Hero, Villain, or Both?

Saturday night in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton, the house was slamming hero-and-villain style.

According to the program, special preference was given in the lineup for those dressed as their favorite good or bad character. This reporter scoped the crowd, trying to calculate whether heroes or villains tipped the numbers scale in their favor.

Near the start, the heroes definitely had the lead. But as DJ Jennocide mixed the tunes, the villains started to congregate on the dance floor and the pace picked up.

Taking an informal poll, I asked several attendees their opinions on whether we were safe in the hands of the heroes or about to be foiled by the villains. While several insisted that heroes always win, a good number of those polled answered with the indeterminate, “It depends on how you define a villain.”

In my efforts to squeeze as much fun as humanly possible into my 96 hours of Dragon Con (see my earlier post), I joined the teeming mass of bodies on the dance floor and found my groove.

Definitely a highlight of my Saturday night.

Thank you, heroes; thank you, villains; and thank you to all of the characters who fall somewhere in between. You all collectively know how to have a great time. This reporter and all of the other attendees who wore their own skin salute you.

Author of the article

When Suzanne Church isn't chasing characters through other realms, she's hanging with her two children. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, On Spec, and Cicada and in several anthologies including Urban Green Man and When the Hero Comes Home 2. Her collection Elements: A Collection of Speculative Fiction is due out in spring 2014 from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. She is a three time finalist and 2012 winner of the Prix Aurora Award in the Short Fiction category.

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