FEATURE Historical
Broken Heroes, Healed Hearts
why we love a wounded hero
W
We are all familiar with Charlotte Brontë’s
brooding Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre
and Gaston Leroux’s tormented Erik from
The Phantom of the Opera. Neither hero is
easy to love, yet we invariably find ourselves
sympathizing with them and hoping they will
eventually find happiness. But why is it that
a man like Erik, whose hideous appearance
and obsessive need to possess Christine,
inspires compassion rather than contempt?
Why do we find ourselves rooting for him
instead of the handsome Raoul?
With this month’s release of His Scandalous Kiss (Avon), a Phantom of the
Opera-inspired romance featuring a scarred
soldier who hides behind a mask, I thought
I’d explore the appeal of the wounded hero
by turning to notable writers whose wounded
heroes have left memorable marks on
modern-day romance.
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By Sophie Barnes
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So tell us, ladies: Why do you
think wounded heroes appeal
to readers?
Mary Balogh: A wounded hero is someone we can empathize with,
someone for whom we can feel pity if necessary. But a wounded
hero in romantic literature, of course, does not need pity. He (or
she) fights back and is ultimately triumphant. This does not necessarily mean that all wounds, whether of the body or of the spirit, are
ultimately healed, but it does mean that the character has mastered
them to live a fulfilled, happy life. Vincent Hunt, Viscount Darleigh,
in The Arrangement (Dell, ‘13), was blinded in the Napoleonic
wars at the age of 17. Many readers have asked that I allow him to
recover some of his sight by the end of the series, but I won’t do it.
Miracles certainly do happen, but they are rare, and I want Vincent
to seem real — but not to be pitied.
Eloisa James: I think that perfect alpha men have appeal, but
as readers, we’re more liable to fall in love with the hero if he
has a vulnerability, hidden or not. Often the wounding is invisible — think of the hero of Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels
(Avon, ‘95), for example. He appears to be a hard-bitten rake,
but inside he’s a seething mass of emotion. Piers, the hero of
my When Beauty Tamed the Beast (Avon, ‘11), suffers from
severe chronic nerve damage to his leg (he was modeled on Dr.
House from House, M.D.). Readers particularly love Piers because
he fights chronic pain every minute of every day. He has to confront his physical limitations in order to save the heroine’s life,
but no matter how difficult it is, he never gives up. He is never
humbled. And consequently, he’s easy to love.
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The happy hero is more difficult
to write because there isn’t as
much to work with. That’s why
I try to wound all my heroes,
if only a little. Poor men.
— Valerie Bowman, author
”
Elizabeth Hoyt: Wounded heroes are like injured, snarling
lions: They’re still big, fierce and sexy, but the heroines (and
therefore the readers) want to comfort and help them. He
needs her. As an example: In To Beguile a Beast (Forever, ‘09),
the hero, Sir Alistair Munroe, had been tortured and lost an
eye in war. His face is so scarred that children and women
scream when they see him in the street. He retreats to his gloomy
castle and it’s not until the heroine pretty much forces herself
into his life that he starts having any interaction with the outside
world. She saves him.
Valerie Bowman: I think wounded heroes appeal to readers
because you immediately have a reason to love them. I’m thinking of one of the best wounded heroes of all time, Loretta Chase’s
Sebastian Ballister from Lord
of Scoundrels (Avon, ‘07). His
mother left him, he was bullied
as a kid and unloved by his father. He’s full of wounds and you
learn that early on in the story, so
you’re rooting for him to find love
from page one.
Is there a tendency
for wounded heroes to
have greater appeal
than heroes who aren’t
wounded?
Mary Balogh: I don’t think so.
A good writer has the imagination and skill to make any sort
of hero or heroine appealing to
the reader. That is her job. The
fun and the challenge is to make
them appealing enough that the
reader adores them before the
book reaches its end.
Eloisa James: I think they’re all
wounded in one way or another.
A Teflon-perfect hero would
be incredibly boring. So yes,
wounded heroes rule!
Elizabeth Hoyt: Yes, if by
wounded you include internally
wounded. There’s nothing more
compelling than the broken hero
who still struggles onward against
all odds, against himself sometimes.
Valerie Bowman: Not necessarily. I also adore
the devil-may-care hero, and he’s not usually
wounded, or at least is often less so. Wounds are
what conflict is made of, however, so a scar or
two, however small, is always appropriate for a
hero in my opinion.
How about writing a wounded
hero? Do you think it poses more
of a challenge?
Mary Balogh: No, it doesn’t. Writing a hero
poses a challenge. The challenge is to get right
inside the character’s life and soul so that you
almost become that person you have created.
The challenge is to make this character so real that readers
have a hard time remembering that he (or she) is only fictitious. Heroes always have to overcome hardship in order to
win their happy ending, but wounded heroes are very often
still wounded at the end and their triumph over enduring pain
and suffering is the more poignant and satisfying.
Eloisa James: A physically
injured hero poses a challenge
because that injury needs to be
an important part of the novel’s
resolution. It took me a lot of
thinking to figure out how to
make the plot threads of When
Beauty Tamed the Beast weave
together so that Piers was at
once demonstrating his greatest
skill (as a doctor) and triumphing over his body’s limitations.
Injuries fall into many categories,
ranging from an actual disability
to a wound that affects a hero’s
appearance. Frankly, I think they
are particularly meaningful to
us because in the last decade so
many of America’s soldiers have
suffered injuries, physical and
mental. We all wish our servicemen and women a happy ending!
Elizabeth Hoyt: The only particular challenge I see is making
sure I don’t fall into cliché. In
Dearest Rogue (Vision, ‘15), the
hero, Captain James Trevillion, has
a limp from his leg having been
broken. The hero with a bad leg
has been done so many times it’s
been enshrined in the Wounded
Hero Hall of Fame (right next to
the hero with a dueling scar on his
cheek that only adds to his sexiness). I gave Trevillion some added
baggage by making him lose his army career when
he lost the use of most of his leg (I like to pile on the
angst). But he’s still able to ride a horse — and he’s
very good at that, so there’s that. Actually, now that I
think about it, I may not have done such a good job
of avoiding cliché.
Valerie Bowman: Actually, I think writing a wounded
hero is easier. The more wounds the better. The
happy hero is more difficult to write because there
isn’t as much to work with. That’s why I try to wound
all my heroes, if only a little. Poor men.
I have to agree. Writing a wounded hero, whether
the wounds be internal, external or both, creates
a character who’s bound to capture the hearts of
romantics. Because we all want the underdog to win,
don’t we? It’s human nature to feel compassion for the less fortunate
and to wish that in spite of all their suffering — or perhaps more so
because of it — they find love. As avid romance reader Cerian Halford
points out, “The journey to find love is sometimes a harder one when
you have a wounded hero, which just makes the destination oh so
much sweeter.” G
July 2016
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