Random Romance Question: Does Happy Family + Hero/Heroine Have To = HEA?…
Tuesday, October 27, 2009Posted in: random musings
Why do the heroines and heroes always have to resolve any familial issues before they can have their HEA? Seriously.
And those stories where the heroine has Daddy Issues and can’t find happiness with her hero until they’re resolved? Very effing annoying.
I’d love it if an author just let the heroine come to terms with her familial issues without having to have a big emotional scene, whereby she’s then able to finally have sex with her hero.
Is that too much to ask for?
Really?
KristieJ
October 27
10:33 am
This is one of my beefs too. I’ve read a few books where the father/mother/both were horrid and toxic to the hero/heroine and then with a magic wave of the wand, said they were sorry and everything was just hunky dory. For me it ruined the book. I’m thinking specifically of Born in Sin by Kinley MacGregor. I really enjoyed that book until the end when the step mother had done some truly dreadful things to the hero and voila – all was good between them. I HATED that.
Leslee
October 27
10:48 am
Try the first book in the Vows series by Nora Roberts, Vision in White. Serious Mom issues that aren’t resolved just accepted and they move on.
Myra Willingham
October 27
2:46 pm
Some die-hard romance readers expect that HEA and if you don’t give it to them, they get downright nasty about it. They demand perfect resolution so everyone lives HAPPILY EVER AFTER in a perfect world where dogs don’t crap on the grass and birds don’t poop on windshields. They ‘need’ to be able to sink themselves into fantasy because real life is too difficult for them to process otherwise. The gods forbid a writer doesn’t give them that HEA. The yelling and screaming will commence and the book will hit the wall. Doesn’t matter how irrational that HEA might be or how it might have otherwise ruined the book. Just give it to them or else brace yourself for the flack that will follow.
Anya Howard
October 27
3:02 pm
No, I don’t think it is too much to ask for. In real life women have to accept certain family situations and carry on with their lives. So if real life women can find happiness without having to have old wounds healed, why not in Romance?
Jessica
October 27
3:16 pm
this is a great point. I never thought about it but you’re right.
I wonder if we could come up with examples of romances in which the h/h does NOT work those issues out, and NOT because the family member is dead.
maddie
October 27
3:27 pm
I want an HEA but a realistic one, that doesn’t stretch into the “Yeah Right Until the Next Time” I read a lot of series romances where they usually use the “Mommy or Daddy issues to move the plot line along.
I remember a Barbara Boswell book where the heroine had a horrible childhood and at on time went to find her father, who was not involved in her life, her mother was easy, difficult woman, she was 12 or so when she knocked on his door, only to be met with such hateful spew from him, she left in tears, this meeting basically shaped her life.
Years later the father tracked her down, because he now has a young daughter maybe 7 or 8 (not sure) the heroine also has a young baby by now.
Her father who turned her away now needs her to see if she is a match for his child/her half sister for a bone marrow, she does it, not for him or for him to love her as his child, but because now that she has a baby she knows, what love is, she meets with her father’s wife who is mortified because she finds out what her husband has done and said to the heroine when she is a child and wants to make amends, so she extends the olive branch.
The heroine turns this down because she knows that it’s way too late and things have gone on to far and that her father is now a stranger to her.
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Las
October 27
4:07 pm
I’m blanking on the title, but Meredith Duran has one where both of them have unresolved family issues at the end. While I’ve always rolled my eyes at the perfect HEAs–usually involving the heroine forgiving some really shitty family members–I never realized how much I longed for something different until I read that book. It made me ridiculously happy that the heroine was angry at her father for his behavior and at the end was unsure if she would allow him back into her life.
Janet W
October 27
4:19 pm
But @Leslee @Jessica, in real life these issues usually aren’t solved and tied up into a tidy bow — we all have to move on and just “deal” with our pasts. Nora especially doesn’t wave a magic wand. Two examples, the mother in the Chesapeake Bay series and the mother in the Born In series. The relationship/the working on and working out of the issues … it was stretched over 3 or 4 books. Or Nora ends with a Mexican stand-off, like the mother/daughter relationship in Key of Valor.
I’m OK with a) my family relationship of origin is not resolved and it’s something I (we as a couple) will continue to deal with while b) still having an HEA.
Janet W
October 27
5:25 pm
Just re-read blog … and I’m sorry, I misunderstood: you’re applauding romances where life goes on and family issues aren’t resolved. Now I’m trying to think of a romance where the opposite happens — perhaps I don’t care for them so can’t think of any.
Angela
October 30
10:02 pm
Yes! I hate how every issue is resolved neatly like a bow. The best example of reality in romance is actually a Jennifer Lopez movie–Angel Eyes. I think the romance genre perpetuates the myth that perfect love equal perfect family. Just because you and he fall in love and wed doesn’t mean your father is going to stop being an asshole–and that you won’t have residue from his character despite your HEA.
Venus Vaughn
November 20
3:07 pm
I’m not sure I understand the question entirely.
Usually when familial issues are a big deal it’s something that gets in the way of the hero and heroine being happy together. It’s a blockage in their emotions, some issue of worthiness or anger, and without that resolution there can be no HEA because all that crap is still in the way.
Maybe we’re not reading the same kinds of books. (Or it could be I’m simply not sensitive to it) But I rarely see either main character being so Mary Sue that they just bend over and forgive a lifetime of abuse. I do however see them coming to a place of healing within themselves where it’s less about _forgiving_ an asshole, and way more about accepting that this happened, but they’re still worthy of being loved fully and the abuser is relegated to the back burner of their consciousness instead of remaining in the starring role.
I don’t see much magic wand waving unless it’s the magic wand of “you no longer have the power to ruin my life.”