[HoE] The Duke

[Abdullah Oblongota <toadpooka@usa.net>]

Damnaged Goods says:
  He was to become the embodiment of the American "do or die" spirit. He had to 
  portray our willingness to fight the good fight against insurmountable 
  odds, but yet also reserve judgement and walk away when we have to. They 
  made him out to be "More American than America." Such was his life on Screen. 

  Off Screen, however, he was nothing so glamerous. He took to drinking, 
  smoking, and playing cards with his friends, and that was about it. The 
  Duke's life was rather uneventful, action wise. 

  It is his many portrayals on screen that would do harm to the Reckoners, 
  however. Pinnacle chose wisely to make the Man a saint. It was not any 
  ONE of his characters that made the difference, but the Man himself, on 
  screen, that is. America took heart from the knowledge that John Wayne 
  never played a bad guy, and that the Duke would always come out on top, 
  even if it killed him. 

  His life off screen doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the land war 
  against the Reckoners, but his ON Screen life does.
-- 
Hmmm...from the sound of it, you haven't read Last Crusaders.  You've done a
good job of saying who John Wayne was in Real Life, but they've taken some
liberties with history in Hell On Earth.  There, The Duke was a hero on and off
screen.  He started as just an actor, but after some supernatural trouble on the
set, he started fighting evil on the side.  He is the Saint of Grit not only
because of the Grit he showed on screen, but because he fought until his dying
day, despite having terminal cancer.
So it's a mix of his on- and off- screen actions that made The Duke a Martyr. 
But you don't just get that status by being "good."  Only true heroes who die
fighting evil get that status.  As Last Crusaders said, they're the ones who are
too stubborn to stop fighting just because they happen to be dead.
The real, out-of-game reason that John Wayne is a Marytr, though, is his status
as one of the biggest cultural icons ever.  If you're talking about making an
actor a Martyr, he should have similar status (in whatever culture he's from). 
I don't know too much about Chow Yun Fat, but for those who do, does he (will
he) measure up to the legend that is The Duke?
Another point I should comment on is my opposition to making Martyrs after
currently-living people.  First off, I don't like the idea of saying "It'd be
cool if that guy was dead!" in any form.  But there's a much more practical
reason.  You can't get a good retrospective of the life of someone until their
life is over.  The reason no two people have managed to agree on what Chow Yun
Fat would stand for as a Martyr is that we can't look back on a life that is
still being lived.  If John Wayne were alive today, and we were having this
discussion, we wouldn't be sure if he should be the Saint of Cowboys or the
Saint of Flyboys.  But, looking back, the word that embodies what The Duke was
all about is simply "Grit."

--
From Whom It May Concern,
Richard Ranallo, The Man They Couldn't Hang

Your money talks, but my genius walks
Morticians wait with a shovel and a fork
As detectives trace my hands with chalk
Your money talks but my genius walks.
--They Might Be Giants, "You'll Miss Me"