antihero

I have an ancestor who, like a few of my ancestors, lived in Louisiana during the Civil War. This relation, though, unlike many of his neighbors, did not want to fight for the Confederacy. So, he hid in his chimney. Literally; I'm serious; he hid in his chimney to avoid fighting. True story. One can hardly get more antiheroic than that, can one?

But really, that very uncourageous act did leave a legacy. Because my ancestor chickened out of the Civil War, I get a terribly funny story to tell. And being of a somewhat literary turn I see that the courageous ancestor is quite clearly the protagonist of the story - and that the word protagonist is commonly seen as synonymous with the word hero.

And I can go a bit further and say that some of my ancestors were Confederates, but others were Yankees. Did they fight against each other? Who won - who was the hero? Which side was "them", the antagonists, and which was "us", the protagonists?

The only thing to do is conclude that heroism really is subjective, and that it could be true that heroes do not create their stories, but that the stories make the heroes.