We Need More Failed Heroes

A defence of dignified failure

I have written and spoken before about the downsides of positivity, and specifically the idea that “you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it”. In short, while this is a helpful and motivational piece of rhetoric, it is a disastrous life philosophy, as it carries the insidious implication that every failure simply reflects your lack of personal industry, rather than anything that might be beyond your control. Or, as a friend of mine once put it: “The inability to touch the moon is not solved by a rigorous regime of jump practice”.

But recognising our potential limitations, and the complex causal factors that go into our failures, is only one side of the equation. The benefit of the excessively positive narrative is that it is empowering. For all its faults, it lets you know that life is not hopeless, and that it is worth trying. This is the golden nugget in the thought-terminating cliche, and it’s worth trying to recapture it in a more realistic picture of the world.

This is why we need more failed heroes. More people in our popular stories who try their hardest, and do almost everything right, and yet fail because they are attempting an impossible task. In some ways I hope this has some of the magic of Greek tragedy. Yet instead of our protagonist’s downfall lying in a classic hamartia like hubris or wrath, it would lie in the size of what they wanted to accomplish.

A classic example of what I mean is Dostoevsky’s The Idiot (spoilers ahead). In that tale, the titular Prince Myshkin does all he can to make the heroine, Nastasya Fillipovna, see that she is worthy of the love and respect afforded to all human beings, and that whatever wrongs she thinks she has committed, they pale in comparison both to the wrongs done to her, and the depth of human forgiveness. Dostoevsky intended the tale to show a “perfectly beautiful man” confronted by all the flaws of 19th century Russian high society, with its pious frauds and shallow pretentions. Throughout the novel, Myshkin is almost impeccably kind, gentle, and forgiving, and yet his efforts are in vain. He fails to stop Nastasya’s self-destructive spiral, and she ends the story in an early grave. The feeling you get reading the final pages of The Idiot is like nothing else in all literature. You are confronted with the twin ideas that Myshkin utterly failed in his aims, and yet that his behaviour was far from pointless. That he did everything he could, and that it was not enough, but this did not diminish the beauty of his attempt. This is the kind of narrative I think we are sorely lacking.

The reason The Idiot is so powerful is that it dignifies failure. In Myshkin we can see all our own attempts at doing good, and identify with his inability to accomplish them. We also see the few times he does achieve something. His lasting impact on the young boy Kolya, and the comfort, however temporary, he provides to some of the suffering people around him. This story resonates because Nastasya was never in Myshkin’s power. No matter how hard he tried, he could only control his behaviour, and hope that it was enough. And 9 times out of 10, it wouldn’t be.

Of course, our goals may not be as noble as Myshkin’s - he does embody all the most admirable qualities Dostoevsky could think of. But that general structure: dignified failure in the face of unlikely odds, is incredibly valuable. Many other stories also have heroes encounter near-impossible challenges, but those challenges are almost always overcome. It’s worth having some narratives where the difficulties truly do overwhelm, and yet we still look up to our laudable protagonist.

Because in reality, unlikely odds are, by definition, not overcome in most cases. Near-impossible ones are overcome even less. It is lovely when we do succeed against probability, but this clearly must be a rare occurrence. For every Frodo, carrying the ring to Mordor, there are billions of people who fell along the way. For every great statesman, entrepreneur, general, or king, there are millions of extraordinary ability who fall prey to circumstantial obstacles. For every victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, there is a Charge of the Light Brigade.

In his work The Birth of Tragedy, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche talked about how through great tragic art we can glimpse the terrible truth of the world in a way that does not break us, but build us. Though he would abandon much of this in his later thinking, the general thrust of The Birth of Tragedy is worth listening to. There is much about existence that can be unpleasant, and failure is among these. We cannot extirpate these sufferings from our lives entirely, but we can honor them. And one way to do this is with narrative.

So in some ways, this is a call to action. If anyone from any major media company happens to be reading this, I have a humble request. I would like a blockbuster film, heavily advertised and marketed, of someone truly admirable, who does all they can to accomplish their dreams, their noble aspirations, their hopes for a transformed life, and yet fails miserably. Let us feel the weight of this hero’s defeat, and do not soften it. Yet let it also be known that the hero was no less admirable for failing, and the story is no less worth telling for its tragic ending.