Recently I’ve done several poll on the SFF Facebook group to determine the Top 5 of lots of different things. For the 24 days leading up to the 25th Anniversary (and the day itself, of course) I will be posting a new Top 5 list each day, using the highly scientific and unbiased results from those FB polls. I’ll try to make these posts short but I’m pretty long winded and like to talk so…they’re probably all going to be pretty long. Enjoy?
Top 5 Heroes
What makes a hero? Are heroes born or made? Do they choose to step up and save the day or are they forced to through circumstance? Heroes are the backbone of any story, so it's not surprising that SFF productions have a lot of heroes.
#5 – It's a tie between
Xavier and Tilia Del Rosa
Xavier
Xavier, played Russell Martin, is a character in the TV show The Gift Bearer and is introduced in the first episode as a time traveller when he meets the Silverstone Sisters who have accidentally travelled through time. He's not a classic hero because we honestly don't know what his missions have been, but some of them have involved killing people. Most notably he had to choose between the love of his life and his job, his mission was to kill her and he choose to do his job. He sounds heartless but he's not.
He tries very hard not to get emotionally involved with anyone which is why the Silverstone sisters are such an annoyance - he has a strong desire to protect them for reasons that are eventually revealed. He finally gets the courage to leave his dangerous job with the Echelon when he discovers the family secret and is determined to protect them at all costs. The biggest problem is that the sisters have taught him to question his training - he's not an emotionless robotic agent doing missions, he's a human with feelings who makes mistakes.
I know he doesn't sound very heroic, but the fact that he turns his back on everything he's ever known and risks his life just to protect his sisters is courageous. He goes through hell to save the sisters, even going into Minerva's mind and fighting her evil side just to bring her back to her sanity. Xavier is someone who never expected to be a hero, he never thought of himself as one, but he stepped up when the people he loved were in danger and eventually became the hero he was always meant to be.
Tilia Del Rosa
Tilia, played by Rachel Anderson, is the lead character in the movie Mind Games. Much like Xavier she has never thought of herself as a hero and never intended to be one. She's what you would call a Reluctant Hero. All she wanted to do was protect the people she cares about. Tilia is the crew's engineer on a space ship with a secret mission. Just after their mission is completed their crew mate Talin, and the guy she secretly has a crush on, goes insane and starts to hunt down the crew to kill them one by one.
Knowing Talin the best, and wanting to save both him and everyone else Tilia tries to figure out what happened and why he went insane. At the same time she is constantly on the run, trying to stay alive as well as protect everyone else. In the beginning she seems to be a light-hearted, friendly and flirty woman who doesn't take much seriously, but as things go wrong she is forced to step up and get to work.
I used her costume to show the changes her character is going through. In the beginning she's not in her uniform and is actually wearing a flowy mini-skirt and sheer jacket. As things get serious she ditches the skirt, then the jacket, eventually putting on her uniform to confront Talin on the bridge and try to defeat him. She never wanted to be the hero but someone had to be, so she did what she had to and saved the people she could. Unfortunately she had a tragic ending but I'm not going to get into that.
#4 – Queen Lavinia
Queen Lavinia, played by Annamarie MacLeod, is a character in Destiny II, part of the Destiny Trilogy and Mini-Series. She is the mother of the main hero, Ketlan, and sacrifices her life to save her son and protect the future. Intelligent, charming, compassionate, and calm Lavinia embodies the perfect mother. Many mothers are heroes , especially to their children, so it makes sense that this amazing mother makes it into the Top 5 Heroes of SFF.
I'd say more but I just did a blog post for Mother's Day that talks about her character. Check it out if you want to know more about her.
#3 – Esteban
Esteban, played by Tanino Minneci, is a character in the Destiny Trilogy and Mini-series and although he started out as a sidekick he quickly became a hero in his own right. At the request of Queen Lavinia he saved her son, Prince Ketlan, when he was about to be assassinated then secretly raised him in another kingdom until he was old enough to take back his throne from his evil usurping uncle.
The second movie focuses on Esteban's past and we learn a lot about him. He is a scholar, not a fighter, but he knows how to fight and will do his best to protect the people he cares about. He puts the wishes of Lavinia and the needs of Ketlan above himself and devotes his entire life to serving the royal family and the kingdom of Traldon. In the first movie he's a mentor, in the second movie he's a hero, and in the third movie he's a bad ass. If you want to learn more about him check out his entry in the Character 101 posts.
