I read a great post by Kate Griffin on why she tends to write male heroes more than female heroes. It's an interesting post, but there's one aspect I'd like to highlight: 

All this is rather tied up with my notion of what a hero is. I personally can’t stand any ‘heroic’ character who, when faced with an epic evil has any reaction other than ‘oh Christ, can we get someone else to deal with this?’ Heroes should be frightened, and make mistakes, and get things wrong, and try to compensate for all of the above by something more interesting than being overtly Strong and Brave...

I find it interesting because it ties in with something I've noticed recently in a show I've been watching. When I was little, I adored the show MacGyver (so much so, it seems, that my name is permanently associated with it in the mind of a friend of mine.) I've been on a bit of a kick with rediscovering shows I loved when I was younger, and have been devouring the DVD sets the past few weeks. And aside from some hilariously inexplicable plot holes that reveal just how sophisticated TV audiences have become in twenty years, I foudn something interesting.

In a lot of ways, Mac's a typical Hollywood hero of the 80's: more-virtuous-than-thou do-gooder who hates violence, guns, war, drugs, things that destroy the environment and anything else kids these days shouldn't be getting into. He doesn't drink, smoke or swear (I honestly heard the guy say "Gosh darn it" one time. Along with "I don't give a rat's pajamas".) has a token flaw (fear of heights) and always wins the day. 

What's interesting is how they've treated the concept of bravery in the show. Now, Mac's a pretty brave guy when the chips are down - when something needs to be done to save others, he does it. And he won't crack under the threat of torture (it's PG, there's very little actual torture.), especially if that involves Betraying His Country. He (usually) keeps his cool in trouble.

But he's not 'brave' in the way current Hollywood heroes are - that unflinching, you-can't-scare-me macho bravado. Mac will flinch. He'll cringe back and yelp "Don't hit me!" to the bouncer, throw his arms up over his face with a yell when a bomb detonates. He doesn't want to do risky things, and routinely refuses to get drawn into danger (until, of course, he has to go in to bail someone else out.) He acts in a way that most men probably wouldn't even admit to, and would lambast one another or weeks if they ever caught them.  In short, while he is brave, he doesn't act brave. And that makes a huge difference.

Someone who isn't scared of anything, who shows no fear, is impressive, yes. In a movie, we'll sit and watch as Bruce Wayne becomes the fearless Batman, because we're watching story shorthand - a movie has about as much room for character and plot as a short story - maybe 10,000 words. We have to take shortcuts or movies would go for weeks. But shortcuts don't work in literature.

In literature, someone without fear becomes wholly unempathetic. Monotonous. We don't connect with them, because they're not really a person anymore. They're a plot mechanism, a machine. Fear is a vital human quality, and removing it totally makes for a characterture.  If they're not afraid of the stakes, why should I, the reader, care what happens? You need fear in order to show bravery.

Other flaws with the show and character aside, I think MacGyver's treatment of a character's bravery makes for a much more human hero. It follows the classic rule of characterisation - the overt characteristics are contradictions of the 'real' character inside. 

Or perhaps it just makes him closer to what we'd like to think of ourselves - probably likely to yelp, duck, cringe and run until it really really matters, when we'll hold our nerve.