Should your selfish hero consider themself virtuous?

[phaeous]

Your hero doesn't help others unless he profits (gains value)

They solely exert effort when it meets their own dream

They find zeal in worshipping their own ego​

 

[sanitylimited]

all those are solved by adding the glorious harem tag

 

[TheOneWho]

That really depends on the character themselves. Someone can be the most selfish hero who only cares about fame and still save countless lives and consider themself virtuous. While someone just as heroic can only care about their end goals and not see themselves as virtuous.

 

[georgelee5786]

Nope, just right

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Uhhh... SHOULD? No. Could? Sure.

I thought I was virtuous when I was working as a bill collector. They all deserved the horrors I inflicted upon them. They deserved to be punished. I remember the one time I managed to actually have a man's dead mother dug up out of her grave because of a loop hole in her Last Will and Testiment meant the jewelry she was buried with was actually, technically, the debtors.

When we sold it at auction, he still owed a few hundred dollars. So I sent him an updated bill. I added 750 dollars for renting the backhoe, and then I also included:

REATTACHMENT OF CADAVER'S FINGERS: No Additional Charge.

When he finally called me, he was so pissed his voice was three octaves higher than normal. I recorded the call. Loved my final line:

"And when you come down to my office to kill me, BRING YOUR CHECKBOOK BECAUSE YOU STILL OWE OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS!"

That was the first, and only time I ever heard someone Smash their phone. I mean it. Everyone in the office listened to the recording and we all laughed and laughed as we tried to figure out if he only threw his phone, or was actually jumping up and down on it.

...

Yeah... 30 years ago I was f'in evil.

But I thought I was the good guy.

 

[Tyranomaster]

It entirely depends on the tone you are trying to set. Either works.

 

[TotallyHuman]

One is virtuous for following the decree of God.

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

What are they, virtue signaling?

 

[HelloHound]

not unless they're full of themselves no

 

[phaeous]

One is virtuous for following the decree of God.

"I am my own God." -Pious Selfish Hero

not unless they're full of themselves no

I mean... are you doubting it? They're overflowing with themself

That really depends on the character themselves. Someone can be the most selfish hero who only cares about fame and still save countless lives and consider themself virtuous. While someone just as heroic can only care about their end goals and not see themselves as virtuous.

But, this individual considers themself a virtuous hero because they cherish their own Happiness as the standard defining what makes their struggle worth it

They'll save their own world, but shan't sacrifice on your behalf - unless you are sacred in the realm o their own unique interest

What are they, virtue signaling?

"I honored my exclusive convictions with integrity; praise me" -Genuinely Earnest & Sincere VirtueSignaling Hero

It entirely depends on the tone you are trying to set. Either works.

They are setting the tone that in fiction and in Life, they are virtuous because their can achieve their own values.

Uhhh... SHOULD? No. Could? Sure.

I thought I was virtuous when I was working as a bill collector. They all deserved the horrors I inflicted upon them. They deserved to be punished. I remember the one time I managed to actually have a man's dead mother dug up out of her grave because of a loop hole in her Last Will and Testiment meant the jewelry she was buried with was actually, technically, the debtors.

When we sold it at auction, he still owed a few hundred dollars. So I sent him an updated bill. I added 750 dollars for renting the backhoe, and then I also included:

REATTACHMENT OF CADAVER'S FINGERS: No Additional Charge.

When he finally called me, he was so pissed his voice was three octaves higher than normal. I recorded the call. Loved my final line:

"And when you come down to my office to kill me, BRING YOUR CHECKBOOK BECAUSE YOU STILL OWE OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS!"

That was the first, and only time I ever heard someone Smash their phone. I mean it. Everyone in the office listened to the recording and we all laughed and laughed as we tried to figure out if he only threw his phone, or was actually jumping up and down on it.

...

Yeah... 30 years ago I was f'in evil.

But I thought I was the good guy.

Damn. I remember tricking that kid on the bus & trading shoddy pokėmon so I could get his EX rare cards,

you & me brotha

 

[zephyrzane]

My most selfish "hero" believes himself virtuous, but his "virtues" are pretty lousy. He thinks he's the most wicked, devious, morally corrupt person. But truthfully, he's just kind of a lonely kid trying to be a badass.

 

[Vnator]

Uhhh... SHOULD? No. Could? Sure.

I thought I was virtuous when I was working as a bill collector. They all deserved the horrors I inflicted upon them. They deserved to be punished. I remember the one time I managed to actually have a man's dead mother dug up out of her grave because of a loop hole in her Last Will and Testiment meant the jewelry she was buried with was actually, technically, the debtors.

When we sold it at auction, he still owed a few hundred dollars. So I sent him an updated bill. I added 750 dollars for renting the backhoe, and then I also included:

REATTACHMENT OF CADAVER'S FINGERS: No Additional Charge.