#2 – Catalina Crims
Catalina Crims, aka Cat, played by Margaret Olson, is a character in the TV show Pandora's Box. She is the leader of the rebels, a skilled fighter and excellent commander. Although she has problems with anger management she is well respected and has a large number of followers. She is very devoted to the cause of independence from the Empire because she knows how evil they can be. After all she was a powerful general in the Imperial Army for a long time.
One day, she was ordered to subdue a group of dangerous rebels who all turned out to be defenseless peasants and the memories of that massacre haunt her until the day she dies. It turned out that the massacre was ordered by the selfish Princess Zarina because some peasant children threw food at her coach. After learning that Cat burned her uniform, left the army, and joined the rebels.
Cat isn't so much trying to be a hero as she is trying to make up for the crimes she's committed. She knows the scale will never be balanced but helping set people free from the tyranny of the Empire and saving lives is the best - and really only way - she can truly atone for her crimes and do her best to make sure another massacre like that never happens again. She's clever, articulate, sarcastic and sassy. She's a bad ass with many virtues and many flaws. I wrote a Characters 101 post about her relationship with Darion De Carlo that gets into the details about her life and motivations if you want to learn more about her.
#1 – Maria Sanchez
Maria Sanchez, played by Morgan Thomas, is a main character in three TV shows - The Curse, Dream Chasers, and Eidolon. Since she appears in multiple shows in a total of 28 episodes and we follow her character for basically twenty years it's no surprise she made the top spot. Maria has been through a lot in her life including being cursed, having to kill her best friend to save her friend's soul, and taking in the teenage child of her frenemy, Zandra Anderson after Zandra's death.
We first meet Maria in The Curse on an archaeological dig when she warns Zandra not to dig up Native American graves and to leave the dead alone. Zandra doesn't listen and gets cursed. Maria ends up attending the same college as a transfer student and when they meet again she agrees to help Zandra try to deal with her curse. We learn in the first epsidoe that Maria was also cursed, but no details are given. Most of her time in the show is spent cleaning up after Zandra's mess. She is the calm voice of reason and is never afraid to call Zandra out on her BS.
There were so many questions about Maria's mysterious past and in many ways Maria stood out as a character independent of Zandra, a character who could be the hero of her own story instead of a sidekick or mentor to someone else. I wrote Dream Chasers specifically to learn more about Maria, and her past is confusing to say the least. First off she wasn't named Maria Sanchez, she was actually Marion Smith and was cursed by the same spirit that later cursed Zandra, The curse left her abandoned by her family, broke, homeless, and suicidal.
Her life is saved by a Demon Hunter named Maria Sanchez and, after a rocky start, they become best friends, like sisters and are literally two halves of a whole. Turns out fate meant for their souls to merge and in the end Marion takes over Maria's identity and starts a new life. After Marion meets Maria there is a plot to destroy the balance of power in the world which would actually destroy it. Marion and her friends are tasked with saving the world and it's Marion's first time being a hero. Maria is not only Marion's mentor she is also Marion's hero. Marion wants to be like her and obviously gets her wish although not in the way she expect (confused yet?).
Eidolon takes place twenty years after the end of The Curse. Maria is a college professor who has to take care of Zandra's teenage daughter, Zelda, when Zandra passes away since Zandra made Maria the girl's legal guardian. Zelda is a real piece of work, a vengeful ghost hunter with a bad attitude and a nasty temper which leads to her getting cursed as well. Despite everything Maria does anything she can to help Zelda, including trying to get her curse removed.
There's no grand adventure or dire need to save the world in this one, just a mentor helping her adopted daughter find her way out of the darkness. Of course there's a lot more to it than that, but Maria isn't looking to be a hero and never thinks of herself as one. She learned a long time ago that sometimes you have to step up and take the lead in order to move forward in life. Maria has learned not to look back and through all her adventures has become a strong, independent, powerful, amazing and intelligent woman who is a humble hero who only wants to protect the people who are dear to her.
I wrote a Characters 101 post about her relationship with Mordecai that goes into more details about her background so feel to check that out (if you want to be more confused).
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