Our theme is that the rules of fiction are not the laws that govern real life.
Sometimes novelists themselves point to this theme. In George Heyer's Cotillion the heroine reflects with the hero's sister that the hero is nothing like their romantic hero Lochinvar. The very thought of what the hero would say about Lochinvar romantically riding into a building on his horse makes them fall about with giggles. And as much as I admire Han Solo, I cannot imagine my husband bounding around the universe with a Wookie and a price on his head. ROFL.
Eventually I might collect up the heroes of the combox and bring them to the attention of male readers of my other blog. If English-speaking men really want to understand who it is that English-speaking women like, then perhaps they should read Little Women and the Anne books. Of course, it might very well puzzle them how they might affect the same manners and virtues of fictional characters created between the American Civil War and the First World War.
I've just asked B.A. which fictional character he is most like, and he says one can never tell. Meanwhile, I don't think he is like any fictional character because he is just too real. I am trying to think of a romantic hero who tells jokes simply all the time, and the only character who comes to mind is Roger Rabbit. Oh dear. Still, that would make me Jessica Rabbit, which is AWESOME!
Update: Another plug for Young Fogeys. I am very fond of British Young Fogeys, particularly the ones keenly interested in clothing, and it occurs to me that there is something vaguely Heyeresque about them. Of course none of the ones that I know stepped fresh from 1812 or have much money or titles or frequent London clubs (perhaps a visit once in a blue moon if they are particularly lucky). But it does suggest a romantic spirit if a man hunts down sock braces or, like B.A., affects to wear bow-ties--real bow-ties that he has to tie himself, and does admirably, never the made-up ones, which are anathema.