When he finally called me, he was so pissed his voice was three octaves higher than normal. I recorded the call. Loved my final line:

"And when you come down to my office to kill me, BRING YOUR CHECKBOOK BECAUSE YOU STILL OWE OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS!"

That was the first, and only time I ever heard someone Smash their phone. I mean it. Everyone in the office listened to the recording and we all laughed and laughed as we tried to figure out if he only threw his phone, or was actually jumping up and down on it.

...

Yeah... 30 years ago I was f'in evil.

But I thought I was the good guy.

What the fuck?
If this is the beginning to a story, you have me hooked as the biggest asshole I've ever met in my life!

 

[Anon2024]

Depends on how you define virtue.

 

[phaeous]

Depends on how you define virtue.

I define virtue as an objectice law governing value-production

 

[Anon2024]

I define virtue as an objectice law governing value-production

I define it as subjective view of “good character”

 

[nowme_cres]

Your hero doesn't help others unless he profits (gains value)

They solely exert effort when it meets their own dream

They find zeal in worshipping their own ego​

Depends on what they are fighting for

 

[Rhaps]

Your hero doesn't help others unless he profits (gains value)

They solely exert effort when it meets their own dream

They find zeal in worshipping their own ego​

These sentences described my MC perfectly. She's selfish af, petty, and has an ego, not to the point of worship but close. She knows she's not virtuous, but she doesn't care, as long as she's having fun everyone else can suffer.

 

[K5Rakitan]

It depends on your code of ethics.

People who don't love themselves at all tend to do shitty things to others because they don't know how to love.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

If this is the beginning to a story, you have me hooked as the biggest asshole I've ever met in my life!

Dude.

I have thought about it. Telling the stories of the hay-day of collections. It's changed. But yeah, the shit we pulled back in the day. Man. I mean, people went to federal PRISON. I wanted to make a sit-com about it. I called it "PAID IN FULL". Basically Taxi meets the Office in a collection agency.

The last episode would be on 9/11. Everyone sitting around, making jokes as the towers fall. The MC calling the debtors in NYC and not getting anywhere because all the phone lines are jammed. One of his co-workers runs out of the office crying and nobody else understands what the big deal is. Then the MC discovers his client's main office was in the towers as the planes hit. His first thought would be, "Damn. This is going to affect my bonus check, isn't it?"

At the end of the shift he's driving home and he wonders, "Am I Evil?"

And that'd be the fade out.

Because... that was the point I started to figure out I was evil.

As a side note...

I find it disturbing the trend in modern media to basically make fun of heroism and promote MCs who are basically selfish.

The problem is, good times lead to soft men and soft men lead to hard times.

I was evil. I hated everyone and I wanted nothing more than to destroy the world and burn everyone alive in it. I was a bundle of unfocused rage and I tortured people. legally. But I tortured them. I made thousands, tens of thousands suffer. Hell, If we go with the legal proofs I developed and the programs I wrote to automate the whole process of making people hurt for profit... well...

Let's just say I hope that there is no karma, because otherwise there is a very special place in Hell for me.

Not everyone comes back. Not everyone who jumped into the Abyss can find their way back out. I think I am stronger for it. I think I have a much more keen and sharp sense of right and wrong than most. I no longer try to help people to "make up for past wrongs." That's insane. Would you STOP doing the right thing just because you finally "balanced the ledger"?

You should do the right thing because it is better to leave this world better than you found it.
Being heroic is a million small things and being a hero is not something to be mocked. It isn't lame. Being a good man and doing good deeds is it's own reward. Trust me. Being able to sleep at night is a wonderful thing. Don't ever do anything you can't live with that will come back to haunt you.

We like to pretend we could be evil and cruel. We like reading stories about Anti-Heroes or Anti-Villains or just straight up villains because there is an appeal to burning it all down and starting over. But do you really think you could come up with a better world than the one that has been hard won through 12,000 years of civilization?

Of course you do. Because we all ask, Why doesn't The Batman Just Shoot The Joker? How many lives would he be saving if he had just done that?

Because the moment he does that, the moment he crosses that line, you need to draw a new line. Can you live with THAT line you will never cross? What about the Joker -1? Do you shoot him? How about Joker but only 4% of the original? Where do you stop shooting people? It's hard to understand for most people, because most people have never crossed the line. Most people never said, "Fuck It." and did whatever popped into their head while lying to themselves that "They're just ahead of the curve."

I drew the line at never breaking the law. It's amazing how evil you can be, legally. But I watched many people ignore that rule and wind up in prison. Eventually I lost the rage and got to see my past actions through eyes not blinded by rage.

I guess it's why I write about heroes.

Its far better people just were good from the get-go, instead of having to find out the hard way, like I did.

 

[phaeous]

It depends on your code of ethics.

People who don't love themselves at all tend to do shitty things to others because they don't know how to love.

》Before you can say "I love you" you must first know the word 'I'《

Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

"To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love—because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone."

Ayn Rand, The Virtue Of Selfishness