The Hero Complex

So after awhile of not posting stuff, I had a thought. So here it is,

In movies, books, cave drawings, and especially video games; the main character has the largest largest ego. Doesn't matter what the story could be about, pirates, ninjas, or space ninja pirates. The main character wants to take on this journey by himself. This usually ends with the super ridiculously close, near death expirence, one second on the clock and yet saves the world. I understand that they do it. They get the job done, but is it necessarry?

Now, in movies this problem seems to solve itself sometimes. The explain why it's only the one or few people. However, there are still movies that do this. In Lord of the rings, frodo half way through the first movie, he's like "Hey, I'm going to ditch this armed escort and simply walk into mordor" Not the brightest of all ideas.

In video games, it becomes so much worse. One of my favorite game series, Mass Effect, has this syndronme bad. The main character (you) is faced with a mission to save the galaxy. So natuarally, you would look around and say "I'll take you and you." Two people? To save the galaxy? I personally wouldn't think that would be a great strategy. I would like an army, or at least some sort of religious deity. Just some sort of insurance that I won't have to die.

Now why do they do this? Is it just the glory or tying to be a hero? What I think it is, is that when faced with a perilous mission, you loose all reasoning and logic abillities. So they think to themselves "Terrorists, explosives, 4 hours, no bathroom breaks... Yeah, I got it." I just don't see why. You could finish the movie, video game, or book in half the time. "Who are you?" "Well I'm the bad guy" "Well we are the good guys (my army)" "Oh... well there are quite a few of you... How about we call it a draw?" "Yeah, sounds good."