Post by @svat@mathstodon.xyz

2026-01-15 05:24 UTC

Douglas Adams once said something, answering a question from a fan about whether Arthur Dent was a “hero”, and whether the Hitchhiker stories were “gaily whimsical” or cynical. The whole thing won&#39;t fit here (see: https://shreevatsa.net/post/douglas-adams-cultural-divide/) but quoting the main part: &gt; I suspect there is a cultural divide at work here. In England our heroes tend to be characters who either have, or come to realise that they have, no control over their lives whatsoever – Pilgrim, Gulliver, Hamlet, Paul Pennyfeather (from Decline and Fall), Tony Last (from A Handful of Dust). We celebrate our defeats and our withdrawals – the Battle of Hastings, Dunkirk, almost any given test match. There was a wonderful book published, oh, about twenty years ago I think, by Stephen Pile called the Book of Heroic Failures. It was staggeringly huge bestseller in England and sank with heroic lack of trace in the U.S. Stephen explained this to me by saying that you cannot make jokes about failure in the States. It’s like cancer, it just isn’t funny at any level. In England, though, for some reason it’s the thing we love most. So Arthur may not seem like much of a hero to Americans – he doesn’t have any stock options, he doesn’t have anything to exchange high fives about round the water-cooler. But to the English, he is a hero. Terrible things happen to him, he complains about it a bit quite articulately, so we can really feel it along with him - then calms down and has a cup of tea. My kind of guy! &gt; &gt; I’ve hit a certain amount of difficulty over the years in explaining this in Hollywood. I’m often asked ‘Yes, but what are his goals?’ to which I can only respond, well, I think he’d just like all this to stop, really. It’s been a hard sell.

Replies (14)

@karthikganapathy@mathstodon.xyz 2026-01-15 08:24

@svat@mathstodon.xyz Reminds me of Stephen Fry's explanation regarding the distinction b/w the sense of humor of Americans and the Brits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2AbqTBxao

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@Reddog@syzito.xyz 2026-01-15 10:27

@svat@mathstodon.xyz A true hero keeps calm, and carries on - in the face of all tribulations..

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@Aedius@lavraievie.social 2026-01-15 13:18

@svat@mathstodon.xyz Owh ! I understand now why I don't click with many British stuff. I don't care about heros succeeding or failing but for me they have to have control over their destiny.

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@drgroftehauge@sigmoid.social 2026-01-15 13:41

@svat@mathstodon.xyz The American Dirk Gently is also, imho, exactly the opposite story of what the books were saying. I've forgotten my point but I remember being furious by the time I got to the end of season 1 (did they make more seasons? Hope not).

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@alan@mindly.social 2026-01-15 15:39

@svat@mathstodon.xyz And then we have Canadian humour, which is this weird hybrid between British and American, with a little Swedish/Finnish thrown in there just to keep it entirely confusing to the rest of the world.

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@Chigaze@mstdn.ca 2026-01-15 15:59

@svat@mathstodon.xyz This reminds me of how Peter Jackson almost ruined the ending of Lord of the Rings. They had planned and even shot some of a giant hero battle between Aragorn and Sauron that was supposed to be happening while Frodo successfully destroyed the Ring. Fortunately they came to their senses and stuck with the book version where the battle at the gate could only be a losing one and Frodo claims the Ring for himself. Even the destruction of the Ring comes from Gollum's failure when he steals back and falls into lava.

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@tirrimas@beige.party 2026-01-15 17:48

@svat@mathstodon.xyz maybe I'm English at heart, because I find Arthur completely, utterly relatable.

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@simonbtemple@mstdn.social 2026-01-15 18:01

@svat@mathstodon.xyz tell me you're English without telling me you're English. "Arthur dent is my hero"

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@sabrina@fedi01.unicornsparkle.club 2026-01-15 18:50

@svat@mathstodon.xyz well, I think he’d just like all this to stop, really. Arthur Dent is the hero we need.

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@MKSchmidt@mastodon.social 2026-01-15 19:20

@svat@mathstodon.xyz I think Bilbo and/or Frode Baggins could fit into this as well. Bilbo witnessed so much, but only played a small (though important) roll in the Battle of the Five Armies before getting knocked out. Not a typically heroic ending!

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@giltay@tenforward.social 2026-01-15 19:45

@svat@mathstodon.xyz I always get slightly confused because the edition I grew up with is called The (Incomplete) Book of Failures, which I guess was the North American title. I hadn't really made the connection between Stephen Pile and Douglas Adams, but it makes perfect sense. I first read about The Man from Porlock in the Book of Failures, so I knew exactly what Adams was talking about when it came up in Dirk Gently.

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@Mandrake@chitter.xyz 2026-01-15 23:15

@svat@mathstodon.xyz You can learn a lot about England's celebration of failure by their relationship with football. Most football teams go for years, if not decades, without winning any trophies, and those which do will inevitably fail to defend their titles next season. They'll spend millions buying superstar players/managers who immediately flop or become seriously injured for months. Fans will watch their favourite teams lose every single weekend, but would rather die than switch to a better team. Millions play Fantasy Premier League, a game about making bad decisions and picking players who inevitably fail to score or keep clean sheets for as long as they're in your team. Meanwhile, the national men's team has not won a major international title for nearly 60 years and our most popular football song is explicitly about how they've failed to win the World Cup since then. To quote Frank Skinner: "Being a football fan 90% of the time is about losing. Most of being a football fan is disappointment"

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@cassana@the-crossroads-inn.com 2026-01-16 13:58

@svat@mathstodon.xyz @markrprior@ohai.social This reminded me of Samwise’s musings: ‘The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind." Full quote: https://mountebank.org/sams-speech/#:~:text=Sam:%20I%20know.,But%20I%20think%2C%20Mr.

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@WLBORg@hachyderm.io 2026-01-16 19:34

@svat@mathstodon.xyz @axel@hsnl.social this explains “slow horses” too.

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