Loy Young

THE JUNIOR HEROINE

The third player is the winner of the Soul Game, an interactive educational game with the storyline Goodness Triumphs over Evil. The role of heroes and heroines is the most demanding of all, their path is full of pitfalls, but promises plenty of adventure.

Since it takes so much time to become a hero there are always more victims in the Soul Game as theirs is the beginner’s role. The world is also populated by many more villains than heroes as that role requires a little more skill than the victim’s part but not as much as the hero’s. The sheer numbers of victims and villains in relation to the heroes often gives the impression that life is indeed unfair and that all efforts of heroes and heroines are never enough to save them all.

Even the hero role has its own evolution although it never deviates from helping and never hurting the innocent. The beginning hero is not adept enough to triumph over evil, but starts off by extracting himself and other victims from one adversity after another.

Initially that is all that heroes and heroines do: whenever they hear a call for help they save the victim. Yet, even the junior heroes progress. At first they are the volunteers or receive little pay, and support those that are championing causes they believe in. Then the beginning heroes and heroines take up vocations to help those who are vulnerable.

Often our beginning heroes shy away from dealing with people who appear scary and complex. They pick vocations to help animals, plants, minerals, the earth, the sea, the air. Eventually having played the Soul Game many times, they graduate to helping vulnerable humans, the disabled, small children and the elderly. There are never enough heroes to help all victims, as there are so many scenarios in the Soul Game that produce true victims.

There are 36 adaptations of Goodness Triumphs Over Evil that can be played out to train true heroines. One of the 36 scenarios is DISASTERS. Natural catastrophes such as tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and droughts give our hero a good work out, not to mention all the human made disasters.

In this capacity, our hero feels good about himself, knowing they are on the side of goodness. They are rewarded with the devotion and love of their saved victims. True victims usually have little money so our heroes are unlikely to be compensated with sufficient money. Therefore the heroine risks being thrown back into the victim role herself, but as she feels so good about doing good, she does not mind. This feeling and the devotion of the victims does put her in a receiving frequency that attracts goodness to herself. Magically money and resources seem to appear from nowhere most of the time, at least enough to take care of her basic needs. Besides, heroes often believe they need almost nothing, and often all they have are the bare essentials, especially if they are single. Only as a caretaker for their children or others do they feel they have the right to increase their needs.

When our heroine becomes aware that it is impossible to save all the victims and begins to teach victims how to triumph over their own adversities, instead of repeatedly saving them.  And is our junior hero in for a surprise. Not all the victims he’s been saving over and over are true victims. A real victim wants to be taught and to change.  Villains disguised as victims have not intention of changing and do not want to improve. Since a hero cannot hurt the innocent he can be manipulated time and time again. Manipulation of course is one of the three tools of a villain.

For a long time, heroes blame themselves for what went wrong. If only they had been better teachers, if they had spoken better, if if if if…. But finally our heroes stop berating themselves and realize that they are not dealing with a real victim, but a villain. Do they triumph now? No, they now try to save the villain, believing he is just a good, misunderstood person who suffered awfully as a child and can’t help himself.

The villains obviously see our hero as one naïve person whom they can easily dupe with their flattery: “Finally, someone understands me!” But the villain refuses to change as long as they can outwit the gullible hero.

Sometimes our villains will declare to change his ways for the promise of money and more help from the heroes. It is all words. One surefire method of telling a villain from a victim is the lack of progress. Villains are masters of making the hero feel guilty about having hurt the villain disguised as a victim.

At that point our junior hero begins to  leave behind triumphing over adversity and starts the journey to indeed triumph over evil, exposing the villain disguised as a victim.