On Normalizing

One pattern I noticed at a young age was in the classic hero story. The first third (or half) of the story was the introduction of the hero and the set up of some monster. The monster kicks the hero's ass and the hero spends the rest of the time training and preparing and generally getting stronger, faster, and better. Once the hero comes back and beats up that one monster, the last act of the story happens where he or she then has to fight dozens of that monster at a time and does so with ease. 

This story arc so perfectly exemplifies the human ability to adapt and normalize. When we face entirely new challenges (things unlike anything we've done before), even simple tasks can seem like great obstacles. But in very short order, we get accustomed to those challenges. The unfamiliar circumstances become familiar, and we can then grow exponentially in what we can handle. 

Ironically, I love this as a fact if life and humanity, but I find it a terribly tired trope in storytelling. Still, I think there is potential in the ability to tell those stories, just with using that concept in subtler ways.