The fantabulous Alison Kent had a writing question up today, but that’s only pertinent to my post as it is where I got the idea of mine.
In the post, she says:
The guy I came up with was one that reminds me of King Trahan, a bad boy that I wasn’t originally sure would be redeemable. I’m not sure this time either.
Now, I haven’t read With Extreme Pleasure (though I want to…how I want to!), but I can’t help but think, why does he have to be redeemed?
Why can’t he just be? And why is it always the guy who has to be redeemed?
(Though I consider Linda Howard’s most excellent Death Angel the exemplar of the redemption narrative in romance.)
People always talk about redemption and reformation in conjunction with rakes and bad boys (the alliteration…oh the alliteration!).
One thing that bugs me, though, is that I think a lot of these characters have nothing to be redeemed for. So they’ve slept with a lot of women…so what? It’s not like they murdered little puppies or something.
