Tropes in horror movies

Horror tropes in audio

Before I talk about the audio tropes in horror movies, audio dramas and audiobooks, it’s important to explain two terms our film studies professors often used in their classes, especially during film analysis. Namely, when talking about sound in movies, there are two kinds: diegetic sound and non-diegetic sound. I guess the simplest way to explain the difference is as follows:

• Diegetic or intra-diegetic sound: sounds you perceive as an audience that the characters hear as well.
• Non-diegetic or extra-diegetic sound: sounds you perceive as an audience that the characters don’t hear.

An example of the first would be a dripping tap in the room or music being played on the radio. An example of the latter would be the music score or a narrative voice-over. I see no reason why these terms could not apply to dramatized audiobooks and audio dramas as well, since they also apply to narrators in novels.

Sometimes, a director who is very aware of these types of sound, will play with them to misdirect the audience. For example: there could be music in a scene that appears to be supporting the events occuring, but then the camera slowly reveals that the music is, in fact, coming from a speaker in the room.

I’ll come back on these terms later in this article, while I highlight 10 creepy horror tropes in audio.

1) Trickling water

I’ve already mentioned it in some visual horror tropes that have stuck with us from horror movies: dark water. Water remains a mysterious substance. I once went parasailing and I thought the scariest thing about it was actually not the height at all, but slowly getting closer to the black water surface, knowing you would eventually sink into the ocean before swimming to the boat, not knowing what was swimming underneath you. Water has a tendency to get where nothing else can get. That mysterious vibe causes us to, often subconciously, plant it in horror stories, like the sewers and the rain in Stephen King’s IT (2017). Since he’s righteously called the king of horror, I’m certain King’s namedropping is up for at least one sequel in this article.

Trickling water reminds us of so many visual tropes in horror: a dripping or running tap in hauted houses, mysterious sewers, dark puddles that often cast scary reflections, abandoned swimmingpools, silhouettes of murderers in the rain, suicides in the bathtub, lake monsters or scary creatures that wait at the end of the stream, blood, sweat and tears, …

Therefore, the mere sound of trickling water is enough to put us on edge.

2) Creepy fair or circus music

Since I’ve already mentioned IT, it’s only fair to introduce the creepy fair and circus music at this point, especially when some distortion or doppler effect is added. Turning something innocent and fun associated with childhood into something horrible is a trope that horror writers and directors eagerly embrace. It’s the contrast that makes it so scary.

There are many other examples, besides the adaptations of Stephen King’s IT, where this kind of music makes an important contribution to the atmosphere. There is the 1982 movie The Funhouse, Final Destination 3 (2006) and Willy’s Wonderland (2021).

As an audiovisual trope the fair, or the theme park or carnival, is a popular location for the main character to blend in with the crowd during a chase scene. Therefore, it is also commonly used in action movies or thrillers.

Circus or carnival music also commonly occurs in horror to suggest there is, surprisingly, still some life in a carnival that’s been abandoned for years.

3) Children singing

Nothing brings chills to your spine like children singing. Since the dawn of the horror genre, children’s songs have crept into movies and audioplays. Playground songs tend to be most efficient. The Dark Water (2005) trailer featurs the Itsy Bitsy Spider song, which is a very popular choice for horror movies. And you’ll possibly recognize the following countdown rhyme as well, which is often sung:

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, 

Catch a tiger by the toe. 

If he hollers, let him go, 

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

Children are associated with innocence and honesty and are believed to be closer to the spiritual realm since they tend to be less rational or critical. That’s why children singing about an event that has occured in the past or that will occur in the future, give us the jeepers. The same is true for children’s drawings as a visual trope.

The movie Poltergeist (1982) was able to conjure up the right atmosphere with an eerie opening theme, sung by children.

Perhaps one of the most well-known children’s playground songs is the one from the horror classic A Nightmare on Elmstreet, featuring a teenage Johnny Depp who gets reduced to a fountain of blood in his sleep. That movie and its inferior sequels had me haunted and amused at the same time as a child. Me and one of my childhood best friends used to obsess over it all the time (that and Mario Kart).

