We've had the situation come up where Iron Legacy plays a one shot which has wording roughly "Each player must either discard 2 cards or destroy one of their cards in play"
My understanding is that the hero cards themselves aren't cards in playt. I don't have an absolute certainty of this, but I recall another card that basically says "destroy all your cards in play or dicard your hand" so I assumed your hero wasn't included as the choice would be between "kill your hero or discard your hand".
In the game, we decided to "choose" to destroy something, then found nothing to destroy. That may not have been allowed, but we had also been hit by multiple bad memories or whatever the "everyone discard, play another villain card" one is called. I don't even think we could discard two at that point.
So I guess my questions are:
Can you choose an option you can't really fulfill? Would he blow up your character if it's the only card out?