Modern Heroes

I would argue that today we have a very similar concept of the heroic. I think that we like characters that have flaws and make questionable choices because this humanizes them. I also think that this works in extreme cases. Hercules killed innocent people, like his wife, though his actions were excused in a way due to his madness. Characters that are not black-and-white and have some moral ambiguity to them are interesting. I am thinking of Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who starts out her story as an innocent girl but quickly makes some questionable life decisions as she grows up. Still, as an audience we root for Buffy, whether her actions are 'good' or 'bad', because we have decided that she is our hero, so we support her and want her to succeed even when she makes some bad or violent choices.