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    In response to question 7 on page 420, Sammy makes a good example of the supposed hero character, defined by his youth, values, and his need to protect. He, as a character, seemed to apply to the molds and found himself within a world that he felt needed saving, a world full of monsters that needed a hero to come and make things okay.

    Unfortunately, and where I feel this breaks the mold, I’m hesitant to call Sammy a hero in any sense at all. In fact, his views of monsters and villains seems mostly to be imaginary, a self-important view that he applies to the world around him. Because he applies to the traditional views of a hero, he seems to believe that this makes him one. By degrading those around him into stereotypes and images, he makes himself stand out amongst them, the beacon through the fog. I wouldn’t call Sammy a monster, but more that he’s misunderstanding his place in the world, and too quick to assume he stands out more than he does.

    The character of Sammy is first introduced as he steps into the store to start his day, donning his plain uniform and blending in with the environment. He seems to know, however, that he’s different. He’s a sort of hero in disguise, though uncertain as to how he’s going to save the world. Sammy, in his need to be a hero, alters the world around him into one of fantasy to make it more available for him to play hero. By his own world views, he’s surrounded by sheep, unaware and uncaring of the world around them. The blind masses move forward day by day, with no meaning to their life other than to wander the floors of the local grocery store. While this is not the actual reality of the situation, he seems to look at them with some disdain, believing them to be little more than the background characters that have no background or meaning to them, other than to fill space. These are the people the run from the villains and thank the hero, but otherwise have no significance.

    But what is a superhero without a victim to save? Sammy felt the need to be a hero, and found his escape in the girls that came into the store. Immediately upon seeing the girls, he saw them standing out clearly in the crowd. He picked out one in particular, the obvious perfect “queen”, someone that met his ingrained definition of the girl who needs saving. He wanted to somehow introduce himself, to bring these two characters, his hero and victim, together. If he became a hero, if he saved her, she would feel indebted to him. She would love him, or at least he thought so.

    What Sammy needed last was a villain, a monster of sorts to triumph over and save the girl from. Since he was the young protagonist, he needed an older antagonist to make his hero belief complete. When his boss came up to tell the girls that their clothes were inappropriate, he found the threat to defend them from. With his behavior and lack of care about the blank masses, it doesn’t seem that he would normally care about such a thing, about whether or not his boss embarrassed people for violating some stupid rules. But in this case, Sammy—the young, overlooked boy—had everything he needed to become the hero he wanted to be. His boss suddenly became a monster, and Sammy a hero, when he stepped in to defend the girl.