We love this audio trope so much that I wrote ‘The Song of the Bogwitch’ for The Beast of the Western Wilds. It’s a song about a creepy legend that children sing in the Western Wilds and that gives the main character, Ludlov, some insight into how to solve the problems of the people of Schnertwald. For our next audiobook, which will be even darker than that one, I wrote another song, this time a traditional playground song that honours Freddy Krueger’s song:

One, two, Freddy’s coming for you.

Three, four, Better lock your door.

Five, six, grab your crucifix.

Seven, eight, Gonna stay up late.

Nine, ten, Never sleep again…

Another reason why children’s voices are so often used in horror is because they tend to be high-pitched and high-pitched sounds tend to be creepy. Think about the pizzicato sounds that often found their way into the X-Files episodes (especially whenever creepy crawlies were involved) the iconic shower scene music in Psycho (1960), or the unsettling screeching of nails or a blade.

4) Humming man / whistling man

If children’s voices don’t creep you out, then the humming or whistling man will! It was possibly the creepiest element of the recent Five Nights at Freddy’s movie (2023) with Josh Hutcherson. Having an evil murderer sing or hum a recognizable tune, is an efficient way to let your audience know that he’s coming.

The first season of True Detective (2014) worked this trope brilliantly into the detective story starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Murderer Errol Childress makes his presence known by whistling a song that reminds most of ‘Kingdom of Gold’ by Mark Knopfler. Another example is the wolf representing death in the most recent Puss in Boots movie: The Last Wish (2022). He keeps whistling the same tune over and over again, announcing his presence and creating a chilling feeling of anticipation.

In 2022 director Sova Black seems to have created an ode to this trope with his movie The Humming Man. I haven’t watched it and I have no idea what the plot is about, but I’m guessing it involves a humming man.

This concept of the humming man is no more than an example of a noise or sound that forebodes a threat. In this way, it is not different from the ticking noise notifying Captain Hook of the arrival of the crocodile in Disney’s Peter Pan (1953).

5) Silence

If noises fail to scare the audience, it’s not hard to jump to the opposite: the complete absence of any sound at all: silence. Stripping a scene or sequence in a movie, a dramatized audiobook or an audio drama of all (background) sound is often a way to build tension. The audience will notice this void in the soundscape and will want to fill it in order to make sense of the events.

A man who truly understood the power of silence, is John Krasinski, the director and co-writer of A Quiet Place (2018). You may know him as the actor who plays the charming Jim Halpert in the American version of The Office (2005-2013) and the title role in the most recent Jack Ryan series (2018-2023) inspired by the novels of Tom Clancy.

Krasinski also directed Part 2 of A Quiet Place, which Domien and I considered a worthy sequel. The story is about a family consisting of a loving father, his pregnant wife, a deaf-mute daughter and two sons, who have to survive an invasion of alien monsters with very sensitive hearing. If you want to learn more about this movie: we talk about it extensively in our latest Podcast about aliens:

[If you want a recap: we can confirm that we think this is one of the best horror movies from the past ten years. This year, A Quiet Place: Day One will come out. It will be an entire movie about the day the invasion started. I’m curious about it, but my expectations aren’t too high, since the story revolves around different characters than the ones we already got to know and love and this sequel will be directed by Michael Sarnoski, although John Krasinski still remains one of the writers.]

The use of silence is especially popular in movies with a postapocalyptic vibe, like World War Z (2013) with Brad Pitt and Bird Box (2018) starring Sandy B (Sandra Bullock).

6) Organic sounds

From the sound of silence we move on to the sounds of the body and other organic sounds, from the classic heavy breathing and increased heartbeat to cracking bones. Who doesn’t remember the sound of the 180° spin of Regan’s head in The Exorcist (1973) or the moment Annie Wilkes breaks Paul Sheldon’s bones in the 1990 movie adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery starring Kathy Bates. The latter is probably one of his most disturbing novels and to this day, one of my favourite King books.

Organic sounds also occur where intestines are ripped out, when creatures are dissected or, in the case of Alien (1979), when a parasitic extraterrestrial brutally forces itself out of the host’s body. Are you still hungry?

