Dragon Quest Retrospective: What Is A Hero, Anyway?

 

The anime Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai debuted worldwide last week on both TV Tokyo in Japan and Crunchyroll in the rest of the world.  A series of the same name had previously been produced by Toei Animation in 1991 based on the manga of the same name; this new version seems to be a new adaptation of the manga, which continued to run after the original anime ended, finally publishing its last chapter in 1996.

The plot takes place in a world where a Hero defeated a great evil and freed the world’s monsters from the evil influence controlling their actions, turning them peaceful once more.  In the ensuing years, a baby got lost and ended up in the care of one of the freed monsters named Brass.  Dai would eventually become friends with all the monsters on the island of Dermline.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before my dislike of using the term “monsters” for non-human creatures who don’t actually do monstrous deeds, so I won’t belabour it here.

Dai has always dreamed of being a Hero, a special class of adventurer who upholds justice and seeks out great evil to defeat, and yet he doesn’t really train very hard for it.  For one thing, he doesn’t know magic yet.  “What kind of Hero can’t even learn a single spell?” Grandfather Brass asks of him.

Dragon Quest II is feeling a little attacked right now, I imagine.

A group of adventurers led by a Hero arrive on Dermline Island, presumably doing post-game content.  After tricking Dai, they do battle with all of his friends and steal his best friend Gome (“Gomechan” in Crunchyroll’s subtitles, possibly translated by someone who forgot what Japanese honorifics are).  Gome is a very rare Golden Metal Slime, meant to be a step up from the usual Metal Slimes that populate Dragon Quest games, and as a result the adventurers figure that he’ll be worth a ton of money and acclaim.  Dai wants to go and rescue his friend and his grandfather gives him some Magic Cylinders that can capture monsters inside which can be used to help him fight.  In other words, The Adventure of Dai isn’t just a Dragon Quest anime, it’s a Dragon Quest Monsters anime.

The episode raises a few questions about the nature of the Hero in a Dragon Quest world.  In many of the games, the player-named character is usually known as a Hero and in Dragon Quest III, the Hero cannot change their class, although the rest of the party can.  The Hero usually finds out about a great evil threatening the world and sets out to defeat it.  Presumably, in games with Dharma Temple, later known as Alltrades Abbey, anyone can become a Hero if they train hard enough.

It’s generally thought that a Hero is going to go around the world being heroic because that’s just what heroes do.  The Disgaea series plays around with the idea occasionally, and at one time had an evil-aligned protagonist steal the title of Hero from another character so he could defeat his Overlord father, since Overlords are supposed to be defeated by Heroes.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work and the character spends several chapters trying to rid himself of the title.

If Hero is a class that can be won through mere grinding like it can in many Dragon Quest games, what does that mean for the world they’re meant to be saving?  The first episode of The Adventure of Dai deconstructs this idea by making the Hero Deroline and his team a group of self-interested assholes who feel entitled to adventuring work, even in a world that was made peaceful many years before.  Instead of going around the world helping people with problems they might have, these adventurers instead bully the world’s peaceful monsters and expect heaps of praise as a result of their actions.

Although I do not condone their behaviour, I do sympathize with the need to make a living.  Adventurers can’t always wait for a great evil to arrive in order to earn their keep.  In a scene from the opening of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, Maxim and Tia argue over the value of the bounty on jellies.  The world is, thus far, peaceful and extermination of minor monsters like jellies is the only real work a monster hunter can do.  Tia hopes that Maxim could maybe get a better job, like being a shop owner, but Maxim is clueless to the real intention of her question.

In the world of Lufia, being a hero – a monster hunter to be specific – is a profession you can decide upon for yourself.  However, outside of the Sinistrals’ return every hundred years, there doesn’t seem to be anything for heroes to do, other than the time when Ragule tried to take over the world.  Otherwise, defeating jellies seems to be the way to go.

In the Final Fantasy series, heroes are known by the far more grand name of Warriors of Light.  In most games, the Warriors are a group of four characters who attempt to save the world and who have usually been blessed by crystals.  In Final Fantasy XIV, you play as a single Warrior of Light in a world that only has one but which also occasionally breaks the fourth wall by acknowledging that you have adventurer friends whenever you need to do group content like dungeons and raid bosses.  Generally in the series, a Warrior of Light only comes around when they’re needed.  It can be assumed that they find adventure wherever they go and they just happen to be the one that fate calls whenever another final boss starts going around and being evil.  Either that, or they’re minding their own business, maybe as a chef or a plumber somewhere, when fate calls them up and says “Hey, you know that dimmed crystal you’ve been holding onto that you always thought might one day come in handy?”

Most games don’t really reveal what the Hero does after the end credits roll.  It’s often assumed that they continue their travels.  Dragon Quest actually showed its Hero declaring that he’s going to go and explore around so that he can discover a new land over which to rule.  Final Fantasy IV ended with a wedding for Rosa and Cecil.  The characters of Final Fantasy V rode off together on chocobos.  In fact, Final Fantasy is usually good at giving characters actual, narratively satisfying endings.  For the most part, the heroes of other games are presumed to go off on more adventures once the final boss is defeated, and this is especially true now that many games feature post-game content, and heroes finding more adventure is canon.

But in a world that is mostly peaceful, what is a Hero to do?  Sadly, instead of being shop owners (Merchant is a class in the series, which I’m sure you’ve not forgotten), Deroline and his friends commit violent acts against peaceful creatures.  Dai is having none of it and by standing up to Deroline and managing to defeat him and his party in frantic combat, Dai is declared a future Hero.  Perhaps in this world and possibly many others just like it, anyone can call themselves a Hero, but only those worthy of the title may actually inherit it.