Sensitive Male Heroes

[Feo Takahari]

Slightly off-topic, but that matches up interestingly with T.H. White's portrayal of Lancelot as an essentially chaotic being who keeps himself under control with a relentless code of honor--for instance, because he likes to kill people, he forces himself never to kill without reason. In effect, White turns Lancelot himself into the kind of man Lewis proposes that Lancelot be an inspiration to.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Slightly off-topic, but that matches up interestingly with T.H. White's portrayal of Lancelot as an essentially chaotic being who keeps himself under control with a relentless code of honor--for instance, because he likes to kill people, he forces himself never to kill without reason. In effect, White turns Lancelot himself into the kind of man Lewis proposes that Lancelot be an inspiration to.

That is interesting. I need to read some White one of these days.

 

[skip.knox]

>I need to read some White one of these days.

Boy howdy yes you do! Unfortunately, almost everything he wrote is out of print, but I've read just about everything he wrote and he was an outstanding writer. He's most famous for his trilogy on Arthur, but he wrote a wide variety of other stuff. If you see his name on a book, do yourself a favor and read it.

 

[risu]

This topic struck me as very interesting, considering that I particularly aimed to make my hero "sensitive". He's still masculine, ready to be the first to throw a punch if it looks like a fight is eminent, but he still gets upset when people he was trying to save die. Of course, my main female character is viewed by others as externally emotionless, so maybe I'm just trying to break the mold and will fail miserably with my writing.

I agree with many of the opinions that emotionless heroes are bland and uninteresting. If there's nothing to click with emotionally, why should we care if they succeed or fail? Doesn't mean they have to break down into tears because someone carelessly crushed a flower beneath their boot. But if they stare on without a single stirring when what they believe in is destroyed, then that doesn't make for a very good hero either.

 

[Ireth]

I've tried to achieve this with my character Vincent Hawk. He's very much a family man, and loves them all to death, as well as being the Team Dad figure for many other characters he interacts with. He's incredibly compassionate and understanding, to the point that some characters have deemed it a fault. But threaten any of his loved ones, whether family or friends, and he WILL go Papa Wolf on you. Even if you are an ancient, immortal demon from another world who could kill him with a thought.

 

[Addison]

In my opinion, it's your character, your call. If that's how you see your character then write him that way. It's your story, your rules, your choice.

 

[wordwalker]

I've tried to achieve this with my character Vincent Hawk. He's very much a family man, and loves them all to death, as well as being the Team Dad figure for many other characters he interacts with.

I think this is an aspect of things we haven't brought up here: be sure to position the guy with enough interesting things to be sensitive about.

A good father's a classic form of it, at least if you've got good family drama to show off his willingness to parent. Or a compassionate healer (if you can capture the pain his patients are in) or peacemaking diplomat (against how easy and deadly it would be to give in to warmongering). Or to take two more extreme examples of the "sensitive boyfriend," Twilight has its guy facing some real fears that he's bad for his girl, and Titanic has its own teaching a would-be suicide to enjoy living. I wouldn't say either tried hard to go beyond its core audience, but they sure provided the basics.

"Sensitive" might not even be a genuine trait of some characters, just that when they're pushed into a situation where it's a way to respond, they find they can manage it. (The guy might not even "learn to care" at the end, he could go back to his routine and just know he could care if he got in another spot that called for it.)

Sometimes what the character needs is the right situation to make him look good.

 

[Karin Rita Gastreich]

I can't think of a character, male or female, who is not in touch with how he or she feels about any given situation.

In my own writing, all the manly men know what they feel and what they want. They may not always express their feelings in words, but they certainly act on them.

Even my favorite villain, Mechnes, is in touch with his feelings. Of course, his feelings are all about self-gratification through violence, conquest, and sensual indulgence. But he is definitely in touch with what he wants.

Maybe "empathy" is the better term for this discussion. In today's society, women do tend to be more skilled at empathy than men. On the other hand, recent research indicates that although empathy is an innate tendency of all humans, it is to a large extent reinforced (or not) by learning.

So in the end, it depends on the cultural context in which your character lives/grew up, and whether empathy is considered a valuable trait for his/her gender. I can see how in a kill-or-be-killed world, empathy would be pretty useless. But if the game is more complex than that, empathy can be a useful skill to have.

TH White's A ONCE AND FUTURE KING is one of my all time favorite novels, by the way. I read it when I was a kid, and it still inspires me to this day.

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

Well, I'm a guy who's aware of his emotions, and I'd like to think that doesn't degrade my masculinity .

I don't think being emotionally aware, compassionate, or anything like that would slide a man's personality more to the feminine side of the scale. He has presumable still got the manly aspects of his personality after all. Actually I think that would make quite a rounded character, it shows humanity which the readers can relate to. As previously mentioned, it wasn't always the case in history that "big boys don't cry", or that its bad for masculinity. If you look back at the Iliad for instance, there's multiple intances where men (often warriors) shed quite a few tears. In fact I seem to remember a passage where Achilles and Priam have a mutual cry-time. I guess it depends on whether our fantasy society, like western society, believes that men shouldn't show emotions. Thats the bit where we as fantasy authors have the authority to make the rules.

 

[Addison]

I'm not sure how sensitive you want your MC to be. But if you want some good examples I have a list (don't hurt me) : Al (Home Improvement), Gus (Psych), Leo (Charmed), Ricky (I Love Lucy), Lou Costello (Abbot and Costello), Robert (Everybody Loves Raymond)

If you don't know them, I strongly suggest you watch at least one episode (or movie).

 

[Rjames112]

Seriously? Stereotypes are hard to be broken? No they're not. You can have a protagonist that has emotions, just make sure they don't have only one and become a melodramatic character. Just make sure the emotions are appropriate to scale and place, that is the emotions are appropriate for the situation and the reaction keeps with the character.