7) Abstract extra-diegetic sounds

Almost all succesful horror productions do this: they add abstract sounds that cannot be heard by the characters. Their only function is to increase the tension or the scare-effect. Of coures, natural sounds are often amplified to reach the same goal, e.g. magnifying the sound of a blazing furnace or naturally creaking door. But with extra-diegetic or non-diegetic sounds, you can make people jump from their seat. A good example is the typical thud to support a jump scare, that often occurs manifold in modern horror trailers, like the trailer of Bloodline Killer (2024), a recent Halloween killer movie that I haven’t watched yet.  

The thud is not caused by anything in the scene; it’s just there to bring about an extra (intense) shock of terror.

8) Mechanical sounds

In contrast to organic sounds, mechanical sounds can be pretty creepy too. Think about the iconic tripod horn in War of the Worlds (2005). Also, in Five Nights at Freddy’s, you can hear the clinging of the cogs and whirring of the gears in the automatons when they walk, warning the audience that they are moving.

Metal and machinery gives us a feeling of unrest, because it often reminds us of complicated mechanisms that we don’t fully understand. Especially when robot-like technology starts displaying human-like behaviour, we get freaked out. As organic beings we also fear the strength of technology. Like scissors beats paper, metal beats flesh in almost every slasher horror. This explains the success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) movie, or rather: movies. The buzzing blades of Leatherface’s chainsaw, Freddy Krueger’s knives, the lawnmower in Sinister (2012), the whizzing of the circular saw in the 4th episode of the Amazon Fallout series, … It’s similar to the ominous mechanical sounds that announce the arrival of a synth or dangerous robot in Fallout 4 (2015) and that will find their way in many AI- and robotics-inspired movies and series in the future.

9) Artificial voices

Artificial voices are creepy as hell, especially if that’s where they come from. Whether it’s Regan from the original Exorcist (1973) movie foul-mouthing the priest or a talking doll like Chucky, Annabelle, or Megan; computer-modified and obvious AI-voices tend to be scary. And I would argue that even the subtle feeling of something a bit unnatural or ‘off’ in a voice can make you anxious, like Ava’s tone in Ex-Machina. It doesn’t matter if the software made the voice higher-pitched or lower-pitched. As soon as we noticed a natural voice has been tempered with, it scares us because it suggests the presence of something inhuman or unnatural.

10) Tempered-with music and sound

Just like we don’t like sound designers to temper with voices, all kinds of distortions in music or sound give us the jitters. Someone singing off key or a record faltering, all things that kind of have an ‘off’ tone are extremely unsettling.

One of the most disturbing examples is the music and chanting in Eyes Wide Shut (1999) by Stanley Kubrick. Especially the chanting in the mansion scene is bone-chilling. Since obviously some kind of satanic ritual is performed, they recorded chanting in an orthodox church and played this backwards. Nothing radiates creepy like audio played backwards. Then the bare notes played during the mysterious chase scenes, slightly off key, are legendary. This suspenseful masterpiece has inspired many audio and audiovisual projects after its release.

Audio jitters, jeepers and creepers

Thank you for sitting through this article and (re)visiting a number of horror classics. If my blogpost gave you the jitters, then my job is done here. If you’re hungry for more, make sure to listen to the first episode of our fantasy horror story, The Beast of the Western Wilds:

What creeps us out in audio is in fact a good subject for our Storytelling Podcast. We might turn this article into an episode. As soon as we do, we’ll make sure to post it here.

Would you like to support our work?

If you would like to support our work so we can create more audio projects, please tell your fantasy loving friends about us, comment on our video’s on YouTube, like and subscribe to our channel. Since we are not very present on social media, we always appreciate you sharing our posts or stories on your profile. And, of course, we love to read your reviews of our audiobooks / novels on Goodreads.

If you have a blooming YouTube channel and you would like to interview us or cooperate in any other way, feel free to contact us.

Join us on Patreon

Public launch

Our public launch was four days later on Sunday the 21st. It was probably not the best idea to launch on a Sunday, but we just wanted to launch soon after the pre-launch on Wednesday and still have some time to review our tiers and goals.

As soon as we made our Patreon reward system known to our YouTube community 8 people joined us as patrons on that very same day. [edit: 7 of them are still with us 2 years later]

Step 1…

Our Patreon page is the first step in finding proper financial support to help us create more content. I work fulltime as a freelance copywriter and voice-over and Domien works part-time as an assistant librarian in a law firm. He’s also a part-time sound editor and voice-over. Moreover we’re both parents to two amazing little boys who need and deserve a lot of our attention.

