ABSTRACT
This chapter explores and provides nuance to the similarities and contrasts between the features defining heroes, hyper-empowered individuals, and anti-heroes. Whereas heroes are tested under conditions of physical risk, hyper-empowered individuals gain recognition as normatively oriented policy influencers. Alternatively, rather than maintaining the status of heroes, other personalities are regarded as anti-heroes with some degree of flawed moral character. What is so striking about the 21st century is how many individuals fall in between these standard categories. This is especially true of various types of global celebrities, located across the world of entertainment, philanthropy, and/or the established state order such as in the case of former leaders. While the clusters of individuals dealt with in this chapter all face serious contestation about their motivations and role, it is significant that they have taken risks by interjecting themselves into global politics in a new and unanticipated fashion. The chapter argues that a renewed focus on individual agency opens up analysis into what forms of agency are valued in different societies and why, as well as on what grounds and by what communities these forms of agency are contested.
