Villain to Hero?

by Mary Jo

Today's topic was inspired by a question from Word Wench reader Kay Spears, who asks:

One of my allllll time favorite romances is/was Mary Jo Putney's The Rake and the Reformer aka The Rake.  I love Reginald Davenport...he turned out to be quite a hero. My question for all wenches: How do you take a drunk/ licentious/ corrupt/ not-hero-material man and redeem him? And, when you're writing this character, do you recognize him as hero material? Or, does it come as a surprise when readers start wanting him as a hero?

MJP:  I immediately grabbed this topic for a blog, but it's such a great question that other Wenches may pick it up for blogs of their own. For asking this question, Kay Spears will get a book from me. 

Reggie Davenport made his debut in my very first Signet Regency, The Diabolical Baron. Since it was my first book, I was feeling my way and just wanted an antagonist for my hero, Richard, a Waterloo veteran who has learned that he's heir to the Wargrave earldom, a responsibility he isn't sure he wants.  Reggie is his cousin who has long thought that he was the heir. 

 

Reggie starts out as a typical Regency character, the hard drinking devil-may-care sportsman.  The two end up together at Wargrave, where Richard is doing an inventory under a different name while trying to decide if he wants to claim his inheritance. They don't much like each other.  At the end, Reggie frightens the gentle heroine, who is Richard's fiancée.  Richard explodes and practically kills Reggie in an impromptu sword fight--and this is where things get interesting. 

In defeat, Reggie displays a grace and unexpected humor that make him a more complex and intriguing character. I liked him and some readers thought he looked like a hero. When I thought about it, I realized that every time Reggie behaved badly (which was often), he was drunk.   And that made him even more interesting to me because Regency heroes frequently drank heavily, with no consequences.

I wanted to see consequences.  I'd also witnessed alcoholism and recovery at close range (as so many people have), so I decided that's what I wanted to inflict on Reggie: he deserved it. <G> (I will say that the finished book came as a considerable surprise to my editor since I hadn't mentioned alcoholism in my synopsis. Ooops. <G>) 

So Reggie's journey begins with him as a jaded, cynical rake well on the way to perdition when his cousin Richard, now the Earl of Wargrave, gives him one last chance: the ownership of Strickland, the estate where Reggie grew up.  Dimly recognizing how self-destructive his behavior has been, Reggie goes to Strickland and begins to build a new life for himself (one that includes the heroine, a very competent female steward named Alys Weston.)

Reggie's path to sobriety is familiar to many alcoholics. First he denies that he has a problem. Then he admits that he might have a problem, but he can control it.  Then he realizes he can't control his drinking, which is the black moment when he breaks and must try to rebuild himself. 

Anyone familiar with the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Step Program will recognize how Reggie is living the steps Regency style.  Ultimately he becomes sober and deeply self aware.  Alys is supportive, but I made sure that she didn't become an enabler for Reggie's addiction.

Now to the specifics of transforming a villain into a hero:

1) "Save the cat!"  This is the most important element to redeeming villains and is defined as the moment when a character does something that allows readers to see him as sympathetic and interesting.  Reggie's save the cat moment is at the end of The Diabolical Baron when he behaves so well after Richard defeats him in their sword fight.  That's when he shows that he isn't just a jerk: he's a man worth knowing better.  In Reggie's own book, it became clear that he is a rescuer and some of his most shocking actions were to help people in need. He even rescues a herd dog so incompetent "she couldn't even herd geese."  <G> 

2) Make him more sinned against than sinning.  Or put another way, to understand is to forgive.  Reggie turns out to have had a very bad childhood, losing his whole family when he was a child, then being raised by his uncle the earl, who despised and mistreated him.  The result was a very angry young man with a strong contrarian streak.

3) Show his pain and his struggles as he attempts to rebuild his life.  Overcoming addiction is difficult, and that should be very clear.  Reggie earns his new and better life.  Show how people around him see him and appreciate him. By the end of The Rake, Reggie and his cousin Richard have become friends who support each other.

4) Show his care for others.  Though Reggie is in love with Alys, he engineers a reconciliation between her and the long estranged father she loves even though he knows he'll lose her.  Luckily, she realizes that he's being noble and cures him of that.  <G>

And this is how a writer can transform a villain or at least a jerk into a hero. <G>  I hope that answers your questions, Kay Spears!

What other villains have you enjoyed becoming heroes?

Mary Jo

Comments

[Lil]

Very interesting topic. I loved Reggie and his struggles, probably because of his struggles.

The first redeemed villain to pop into my mind is an oldie—Roland in Patricia Veryan's Golden Chronicles series. As I recall, it takes half a dozen books, and he gets a bit less villainous in each one.

Two more who aren't exactly villains, just jerks, are Dutton in Claudia Dain's Courtesan series and Blakeney in Miranda Neville's Burgundy Club series. If I recall correctly, alcohol plays a fairly large part in their jerkiness.

But in all cases, they have to struggle. I expect that's what makes their redemption believable.

[Margaret]

I recently advocated for a contemporary bully-to-hero book by Kristen Callihan called Dear Enemy that other readers were determined to shy away from. The author does a phenomenal job of more-or-less following Mary Jo's blueprint, and as a result, it became one of the few books that has stayed with me long after I finished it. I haven't read either The Diabolical Baron or the Rake, but now I'll have to hunt them down!

[Annette N]

Thanks for a terrific post. Just finished a short story in one of my Christmas anthologies. Hero is not exactly a villain, rather an inconsiderate jerk. It is lovely to find redemption and a hero all in one fell swoop.