Being a small entrepreneur in Belgium is a big struggle. It’s expensive and the paperwork is boring and time consuming. Belgium is a very tax heavy country.  Needless to say that starting your own business won’t grant you a lot of extra time or resources. But it beats everything else in terms of freedom!

So we use our Patreon earnings to buy us some time, first and foremost. Call us dreamers but we hope we’ll be able to do this full-time one day. We have at least 10 solid story ideas waiting in line to be written and dramatized. Some of them already have detailed plot outlines. Being able to dedicate our lives to creating audio epics would make us better friends, spouses, parents and people. Patreon is step one in achieving that goal.

Accessible to all!

We have thought this over long and hard… And we always wanted to make supporting us accessible. If all of our listeners on YouTube who loved our stories and let us know would support us for a mere $ 1, that would make a big change. So we made it interesting just to be part of the Patreon Community for that amount with exclusive news, polls, fun facts and other content.

Since we know we can’t deliver new story content each month, we made sure we had exclusive merchandise on Patreon. The cut from our profit by the Patreon platform is well worth it as we would feel bad if that kind of loyal support from our listeners didn’t get properly rewarded.

Higher quality

A second reason why we started a Patreon page is because we want to aim for higher quality audio projects with each new release! We can invest the money in new legal sound effects, music and plugins for Adobe Audition.

[edit: We actually did  that and if you compare our most recent pre-Patreon project, The Beast of the Western Wilds, with our most recent post- Patreon project The Treasure of Boneyard Bay, you WILL notice the difference!]

We would also like to invest in uniform professional book covers by an illustrator [edit: not A.I. generated!], maybe even illustrated editions, and create more physical media like mp3 discs or usb drives.

If that sounds great to you, please consider supporting us in any way you prefer. It doesn’t even have to cost you a penny if you have nothing to spare. 

Our dramatized audiobooks

We heard all of these little annoyances and could relate to them. So we started off with a novel and added different voice actors, sound effects and music. We were lucky to have Peter Van Riet for that back then. At first we were considering two narrators: a male and a female narrator. We could alterate narrators each chapter. But in the end we decided that was not a good idea. I love my husband’s narration voice and I could never top that. I also think it would made our stories more confusing. In stead, we kept one narrator and tried to give all characters a different voice, whether by changing ours or by involving other actors. Aside from the narration, Domien did all the male characters and I did all the female voices, and some creatures, where it was appropriate…

Thus, we gradually developed our own method from the first audio dramas Domien created with his friend, Olivier, to the projects we create together as a couple together today. 

We felt we needed chapter devisions to make it clear that a new ‘scene’ or ‘part’ of the story was coming up. So we introduced the iconic transition involving a fragment of Peter’s music before each new chapter. That we, we thought it was clear enough without having to resort to using cheesy jingles or chimes that we often heard in the fairytale cassette tapes we devoured during our childhood.

That’s how Witch Hunter the dramatized audiobook was born. Today is the 7th birthday of the release of its last episode on YouTube.

Potato Potahto

In the audio drama community there are a lot of people who hate narrators, so they refuse to call it audio drama as soon as there is a narrator involved. Since we do understand their point of view, we call it ‘dramatized audiobooks’ if it’s just the novel’s text with at least two voice actors or more, sound effects and music. I believe Bluefax, who narrated The Hobbit, calls it ‘theatrical audiobooks’. And Graphic Audio calls it “a mooovieee iiin yooouuuuur miiiiiiind!” 😀
It’s my favourite medium to enjoy an immersive story IF it is well done.

Still, there are often mix-ups between dramatized audiobooks and audio dramas, since the term “full cast dramatisation” tends to be used for both.

We want to use the term ‘audiobook’ since that’s essentially what it it. This creates the expectation of an 11 to 15 hours (or more) audio project. The term ‘dramatized’ is important to us to indicate it’s not just a ‘reading’ of a novel, but it’s created to fully immerse you in the story by using different character voices, sound effects and music.

