Sociosomnia: Orphan heroes 🦹

Y’all, it’s ridiculous how many mythical heroes are orphans: Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Wolverine, etc. Beyond Marvel/DC, we’ve got Harry Potter, Frozen’s Elsa and Anna, Moana’s Maui, Kvothe, Frodo Baggins, even Cinderella, Snow White, Tarzan. As cultural dreams, what do you see this pattern reflecting/project on it?

I see how many of us feel like we don’t have in-built civilizational “parents,” aka Good Role Models to tell us ‘no’ and help us figure out how to be good stewards of our world. How many of the global leaders, celebrities, politicians do you love and trust and look up to? Some, perhaps. But not a majority. We have to find and choose our models, or end up becoming the villains of our stories (like orphans Darth Vader, Magneto, Killmonger). Our world changes too fast in almost every direction (political, information, power) to be able to use what’s come before to help us orient to what's now, much less what's next.

Myths help condense cultural ethics and offer guidance in holistic ways that transcend and include logic. I think the orphan origins of the heroes of our modern myths model for how to still be heroic without “parents.” These orphans have a few different paths: Some first idolize their older mentors and then see them in their complexity (eg: Harry Potter with Dumbledore); some go on to mentor others (eg: Dr. Strange and Iron Man mentor Spiderman); some rely on each other (eg: Anna and Elsa).  Maybe this is just the result of narrative pressure: “Children with exceptional agency and permission” don’t come with parents that often. But I think even ancient orphan heroes, from Moses to Romulus/Remus to King Arthur, came in response to major civilizational transitions—collapses and births—which we’re almost certainly in now.

With love, Jordan