    Idealism is a dangerous concept that severely misled Chris throughout the last few years of his life. Like McCandless, Saira Shah explains in her short story, “The Storytellers Daughter,” that the tales of her home country Afghanistan differed from reality. During an argument with her father, Saira explains that she must travel to Afghanistan to determine whether or not the stories she was told were true. Her father, who had painted a very grand and unreal picture of their homeland, understood that it had turned into a war-torn country. He angrily responds, “if you would only grow up a little in the first place, then you would realize that don’t need to go at all”. His response is actually a warning to Saira about the reality of the situation in Afghanistan. Similarly, McCandless wanted to know the answer to puzzling philosophical questions. Chris was given similar advice by Wayne Westerburg, who told Krakauer that “it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things”. Chris would not heed any warnings about his delusions. In an interview, Shah states that her father demanded that she become a writer, until Saira “rebelled and didn’t want to do that”, instead becoming a journalist. Both individuals displayed issues with their fathers, and this combined with their fantasies led them to travel to dangerous parts of the world. Shah openly admits in an interview for the Telegraph that she is “only interested in traveling in rough areas-not necessarily rough war zones but seeing people at extreme moments”. McCandless too fell in love with the idea of the dangerous wild and dealt with its harsh realities on multiple occasions. Shah also felt the repercussions on her journeys; her close friend James Miller died while filming a documentary in the Middle East with Shah.
    The tragic story of Timothy Treadwell bears a strong resemblance to Chris McCandless’ journey. Hoping to fight his demons, Treadwell traveled to Alaska and lived there for 13 years to protect the native grizzly bears. Like McCandless, Treadwell’s actions caused much animosity from Alaskan citizens. As put by Nick Jan in Death In A Grizzly Maze, Treadwell was “the sort of guy most Alaskans loved to hate. You don’t so around crawling on all fours, singing to bears, giving them names like Thumper, Mr. Chocolate, and Squiggle”. The eccentric environmentalist was also noted to have a “stubborn drive to get very close to bears while being videotaped”. Like Shah, Treadwell once stated that he “wanted to test [him]self, to see if [he] was able to overcome the dire situation that [he] was headed toward”. As much as Treadwell had tried to preserve a habitat for the bears, he could not save himself when a grizzly bear killed and ate him in 2003. Both of these men possess eerily similar traits: charisma, stubbornness, determination, rigid moral codes, and deep personal issues. They both ignored common sense and took dangerous risks to achieve their idealistic goals. Each had good intentions; McCandless wanted to be free from society in order to be happy while Treadwell wanted to save bears. Unfortunately, their boldness followed with consequences and both died tragically.
