You may take my body, but you will never have my cliches!!

[botias]

There's this convention where the heroine is captured by the bad guy. He's menacing, he's nasty, maybe he even cuts her just a little tiny bit. But, he just can't make the time to dishonor her in every possible way until, say tomorrow at 3:30/after the festivities/FedEx arrives with his Viagra. I have seen it sooo many times.

This of course, gives the hero plenty of time to rescue her before she is sullied. Dun get me wrong, I don't mind that she remains unsullied. I just wish there could be a new, believable reason why the villain doesn't have his evol way with her at the earliest possible opportunity since he clearly relishes the idea so very much.

Comments

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think that gettin' the heroine all good and sullied adds a far more interesting dimension to the rest of the story. Like... then she gets to tell the Rescuing Hero about it, and then find out if he Rilly Luvs Her, or if he's all "Ew, ick, with *him*? F U, hor!"

Worse still if the villian doesn't force her, but manipulates her into being more-or-less willingly sullied. That's the kind of thing that happens IRL all too often. Yey dramaz!

[botias.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, there's plenty of those stories, and one could even argue that they are more interesting/powerful. I'm just complaining about stories where they set it up, but then don't follow through for no better reason than that it's too dark/unromantic the story they are telling. Fine, I like fluffy stories, but please to come up with better plot devices.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

*gryn* Point taken - I am not a writer or reader of fluffy stories generally, so I'm not exactly the target audience anyway. ;)

[botias.livejournal.com]

I suppose I am writing a story where she gets all sullied and her bf is all "Ew, ick, with *him*? F U, hor!". It can still be fluffy, it's all in the details right? *shifty eyez*

[beanbeans.livejournal.com]

What brought this on? A fanfic, or a novel you've read recently? You don't have to name names if it is a fanfic thing...

[botias.livejournal.com]

The most recent one was a multi-chapter fic. :) But it's really so very common, I see it a great deal in movies, and so very often in romance novels where the villain is often romantically obsessed with the heroine.