The next few days are listed on my calendar as reserved for the Tortured Hero Blog Hop but unfortunately Carrie Ann had to cancel it due to circumstances very much beyond her control.
However, I’ve noticed blog hop posts going up so the word obviously hasn’t reached everyone, and I feel I ought to do something for people who hop in this direction if they haven’t realised that the blog isn’t going forward.
So – tortured heroes. Do we like them or don’t we?
Absolutely my favourite ‘tortured hero’ – T E Lawrence ‘of Arabia’
I think the answer has to be a resounding ‘hell yes’, because a hero who has no issues, has no vulnerabilities, short comings or regrets, nothing to beat himself up over, is a very boring hero indeed. In order to be an interesting character he needs to have things he’s not sure about – he needs help. He doesn’t have to enjoy needing help, it can be even better if he doesn’t want to ask and resents it when it’s offered, but help means interaction. Interaction means opening up to tell what his issues are and why he is as he is. Opening up is part of his character development.
On the other hand, you may be one of those people who enjoys their heroes suffering physical as well as mental anguish. That can be fun to write as well. Pitting a hero against incredible physical challenges, whether in battle, or terrain, or sickness, or just a plain old fashioned beating, then seeing how he handles the situation, especially when he’s losing, tells you a lot about him.
Then there’s physical torture for realz if the plot calls for it. Secret agents, undercover cops, captured soldiers, might face a good deal worse than a questionnaire if caught by their antagonists. Personally, I’m a very squeamish writer and don’t think I could go all the way with that kind of thing – I’ve tried and it made me feel faint – but it can be a very powerful part of a plot [as long as the author doesn’t seem to expect me to get off on it.]
Comment below explaining your own favourite tortured hero and I’ll – um – pick a winner and – um – I dunno – send you one of my unique and incredibly sought after swag items through the snail mail post?
Oh! Hands down, my all-time favorite tortured hero is Jamie Fraser in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. He’s been raped, beaten, broken, fought in wars, been stripped of his birthright, imprisoned, shot, stabbed, shipwrecked, snake-bitten, has sacrificed his own happiness to save his one true love and their unborn child, been reported drowned at sea… Those are all kinds of out of order, but through all the hardships and sacrifices he remains the only thing he needs to be for me to love him–Jamie Fraser. ❤
Oh now that’s really interesting. A friend, a HUGE Outlander fan, swapped a copy of Cross Stitch for my copy of A Game of Kings featuring MY favourite fictional tortured hero, Francis Crawford. I read Xstitch and really wanted to like it but it left me absolutely cold – the narrator’s voice pushed me right out of the story. I didn’t like Claire so didn’t bother to read any further than the end of Xstitch. I quite like the Lord John books but can’t understand why there’s this awful elephant in the room – Jamie Fraser – who doesn’t seem to do much other than cause John oodles of angst. I have NO idea why John loves him because he doesn’t seem to be a loveable character. Obviously this must be because I haven’t read all the other books where Jamie has got to show his sterling qualities.
My friend only managed one chapter of GoK because, she said, she found the language difficult and there wasn’t a female character to identify with. I guess we were suffering the same problem in reverse. She needed a woman to identify with. I needed a man 🙂
LOL! That’s so funny. If you didn’t like Jamie from the outset, then you wouldn’t like him in any of the remaining books either. I like Claire, but mostly she’s just standing in the way of me and my man. 😉
Lord John is perfection and I adore him immensely, and yes, Jamie is his torture and his temptation. I’ve read only one Lord John book, in which Jamie played a big part, and I have to say that didn’t love it, liked but not loved. I think John needs his own books apart from Jamie.
Lord John, Claire, and Jamie were left in a bit of a cliffhanger at the end of Echo in the Bone. I’m looking forward to seeing how it’s resolved.
I feel quite left out, but I guess if you’re not feeling the love … I’m not sure that I actively disliked Jamie. It’s just that Claire made such a negative impression on me I couldn’t get past her.
Francis is another matter. He’s a gorgeous, amoral, vicious, prodigally gifted Mary Sue of a character who works in the context of a Renaissance setting where men like Sir Philip Sidney were architects and generals and lutenists and designed costumes for masques. Francis even comments on his gifts “One can be good at music and at mathematics and be popular. And one can be good at mathematics and sport and be wildly popular. But if you do well at all three, you’re a mountebank”. Francis’ series is finished and the author is long dead.*sigh* I would give my left leg to write like her even if the style isn’t fashionable these days.
