Most of us are suckers for “plucky underdog” stories. I say “most,” because I assume bullies aren’t into them. I notice that the grifter’s administration referred to itself as “Goliath” in one of its communications to Canada, which gives me some indication that whoever wrote that line was not paying attention in Sunday School.
But the rest of us love them. The first three Star Wars movies were colossal hits because the resistance fighters were plucky underdogs who eventually won.
For me, part of what makes the original Star Wars movies so satisfying is that the plucky underdogs are the good guys and they win.
The winning is important. It’s not just that they’re plucky and right; they succeed.
When The Force Awakens, the first of the last Star Wars trilogy, came out (We will draw a veil over the second trilogy), my first reaction was “Wait a minute. The good guys won in Return of the Jedi. Why are they the plucky rebels again?”
Now don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie, even enjoyed the complexity of the good guys that got worked into that whole series. But my question stands.
Why weren’t the good guys fighting from a position of power? The implication is that even if the right people end up in charge, they can’t hold onto it.
Now there are certainly plenty of historical examples of the good guys winning only to be overthrown soon after. It happens. It happened here in the United States in November 2024 when the January 6, 2021, insurrection, which we all thought had failed, succeeded.
You can argue that we needed better good guys and that the United States needs some changes and I won’t disagree with you, but we are dealing with the destruction of our country right now, including a lot of the best parts of it. I come down on the side of clean air, equal opportunity, safety, antitrust enforcement, and retirement protection every time.
You can also tell me there was an election, but I will counter that the 14th Amendment bars insurrectionists from office. The failure of our institutions to protect us from this debacle will keep me angry forever.
Anyway, the plucky underdog story is a classic, whether the underdog wins or loses, and we the people of the United States do seem to be in the underdog spot right now. (I assume some of the people who voted for the grifter are still under the illusion that the leopards aren’t going to eat their faces, but they need their social security checks and their highway repairs, too.)
But unless the underdog wins and holds onto the win, it is so not the story I need right now! I need stories where the good people not only succeed, but figure out how to keep things going well. I want stories in which people develop a good society – if not a utopia, at least something on the path to one – and keep it going.