Challenge: In A New Light

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

Prompt: Characters I see differently now than I used to...

Okay, so hear me out on this one. Back in the eighties, there was a Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. 

The cartoon featured a group of six teenagers who'd been magically transported into a fantasy realm and equipped with legendary magical weapons. Among the ongoing dangers they encountered were Venger -- "The Force of Evil" -- and Tiamat, the five-headed dragon of chaos. Their primary ally, guide, and mentor was the mysterious figure known as Dungeon Master -- the same one who provided them with their weapons. Dungeon Master would offer them advice and guidance, though often in the form of riddles. 

Of the six adventuring teenagers, Hank the Ranger was the most noble and heroic, always ready to face a new challenge and do the right things. Diana the Acrobat, Sheila the Thief, Bobby the Barbarian, and Presto the Magician were generally cooperative and supportive, following Hank's lead and trying to work together to solve problems. Eric the Cavalier was presented as the weak point of the party, the one you weren't supposed to like: a spoiled child, a grumbling complainer, mistrusting Dungeon Master's advice, and frequently advocating for the party to turn aside from their current quest and go do something easier. Basically, he was a horrible brat who still occasionally saved the entire team because his shield could project a force field. 

Yeah, well... I picked up a copy of that old cartoon on DVD a while back, and re-watched about half of it. 

Thing is? Eric was right. Frequently. Consistently. Maybe not always, but he saw right through Dungeon Master's fatherly facade and had no problem with calling him out on the fact that his "help" was frequently misleading in ways that deliberately led the group further into trouble. He was the one who spoke up when the group was about to do something mind-bogglingly stupid. He was presented as a coward -- and that was, to some extent, accurate -- but that was frequently the only sensible response to the situations the group found themselves in. 

And for all that Eric might have been a coward, he was also 100% a hero.