Thursday, August 25, 2005

Remember Quantum Leap?

I loved Quantum Leap. Every week Sam Beckett would leap across time to "put right what once went wrong". He never had to fix anything that might change the course of history. He helped individuals who had made a bad choice and seen their life head downhill. The thing was, he had no control over the leaping. Everytime he fixed things, he would leap to another situation that needed fixing. Throughout the series, he maintained that all he wanted to do was leap home.

The reason I liked this series so much was Sam was a hero. And he was the kind of hero we could all relate to. He wasn't perfect, but he had a moral code that he stuck to. He always did his best to solve the problems of the people he encountered. He believed in what he was doing.

And it was funny from time to time, too. That helped.

So in the final episode, Sam was told that he had always had the power to leap home. He was subconsciously deciding to keep leaping all over time to solve the problems. If he truly wanted to leap home, all he had to do was ... well, do it.

In the course of that episode, Sam changed the life of his best friend and companion in his leaps (via hologram technology), Al. He fixed it so Al's wife didn't abandon Al when he was a POW.

And then as the episode closed, words appeared on the screen that enraged so many fans of the show.

Sam Beckett never leaped home.

Those who had followed the series for years and knew that Sam had a wife waiting for him were outraged that the happy ending they wanted was never going to happen.

As for me, I thought the ending was perfect. Sam didn't leap home because to do so would have been going against who he was at his core: a hero. There were wrongs left to right and Sam couldn't stop doing what made him who he was. It was a sacrifice, of course, but that's part of heroism.

Heroism has always been a fascinating subject for me. Some of my earliest memories are playing with my older brother John in some sort of war game where we were outnumbered and had to fight against impossible odds to overcome the bad guys. As I grew older and got into roleplaying games, I always gravitated toward the heroic games. My characters were heroes, although as I got even older, flawed heroes became the favorite. Ah, Azael. (There's a few people who read this that will get that reference.) Star Wars' heroic story had a defining influence on my life.

My earliest writing always featured a hero. I wrote this story in 3rd grade about a boxing butterfly. He had to overcome tremendous odds. I mean, really, how many butterflies box, y'know? When I got older, I studied Joseph Campbell's work on hero myths. And actually, the most recent play I wrote dealt with heroism. So why do heroes fascinate me so much?

I suppose putting it into words would sort of be like describing why I love my kids. I just do. It's part of who I am. It may be the defining part.

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Name: Matt
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I am a Dad and a Husband. An Actor. An Administrator. A Hiker. A Writer. Probably a bunch of other things too. Read my blog and you'll find out more.
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