Oedipus, and many other Greek tragic heroes, serves as a warning against hubris, an optimism and faith in self that leads to arrogance. He believes he is great enough to overcome the fate that the gods have scripted for him. He is not.
Some other heroes from history that fit (at least loosely) into the tragic hero category would be Hercules, Antigone, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Electra.
A tragic hero is a hero (or main character and important person) who has a tragic flaw that leads to his or her doom. Oedipus had such a tragic flaw. His tragic flaw was vanity and arrogance. He believed he could outsmart fate. This was his downfall.
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