>>80339623Elka's most idealistic and heroic moment comes when she is unwilling to let two children (one of which is the child of her enemies) die at the cost of her own life, even knowing that the cost of her own life will mean a great evil will triumph. Anyone with consideration of the greater good - which Toma and Duane might well have in many circumstances - would not have made that decision. It wasn't a practical thing and it wasn't a calculated thing, it was a momentary decision that revealed Elka's character as being one believing in an unrealistic, untainted goodness.
There is no question Elka is more of a hero than Duane, who buys into many prejudices and tyrannies even having witnessed and inflicted firsthand the suffering and oppression caused by them. Duane led a bunch of teens to be slaughtered in a war for resources because he felt it was a righteous thing. Duane has plenty of heroic moments but they are highly circumstantial.
Toma is a big bad hero in the style of an Arthurian knight: he knows when he kick evil's ass and he's really good at doing it. But his uncertainty about this whole situation and the fact he was so easily manipulated and used up at court shows that he doesn't have the purity of idealism than Elka and Jivi do.
You didn't mention Jivi and I won't cover him but nobody reading this comic should be in any doubt that Jivi is the biggest damn hero in the whole thing. He doesn't have the skills the other characters do, his background is one of amorality and war and violence. Almost every single step he takes is an effort to do good in spite of what he's been taught and his own bodily limitations.
