Do not thank me for saving your life. You do not realize yet what I have saved it for. - Michael Moorcock

Indeed, to be a hero, forever at war, is to be in some ways always a child. The true challenge comes in making sense of one’s life, of imbuing it with purpose based on one’s own principles.

“He was a fool,” said Willow calmly to Klein. “There are many who refuse their responsibilities. Fooling themselves they search for a ‘higher ideal’. He was a fool.”
“What are responsibilities?” said Klein laconically. “He knows. Responsibility, my dear, is another word for self-interest. For survival.”
She looked at Klein uncomprehendingly.

There is, in my view, a level at which the hero can become faintly ridiculous, often because he never fundamentally questions the rules. For instance, John Wayne’s characters were always basically in favor of old-fashioned paternalism, no matter how much they pretended to be rugged individualists.
Later, I became fascinated by the kind of book examining the myths which make such heroes attractive (Lord Jim, for instance) and came to understand that there is a level at which the heroic ideal can be used as a mere manipulative propaganda designed for instance to make young women sacrifice their futures in unjust marriages or young men sacrifice their lives in unjust wars.