Holding Out For A Hero
Ah, the revision saga continues, and as I'm dealing with the lack of sparks between V and the romantic interest, it is now easy to see why I have milked the passion right out of this relationship. Yes, at one point in time, I envisioned the romantic interest as a Christ-type figure. Not the Man, himself, but enough like him to make V go, "Huh?" At one time this sounded like a good idea, although in what universe I thought that, I really don't know. You'd think the perfect man would make a perfect hero, right? Wrong! All it makes is a boring hero.
Heroes are very difficult animals for romance readers. They must be strong and sexy, but they have to have flaws as well. Oh, it can't be something icky like for instance, bad breath, or pedophilia, no, it must a tragic flaw, which means it's got to be a doozie, but it can't stop the reader from falling in love with him. In the 80s, the heroes were basically assholes. Heroines were raped, treated like doormats, mistrusted and in general, had a sucky time of it. In the end, the hero was redeemed by love and the heroine forgave him.
Eventually, romance readers pondered this disparity and the 80s heroes were tossed out quicker than you could say, "Sly Stallone." And thus came the 90s. A time when Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura Schlessinger were heating up the airwaves. Is it any wonder we wanted heroes that we could break through their psyche and heal them? Over the past ten years, flaws have been done to death. We've had: betrayed by love, doesn't believe in love, has no heart (that's the metaphorical heart, not the real one, although it does have a nice paranormal ring to it), and the ever-popular "I'm not worthy." I think perhaps that the reason the paranormal genre is doing well, is that the paranormal aspect is giving the hero his flaw, since we've run out of all other flaws to give these poor guys.
Eventually we'll run out of otherworldly flaws to give our men and I suppose we'll have to think of something else. What that is, I have no idea…
A commentary from 1999, which supports (sorta) my hypothesis:
Article on the lack of happy heroes in TV
Okay, so I don't know if anyone has noticed the comments section that I've added (it's new), but I'd like to invite some discussion here. Does anybody agree with me? Put on the crystal ball and predict what's next (always a fun game)? What's your favorite kind of hero?
Heroes are very difficult animals for romance readers. They must be strong and sexy, but they have to have flaws as well. Oh, it can't be something icky like for instance, bad breath, or pedophilia, no, it must a tragic flaw, which means it's got to be a doozie, but it can't stop the reader from falling in love with him. In the 80s, the heroes were basically assholes. Heroines were raped, treated like doormats, mistrusted and in general, had a sucky time of it. In the end, the hero was redeemed by love and the heroine forgave him.
Eventually, romance readers pondered this disparity and the 80s heroes were tossed out quicker than you could say, "Sly Stallone." And thus came the 90s. A time when Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura Schlessinger were heating up the airwaves. Is it any wonder we wanted heroes that we could break through their psyche and heal them? Over the past ten years, flaws have been done to death. We've had: betrayed by love, doesn't believe in love, has no heart (that's the metaphorical heart, not the real one, although it does have a nice paranormal ring to it), and the ever-popular "I'm not worthy." I think perhaps that the reason the paranormal genre is doing well, is that the paranormal aspect is giving the hero his flaw, since we've run out of all other flaws to give these poor guys.
Eventually we'll run out of otherworldly flaws to give our men and I suppose we'll have to think of something else. What that is, I have no idea…
A commentary from 1999, which supports (sorta) my hypothesis:
Article on the lack of happy heroes in TV
Okay, so I don't know if anyone has noticed the comments section that I've added (it's new), but I'd like to invite some discussion here. Does anybody agree with me? Put on the crystal ball and predict what's next (always a fun game)? What's your favorite kind of hero?
posted by Kathleen at 11:01 AM
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