Some audiobook lovers argue that the extras are what pulls them out of the story, but we don’t share this, especially with the right balance of voice, sound and music. But after all, it is a very subjective experience. What works best for you, may be very specific and personal.

The philosophy behind creating these audio stories

In the end, what we want to achieve with our stories is just create a world and characters of our own, to entertain people and have them immersed in our stories and setting. We don’t intend to allegorize or shove messages down our audienc’s throat. We just create what we love and like to share this with others. 

In the past, great stories have helped us cope with the toughest situations and pulled us through the roughest patches of our lives. If our stories can do this for our audience, we could not be happier. 

Public launch on Patreon

On Wednesday March 17th, we presented our vision and ideas for a Patreon page to our local business network online, along with a number of international guests, like Jack Ward from the Sonic Society, a very talented audio drama writer and producer from Nova Scotia, Canada. Movie director Tim Yates joined us in that online meeting to watch our presentation and Karim Kromfli, an established voice actor in the audio drama community, who played count Edelhart in The Beast of the Western Wilds. Our accountant, Nele, was also present. She is the one who convinced us to finally put our Patreon idea into practise and out of gratitude, we named two characters after her and her husband Piet in The Treasure of Boneyard Bay.

The public launch of our Patreon page was four days later on Sunday the 21st. It was probably not the best idea to launch on a Sunday, but we just wanted to launch soon after the pre-launch on Wednesday and still have some time to review our tiers and goals.

As soon as we made our Patreon reward system known to our YouTube community 8 people joined us as patrons on that very same day. [edit: 7 of them are still with us 2 years later]

Step 1…

Our Patreon page is the first step in finding proper financial support to help us create more content. I work fulltime as a freelance copywriter and voice-over and Domien works part-time as an assistant librarian in a law firm. He’s also a part-time sound editor and voice-over. Moreover we’re both parents to two amazing little boys who need and deserve a lot of our attention.

Being a small entrepreneur in Belgium is a big struggle, especially for two INFP-Ts. It’s expensive and the paperwork is boring and time consuming. Belgium is a very tax heavy country.  Needless to say that starting your own business won’t grant you a lot of extra time or resources. But it beats everything else in terms of freedom!

So the thing that provides us with the least income, creating our own full-lenght fantasy audiobooks, is what gives us joy and is most fulfilling in our lives. We hope to be able to grow it into a business that will pay for food, our rental appartment, our car and the electricity bills without needing our ‘Clark Kent jobs’ anymore, as Jack Ward puts it superbly. 

Right now, we use our Patreon earnings to pay for our software, sound effects and music. Besides the fact that it would save us a lot of money we really want to stay away from A.I. and support actual creators instead. We have kept our financial support on Patreon more or less steady for the last couple of years [edit: 2024]. Should our amount of Patrons grow, we would love to buy us more time to create.

Call us dreamers but we hope we’ll be able to do this full-time one day. We have at least 10 solid story ideas waiting in line to be written and dramatized. Some of them already have detailed plot outlines. Being able to dedicate our lives to creating audio epics would make us better friends, spouses, parents and people. Patreon is step one in achieving that goal.

Accessible to all!

We have thought this over long and hard… And we always wanted to make supporting us accessible. If all of our listeners on YouTube who loved our stories and let us know would support us for a mere $ 1, that would make a big difference. So we made it interesting just to be part of the Patreon Community for that amount with exclusive news, polls, fun facts and other content.

Since we know we can’t deliver new story content each month, we made sure we had exclusive merchandise on Patreon. The cut from our profit by the Patreon platform is well worth it as we would feel bad if that kind of loyal support from our listeners didn’t get properly rewarded.

Higher quality

A second reason why we started a Patreon page is because we want to aim for higher quality audio projects with each new release! We can invest the money in new legal sound effects, music and plugins for Adobe Audition.

[edit 2023: We actually did  that and if you compare our most recent pre-Patreon project, The Beast of the Western Wilds, with our most recent post- Patreon project The Treasure of Boneyard Bay, you WILL notice the difference!]

