Challenges to a Hero

Submitted by diaskeaus on Wed, 02/15/2006 - 02:18
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  1. Killing an innocent to save many innocents
  2. Turning in a friend who is dangerous to the authorities
  3. Confronting a friend about something serious
  4. Hurting someone who is dangerous, or not hurting them
  5. Being forced to kill anyone
  6. Acting outside your principles
  7. Put under extreme torture / mental trauma
  8. Being exhausted/worn out of physical / mental energies
  9. Being rejected by people who need you
  10. Put into a position of rule
  11. Restraining yourself against false threats
  12. Face extreme odds (lose / win)
  13. Exiled / excommunicated / sent away (to prison)
  14. Losing a comrade or close friend (to nemesis)
  15. Imprisonment
  16. Decent into darkness (cave, house, castle)
  17. Having your name slandered - losing reputation
  18. Your father figure / leader falls (in battle / murdered)
  19. Failure to do job
  20. Failure to protect innocent life
  21. Arriving too late to stop something
  22. Being changed (body / mind)
  23. Cursed (with rage, sanity, personality, madness) / impaired
  24. Can't trust own mind
  25. Source of power distrusted
  26. Father-figure / leader betrays you
  27. Die and resurrection (at a price) (changed)
  28. Apparent helplessness
  29. Invincible enemy (seemingly)
  30. Being born to die (prophecy)
  31. Fated to turn evil - cursed before hour of birth
  32. Turning of great hero to evil
  33. Mysterious, unknowable, uncombatable enemy
  34. Enemy made of pure chaos
  35. Evil that hates everything (and doesn't hate anything)
  36. Coldly pragmatic villain
  37. Your lover betraying you (another person) (kills you)
  38. Forced to choose between two evils
  39. Forced unwanting into a war
  40. Enemy vastly more intelligent than hero
  41. Hero is afraid
  42. Trying to clear a bad name / reputation
  43. Loss of property/land
  44. Kidnapped and held
  45. Raped or sexually molested
  46. Accused of a crime
  47. Life disappears -- disappear from existence
  48. Thrust into unknown territory
  49. Discover life has been false
  50. Fated to save the world
  51. Always being watched (by a group / sinister person)
  52. Must solve a riddle
  53. Travel through a labyrinth
  54. Loss of memory
  55. Planning a great accomplishment (build, write, paint, etc.)
  56. Discover a new continent
  57. Infected with a disease/sickness
  58. Fated to die soon
  59. Unable to stay in world for long (temporary)
  60. Must lead an army to victory
  61. Forced to lose (battle, war, fight)
  62. Find a lost treasure
  63. Hero stripped of strength / weapon / ability / power
  64. Helping an innocent / wounded creature / person
  65. Trying to get home
Author Comments: 

I can't remember if I put this together or took it from somewhere, but it's a good list. Compiled about five, six years ago.

RosieCotton03/15/2006

Good list. It's fun to think of the many examples for each one.

diaskeaus03/15/2006

I hope it is useful to writers who need some inspiration.

0dysseus03/15/2006

Trying to get home.

...when Poseidon keeps screwing with you.

lbangs03/15/2006

Aethra says you are whining about nothing.

Oh, wait...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

0dysseus03/15/2006

What does a girl have to do to not be raped by a god?

Well played, L. Bangs. Consider your city sacked.

lbangs03/15/2006

Say, "yes," it would seem...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

diaskeaus03/15/2006

Thanks!