The Quest is now closed!
Rewards will be handed out between April 5 and April 7.
Everyone has heroes (or heroines) in their lives, people they have respect for or look up to. Perhaps the person is a teacher, an influential writer or musician, a family member, or even a fictional character (I know one person who identifies Howard Roark as her hero).
Voting and C!ing these writeups is encouraged! See the Rewards section below.
The Quest
The goal of this quest is to tell others about your hero or heroine. Here, hero or heroine refers to anyone that has brought respect or inspiration into your life or otherwise affected it greatly in a positive manner. This means not only a biography about this person, but also why you view this person as heroic. What qualities make this person important?
These two should often be intertwined; for example, if you were to write about Winston Churchill as your hero, a writeup including specific instances of heroic action would probably suffice. In other words, a piece telling of how Churchill acted as the brave face of England during the London Blitz is clear in and of itself. In other instances, it might require a more specific tale, such as the moment when you realized the lucidity behind the ideas of Ayn Rand (not that I'm suggesting such a thing, mind you!). It might even be a personal tale, like the day you discovered that your father really sacrificed a lot to make a good life for you.
However, to be an acceptable entry, you have to tell both sides of the tale. Who or what is this person or group, and why is the person or group heroic?
We're not looking exclusively for dry, boring facts here (although you should give us enough so that we have some idea about the nature of the beast). Paint a heroic picture of someone for all of us to see.
But what if my hero/heroine is already biographed here? In that case, just focus specifically on the elements of that individual that make them heroic. For example, if you were writing about Winston Churchill, you might focus on his World War II leadership. There are almost assuredly aspects of the individual's heroism that you can focus on in detail.
Heroism is a stupid concept; heroes and heroines cause you to achieve less. Then think of this as the Everything2 role model quest, or the Everything2 good people quest. Just write about those with significant respectable characteristics.
The Rules
1. You may enter as many times as you wish; write about all twenty three of your heroes, if you'd like.
2. All entries are due at 0:01 UTC on April 1, 2003, no exceptions, and they must have been submitted AFTER 23:00 UTC on March 2, 2003. You can get this time and date from any page at the bottom of your Epicenter nodelet, usually near the upper right of the page.
3. When you've completed an entry, just send a /msg to me. I'll read your writeup and, if it actually addresses the question above, I'll add it to this node. If not, I'll critique it for you and hint at what you need to change. If this causes you to miss the cutoff, then I will accept it a bit later (because you touched base with me before the quest ended).
4. tes is the exclusive arbiter of whether or not your writeup actually achieves this quest or not. DO NOT write to gods and/or editors complaining about the "fascism" of tes in holding down your brilliant piece of writing. They don't want to hear it.
The Rewards
For starters, all successful entrants will receive 10 XP per successful entry. So, if BlueDragon were to enter 5 times, then BlueDragon would receive 50 XP.
Highest Reputation Bonus: The writeup with the highest reputation at 0:01 UTC on April 5, 2003 will receive 30 XP in addition to the 10 above. The second highest reputed writeup will receive a 20 XP bonus, and the third highest will receive 10 XP. Thus, vote up the ones you like, and vote down the ones you don't. This is a democracy, folks!
Most C!'s Bonus: The quest writeup with the most C!'s at 0:01 UTC on April 5, 2003 will receive 20 XP in addition to the 10 above. The writeup with the second most C!'s will receive a 10 XP bonus. So, vote with your C!'s!
British Prime Minister Bonus: Any quest writeups about British prime ministers not named Winston Churchill will receive a 20 XP bonus in addition to the 10 XP above. Surely someone wants to write about their personal hero William Cavendish!
tes Bonus: Any quest writeups about tes will receive a 30 XP bonus in addition to the 10 XP mentioned above. Surely I am someone's hero!
Entries by tes will receive NO XP bonuses. I plan on entering this quest myself a few times, but I won't be receiving any extra bonuses from it. Also, I am excluding all writeups by tes from the "highest rep" and "most C!s" contests above.
All XP rewards will be delivered between April 7, 2003 and April 9, 2003. If you have problems with this, send a /msg to me. The rewards will not come earlier, and they will not come later. A note will be added here after the rewards are posted.
The Entries (in reverse chronological order of submission)
Muhammad Yunus, contributed by Eco
Pete Abrams, noded by hi_2k
Jacqueline Cochran, contributed by Wiccanpiper
Elvis Presley, created by Lennon
Bill Veeck, noded by BrooksMarlin
Frank Zappa, drawn up by telbij
You can become as successful as the most successful person ever, done by KissThis
Lou Ferrigno, hulked out by malloc
Clement Attlee, created by Voodoo Chile
Dejiko, drawn up by Jay Digital
Jamie Brach, contributed by hunt05
timing out, delivered by allseeingeye
Simon Townsend, created by Proquar
Stephen Jay Gould, evolved by wrinkly
Bam Margera, slammed down by hunt05
boo, delivered by ravenword
Debbie Stoller, created by spazgirl
David Foster Wallace, served up by Koan
Donovan McNabb, contributed by Rational Bastard
Carl Sagan, added by ravenword
Natalie Maines, written by tes
Milton Friedman, contributed by sjoshi64
Alan Jones, created by HobbesWalsh
Abraham Heschel, added by Heschelian
Gertrude Stein, created by anthropod
Scott Hamilton, written by Emerald Eyes
My Grandfather, contributed by silic0n
Derren Brown, contributed by Andrew Aquecheek
Anna Freud, added by grimly fiendish
My hero, my mother, added by mdj72
Zdeno Chara, contributed by baritalia
Maynard James Keenan, given life by Wessabessa
George Grenville, submitted by grimly fiendish
Chien-Shiung Wu, added by littlerubberfeet
Saint Francis of Assisi, written for us by drownzsurf
Rogelio Sergio Ramirez Ruiz III, contributed by Addien
Newt Gingrich, added by dannye
Joan of Arc, added by CatherineB
Marc Summers, queued up by bane221
Brontosaurus (about the noder?!), contributed by BrianShader
Hicham el Guerrouj, created by Serjeant's Muse
Island of the Blue Dolphins (about Scott O'Dell), contributed by erevapisces
Bill Bowerman, noded by Serjeant's Muse
Saint Brigid of Ireland, written by lara68
Alex Chilton, detailed by MikeyK
Duke Kahanamoku, produced by GrouchyOldMan
guitar hero, riffed out by sideways
Trent Reznor, produced by Rational Bastard
A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt, brought out by phluid
Harrison Ford, whipped into shape by weasello
Bernard King, contributed by Proquar
John Lennon, 'respectfully submitted' by Syntari
United Airlines Flight 93, added by grimly fiendish
Calvin, contributed by Bacchon
Wachowski Brothers, written by Citizen Keen
David Lloyd George, added by OberonDarksoul
A life of giving (about tes's father), contributed by tes