We would also like to invest in uniform professional book covers by an illustrator [edit 2024: We did, in fact, have covers made last year, for The Beast of the Western Wilds and The Treasure of Boneyard Bay, by Dragan Ciric (no A.I.!)]. Maybe we could even launch illustrated editions in the future, and create more physical media like mp3 discs or usb drives or new merchandize available for people outside of Patreon…

If that sounds great to you, please consider supporting us in any way you prefer. It doesn’t even have to cost you a penny if you have nothing to spare.

We had an entire discussion about this topic that was quite fun. If you are not in the mood to read and prefer to listen to our ramblings, you can find the podcast here:

First, we want to point out that a lot of protagonists are heroes, but a hero is not a protagonist per se. So, if the question is: “Does being the protagonist make you the hero?”, the answer is simple: “No!” Besides the anti-hero, there are numerous examples of protagonists that are anything but heroic.

Superheroes

The first type of hero that comes to mind is usually the superhero, especially amongst our American readers and listeners. So, is it then that all heroes have a kind of superpower that makes them heroic? Maybe that depends on how you define ‘superpower’.

Which superpowers are out there?

Let’s have look at the superpowers that we can think of:

1) Straight-forward superpowers

You have the straight-forward superpowers like:

• Supernatural speed: The Flash, Dash from The Incredibles
• Superstrength: The Hulk
• Breathing under water: Aquaman, the Argonians in The Elder Scrolls 😉
• Superstretchiness: Elastigirl from The Incredibles

2) More specific, sometimes thematic or far-fetched combos

• Shooting cobwebs from your wrists + extreme agility + superstrength = Spiderman

3) ‘All of the above’ – package-deal random superpowers

• X-ray vision + flying + superstrength + superhearing + superspeed + supernatural way of disquising yourself with a simple pair of glasses = Superman

And then, of course, you also have the cheaters. 😉 They seem to possess superpowers but those are not part of who they are. In fact, they get help from advanced technology. Often, these examples are also supernaturally rich, which is a reason in itself to be worshipped as a hero these days.

4) Superpower by technological add-on

• Iron Man: suit, gadgets
• Batman: suit, gadgets, automobile, motorcycle, helicopter, …
• Captain America: shield

Then you have the hybrids who combine natural abilities with technology. I think one example springs to mind:

• Wolverine: superhealing + advanced technology in the form of metal claws (a kind of Edward Scisserhands-tool to cut hedges and throats all the same)

In any case, with Thor just being plucked out of Germanic and Norse mythology, it’s very likely other superheroes have been inspired by mythological gods and half-gods as well or the heroes from ancient legends. Superpowers can come from anywhere… Superheroes can be born with them, or be genetically modified. If their powers don’t come from magic, they can be inflicted by science or be weird byproducts of experiments or accidents.

Do superpowers make heroes?

This is an interesting question. We have three approaches to make our case that having superpowers is not enough to be considered a hero.

1) There are numerous supervillains, e.g. villains who have superpowers. Conclusion: superpowers don’t make you a hero.

2) Belgian comics feature heroes that don’t have any superpowers and that are quite different from the American superheroes. Conclusion: heroes don’t always have superpowers.

3) The hero is often surrounded by other supporting characters who act like heroes. Conclusion: heroes are not exclusively protagonists. Side-characters or sidekicks can be heroes as well.

1) Supervillains

Supervillains can aquire their powers in a similar way the hero has, e.g. a scientific experiment gone wrong, a venomous bite or revolutionary technology, … This proves that it’s not the superpowers that make the hero, but the hero’s actions and choices.

“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” ~ Batman

Spiderman or superman without their decent upbringing might as well have been Spidervillain and Supervillain. Amazing superpowers or powerful technology in the wrong hands, may trigger selfish evil acts instead of heroism.

• Superman is a hero; Zod is… not.
• Batman certainly makes better use of his riches than Lex Luthor.
• Elastigirl is definitely less scary than the X-files monster from the episode Squeeze.
• And Wolverine and Edward Scissorhands are definitely more cuddly than Freddy Krueger.

Of course, heroes rarely start off as perfect, or you wouldn’t get a very exciting story. They often have a growth arc. They learn and adjust during their hardships. Some might even start off as selfish or have a different motivation that gradually changes. Many superhero movies and series are about the hero’s origin story. Batman Begins (2005) is Bruce Wayne’s journey towards becoming Batman. Smallville is en entire series dedicated to Clark Kent’s upbringing, childhood and especially his teen years until the big moment when he deserves to wear his suit and takes of on his first flight. In the same way, The Treasure of Boneyard Bay is Ludlov’s journey from an initiate in the Witch Hunter Order to earning the hat.

