In "Age of Heroes", his protagonist is the eldest son of a prominent Confucian family. Similar to Yi's own father, he has communist sympathies. He takes up the leftist cause only to be disillusioned. Caught up in his idealism, he ignores the danger to his family. His mother and wife are left to save the family. As described in a plot summary by Dong-Wook Shin, the protagonist insists the war is “for the people,” but when his mother rhetorically asks, “What people are you talking about? I see no such people in the south and don't think there will be any more in the north. they not something that exists only in your words? And yet for that ghost of yours you dare to sacrifice innocent lives?"