9 - Heroism

Summary

HEROISM IS A perennial theme in Norse medievalist children's fiction. It is sometimes linked with violent versions of Viking masculinity, as in Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore's Viking Blood (2007). This book forms part of the Choose Your Own Adventure franchise in which the reader is addressed in the second person and required to make choices at the end of each section to create their own narrative. The options in are, in fact, usually limited and prescriptive, and Viking Blood is no exception, for the Vikings here are synonymous with violence and vengeance and the reader is forced to fall in line. If the reader chooses not to make what the narrative codes as the heroic choice, the character is killed again and again. To be a “hero,” and survive the narrative, the reader must make “courageous” choices, fight valiantly in order to avenge the character's people and gain gold. The novel is perhaps a distillation of traditional ideas of what (Viking) masculinity is and entails, in part a legacy of the Victorian and early twentieth-century novels reviewed in the introduction.

Masculinity is considered in more detail in the following chapter: the first in a series of chapters focused on issues of identity formation such as gender and sexuality. However, heroism can also be delineated via an exploration of ideas of the past and a rejection or reconsideration of heroic values. This is done in a complex and meditative way in Jonathan Stroud's Heroes of the Valley, and an alternative Hero's Journey is also at the centre of Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon series.

Heroes of the Valley

At the outset of Heroes of the Valley (2009), heroism seems to be a glorious thing of the past, but a rekindled blood feud inspires the protagonist Halli to embark upon an epic adventure in which he learns that heroism may be in the eye of the beholder. The book starts with, and each chapter is prefaced by, an account of the actions of the hero of old, Svein, told in classic saga style. However, here, Svein's prowess is directed against the fantasy monsters, the Trows, described as a kind of mud or earth monster, who threaten the valley.