Has there ever been a person or singular entity that is comparable to Holden in the key points of how "he was in the right place at the right time" so many times to significantly impact human history?
I can't think of anyone. Maybe Alexander the Great? But that's a bit simplistic I think
Posted Feb 10, 2023, 10:51 AM UTC
He’s like a sci-fi Forrest Gump.
Proof that if Forrest Gump loved coffee instead of Jenny, he could have saved the world several times over.
I like that description
Commander Shepard :P
This is the best answer. Holden and Shepard are perfectly analogous except that Holden was an antihero of sorts.
A close second is Bob Johansson from the Bobiverse books. Average nerdy guy - any one of us basically - gets hit by a car in a one in millions circumstance and dies, ends up being brought back as an AGI and forced to save the world. Repeatedly stumbles into one clusterfuck after another.
Shepard is an antihero, depending on how you play them.
Idk, not really. Even the most renegade Shep still will step up to the plate and dive head first into danger to save others, without hesitation.
They’re just more of a hero in the way Amos is a hero.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi
The reverse holden. Wrong place wrong time. Survived two nukes in japan. So he has the same luck too.
I would say Holden was repeatedly in the wrong place at the wrong time. He never wanted to be a hero. He never wanted to be skullfucked by Protomolecule. He never wanted to participate in rebellions or wars and he sure as hell never wanted to get captured and imprisoned on Laconia for five years.
Yes, I definitely think there are people like this, particularly in periods of continuous war and conflict in Europe; diplomats/politicians/soldiers who played a role across the whole period.
Churchill could be example, he was active and influential in WW1, the inter war years, WW2, the post war peace settlement. His fingerprints are on so much of what happened and like Holden, he's a polarising figure. But unlike Holden, Churchill is a national leader and so had a lot more direct agency to do things, and there are there are obviously quite a few examples of men like this; the 'great man' theory of history, they talk about it in the series.
More comparable to Holden could be diplomats like Talleyrand and Metternich who were really influential in shaping the post French revolution European political order, similarly Cardinal Mazarin had a foundational impact on creating the modern state system in the 17th Century. These three guys were involved with like everything that happened around them.
From a military perspective, Arthur Wellesley was all over the place fighting in loads of wars and became PM of the UK, but maybe not soo influential other than Waterloo... Cortes was massively influential in the creation of the modern world and was very 'right place right time', he's the best analogue to Holden in the sense of a random person stepping in basically from nowhere and doing things that had an insanely huge impact. But he doesn't pop up multiple times in different events. Ironic to say this, considering Holden's opinions about Conquistadors.
In terms of a woman, I'd suggest Eleanor of Aquitaine who was a co-founder of the Plantagenet dynasty and a leader during the Crusades. She led a very interesting and influential life.
I think there are probably lots of examples of people who are maybe lesser known, and maybe not influential on the 'impact on human history' scale, but still played important roles in multiple historical events.
You could possibly toss Bismarck in there.
Yep. Thought about adding him in, just didn’t know so much about him tbh. There were probably loads Romans who’d fit this as well, but again I don’t have the knowledge.
I think he's more of the right man in the wrong place. Gordon Freeman perhaps?
This is actually a very good analogy. In many ways Holden was used as a tool by higher powers be it avasarala or protomolecule. Just like Gordon is used by gman though thats a bit more abusive relationship :D
It made all the difference ;)
Alexander the Great was my first thought, but Atilla the Hun and Catherine the Great might also fit. For sheer unlikely and rising to the challenge against overwhelming odds, Zelenskyy's rise from comedian in a country most people couldn't pick out on a map to phenomenal leader and champion figurehead against the formerly unassailable seeming Russia has been pretty impressive.
After the first two books him being in the right place at the right time is mostly engineered within the story and not happenstance.
I think Naomi happening to be the ex girlfriend of the biggest murderer in human history is too much of a coincidence though.
The authors responded to this one once. They used the real world example of someone that dated the two most wealthy and powerful men in the world at one point. I can't remember the name off the top of my head; just that there are real world scenarios where this kind of thing happens.
They also pointed out that Naomi has a bit of selection bias where she prefers strong willed and driven men. Marco and Holden aren't that dissimilar; they're both very focused on doing what they think is right but Marco has accepted killing a lot of people is worth the sacrifice and Naomi is not okay with that. A lot of the conflict Naomi has with Holden is when Holden starts to get tunnel vision and ignore the human cost. That conflict is rooted in her fear that Holden will become another Marco but Holden always brings himself back from the brink.
One thing I liked from the books that I'm sad they downplayed in the show was Holden was very capable of being a killer. He would get into gunfights right beside Amos and usually favoured an assault rifle. The show kept giving him a handgun and it just didn't sit right for me.
Right, there was that whole section where Naomi left Holden because of that, right?
The story of this guy is pretty bonkers. Fought for all sides of Spanish civil war, and was double agent between Germany and UK, without UK even being aware of that.
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Ben Franklin is about all I could come up with.
Life just isn’t like an opera (space, or soap, or otherwise) most of the time.
Yeah I know
Steve Bradbury, not to sell him short as he's a fast skater and needed to be to take advantage the way he did. He won the 2002 Olympic gold for speed skating after the lead pack stacked... it was also how he qualified for the final earlier in the games.
He stated after the event that he knew it was the path for him to win and kept up with the lead group but far enough back to react to an accident.
I think most protagonists are in the places where they need to be.
And most antagonists are in the places they shouldn’t be. 😂
Ernest Hemingway, ambulance driver in WWI, Journalist in the spanish civil war, on Omaha beach during D-day, present at the liberation of Paris, possible Soviet spy during the cold war and an accomplished author to boot.
pretty epic resume to say the least
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Holden up a sec…you think he was in the right place at the right time??
For humanity yes. Not for his own benifit though.
Maybe Thomas Cochrane ?
Alexander the Great MADE it the right place at the time he was there. I think it would have to be somebody who was more in the shadow during those cataclysmic events. Some secondary figure on the political stage, a regent, a queen mother, a councilor, a cardinal. Or a daredevil like Sir Walter Raleigh. A diplomat from medieval times or early modern. A spy from the interwar period.
The thing is it’s usually they are in the right place at the right time once, after that they are are sought after and sent on missions because of who they are. Like Holden.
Honor Harrington.
The first name that crosses my mind is Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, 2 time MOH recipient and author of one of my favorite books "War is a Racket".
John McClane
😆😆😆
Perfectly accurate! 😂😂😂