I have added Francis to my overburdened and continually growing TBR pile. There are some days I could cry from the want of all these lovely books and the lack of time to get them all read. 😛
Well that’s interesting I thought my heros aren’t tortured but after reading this I guess they are. I just have to make them more tortured. I can’t think of a tortured hero I’ve read about.
Haha, well nobody told me 😉 You know my two favorites, so this isn’t an entry in the contest. I had fun blogging about them, so that’s all good 🙂 Interesting post – and I thoroughly endorse your choice 🙂 🙂 🙂
Agreed that a “perfect” character is a boring one. Flaws and the ways that characters respond to situations around their flaws are what makes characters unique and relatable. It’s what makes us love or hate them, and I would honestly rather have a strong emotional reaction to a character than to feel blah about him, or her.
Thinking of tortured heroes I’ve read about recently, I remember rockstar Tyler from Zathyn Priest’s The Curtis Reincarnation. He is physically tortured by improperly treated epilepsy, and he is emotionally and mentally tortured by his abusive, greedy manager, the fact that his mother left him rather than love him because of his epilepsy, his father’s death, and by having to stay in the closet for the sake of his career. His new relationship, his career, and even his life are all tested throughout the book, and by the end I was in tears.
But I have to stick with my own boys too. I’m lucky some of them don’t hate me, even though I’m just writing their lives. 🙂 One of them can’t accept his own sexuality because he thinks it was the reason he was assaulted as a teenager, and when the love of his life comes along, he is determined to keep the man at arm’s length. And that despite the fact that the man is the only one able to help him the night he almost loses his life and stays with him even though the recovery is excruciatingly longer than it ever should have been. So, yes, I think we have tortured completely covered, lol.
OMG the post I read just before this one talked about the dangers of making your bad guys too unlikable. Funny. Yes, our heroes must have some flaws to add realism and help drive the conflict.
I’m with you on not liking Jamie Fraser, and I’ve tended to go off Lord John through the course of the series due to his failure to come round to my point of view. My alltime favourite hero still has to be Ross Poldark (even though he’s verging on antihero status) and he does get an awful lot thrown at him over the course of 12 books. At least he gets a happy ending with Demelza eventually.
Oh God, the bit after the duel where the doctor sawed off the bit of bone sticking out of his arm!!! *gags* I liked Ross but found Demelza annoying and I wanted to kill all the Warleggans, root and branch. Good stuff.
I think having earlier memories of the original TV Demelza than of book Demelza may have influenced my opinion of her. Agreed on the Warleggans, though.
Oh, come on – we all like a little torture. Even if it’s resisting that chocolate bar nestling so deliciously in the desk drawer. And really, torturing your hero as a writer is fun.Yes, we’re a sadistic bunch, but don’t you love it when the big guy is under pressure, out of time and he’s got ferrets (don’t ask) to deal with?Especially when he’s still got time to romance, rescue and do wonderfully sexy things to the heroine. And after all the crap he’s given you over what colour his eyes are – damn, but the man needs to know who’s boss!So – how do we torture our heroes in a way that leaves you breathless for more? There are so many options to choose from so I’m going to list them. I love lists.Emotional torture: This can be something dark from his past which haunts and drives him to desperate deeds that throw him into a moral quandary and direct conflict with the heroine. The man is unable to see a way out of this pit of awfulness until he meets ‘the girl’ who shines a light into the blackness of his soul, bitch-slaps some sense into him and loves him regardless.Mental torture: Lusting after something he can’t have. Like an ice cold glass of water in the middle of Hell. A sumptuous feast after he’s been held hostage in the wastelands of purgatory. Desperately wanting the awesome hotness of the heroine’s lithe body wrapped around his own after years of denying his needs. Ooh yeah, mentally torturing your hero is such delightful fun!Physical torture: Who doesn’t like a bit of bondage? A sweat slicked muscular guy straining against his cuffs as the heroine mets out her own brand of erotic punishment…Maybe he’s desperate to free himself so he can rescue her from the iniquitous clutches of evil?Oh, such excellent ideas – I’m off to torture my heroes…just a little.