By Jason Borrego
Favorite Book Characters
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. The little ones have to punch a little hard, the larger ones need to learn to be humble. Some of the best heroes are heavily flawed and riddled in mental anguish. The Lord of Rings showed us that the smallest of heroes can simply walk into Mordor and the save the world. The magic of friendship in Harry Potter allows the boy of destiny to face his fears. The desire to find the Dark Tower drives Roland past the brink of sanity. All of our favorite heroes struggle to achieve the impossible. Katniss Everdeen takes the place of her little sister out of love. All of these fictional characters change the world, but it isn’t without sacrifice. In the Walking Dead all of the characters struggle with the frightening reality of day-to-day survival. These are the heroes that stay with us for a lifetime. In A Game of Thrones Ned Stark stays true to his honor to the very end, and unlike many other happy endings loses his head.
Warriors are not afraid of filthy giants or cunning sorcerers. Sometimes it takes the heart of a child to save a sinking kingdom. The heroes in my books are pointing fingers and calling out names. Some authors build up characters to kill them in a climatic ending. I prefer to torture them along the way. This brings out their true colors and in the end I leave it to the reader to decide if death would have been an easier option. Blind faith, grit, and gut wrenching agony is the best way to bring out the best in heroes and heroines. They will face so many dreadful situations in the Mutant World of Rite that it will leave the reader on the edge of her or his seat. My characters are checkmated. How will they respond? The power of a story has the ability to transform a reader, lift them up, make them smile, summon tears, teaches valuable lessons, and most of all give the reader a ride till the very end. My aim is to teach, encourage, and inspire in hopes of creating a stepping stone to the readers own life. it makes us who we are, and defines how we survive. It makes us strong, it humbles us, and leads us to many truths.
Below is an awesome parallel to the struggle many of our favorite heroes have been forced to endure and why its important.
The Story of the Butterfly:
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared.
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours
as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole.
Then it stopped, as if it couldn’t go further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and
snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon.
The butterfly emerged easily but
it had a swollen body and shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch it,
expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge
and expand enough to support the body,
Neither happened!
In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around.
It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness
and haste did not understand:
The restricting cocoon and the struggle
required by the butterfly to get through the opening
was a way of forcing the fluid from the body
into the wings so that it would be ready
for flight once that was achieved.
Sometimes struggles are exactly
what we need in our lives.
Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us.
We will not be as strong as we could have been
and we would never fly.