Those who know me know I’m a big fan of the romance heroine. In fact, my first agent wanted to represent my first book for that reason–most everyone else focused the story on the guy, not the girl. It’s not that I’ve got anything against the guys, but when it comes to telling a woman’s side of things, isn’t the best place for that a romance? If romances are supposedly written by, for, and about women, who do we still have to obsess about the man?
Angela T. over at Romancing the Blog asks roughly the same question. She’s comparing traditional romances, with their emphasis sometimes on male angst and the bumper crop of urban fantasies we’ve all been enjoying.
Despite the inherent differences between romance novels and urban fantasies, I feel there is room for complementary character arcs. And can we get rid of the word “bitch” regarding heroines who refuse to acquiesce to the hero’s journey?
Can I get an amen, folks? It puts me in mind of the end of the last movie of the second batch of Star Wars sagas (which is really the third story–damn George Lucas). I will NEVER watch
another blessed thing the man makes after he took kick-ass QUEEN Amidala and turned into some wimpy-assed wuss that would allow herself to DIE, leaving her children to be raised by God only knows who, simply because the man she loved turned out to be a bastard. Come on, people. If every woman whose guy turned out to be a jerk wasted away the streets would be littered with female corpses.
Anyway, I digress. I’m still not over that travesty, but we’re talking romances here. Why can’t it be that both hero AND heroine have their own story arcs, their own desires, their own goals and let the man’s be subordinate for a change without him being a wimp and her being a, well, you know. I think it’s time we women allowed ourselves to be as unabashedly strong in fiction as we must be in our everyday lives without feeling the need to apologize for it or push the man out in front and say, but he’s the real hero. Like with anything else, if you don’t use it, you lose it and that includes our own impulses to see ourselves as heroic.
I think a strong hero needs a strong heroine. I want a woman to be feminine, but not a doormat. When the hero starts acting like an idiot, I expect her to put him in his place. So at the end of the day, I expect each character to earn the right to be with the other. I totally agree with you re: Star Wars.
I like what you say here, Ally. I think the hero and heroine do have to earn the right to be with the other one.
Let’s hope if Lucas ever gets around to making the last three of the trilogy he gets his head on straight where women are concerned. I’m not holding my breath, however.