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Do You Want To Save The World?
February 17, 2008 5:59 AM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

Do You Want To Save The World?

Okay so I'm looking for any books, films, plays, fables, myths, folklore, games, poems etc etc etc you get the point about someone who has either been tasked to save the world (by doing something that they don't even know is actually working à la LOST and the button) or have been tasked to save the world but are unsure if it is the right thing to do.

Anything would be great!
posted by thelloydshow to grab bag (24 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
The final scenes of the movie The Fifth Element meet your criteria when Leeloo begins to doubt her 'mission' to save mankind.
posted by Science! at 6:06 AM on February 17, 2008


Anything? Do you know how long this list could be? At the very least this is the basic plot of almost every action movie or television series.

I'll throw out Noah and the Ark. Anté up everyone.
posted by XMLicious at 6:08 AM on February 17, 2008


XML I know what you mean...I'm more thinking along the lines of LOST's plot with the Button and Dharma etc.
posted by thelloydshow at 6:15 AM on February 17, 2008


Another thing is that they're always unsure if it's going to work, because if they were sure there would be no dramatic tension.
posted by XMLicious at 6:22 AM on February 17, 2008


But I've only seen one episode of Lost and it was a few years ago so I don't know what you're talking about there.
posted by XMLicious at 6:24 AM on February 17, 2008


Oh my mistake...there's a large plotline in Lost with two men stuck inside a underground Hatch on the island who have the sole job of entering a code into a computer every 108 minutes to "save the world".
posted by thelloydshow at 6:28 AM on February 17, 2008


Frodo in the Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter. Basically every protagonist in a classic "hero"
tale.
posted by lunasol at 6:31 AM on February 17, 2008


The story of Jesus Christ.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:43 AM on February 17, 2008


We could throw in any comic book hero because they all fit the bill. Batman for example tasked himself with saving Gotham (easily seen as a metaphor for the world) without anyone really asking him to do so. Saving the world is at the heart of almost every story.

Yet the best example of this will be Plato's analogy of the cave. Many see it as the most profound idea to ever come out of western philosophy because it tackles so much... it is epic. If you think about it, it is at the heart of any story about a person tasked to save the world.
(here is an explanation of Plato's cave)

Plato's analogy of the cave as applied to Batman:
So, Plato's cave is really the blueprint for any story about a person who is tasked to save the world. Even the Lost button pushing has notes of Plato's thoughts embedded into the narrative.
Finally, the only reason some hero's are hesitant about 'saving the world' is because they are not sure if they are saving the world in the right way.
posted by pwally at 6:52 AM on February 17, 2008 [1 favorite]


High stakes BB, eh? I see your Messiah and raise you a Buddha and a Mohammed.
posted by XMLicious at 7:01 AM on February 17, 2008


And by the way everyone needs to be appending “That's so crazy it just might work” to each of these stories.

“Leading every manner of bird and beast into an enormous ark? That's so crazy it just might work.”

“Sacrificing myself for the sins of all mankind? That's so crazy it just might work.”

“Teaching the secrets of contemplation and purity of being so that all mankind might free themselves from samsara and the cycle of rebirth? That's so crazy it just might work.”
posted by XMLicious at 7:08 AM on February 17, 2008 [1 favorite]


Putting in a plug for Ursula LeGuin-- the Earthsea books really turn out to be about Ged saving the world by healing a rift between the land of the living and the land of the dead. You can read this particular story, The Farthest Shore, which is the third book, as a stand-alone, but you really should read the series from start to finish, including the final two, written years later. Here's the whole list:
* A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
* The Tombs of Atuan (1972)
* The Farthest Shore (1974)
* Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (1990)
* The Other Wind (2001)

(As I've said before, JK Rowling completely ripped off the entire Ged narrative, start to finish, and should have had her ass sued off). Oops, sorry, derail, I'll get off my soapbox now.
posted by nax at 7:34 AM on February 17, 2008


Heroes? Pretty plainly saving the world, but there's a lot of folks who follow the NYC has to explode idea and some back-and-forth with who's the good guys.
posted by dagnyscott at 8:28 AM on February 17, 2008


Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time

Season 4 of Angel

Watchmen

The concept of doubt over salvation reminds me of the Gospel of Thomas: ("(16) Jesus said, "Men think, perhaps, that it is peace which I have come to cast upon the world. They do not know that it is dissension which I have come to cast upon the earth: fire, sword, and war. For there will be five in a house: three will be against two, and two against three, the father against the son, and the son against the father. And they will stand solitary.")
posted by jbrjake at 8:40 AM on February 17, 2008


There's this interesting series by Stephen R. Donaldson called The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, about a complete jerk of a guy (with some justification, as he is a socially ostracized leper) who is pulled into a magical land as its saviour.
posted by man why you even got to do a thing at 8:44 AM on February 17, 2008


Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Both the reader AND the main character realize later on that what he was doing was battling alien forces, and not just TRAINING for it via simulation games.

Excellent book.
posted by hal_c_on at 10:12 AM on February 17, 2008


jbrjake's mention of The Wheel of Time is a solid choice. I'd also like to throw out Smallville, in which the young Clark Kent has doubts about what his father wants him to do, etc.
posted by phaded at 10:23 AM on February 17, 2008


Ahem, hal_c_on, spoiler alert? But yeah, I immediately thought of Ender's Game.
posted by theiconoclast31 at 10:30 AM on February 17, 2008


The Lost plot may have been inspired by "Dead Man's Switch," an Outer Limits episode in which an Air Force officer (James LeGros) is sealed alone in an underground bunker in the early days of an alien invasion. LeGros's cell, like four other cells on different continents, is wired to a massive doomsday device capable of rendering the Earth's surface uninhabitable. At random intervals, an alarm sounds, and a countdown begins, giving LeGros or one of his counterparts half a minute in which to push a biologically keyed button in their cell and avert the end of the world. The cells can only communicate with Earth's high command and with each other; if humanity falls, they are to let the bomb ignite and deny the aliens the spoils of victory.

Naturally, the link to the surface goes dark...
posted by Iridic at 12:19 PM on February 17, 2008


Early Edition
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:09 PM on February 17, 2008 [1 favorite]


Campy and fun, but also often seriously thought-provoking: the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. They are made much more meaningful by reading the All Things Philosophical on BtVS and AtS fan site. Both the titular characters are tasked with saving the world from evil, but have their doubts and (temporarily) even give up at least once each.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:23 PM on February 17, 2008


Thanks guy and special props to pwally and Iridic
posted by thelloydshow at 6:54 AM on February 18, 2008


Thanks guys*

Lot of good material here to comb over!
posted by thelloydshow at 6:55 AM on February 18, 2008


The Neverending Story
posted by salvia at 2:52 PM on February 18, 2008


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