Can’t villains become heroes? Certainly! There are numerous examples. E.g. Megamind and Gru from Despicable Me, two animation movies that came out in the same year (2010). While Megamind gradually becomes the hero after his own hero-creation turns evil and threatens the woman he loves; Gru, after giving new meaning to the expression ‘aim for the moon’ changes his ways for the sake of three orphan girls he really warms up to.

2) Belgian comics

If you assumed all comics featured superheroes, you probably don’t live in Belgium. The Belgian comics are very different from the American comics. Instead of adults, the protagonists are usually children or teens. They are often smart, courageous and virtuous. If characters have a sort of superpower, it’s usually the sidekicks and side-characters.

Common character tropes are: the strong man (e.g. Jerome) and the (nutty) professor (e.g. Gobelijn, Barabas). The first obviously has the physical strength to help the heroes in peril. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the muscles of the story to be on holiday or picking up an award somewhere or visiting grandma, only to turn up at the end to play deus-ex-machina. the latter is the brains of the operation and usually comes up with an intelligent scientific solution, enables traveling over large distances or time travel and is occasionally even the cause of a problem when distracted.

Popular examples of Belgian comic books that honour these tropes are Suske & Wiske, Jommeke and Kuifje (TinTin). American readers might recognize the last comic from Spielberg’s 2011 adaptation.

The protagonists in Belgian comics usually have a gifted pet as a helper as well. Suske and Wiske have Tobias the dog, Jommeke has Flip the parrot and Kuifje has his dog, Bobby. Who knows, maybe the idea of Folkrin subconsciously came from Domien reading comics as a child…

3) Hero-friends or partners

Harry Potter is a great example of a hero. He faces evil despite his fears. Still, that does not mean he has to solve everything by himself. After all, Steve Jobs would have been nothing without Steve Wozniak. Very much like the Belgian comics protagonist, Harry Potter relies on his closest friends, who are very capable. Hermione is the brains and Ron might not be the muscles but he does provide the much needed (often unintentional) comedy during the obstacles and hardships our heroes face. Within the context of Hogwarts, Harry is not even particularly gifted. Just like Jommeke, Kuifje, Suske and Wiske, he is smart and resourceful and… he has loyal friends and an awesome pet.

Dispite their abilities, American superheroes often work with partners as well. E.g. Batman has commissioner Gordon, Lucius Fox and Alfred. He even has a successor, Robin, as soon as he retires.

So, a hero can be a loner or he can have a backlog of friends or sidekicks. Or, you can have the popular heroic duo. Our favourite heroic duo consists of a male and a female who complement each other. Needless to say we are big fans of Scully and Mulder. They have such a special friendship and a bond of trust as colleages, they respect and influence each other so much, that we often refer to them as Sculder and Mully.

It’s not a coincidence that in Witch Hunter, Ludlov teams up with Samina and that in The Will of the Woods, Myrilia decides to travel with the Wraith. Nor is it by chance that Domien and I teamed up as a couple to write and produce our fantasy stories together, from The Treasure of Boneyard Bay on.

Acts of heroism

If superpowers or other abilities don’t make you a hero, then what does? We believe it’s acts of heroism. But how then do you difine an act of heroism? What do heroes do on a regular day, besides riding their horse towards the sunset, walk away from an explosion wearing sunglasses or hacking their way through an evil army of undead?

Heroes save people… And we are convinced that a hero, in essence, is in fact a saviour. Whether he saves his loved one, his sister or the entire world, it doesn’t really matter. And how he does it, is not really that important either. What matters is they rescue people.

There are, however, different ways to do this. A hero can act like a saviour:

1) through fighting:

Mulan, Aragorn, Jake Sully, … They all fought for what they believed was right. Jake even had to slightly adjust his opinion about what that meant specifically.

2) through intensive care:

You don’t need to fight to become a hero. Desmond Doss in Hacksaw Ridge (2016) proves that. Not only by caring for the wounded but by his stubborn determination to remain a pacifist while insisting to take up his war duty at the same time.

