The Reluctant Defender

A young man who went by the name of Jay Cee lived in a small town in Pennsylvania. He worked as a carpenters helper at a job that paid less than a dollar an hour above minimum wage. Teaching Sunday school was a passion of his. He arrived in Detroit one day to attend a four-day religious retreat along with twenty thousand other Christian believers from several midwestern states. Due to an incredible set of circumstances, he found himself at the Detroit Lions training facility in Allen Park, Michigan, a nearby suburb of Detroit. In an even more bizarre twist of fate, he found himself practicing with the Detroit Lions football team at the position of quarterback. He dazzled everyone on the field, especially the head coach. His pinpoint passing, his ball handling, and his elusiveness in the pocket were nothing short of amazing! However, he had absolutely no desire to play professional football. He was very satisfied living and working in that small town and teaching Sunday school there. No amount of money offered to him could make him change his mind. One evening, Jay Cee attended a class at the retreat during which the instructor told them, God wants us to live up to our potential by using the talents He has given us. Sometimes, we have to step outside of our comfort zones before we can recognize what those talents are. That made him realize that perhaps living in a small town and working for minimum wage was not his destiny; maybe it was time for him to broaden his horizons.

For hundreds of years the United Kingdom has been protected by a mysterious guardian known as the Defender. Part myth, part superhero, few truly believed the Defender existed... until now. Alfie thinks he knows his destiny. As Prince Alfred, heir to the throne of Great Britain, he's fated to become the most disappointing king in the nation's history. Alfie longs for a way to prove himself, but little does he realize that with the throne of England comes an ancient secret. He who wears the crown must protect the country as the legendary hero -- the Defender of the Realm.Hayley is an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. She certainly never believed in the mysterious superhero, the Defender. Then, after witnessing a very public battle at the Tower of London, everything is different, and Hayley is left with no doubt. The Defender is real.Two kids with two very different lives are about to get caught up in a centuries-long battle for the fate of a nation. Monsters and criminals, villains and dragons, together Hayley and Alfie must protect their home at all costs.

This book analyzes Hollywood storytelling that features an American crimefighter—whether cop, detective, or agent—who must safeguard society and the nation by any means necessary. That often means going “rogue” and breaking the rules, even deploying ugly violence, but excused as self-defense or to serve the greater good. This ends-justifies-means approach dates back to gunfighters taming the western frontier to urban cowboy cops battling urban savagery—first personified by “Dirty” Harry Callahan—and later dispatched in global interventions to vanquish threats to national security. America as the world’s “policeman often means controlling the Other at home and abroad, which also extends American hegemony from the Cold War through the War on Terror. This book also examines pioneering portrayals by males of color and female crimefighters to embody such a social or national defender, which are frustrated by their existence as threats the white knight exists to defeat.