Heroes and Antiheroes

It’s easy to love a fireman who rescues kittens from trees, but would you want to read a whole book of the fireman acting heroically scene after scene? To me, that would become boring. Let’s give the fireman a flaw or two. Maybe he has gambling debts with the mob. One of these thugs has kidnapped his sister. Now we have a plot!

I just finished a contemporary romance novel with two perfect protagonists (Snowy Mountain Christmas by Sharon Sala). Despite the fact that the hero had a sad and lonely childhood and terrible parents, he was a wonderful person, generous and loving, and he never put a foot wrong when he met the girl of his dreams. She was beyond perfect: beautiful, successful, popular, a great cook, on and on, and talked to angels. As you might imagine, this story was boring af! We need a conflict to resolve (or not). We need dramatic tension. We need to see character development, which isn’t possible when the MC’s are already at the pinnacle of existence.

Most halfway decent romance novels assign character flaws to the protagonists, even if they’re as mundane as grumpiness or naïveté. We experience the problems that the flaws cause as we read, and we watch the characters transcend their traits. This is part of a good love story: the relationship helps each MC become a better person. People who are already perfect aren’t interesting to read about. 

But what about antiheroes? I think whether we root for a particular villain (or not) is determined by personal preference. In general, I don’t cheer for criminals, but inexplicably I did like Tony Soprano. Sure, he was a brutal murderer, but he was funny and kind to animals. In the book I am currently reading (The Defense by Steve Cavanagh), the protagonist Eddie committed insurance fraud as an occupation (before he became an attorney). Supposedly, he felt justified because a greedy health insurance company refused to pay for treatment for his father. But Eddie didn’t rip off health insurance companies ~ he did auto insurance fraud, which makes costs rise for all of us. I find this enraging, and I don’t like Eddie because of it.

There are other reasons why I probably won’t read any more books by this author, or at least not any starring Eddie Flynn, but disliking the hero usually means I am not enjoying the novel overall. As I gobble up books like it’s my job, I find that the ones I enjoy most are about relationships, not necessarily romantic ones, but the endless variety of human relationship possibilities. And maybe they don’t have to be human! For example, the most interesting part of Snowy Mountain Christmas was not the perfect romance between the protags, but the messy relationship between his screwed up parents. We barely caught a glimpse of that though. I’m not really finding much of interest in The Defense, except for technical information regarding trials and police procedures, but I am well over halfway done, so I will finish it.