Friday, July 27, 2012

Flaws and All

Like Bridget Jones in her eponymous diary, I will confess to a deep, abiding crush on Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice, flaws and all.  He's no alpha hero, mind you, at least not in a Harlequin Presents sort of way. In fact, he's socially awkward, more than a bit stuffy and has a bad habit of putting his pride before his good sense.  He also wins the award for one of the worst marriage proposals in the history of literature.

But I wuv him. 

His flaws are part of what makes him so appealing to me, because they allow me to identify with him and appreciate his assets.  I know his haughty exterior masks a painful social shyness. I can appreciate that he feels as if he's a piece of meat in a market, priced at ten thousand pounds a year,, and any woman who looks his way may be seeing a living rather than a man.

And when he falls so hard and so painfully for Lizzy Bennet, who is a bad match for him in every way except for the deepest desires of his heart, his flaws guarantee his road to happiness will be long, painful and anything but certain, despite his fortune.  How can you not root for a fellow like that?

Readers and writers alike talk about loving characters who are flawed, and we do.  But that doesn't mean we all love the same flawed characters, or that we love them in the same way.  While Darcy makes me want to take him home and give him some hot chocolate and a cookie, Edward Rochester of Jane Eyre makes me want to punch him in the kisser.  (Though I still desperately want him to be with Jane in the end, even if he doesn't deserve her, because that's what Jane wants and I adore Jane).

One of the most flawed characters I've ever rooted for was James "Sawyer" Ford on the television show Lost.  When we first meet Sawyer, he's selfish, boorish and thoroughly unrootable.  And yet, we get glimpses now and then of grace, so thickly covered by his shortcomings that we often wonder what we're seeing and if we're just fooling ourselves.

But over the course of the series, so slowly at first that the progress defines the word "glacial," we see the evolution of Sawyer from a villain to a hero.  He triumphs and fails, inspires and disappoints, takes steps forward and falls back spectacularly, but you find yourself hoping he finds that elusive joy he can't even define but so desperately wants.

The flawed characters are the ones we remember the most, especially when a story takes us on a roller coaster journey from despair to redemption.  I've just shared a few of my favorite flawed characters.

Who are some of yours?




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6 comments:

  1. Loves 2 Read Romance - LauraJuly 27, 2012 at 8:09 AM

    Ok I so now want to reread Pride and Prejudice! I loved it and have only seen the Keira Knightly movie. I really need to get to the library to rent the other versions of the movie. I recently watched Jane Eyre on TCM and I wasn't a caught up as I was with Pride and Prejudice. Another flawed character is Severus Snape from Harry Potter. He is cool and sarcastic and you want to hate him but deep down he is a great guy. You don't realize how great until the last book.

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  2. The one that comes right away is Brady in Beth Andrews SuperRomance called A Marine for Christmas. Just read the opening and you'll know why. Also he does change a bit during the story, but he is still flawed which makes him a favorite.

    MarcieR

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  3. Oooo, I love Severus Snape. My nieces don't get why he's a favorite character, but they're still young and don't understand the appeal of a deeply flawed but ultimately noble character (flaws and all).

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  4. Very intriguing, Marcie! I haven't read that book yet, but now I'm going to have to track it down.

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  5. I love Captain Jack Sparrow. So very obviously flawed, but definitely rootable. I'd love to see a prequel of how he got to where he was when we first met him, the trials and triumphs, the loves and heartaches, the pain and joy and fear that molded him into the deeply disturbed but lovable and fascinating character he became.

    Have to totally agree with you about Sawyer. Josh and the writers did such a great job of molding that character. When I saw him in his 'other life' of being a detective I thought--what a great outlet for all his pain and rage and need to make things right in his life. Then when I saw him sitting on the beach with 'Blondie' the first time the two of them really looked at each other, my reaction was 'Of course! She can totally handle him.' :D

    Great topic, Paula
    Mallory

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  6. Mallory, Jack Sparrow is a great example! He's the character that makes those movies worth watching, IMO. I also have a soft spot for stuffy and not always pleasant characters, such as Norrington (Jack Davenport) from the Pirates movies. He's often an obstacle character for our heroes, but he's got serious character potential.

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