Libertarian Heroes in Fiction, Part 1  KatnissMy previous posts
on The Hunger Games prompted a reader to question whether
Katniss Everdeen, the 16 year-old protagonist in the trilogy and
movie, should really be celebrated if she is, as I describe her,
“Randian.” It’s an interesting question, and it prompted me to
think about the different ways that libertarian or libertarian-
leaning protoganists are treated in fiction more generally. As a
writer of young-adult fiction and a self-identified libertarian,
this is more than a rhetorical question. But the answer has
interesting implications for how we conceive of the relationship
between the individual and the State in popular culture.  So,
this is the first of two posts discussing protoganists in
liberty-oriented literature. Today’s post discusses “Randian”
libertarian characters. The next post will focus on non-Randian
libertarian protoganists.  Let’s start with Howard Roark, a hero
from the Ayn Rand novel The Fountainhead. Roark, as many readers
may recall, is