a story isn’t in the words. It isn’t even in what the characters believe at the end. It is in the feeling readers are left with at the end of their own experience.

Long ago and far away, Aristotle taught that “tragedy” (aka, drama) purged the audience through a powerful experience of catharsis. Even today, stories remain a powerful source of spontaneous initiation.

Although we watch and read many stories that do little more than entertain us for a while and perhaps add more clutter our already busy minds, there are other stories that change everything—that descend upon us, in ways large and small, and engage with us like a flashbomb tossed into our own symbolic depths.

To some degree, this experience is subjective. My own resonance with Pursuit of Jade may not be what most viewers take away. But there are stories that seem to sweep through us culturally and leave us all with a universal agreement that this was powerful. Lord of the Rings, of course, always tops that list for me. But I also think of stories like Children of Men. When I think about this tragic and in some ways deeply unpleasant story, what I always remember is the ending—Clive Owen, dying, hunched over the oars, a newborn miraculously crying in its mother’s arms as he watches the sun rise over the ocean. The ending is about the feeling I am left to take away.

The closing moments of Children of Men remind us that even in a broken world, sacrifice can still point toward a future worth believing in. (Children of Men (2006), Universal Pictures.)

5. Take Readers Through Death to Reach New Life

Story is a life, death, rebirth cycle. Stories must confront death if they are truly to offer life. Truly heroic stories, at whatever scale, are ultimately about facing down something within us that must die.

Heroism rises from the darkness of our despair in the face of death. If there is no death, no darkness, then there is no heroism. One is the shadow of the other. And while not every heroic story needs to plumb the depths, I think it is a true statement that the darker the pit, the greater the heroism—the starker the archetype.

6. Let Goodness Be Genuinely Good

Sometimes—not always, but sometimes—complexity is overrated.

This isn’t to say dimensionality is overrated. We want to see characters we can believe in as real people, not just goody-goody caricatures. But sometimes we just want to see a good person making the right choices in the face of hard consequences.

In many ways, archetypes are very simple things. They may arise from complexity; they may demonstrate dimensionality. But they simply are what they are.

And sometimes, it’s just nice to root for someone whose archetype is also that of goodheartedness and sincerity and devotion. There’s power in seeing that goodness tested and strained by the harshest realities—and watching it still win out in the end.

***

I watched Pursuit of Jade because I wasn’t feeling well and sat down looking for something to help me pass the time for a few days. What I found was a delightful experience that entertained me, touched me, delighted me. That would have been gift enough.

But thanks to the synchronicity of my having binged it right before something memorably frightening (if thankfully anticlimactic), it has become more than that to me. It moved from entertainment to experience.

Like other stories before it, it met me where I was and reminded me that story was, is, and has always been my language. It is our language. It is the language with which we speak to and (sometimes) encourage one another. But it is also the language that lets us speak beyond ourselves.

Through the stories we tell and receive, we speak to each other beyond our simplistic and often limited capacity to engage and interface with the strangeness of existence. When we tell stories, one archetypal imagination speaks to another—and sometimes that is a transformative gift beyond anything either teller or listener can predict.

Want More?

At their deepest level, heroic stories invite us into an inner way of being that chooses courage, integrity, and growth even when the path is difficult. This is what I explore in the Ego-Driven Character Arcs vs. Soul-Driven Character Arcs masterclass I taught earlier this year.

In it, we look at two fundamentally different models of transformation: stories in which change is forced upon a character through crisis, and stories in which characters consciously choose growth because they’re already in relationship with a deeper Truth.

We also explore how these two arc types diverge structurally, how they integrate with the Lie/Truth model, and how they can deepen both your story’s theme and its mythic resonance. This class offers a practical framework for writing the kind of heroic journeys that can impact people in same way I talk about being impacted in this post.

Available on-demand here.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Why do you think we need heroic stories, and what are some of your favorite heroic stories or characters that have stayed with you long after you finished them? Tell me in the comments!

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, or Spotify).

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