Tragedy

     F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of the Great Gatsby among other things, said "Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."
     Mr. Fitzgerald may have been referring to the foundations of actual heroism in the world, but we do seem to need our fictional heroes to struggle with pain and anguish.  Even the heroes that inhabit our most heightened realities aren't exempt: all the great superheroes origins are steeped in irrevocably lost homelands and dead loved ones.  For better or for worse, it's this struggle that defines them, just as our struggles define us.  In the end, heroism is in how we struggle.