THE UNLIKELY HERO

Between the hero and the villain, there's a whole other individual that wins the battle (and the heart)

- PRATIKSHA ACHARYA

Everyone loves the idea of a cookie-cutter world where the hero reigns supreme and the villain always gets the short end of the stick. As far as we all know, that’s how most fairytales go, and given the steady diet of action movies that we have all grown up with, can a superhero ever be wrong in anyone’s eyes? That these superheroes have shades of grey and traumatic pasts (we are obviously talking about Batman, duh), is normal – as long as they are the ones who save the world and get the girl at the end of the day. Standard action movie plot, and it seems to work almost every single time.

But what happens when the alleged superhero turns out to have more than just a few shades of grey? Well, The Boys eminently told us about the perils of the deadly combination of authority, power, and invincibility. Let’s be real: Would you ever date a power-hungry Homelander, or worse, the Deep, who has an unexplainable relationship with marine life? The answer to that should be a resounding no, of course. So, if you can’t be the Lois Lane to someone’s Superman or the Harley Quinn to someone’s Joker, then what does your dating pool look like?

That’s where the normal guy comes in. He can’t possibly save you from harm’s way when there is a 4000 kilo truck hurtling towards you, and he probably doesn’t have a torturous past that turned him into a brooding bad boy who you so desperately want to fix, but he can give you stability, mental peace, and a loving relationship. So, why do women shy away from men who can give them all that without having to take an onslaught of bullets?