Good morning, friends, on this, the glorious first day of autumn!
Not that it feels that way here, on the edge of the US/Mexico border… It’s still too hot, but at least it’s getting down into the 70s overnight now instead of the 80s.
I come to you today with some actual news concerning Soultainted: I am finally far enough along that I feel confident in setting a real date. The e-book will be out on November 17, 2026, just in time for Thanksgiving! I’ll have pre-order links for y’all in two weeks.
I am not confident in the book at all, but I have resigned myself to considering this book a handmade Christmas gift to you, my twelve loyal readers. When you download it, just remember that it was made with love, mmmm’kay?
(Or rather, made with anxiety, severe self-loathing, and a conviction that somewhere, someone else could have told this story better. But maybe love, too.)
Anyway, now that the requisite self-flagellation is out of the way, on to today’s subject of the Hero Ecosystem: The Strategists and Architects.
Making Connections
In my last post about this ecosystem, I mentioned my love for side characters, and I think it’s safe to say that almost all of the people I’m profiling and talking about have side character energy. Not to say that they couldn’t be main characters; any time you narrow the camera lens and focus on one person to build out a story from that point, you’re creating a new main character, in effect.
The thing about most of our big heroic figures is that a lot of them seem to get a little tunnel vision. They’re presented with the central conflict or challenge, and they focus on that almost to the exclusion of everything else. Part of that is literary necessity, I think–you can’t have the hero with a great destiny distracted with the logistics of getting a trebuchet to the plain outside a castle.
But part of it is that the hero is often just the kind of person who gets a little tunnel vision about big, heroic missions. And really, who can blame them? If your antagonist is Darth Vader or Sauron or Torak or Thanos, you kind of have your hands full.
The Strategists and Architects of the hero ecosystem often have one really important attribute: they are excellent at making connections.
I don’t mean making connections with other people–I mean they are good at seeing what needs to be done and filling in all the gaps that reach that goal. They know how to move the metaphorical trebuchet to the gates of the enemy’s castle in time for the hero to give the commands.
So with that function in mind, I present today three interesting strategists and architects and their fantasy analogs.
The Catalyst: Henry Knox
In many ways, Henry Knox is a quintessential American story. Born to immigrant parents, he left school at the age of nine to support his mother and siblings after his father died. He worked in a bookstore, where the owner allowed him to check out whatever he wanted to help him further his education, and eventually became a bookstore owner. Knox had an affinity for military strategy and artillery, and he was entirely self-taught.
Knox was present at the Boston Massacre, though the affidavit he gave suggests he was trying to calm things down before it all went to heck. Whatever else happened, Knox ended up on the side of the colonials, even breaking with his in-laws, who disowned Mrs. Knox when she married Henry.
In the winter of 1775-76, General Washington needed some way to get the British out of Boston, and Henry Knox proposed something genuinely audacious: moving the cannons captured at Fort Ticonderoga across the frozen northeastern landscape to Dorchester Heights above Boston Harbor. Not only did Knox propose this seemingly impossible feat in the dead of winter–he accomplished it in six weeks using sleds and oxen.
When the British looked up to see a full battery of cannon staring down at them, they evacuated Boston without firing a shot, breaking an eleven-month siege and handing Washington his first victory of the war.
Fantasy analog: Princess Leia Organa. You could probably put Leia into any one of these three roles without any trouble, but I’m thinking here of how Leia managed to get the plans for the Death Star into the hands of the rebellion. (Honestly, you could probably put Leia into almost any place in the ecosystem. Leia was a one-woman hero ecosystem.)
The Builder: Itō Hirobumi
Sometimes, it takes a radical with the courage to burn shit down to eventually build something new and better.
In his youth, Itō Hirobumi was a radical. A child of peasants, he and his father were eventually adopted into a low-ranking Samurai family. As a young man, Itō became a member of the sonnō jōi (Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians) movement and participated in the burning of the British legation and the assassination of a Japanese classics scholar.
But as Itō pursued his education and rose in prominence, he distanced himself from the radical movement. He secretly traveled to Britain with four other students in 1863, and though the trip was cut short, it awakened Itō’s interest in Western ideas and forms of government. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Itō’s standing grew, and he was able to effect huge reforms based on various aspects of Prussian, Austrian, and British models. He oversaw the drafting of the Meiji Constitution of 1889 and significant financial and monetary reforms, and he served as Japan’s Prime Minister four separate times.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Itō Hirobumi was Japan’s Alexander Hamilton. Not only are their early lives oddly similar (children of poverty, early radicalism), but they were both thinkers and architects who translated ideas into structure. (Also, weirdly, they both died of gunshot wounds, though Itō was assassinated and Hamilton was participating in a rather stupid duel.)
Fantasy analog: Tyrion Lannister. As a man who couldn’t do much fighting, Tyrion used his mind and his wits. Or, in the words of season six Tyrion, “That’s what I do–I drink and I know things.”
The Commander: James I of Aragon
I know, I know–I said these were side characters, but eventually, someone has to give the orders, or the plans and strategies just sit there molding.
And sometimes, you stumble across a leader who manages to synthesize a whole lot of characteristics into one really kind of amazing person.
James I of Aragon–the Conqueror–reigned the kingdom of Aragon for an astounding 62 years. That reign would be impressive in any circumstances, but the fact that he managed it in the 13th century while actually riding into battle periodically is especially impressive.
King James wasn’t just a monarch or a battle commander; he was also man who knew how to focus his power and authority. He renounced territories his father had lost to France, instead choosing to focus on expanding his territory in other directions. He commanded the campaigns that brought the Balearic Islands (Majorca, Menorca, and Ibiza) back under the authority of Aragon, and then he established Majorca as a separate kingdom.
Winning back the Balearic Islands was an important pivot point for the Reconquista as it expanded Christian control over the Mediterranean trade routes. In that way, the risks James made were focused and calculated for long-term results, not just short-term bragging rights. His ability to take calculated risks and then build institutions to keep them makes him unique among Medieval monarchs.
Fantasy analog: Any one of the four commanders around Belgarion of Riva in The Belgariad—Mandorallen, Brand, Hettar, or Barak. All four had responsibility for their individual forces, and all four had to accomplish specific tasks to defeat the forces of Torak, the Dragon God.
In two weeks, I’ll be taking a look at the other connectors–the Diplomats, Envoys, and Legends that build bridges in the Hero Ecosystem.
In the meantime, may your pumpkin spice lattes be exactly the right temperature.
(Just kidding. I hate pumpkin spice lattes. But you do you.)