3) through courage and determination:

Kevin McCallister (Home Alone), Mrs. Brisby (The Secret of NIMH), Ian and Barley Lightfoot (Onward), … All these heroes faced their problems or reached there goals by being resourseful and determined.

4) through smart or strategic decisions:

Bilbo (The Hobbit), Jeff Talley (Hostage), Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Jack Ryan (Tom Clancy novels), Robert Langdon (Dan Brown novels), … They all defeat a number of obstacles by making smart or strategic decisions.

5) through call-to-action

Sometimes, a hero can just be the person who answers to the call-to-action despite his reservations and excuses. Bilbo is, again, the perfect example of that. 

6) through stubborn inactivity

It is rare, but it works. Even through stubborn inactivity you can become a hero, and even a martyr if you mess with the wrong gouvernment. The character Franz Jägerstätter in Terrence Malick’s masterpiece A Hidden Life (2019) embodies the greatest example.

7) through sacrifice

The ultimate hero saves the world through sacrifice. This is a very Christian idea. In that respect, Jesus is the ultimate hero.

Frodo is a great example of a character that sacrifices everything for the world: the comforts of his home, his present and his future, all that he is and has, … He returns to the Shire, not sort of ‘stretched’ like Bilbo, but utterly spent.

The Hero’s Journey – from zero to hero

True heroes all seem to be giving something up for a greater good. Like I’ve mentioned before they don’t start off amazing. They learn, they adjust, they improvise and they show real courage. That is why in my opinion, Rey from The Force Awakens is not a heroin, at least not like our other examples. Other than the grumpy attitude she seems to have no character flaws and she feels so utterly flat as a character that I didn’t really care what happened to her. Her decisions weren’t really altruistic. She seemed to be driven by random curiosity and a selfish arrogance. 

There are more examples of Mary Sues and Gary Stus that kind of leave us unengaged. That is why ‘The Hero’s Journey’ is such a solid narrative structure that is often used. The ultimate example is Luke Skywalker’s journey in Star Wars episodes 4 to 6. And these are mirrored by the tragic developments in episode 1 to 3, where the capable Anakin Skywalker with tons of hero potential becomes the protagonist of a tragedy instead in Revenge of the Sith. 

Heroic conclusion

So what is our conclusion after all these incoherent ramblings? A hero is often the protagonist but is not exclusively the protagonist. And a protagonist is not a hero per se. A protagonist can be morally confused or conflicted, but if he doesn’t ultimately make the right choice, he’s not a hero.

Overall, a hero is a virtuous character who does the right thing, despite the obstacles. Often this involves saving or rescuing one or more people. They usually give something up to reach their goals. The ultimate hero makes a huge sacrifice or may even sacrifice himself for someone else or for a greater good.

When we think of a hero we do often think about our favourite superhero and his powers or abilities. But we also do associate true heroism with sacrifice. It is only logical. Our idea of what makes a hero is based on both the Christian and pagan influences in our cultural heritage. 

But more important than the discussion about the definition and semantics is the question: how do heroic role models inspire us to perform small acts of heroism in our daily lives? 

Podcast!

If you’d like to hear a recap of this blog post and give your own opinion as a comment, make sure to listen to the podcast version of this article on YouTube:

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The Ogle Award for Fantasy Audio Drama is a part of the annual Mark Time Awards for excellence in audio drama productions. The award ceremony is held at the HEAR Now Festival in Kansas City, Kansas.

Since Domien wrote the script for The Fairy Tree, this aware is great news for Audio Epics as well, after we won the Honorable Mention Ogle Award for The Witch Hunter Chronicles in 2010 and the Gold Ogle Award for The Will of the Woods in 2012.

You can listen to The Fairy Tree on Pinna or order it from The Owlfield. You can also listen to the first four chapters on YouTube: 

If you would like to support our work so we can create more audio projects, please tell your fantasy loving friends about us, comment on our video’s on YouTube, like and subscribe to our channel. Since we are not very present on social media, we always appreciate you sharing our posts or stories on your profile.

If you have a blooming YouTube channel and you would like to interview us or cooperate in any other way, feel free to contact us.

Join us on Patreon