I looked up at him. A murderer outlined in brilliant light. Seen like that, he was just a shadow. Darkness. A nothingness before real power.
This is the final climactic scene where David is about to face death at the hands of his father's murderer. The sun is coming out and lighting the city that was for so long in darkness. At this moment David realizes the insignificance of this one moment on the large scale of life; realizes that even if he dies at this moment, the beauty of light gives hope that life will move forward, that Steelheart is nothing compared to the real power of light and life.
I know, better than anyone else, that there are no heroes coming to save us. There are no good Epics. None of them protect us. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Steelheart makes his entrance at the beginning of the novel. At first, he is the picture perfect of what could be seen as a hero. But, disappointment soon follows. He is as bad as every other Epic, if not even worse, and he begins his demonstration of power to produce fear and subject humans of Newcago to his rule. David's father believed in a hero, and he died tried to save Steelheart whom he believed to be that. The fact that every Epic turns villainous is more complex than just a simple corruption by power, as we learn towards the end.
“The work we do,” Prof said, “is not about living. Our job is killing. We’ll leave the regular people to live their lives, to find joy in them, to enjoy the sunrises and the snowfalls. Our job is to get them there.”
The Reckoners are self-sacrificial group that fights back to the corruption. They are the closest thing to heroes in these dark (literally and metaphorically) times. Their mission is to give hope to the humanity that even Epics are not indestructible, hope to fight back.
