Heroes Change II

Heroes are of their times - Richard Hannay is not James Bond - except those that time travel. But even they carry their values with them and can experience extreme culture shock on arrival in another era, the first example being Wells' Time Traveller. Indeed, the time traveller in Poul Anderson's "Welcome" has exactly the same shock, the discovery of cannibalism in the future.

When Time Patrolman Carl Farness says that he grew up in a period of sexual freedom, a colleague based in a later century comments that fashions change. Manse Everard's "people," the Patrol, do not forbid a visit to the Temple of Asherat. Patrol medicine protects him from the infections of the ages. But Everard was a twentieth century post-Christian before joining the Patrol whereas other recruits would bring different sexual moralities with them. Everard's recruiter says that he has no interest in Everard's opinions except as reflections of his basic emotional orientation. The Patrol would be unable to accept anyone who was going to freak out at the revelation that his ideas and values existed alongside innumerable alternative world views up and down the ages.