What’s the most annoying trope in books or movies?
I must admit that I am conflicted.
When I was younger, I enjoyed the Dirty Harry movies. Harry Callahan is the lone, morally certain cop who sees what the system cannot or will not see. Bureaucrats, courts, procedures and superiors get in the way. Harry acts. That is part of what makes the trope satisfying.
You want someone to do something. Someone to care. Everyone else seems too cautious, too compromised, too indifferent, or too willing to decide that it is someone else’s problem. Nothing happens. Then one person steps forward.
And sometimes life really is like that. Every now and then an extraordinary individual appears at just the right moment. They have courage, clarity or imagination that others lack. They refuse to accept what everyone else has learned to tolerate. They change things. Thank God for people like that.
But the lone-hero story can also distort reality. It makes courage look solitary. It places one person in the light and leaves everyone else in the shadows.
Yet behind most significant change are unseen people who share the same vision: people who encourage, organise, challenge, support, persist and quietly do the work that allows something larger to happen. The visible person may matter enormously. But they are rarely truly alone.
Perhaps that is why I am conflicted. I still admire the courageous individual. I still want someone to act when everyone else hesitates. But I am less enamoured with the lone hero and more drawn to courageous communities.
The best leaders may not be the people who repeatedly save everyone else. They may be the people whose courage is connected to a committed community.
The Afterword 
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