One could argue that Harrison DID act heroically because he was so intelligent as evidenced by his many handicaps, especially the ones that would cause noise to disrupt his thoughts and weights to stop his strength. Since he was able to escape and because he was able to take off all his handicaps, it shows that he must've understood the consequences of declaring himself emperor on national television. He didn't gather weapons or assemble an army. Instead he chose to dance and made it extremely easy for the government to find him. He had to know that the Handicapper General would kill him to protect their society. Since he chose to defy the rules of society and live, briefly, free of their constraints, it is easy to see why someone may consider Harrison to be a hero. Choosing to die free of the constraints of his society is very heroic. On the other hand, one could also argue that it wasn't heroic at all, since he did NOT escape with a plan to help other people, including his parents, who were subject to the terrible laws and handicaps set on them by the government. A truly heroic person would have thought of other people, too, and not just himself. We know that Harrison is the strongest, most beautiful, and most intelligent person there is because he has such heavy and ugly handicaps. Someone who has so many gifts SHOULD help other people. In most definitions of the word, a hero is someone who sacrifices part or all of him or herself to help other people. Harrison did not help anybody except the ballerina with whom he danced, and that caused her death, too.
Vonnegut´s gifts as a story teller are remarkable, and through his clever and complex use of irony he can make the reader reflect upon the choices of his characters and extrapolate them into personal and societal dimensions that are not necessarily linked with the context of the story. In this story in particular, the main character, in a heroic manner, indeed, shows the reader the importance of a pluralist and diversified society and the horrors and possible consequences of a uniformly ostracized society. Sometimes social values, some such as equality even, need to be refocused and re-problematized in order to escape their dialectical stagnation.