I hope everyone is taking care and staying well.

[Beverly Abney]

I recently re-read THE RAKE AND THE REFORMER. I am not sure what reminded me of it, but it has been re-read several times since it was first written. Having had alcoholics in my own family (I was raised in South Carolina and alcohol has long been a problem in the south) it seemed to speak to me. Thank you Mary Jo for writing such a sympathetic hero with that particular problem.

[Kareni]

I also enjoyed Dear Enemy, Margaret!

[Pat Dupuy]

I'm not sure I'd call them villains but I am reminded of two men of less than sterling character who rise above it eventually. First is Paul Barstowe, who crops up in Janna MacGregor's Cavensham Heiresses series. He is a thorn in the side of his former friends, but gets his own book and redeems himself in The Good, the Bad, and the Duke. Second is one of my favorite characters who drifts through several Eloisa James's books,Leopold Dautry, the Duke of Villiers. Wonderfully snarky, skirt-chasing, duelling, chess lover.

[Christina Courtenay]

This is a very interesting topic, Mary Jo, and a great post! I love your steps to reforming a villain, they make perfect sense, and I especially like the first one :-) The hero that comes to mind for me is Lord Damerel in Georgette Heyer's 'Venetia'. He's not exactly a villain but seems at first not to be hero material, but he redeems himself by his sense of humour and by trying to act noble. Fascinating!

[Margot]

Thanks for this blog.
I was so impressed reading about Reggie and how he has to overcome his drinking problem. I like stories that have some life lessons in them. The Rake was one of my favorite of your stories. It was only more recently that I read The Diabolical Baron and then re-read The Rake. It works. He had a good strong woman to fall for and prove himself to. #3 on your list is one I like - show his pain and struggles.

[Sue McCormick]

I love the Rake; some of this is personal. My first husband was an alcholic (although I didn't realize this until long after he was our of our lives. Blame the blindness on the times the world was passing through). My second father-in-law was also an alchoholic. Neither of them were violent.

But most interesting to me (and I've mentioned this before) was a bit of "minor" information Reggie and Alys discover. A treatise by Benjamin Rush, the American doctor, which the central pair use as they help Reggie recover. Again this is personal. A best friend of mine in grade school through college was the daughter of Benjamin Rush, a highscool teacher who was a direct descendant of this American doctor. The family was very proud of that connection in a most appropriate version of pride.

[Kareni]

I very much enjoyed The Rake, so I enjoyed reading your post, Mary Jo. One reformed hero I can think of is Lisa Kleypas' Sebastian who features in Devil in Winter after some decidedly unheroic activities in It Happened One Autumn.

[Katja]

I really like the redemption of Hugh d'Ambray, one of the major villains throughout the Kate Daniels books by Ilona Andrews. He is responsible for really horrible deeds and yet somehow, you can't help but root for him in his own book. Your points 1 to 4 are spot on, because they explain perfectly to me, why I suddenly started liking Hugh.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Lil, as I wrote this blog I also thought of Roland in the Patricia Veryan series--he's a perfect example. If I recall correctly, his 'save the cat' moment involved his horse, of whom he was very fond. *G*

[Mary Jo Putney]

I need to look for the Callihan book, Margaret! To be fair, I didn't write to a blueprint and probably she didn't either. It's more a matter of intuition, recognizing what makes a story work. I didn't think of this consciously until I wrote the blog!

[Mary Jo Putney]

Annette, jerks are usually more redeemable than true villains. In a novella, the writer has to work fast so jerks are a better fit.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Thank you, Beverly Abney. This story was very visceral for me; I wrote it in four months, which is about the fastest I've ever written a book of this length. It was a story I needed to tell.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Ah, Leopold Dautry! A perfect chess loving example of redemption. *G*

[Mary Jo Putney]

Christina, I ADORE Damerel! VENETIA may be my favorite Heyer. Agree that he's not really a villain, but definitely a wastrel, I need to reread that book. *G*

[Mary Jo Putney]

Margot, my husband named his cat Reggie because of his fondness for the character/ *G* His pain and struggle are what make him so memorable, I thihnk.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Sue, how wonderful that your friend was a direct descendant of the first Benjamin Rush! They have every reason to be very proud of him since not only an outstanding physician with hospitals named after him, but a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Truly a great man. I can't remember how I came across his pamphlet, but it fit the story perfectly.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Kareni, it often takes a couple of books to redeem a villain. *G*

[Mary Jo Putney]

Katje, I haven't read the Kate Daniels books, but it sounds as if Hugh d'Ambray save a few cats. *G*

[Jeanne Behnke]

Definitely Prince Cardan in Holly Black's Elfhame books.I could read those again & again.

[Alice]

I have lost count of the number of times I have read the Rake. It is brilliant. And definitely still relevant today in its portrayal of addiction. Stella Riley does a good job of redeeming Ralph Sherborne in Cadenza, the final book in her wonderful Rockcliffe series

[Karin]

I too have experienced alcoholism in my family, and I loved reading "The Rake".
Miranda Neville wrote some great villains who became heroes, Lil mentioned one of them above, and "The Wild Marquis", also part of the Burgundy Club series is another.
And Liz Carlyle wrote some very difficult heroes who manage to redeem themselves. I would start with "A Woman of Virtue".

[Mary Jo Putney]

Redeeming villains is a lot of work, but so satisfying!