Phil Coulson once said, “The world is full of evil and lies and pain and death, and you can’t hide from it; you can only face it.” A hero is somebody who faces the evils and lies and pains and deaths with strength and brilliance even through the hardest moments. One example of an ancient hero is Odysseus, who not only has the ability to withstand danger and fear using his valor, but he also has the cleverness to escape death-defying situations. Even though writers created The Hunger Games many years after The Odyssey, the modern day hero, Katniss exhibits the same qualities as Odysseus. As the reader follows the plot of these books, Katniss and Odysseus’ heroic qualities will reveal through their series of misfortunes. Odysseus and Katniss are heroes because they both demonstrate intelligence and courage as they conquer their hardships, which shows importance when heroes needs these traits to survive.
Both Odysseus and Katniss show intelligence in the way they escape life-threatening situations. For example, the cyclops, Polyphemus asks for Odysseus’ name: Odysseus tells him that he is “‘Nobody–that’s my name. Nobody– so my mother and father call me, all my friends” (9.410-411). Tricking the cyclops into thinking that his name is “Nobody” is a very smart move because when Odysseus tries to blind Polyphemus, the cyclops calls for help but when other cyclopses comes to his aid and asks him, “Who is hurting you?” the cyclops ignorantly answers, “Nobody is killing me” which drived the cyclops away.
In a similar fashion, Katniss uses her smartness to destroy the Careers’, tributes who train their whole lives to compete in the games, food supply. Her plan included destroying the Careers supplies while Rue, her ally, diverts their attention with campfires. Both characters demonstrate their cleverness by formulating a tactic and tricking their adversaries. Furthermore, Odysseus conceives a plan that allows him to leave the cyclops island without Polyphemus noticing: he said that he “ lashed [the ram] a breast, quietly. . . he took them three by three; each ram in the middle bore a man while the two rams either side would shield him well” (9.477-480). Odysseus’ brilliance saves him and his crew from death; only a genius can think of a such a simple but well-rounded idea.
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Likewise, Katniss also avoids her death with her quick-witted mind. When she hid in a tree and a group of people planned to kill her, she thought of a plan to drop a nest of tracker jackers, killer wasps, on them. Whether it’s Odysseus escaping from the cyclops’ island or Katniss escaping from the Careers, both of them prevent their deaths with their ingenuity. Without Odysseus and Katniss’ intelligence, neither of them would have been able to survive the many lethal obstacles they had to face.
Odysseus displays courageousness with the risks he takes to save himself and his comrades; in like manner, Katniss also shows courageousness through her actions. For instance, immediately after Eurylochus told Odysseus the news of his comrades disappearing after entering Circe’s palace, Odysseus “slung the heft bronze blade of [his] silver-studded sword around [his] shoulder, slung [his] bow on too . . . [, and he said] ‘I must be off. Necessity drives me on’” (10.287-289, 301).
The author tries to demonstrate how fearless Odysseus acted with his wording in the quote; verbs such as “he slung” his weapons gives the reader an impression of dauntlessness. Odysseus saying that necessity drives him on shows that he puts his obligations of protecting his comrades before protecting himself, and this is an act of courage. Odysseus knew that he could never return with the endless possibilities of things that could go wrong. He even had the chance to escape this fate, but he chose boldness over cowardice and goes to save his comrades despite the risk. Correspondingly, when the announcer choses Prim, Katniss’ sister, to compete in the hunger games, Katniss panicked and volunteered for her sister.
In the same way that Odysseus puts himself in danger to save his comrades, Katniss puts herself, knowing that she will probably die, into a perilous situation to save her dear sister. Even though both character end up escaping their death- sentence, both Odysseus and Katniss basically sentenced themselves to death because of their audacious and heroic personality. Moreover, when the cyclops captured Odysseus and his crew, they knew that their deaths were not afar. Odysseus created a scheme where he would ask his comrades “to brave it out with [him, and] to hoist [their] stake and grind it into [Polyphemus’] eye when sleep had overcome him”(9.371-372).
Blinding the cyclops must have taken Odysseus a lot of bravery to have the nerve to hurt a cyclops who is not only much larger and stronger than him but could also knock him dead like a pup and devour him like a mountain lion. Comparably, at the end of the first book of hunger games, Katniss had to kill Cato. Katniss understood that she had to murder Cato to save her and Peeta’s life; however, this must have been a very frightening experience where she doesn’t want to murder a human being. Odysseus and Katniss use their courage to do things that frighten them in order to save themselves and their allies.
Whether in ancient or modern-day society, Odysseus and Katniss are obviously the classic example of a hero because they retain the two most common ideals of a hero; courage and intelligence. Both these characters have the special capability of facing their fears and utilizing their smartness. Heroes are in our everyday lives. In the end, no matter what a hero does, they always have good intentions. Now, the big question is: for the past thousands of years, the ideals held for heroes have been the same, but will people still have the same standards for heroes in the future?
