Not all heroes wear capes. In fact, not all heroes have cleft chins, granite jawlines, rippling pectorals or any of the other standard hero signifiers. Sometimes you wouldn’t be able to tell a hero if they stood up and slapped you in the face – a pretty unheroic thing to do. But when it comes to being generally unheroic, unassuming, and unqualified, these fantasy protagonists fit the description. Here are the 10 most unlikely fantasy book heroes, the least heroic of them all.
Lyra Belacqua – The Golden Compass
Lyra Belacqua, protagonist of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials doesn’t have a lot going for her. When we meet her at the start of The Golden Compass, she only has two skills: lying and throwing rocks at people. Neither belong on a hero’s LinkedIn resume. However, it’s Lyra’s penchant for rule breaking that leads her on the heroic journey she is totally unworthy of – that and being a child of prophecy of course. After coming across the titular compass with the power to communicate with otherworldly forces, Lyra harnesses her chaotic neutral energy and hurls it at the universe itself – aiming to break the rules of reality, and maybe even kill God in the process.
Grendel – Grendel
Something is very wrong with John Gardener’s Grendel, a retelling of the Norse epic poem Beowulf. For one thing, it’s named after the wrong guy. Grendel puts a famous monster in the driver’s seat of the plot, turning a mythic antagonist into the unlikeliest of fantasy heroes. “Hero” is being charitable, considering that Grendel spends most of his lonely days devouring Vikings and hanging out with his mom. Unlike most of his fantasy protagonist ilk, Grendel’s quest isn’t focused on finding a magic sword or a grail way to defeat the Dark Lord, but on finding existential meaning. Sadly for Grendel, he fails utterly. Perhaps he shouldn’t have spent his time hanging out with a dragon so nihilistic it could depress even Nietzsche, just a thought.
Biblo Baggins – The Hobbit
One of the most famous unlikely protagonists in all of fantasy, Bible Baggins of The Hobbit has absolutely zero business felling giants, slaying dragons, or any of other fantasy hero job descriptors. For one thing, Bilbo is a middle aged man. Not saying that age precludes one from being a protagonist, but he’s starting his hero journey decades later than most. And aside from the ability to chief on a longleaf pipe like a pro, Biblo doesn’t have any particularly impressive skills. Don’t get me wrong, he’s good at riddles, which actually helps him not get devoured by Golum in a cave, but you can’t exactly kill a dragon with a wordplay, can you? The pen is mightier than the sword, sure, but when it comes to sticking something in a dragon’s eye, I’d pick the sword any day.
Empress In-yo – The Empress of Salt and Fortune
Empress In-yo from Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune wasn’t supposed to have a political career, aside from serving as a bride to the Emperor of Pine and Steel in an arranged marriage. She certainly wasn’t meant to overthrow her husband and establish herself as regent of the realm – but she did it anyway. After her rebellious family dynasty was all but destroyed, In-yo was supposed to surrender quietly, but this princess had higher ambitions than serving as the Emperor’s trophy wife. With a little bit of plotting, and a little help from a handmaiden with who she shared a sapphic connection, the princess was able to oust Pine and Steel from power, ushering in the age of Salt and Fortune until the end of her days. The true hero here is power of lesbian love.
Gideon Nav – Gideon The Ninth
Unlike many of the other sorry excuses for fantasy heroes on this list, Gideon the Ninth‘s Gideon Nav at least has some marketable hero skills. Author Tamsyn Muir wrote Gideon to be a gothic jock, a woman who spends her days serving a necromancer’s house by training in the art of the sword (and reading nudie mags on her off hours). When she’s asked by her handler Harrowhark to accompany her to a spooky mansion to compete in a series of necromantic trials in order to ascend to undead godhead, she says “$%&^ it, we ball.” The problem is, Gideon Nav isn’t qualified to serve as the warrior bodyguard to necromancer royalty – she doesn’t know how to use a fancy rapier and she has the table manners of a yam. Gideon the Ninth‘s murder mystery plot calls for finesse, and using Gideon to help solve it is like using a jackhammer to build a ship in a bottle. Maybe not the best tool for the job.
Patroclus – The Song of Achilles
The unlikely hero of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles Patroclus wasn’t supposed to amount to much. The firstborn son of a minor Greek king, Patroclus spent most of his early days serving as a disappointment to his overbearing father. After he was sent away when his dad had no more use for him, young Patroclus made an unlikely friend of Achilles – yeah, the demigod. As the pair aged, their boyhood bond deepened into passionate romantic love, which kept right on burning through the brutal Trojan War. Achilles’ goddess mother wasn’t a fan of their love, no divine son of hers should have been dating a mortal, but Achilles didn’t care. We don’t always choose who our parents want to be our partners, and that’s usually a good decision.
Rin – The Poppy War
The hero of The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang is about a girl destined to amount to nothing, a war orphan from the poorest of her nation’s provinces. No one expects anything of her, except her aunt and uncle who make her run their shop and push opium on the side. When Rin sees an opportunity to take the Keju, an entrance exam that will allow her into her nation’s top military academy, she jumps. The problem is, most of her more well-off competitors have spent their entire lives studying for the test. Rin has to cram decades worth of knowledge into her noggin in less than half that time. When she passes the exam, her situation hardly improves. She’s forced to spar against noble children with a lifetime of martial arts experience – how the hell do you compete with that? By taking drugs with the weird teacher and learning to conjure gods, that’s the only way. And that’s exactly what Rin does.
Twig – The Edge Chronicles
The hero of Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell’s Beyond The Deepwoods should have died on page 3. An orphan child living in one of the most dangerous forests in all of the continent-sized precipice he calls home, young Twig wasn’t meant to survive. The Deepwoods is home to man-eating animals, man-eating plants, man-eating everything – nearly every living thing in this cursed forest is carnivorous. And the unliving things, those are even worse. One of Twig’s foes is the deadly Gloamgloazer, a cursed shape-changer that drifted in from the void beyond. It’s a ghost, an alien, an eldritch horror construct – far more than any adolescent child is prepared to deal with. But Twig deals, and somehow lives to tell The Edge Chronicles‘ tale.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock – How To Train Your Dragon
Being woefully unqualified for traditional heroism is the entire plot of Cressida Cowell’s How To Train Your Dragon. Despite his threatening-to-pronounce name, the son of Viking warlord Stoic the Vast isn’t much to look at. Built like a dragon’s toothpick, no one thinks that the skinny Hiccup will be able to conquer flying reptiles like any good Viking should. But instead brawn to subdue dragons, Hiccup uses brains instead. With a little bit of training, Hiccup discovers that nearly any dragon can be turned from foe to friend – making him one of the most unexpected and celebrated heroes on this list.
Sophie Hatter – Howl’s Moving Castle
Faced with the circumstances of Sophie Hatter, protagonist of Diana Wynn Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle, most of us would have thrown in the towel. For the crime of minding her business, young Sophie was cursed to inhabit the body of an old person by the nasty Witch of the Wastes. Rather than check herself into a retirement home, this 20-turned-80-something hat maker journeys out into the wilderness to seek the help of the great wizard Howl. Successfully putting the romantic moves on a person 50 odd years younger than you is no small feat, but Sophie manages to charm Howl despite now being old enough to be his grandmother. Nevertheless, her youthful spirit shines through, allowing her to break the curse and win Howl’s hot wizard heart. Pop off, queen.
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