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An ancient superhero who shed tears - would that work?

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Shield-of-Dardania
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An ancient superhero who shed tears - would that work?

Post by Shield-of-Dardania » Sat July 30th, 2011, 6:38 pm

I have a fearless-warrior figure (the hero's grandfather) in my draft 11th century story, who lost his beloved wife several days after she gave birth to their first daughter. The girl will be the hero's mother later. This scene will be in the Prologue.

My initial plan was to have him be an absolute Conan. Totally invincible and indestructible. Superstoic in every situation.

Then I thought, why don't I make him shed some tears (something which he hadn't done since he was a five year old boy) on his wife's death. First, to show the intensity of his love for her. Second, a more practical reason - to win over more of the female readers, you know, exploit their soft spot for the 'strong but sensitive guy' kind of thing.

Selfish? Yeah, I know.

Would this work? Or would it destroy the man's fearless-warrior image to the point of irreparable damage? The risk is that it might put off some other readers, especially the macho types among them. I mean, you can't have a crying Conan, can you? Anyway, the man gets himself together again quite fast, eventually leading his followers to successfully oust a foreign invader from his ancestral homeland twenty five years later.

Glad to have all your opinions.
Last edited by Shield-of-Dardania on Sat July 30th, 2011, 6:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by boswellbaxter » Sat July 30th, 2011, 7:51 pm

It works for me. Edward I was known to have shed tears for his father's death and to have greatly mourned for his wife.
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Post by LoveHistory » Sat July 30th, 2011, 8:23 pm

I think it makes him more human and relatable. Men have emotions and they do shed tears once in a while. The loss of a beloved wife is certainly a situation where I'd expect a man (no matter how tough) to cry. In fact, I'd think there was something seriously wrong with him if he didn't.

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Post by lauragill » Sat July 30th, 2011, 9:23 pm

Of course you can have a crying hero, as long as crying isn't all he does. Alexander wept, and he was a badass. And all Achilles does in The Iliad is cry and kill people. Odysseus weeps in The Odyssey. Orestes in my novel has a post-traumatic breakdown and weeps after his father's murder. Why not? Badass heroes are still human beings.
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Post by Divia » Sat July 30th, 2011, 9:58 pm

The only time men are allowed to cry are at funerals. :p Well, that's my personal opinion, but I'm more hardcore than others.


You could have his eyes water but perhaps we closes them before tears escape?

Dunno just a thought.
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Post by Margaret » Mon August 1st, 2011, 6:13 am

Cultures vary on how acceptable it is for men to cry. In Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, he comments on the way Celtic warriors wept while he was conducting a particular negotiation with them. (I forget precisely what came before the negotiation, but knowing Caesar, it likely involved despoiling villages.) It was perfectly acceptable among the Celts for men to weep. Caesar thought it was seriously wussy.
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Post by Shield-of-Dardania » Mon August 1st, 2011, 10:42 am

Thank you, girls. Good balance of 'for', 'not so for' and 'against' views there.

@Divia: By your standards, since my character only cried at his wife's deathbed, then he wasn't so bad. Cos he was already back to his old usual manly self by funeral time. ;)

@Margaret: My view is, there was a vast difference of situation between Romans and Celts. Romans were fighting on someone else's land. They didn't have to witness their own siblings, children or parents subjected to daily pain, torture and death.

If it was Celts occupying Roman lands and perpetrating the violence, carnage and destruction in Roman territories, the situation would have been easily reversed. It would have been a Celt commander saying, "A tribe of wimps, these guys." Just my 2-cents. :)

Now then, Napoleon did some arsekicking on the Romans, didn't he? Well, their descendants if you like. But he was a Corsican. Would that qualify him as a Gaul?

Well, let's see some more responses.
Last edited by Shield-of-Dardania on Thu August 4th, 2011, 1:06 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by DianeL » Mon August 1st, 2011, 5:31 pm

You know what wins over female readers? Good writing. Just like male readers.

We're not some sort of stupid subgenre, we're readers. We like good writing and good stores. Conan's not the best, and not the worst, but the most interesting thing about him would not, to me (as a mere female), be "that one time he cried". It would be how he sees and responds to things, what he does in general, and whether he's engaging enough to follow him through the story at hand. I fail to see why his crying should appeal to me simply because my chromosomes match.
Last edited by DianeL on Mon August 1st, 2011, 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Michy » Mon August 1st, 2011, 5:50 pm

I agree with Diane.

My opinion is, don't create your character(s) according to what will "win over" readers, but according to how you really see and feel the characters behaving in your mind. That is what will allow you to write them with assurance and conviction. In other words, don't create your characters to fit the mold of your readers' expectations (or what you think your readers' expectations are), but create your characters according to how you really believe them to be. If you then write them well enough, your readers will be convinced.

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Post by DianeL » Mon August 1st, 2011, 6:17 pm

To be fair/full disclosure, I'm a woman whose first finished novel happens to be written first-person POV from the point of view of a male character. Even having completed that, and moved on to a novel in which women figure much more prominently, I have never formulated any of the writing in either of these works (a) based on my audience, nor (b) based on some categorized preconception of "male" and "female" - I write to the *characters*. They're fully formed enough to both demand it and make it possible.

Clovis I, my male lead, spent little time worrying about his ladies' dress, and even less staring at his own reflection, describing it for the benefit of readers he had no idea were peeking in on him as a character. But beyond that, I didn't specifically consider the external state of his plumbing while writing particulars about him. I considered what he was doing, how he was reacting, what he had to say, and what he really meant. Thus far, not one of my male readers has said anything failed to ring true.
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