Tony Stark (616), cool exec with a heart of steel (tonystark) wrote in thedoorway,
Dorian/Tony
Some heroes are convinced of their own infallibility. I'd say Namor probably fits the bill pretty damn well. But I think more of them have doubts than would let on. You're just never allowed to show it. That's the thing. People have to have faith in you, you can't let them know that you have doubts, or you lose them. Nobody wants to find out that you're human.
Sometimes I wonder if you aren't lucky, though. I used to think my mind would be of more use if it didn't have a person holding it back. That it would be easier to make the decisions I believed that I had to if I didn't have to deal with the consequences. And maybe the reason some of my more statistically sound, but morally questionable ventures have failed was because I wasn't willing to go as far with them as I would have needed to in order for them to succeed. Maybe if they would just wait and see how it ended, they would see that I was right. I could have made it right.
Someone has to be able to make those hard decisions. What is necessary is always permissible. It's not fair to make a person live with that. But maybe what little self-doubt we have is what keeps us from skittering over into super-villain territory. You rarely meet a villain who isn't a hero in his own mind.
Lying… is a temporary solution. And an imperfect one. But it works well enough to keep us sane.