The placing of characters on sailing ships, on pirate islands, riding horses, swimming, running on the beach, is crucial to the narrative's structure and creates an authentic alternative reality that gives the genre its epic nature. Battles are choreographed and progressive, emphasizing thrill and victory rather than terror and death. The adventure hero is a whole person, ideal in all aspects, attractive, chivalrous, romantic, nimble, quick-thinking, able to use disguise, lively, courageous, able to earn loyalty of followers and love of women, and in general personifies the mythical ideals of the culture. The villain portrays the opposite traits of the hero, disrupts peaceful lives, causes war, personifies the failings of the culture. The conflict between protagonist and antagonist is clear and central to the narrative.
Women are the attractive but meek recipients of the hero's attentions.
Although not helpless, they are submissive, respectable, nonthreatening. The political triumph at the end is tied in some way to romantic fulfillment. The adventurers' code of conduct is central to the behavior of the hero and his followers. It defines the difference between hero and villain, provides motive and causation, justifies violence. The code mandates honor, duty, loyalty, selflessness, even spirituality.