layla | Pondering heroes and the tropes thereof

The latest book from my Library Pile is one that I’d thought to be a historical murder mystery from the cover, but once I started to read, I realized it was a mystery-romance. The heroine has a meet-cute with a guy on the ferry that she’s taking to the Greek island where the events of the book take place. On the island, he is giving her a lift in his sporty little car, when he accidentally knocks over an old lady’s fruit stand, knocking oranges all over the road. Immediately, he stops, apologizes, and helps the old lady pick up her fruit.

And this really gave me pause; it made me stop and go, “Wow, I like this guy! This one’s a keeper, lady.”

… then about five pages later, the actual romantic hero shows up, which is clearly signposted because he is a total dick and the heroine hates him. Just to be sure, I turned to the blurb on the back (normally I avoid those, being a spoilerphobe) and discovered that not only is Dick Boy our “hero”, but the guy I’d liked so much is slated to be the murder victim.

Yeah. No. This one goes straight back to the library.

But this made me realize just how thoroughly over the alpha-hero trope I am. Over. Done. I want characters (male and female) who are the sort of person who would stop to help an old lady pick up her oranges. I am hungry for kind characters in literature, the sort of people who are aware that they exist as part of a community; who, when they accidentally hurt someone, notice and apologize for it, even if it’s a stranger, and doubly so if it’s a loved one.

And I think it was very eye-opening for me how startling it was, to encounter a scene in the opening pages of the book in which the character that I had believed to be the hero does something kind and altruistic. That’s rare. And it shouldn’t be. And this isn’t a problem specific to the romance genre. I read so many books in which the characters are misanthropic loners or just general jerks. I can enjoy me some misanthropic loners, but these days, I find that I’m really craving books about characters who aren’t. (Even if they may occasionally mistake themselves for one.)

Crossposted from Wordpress.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

>> I suspect it is more that the trope is self-fulfilling. <<

That's certainly a part of it.

>>Of course, learning to cook and clean, and how to manage asking one's partner to share in housework, are also subject to your upbringing teaching you those skills.<<

Or deciding to fill the gaps yourself. Nobody seems to reach adulthood with a complete set of personal skills; it's a matter of figuring out what you're missing and whether you want to fix that.

>>Also, Friendzone? Horrible concept, right out of the conceptual landscape where women don't really like sex but hand it out in exchange for love, and men are entitled to sex from the women they want.<<

Agreed. I also resent the way it treats friendship as a lesser concept, which is not necessarily so: friendship can be a primary relationship and sex can be emotionally meaningless bodyplay.

>> Men complaining about "being friendzoned" seem to assume that if they accumulate enough "niceness tokens" they can trade it in for sex. <<

Sometimes, perhaps. But that's not the only version I've seen. I have seen a lot of women misuse this horribly. As in, they'll draw a line and tell men not to cross it: men who obey are ruled out, and those who cross the line are considered for sexual activity. It make me want to slap those women.

>>This is why we need more romances with people of all sexes who are kind, gentle, do the housework, negotiate disagreement and reach acceptable compromises. Give people alternative models of behaviour than the ones they grew up with and the existing "romantic" stereotypes.<<

So much YES to this. It's why I write a lot of what I write. And increasingly, I'm working in primary relationships that are not based on sex/romance as well.

I don't want to victim-blame, but those people make me want to, very much.

I think people have gone too far with the idea of imperfect characters. Nowadays, I see people complaining that kind, non-bratty characters with better interpersonal skills than your average betta fish are boring. There's certainly a place for severely emotionally stunted characters, but that place is not everywhere.

>>I don't want to victim-blame, but those people make me want to, very much.<<

If a woman picks a macho guy, and he hits her or cheats on her, that's his fault, not her fault. If she picks a macho guy, who habitually watches football instead of doing the dishes, and then she complains because he isn't doing the dishes ... well, she knew what he was when she picked him. It's not fair for her to complain about that, and it's not his fault for being himself. She's not responsible for his behavior. She is responsible for her selection in the first place. (This does not cover the kind of abusive behavior where a guy seems great at first then turns into an overcontrolling violent beast gradually. Label not matching the contents is a whole different kettle of very pickled fish.)

>>I think people have gone too far with the idea of imperfect characters.<<

I agree. Character construction requires variety or reading becomes downright tedious. Not to mention that it's embarrassing to be reading along and say, "No, Merry, don't open that door! Oh wait, I meant MERCY. Sorry, sorry, wrong book."

There are all kinds of flaws that could go with a fundamentally good-hearted and well-behaved character. He might be broke, shy, uneducated, more wise than smart, not very handsome, clumsy, any number of things. A character might be brilliant at some emotional/social skill clusters but wretched at others.

That kind of mistake is like complaining about "overpowered" characters. They're not overpowered, they're underchallenged. Try breaking the universe over your knee, that'll light a fire under them for a change. It's a lack of authorial imagination, I think.

Very much this.

Pondering heroes and the tropes thereof

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