It occurred to me today that I have been deeply impacted by The Incredibles.

Now, before I get terribly involved in a discussion of why I think it is that Elastigirl ended up with the wrong guy in the movie, and I why I think she should be with me, instead, allow me to get serious for a few paragraphs.

For me, a significant part of the story is the story of Buddy Pine, the young boy tossed aside by Mr. Incredible as a crazed fan when Buddy tries to reach out to him, to ask if he might be Mr. Incredible’s sidekick. Buddy ends up using the negative energy of that rejection to become Syndrome, a powerful nemesis that Mr. Incredible, with his wife, Elastigirl, and their family, ends up fighting at the end of the movie, for “all the marbles”.

In fact, if you were to plot the progress of Mr. Incredible’s character as he makes his way through the movie and visualize that alongside the progress that Buddy makes –albeit the wrong kind of progress– it’s arguable that Buddy is a more progressive character than Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible’s alter-ego). Not long after Mr. Incredible casts Buddy aside, he and his fellow superheroes, world-wide, are forced into the underground because of society’s growing discontent with having to deal with the fallout from their shenanigans. Bob Parr does not take this very well, and spends a good part of the movie pouting. Meanwhile, since he couldn’t be Mr. Incredible’s sidekick, Buddy (either consciously or sub-consciously) seeks to become the focus of Mr. Incredible’s attention as his nemesis, instead.

And even though Syndrome loses in the end –for he must, of course– I can’t help but admire the degree to which he is able to take the lemons that life hands him, to make the best lemonade that he can. The rejection that powers his ambition for most of the movie, even though it’s quite a dark brand of motivation, is a productive path; in fact, Syndrome, over the course of the movie, is a much more productive individual than Bob Parr, who is only really able to pick himself up by the bootstraps when he is engaged (secretly) by Syndrome in doing the antagonist’s bidding.

* * *

A different sub-plot of the story, which happens to also be the sub-plot of a story about two of the greatest superheroes of all time and their animosity with each other, comes out in a scene about two-thirds of the way through the story, when Syndrome reveals that he, an inventor without any particular super-powers to speak of, intends to one day sell his inventions to allow for everyone –with the money– to become empowered.

And this is the line that sticks with me, wherever I go:

“And when everyone’s super, no one will be.”

And I’ve often thought of that line, from time to time, because it is much more of a general statement on society than, perhaps, the writers were ever intending. What Syndrome means, most certainly, is that he intends to destroy the entire superhero class by making it so that there is no difference between those who have super powers and those who could buy the tools that would make them super powerful.

This desire to destroy what the Parrs –Bob, Helen, Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack– have is vengeful angst resulting from Buddy’s rejection by Mr. Incredible. Syndrome intends to make Mr. Incredible pay for that rejection by rendering all of humanity “super” so that the thing that makes the Parr family special would cease to be that rare.

But, if we pan back a little bit from this specific statement, we can see that there is a lot of truth to these words on a larger scale.

The things that make some people ordinary and others extraordinary are often the abilities that we have. The doctor who is able to perform the most delicate of surgeries is extraordinary. The basketball player who can fly above his opponents to dunk the ball in the hoop is extraordinary. The author who writes the stories that people just can’t wait to read from cover to cover is extraordinary.

Our admiration of those people, who have abilities that we would wish for, is an admiration that wouldn’t exist if everyone was capable of those same feats. Who would we admire if we were all able to do the things that our “heroes” do?

Additionally, this is another approach to looking at the age-old question: “Which is better? Talent or hard-work?” I think that, as a society, when we look at those people who we might identify as extraordinary or super, we tend to assume that they have some skill that we don’t have and couldn’t obtain, which makes them as unique as they are, when in fact, it might more often be the case that the unique and super individuals among us are just those people who have worked hard enough to become so excellent at something that they rise above the level of everyday ability. We don’t want to look hard-work in the face anymore; our easy society doesn’t want us to have to work hard for anything.

Of course, the other side of that argument is that there have been plenty of individuals who have worked very hard and have never arrived at the level of ability that others seem to just naturally possess.

* * *

And of course, the other two superheroes who face off against each other on opposite sides of this “superpower vs. supertools” debate are Batman and Superman. Batman has no superpowers, but it doesn’t keep him from being able to be a super hero, because he has the tools that make him super powerful. Superman, on the other hand, is a super hero because of his super powers. Truth be told, Superman is an alien, and Batman sees Superman –and the power that he has– as a threat to Earth. Batman takes it upon himself, in the Batman v. Superman story line, to attack Superman in defense of the planet.

This story compares pretty similarly to the Bob Parr/Buddy Pine story in The Incredibles. If it weren’t for the fact that Syndrome is so obviously the antagonist in the movie, you might be hard-pressed to try to identify which of those characters –Syndrome or Mr. Incredible– is more worthy of the “hero” moniker. Certainly, from what we see in the movie, Sydrome is the harder worker. He has to strive and struggle for every advancement that he is able to make toward being somebody worthy of Mr. Incredible’s attention, while Mr. Incredible just seems to take his super power for granted.

They say that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I think both of these characters are made to realize, through different circumstances in the film, that wanting something and not having it can be powerfully motivational. Through hard work and/or natural talent, I happen to believe that everyone can be super.