You know the trope. Human appears in a fantasy land and is heralded by Prophecy as being the One that Will Save Them. After a brief montage of sword training, he or she is suddenly able to face the largest monsters, the most massive armies, and even the Great Dark One (who easily dispatched all previous opponents for the past century) in heroic one-on-one swordplay. Ironically, said human hero is often a mere child or teen, yet able to deal death better than the fiercest pirate or most stalvart orc.

In short, a mix of the "Humans are Special" and training montage tropes. Common in swords and sorcery, historical fiction, pirates, space opera, children's fantasy, just about everything. It seems we ordinary Earthers have a knack for becoming instant butt-kickers.

Counter that with assertion that it takes 300 hours of practice to become proficient in any task. Great as a typical training sequence is (cue OotS's training montage), it still can't provide the month (minimum) needed to attain proficiency. That's not counting the need to move from 'proficient' to 'expert'-- that'll be the total of 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" says is needed.

So how is it plucky humans are so awesome in heroic situations? As a card-carrying astronomer, I can solve this for you scientifically. The answer is obvious.

Deep in our understanding of whether there is life elsewhere in the universe is the concept that life is most favored where there is liquid water and an oxidizing atmosphere in the right temperature zone. If you're using a Stargate, having a forest that looks like Vancouver on every planet helps. Yet amid all these conditions we scientists deem best for life, there is one parameter we do not define, one parameter that can have different values.

Therefore, humans are epic heroes in other lands because, to our surprise, Earth is considered a high gravity world. Most worlds with life, particularly in a multiverse that allows for elves, dwarves, trolls and whatnot, have a gravity lower than ours.

So when those plucky Brits arrive in Narnia and, in days, become a 4-person wrecking crew, it's not just the Prophecy that powers them. It's the fact that Earth's high (relative to Narnia) gravity means we're denser, tougher, and more muscled than even the buffest centaur that naturally developed there.

This, indeed, is why so many prophecies seem to deem visitors from modern Earth as avenging heroes. We can't help it, we're just built to be awesome in a universe where most life arose in flimsy half-gravity tissue paper worlds.

Being a hero is not just an Earthling's destiny, it's our density.

Until next month,
Sandy
sandy at rpg.net
p.s. And yes, I really am an astrophysicist. As a shameless plug, visit the satellite I'm building in my basement.