In My Childhood, They Were Simply Cool
When I was young, I loved hero stories. Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man… they always rescued the weak, defeated the villains, and saved the world. Their strength and conviction reassured me. They made me believe that the world was a place where justice eventually wins, and that someday, I too would be saved. But as time passed, I began to ask: What truly separates those who wield violence in the name of justice from the criminals they fight?
Hero = A Legal Criminal?
Batman executes vigilante justice in Gotham every night, and Iron Man intervenes in war zones faster than international law allows. They do the jobs the police cannot, exercise violence forbidden by law, and sometimes take lives. Political philosophy refers to this phenomenon as unofficial justice—when an individual takes justice into their own hands because the state’s monopoly on violence has failed. However, that justice depends on one person’s judgment, not a democratic consensus. What happens to those they fail to save? Who is responsible if their judgment is wrong?
The Desire to Become the Powerful
I often find myself thinking: Perhaps heroes strike down the powerful because they themselves want to be the ones with power. It is the heart that rages against the corrupt powers ruling the world, yet simultaneously wishes to occupy that very throne. The Netflix series The Boys confronts this contradiction head-on. There, heroes are corporate products and instruments of power. Even the moments they strike down villains are part of a PR strategy, and their violence frequently results in civilian casualties. Psychology calls this compensatory control—an attempt by an individual feeling powerless to regain a sense of control by identifying with a powerful entity or trying to become powerful themselves. The vicarious satisfaction provided by hero stories might ultimately be a “fantasy of the weak becoming the strong.”
CPTSD and Ambivalence Toward Power
For me, this issue is even more complex. As someone living with CPTSD, the “powerful” have always been ambivalent figures. The adults who failed to protect me in my childhood were powerful, and those who hurt me were also powerful. Thus, while I feel catharsis watching a hero strike down a villain, I simultaneously ask with a cynical eye: “Aren’t you just using violence too?” Watching Arthur Fleck transform into a criminal in the movie Joker (2019), I felt both fear and understanding. His violence cannot be justified, yet his rage echoed the helplessness within me. Instead of worshipping heroes, I try to look at the inherent danger of the power they hold.
Thinking Within the Gray Zone
Lately, I am more fascinated by stories that slip into the gray zone. In Netflix’s Daredevil, the hero breaks the law like a criminal; in DC’s Watchmen, the heroes themselves become the seeds of new conflict. A world where criminals have backstories, where the agents of justice fall into dilemmas, and where no one is perfectly good or evil. Philosophy calls this state aporia—the moment when existing certainties collapse and new thinking begins within a temporary impasse. I feel I can finally breathe within that confusion. Stories that leave endless questions, rather than clear-cut endings, are what keep me alive.
Questioning Justice Once More
When the boundary between hero and criminal blurs, we are forced to ask again: To whom does justice belong? Does it belong to the law, the individual, or the one with the most power? I still watch hero stories today. But I am no longer simply reassured. I think of the people they didn’t save, imagine the cost of the violence they used, and ask for whose sake their justice was served. Within those questions, I gradually find freedom. Because even without borrowing the strength of a hero, I can rebuild my own ethics for myself.
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