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Alpha jerks and the appeal thereof
Decided to make a separate post for this, rather than lumping it into the other links post, because I found it really interesting and wanted to talk a little more about it: this post by Ilona Andrews on the "alphahole" trope in romance (i.e. alpha jerk heroes). It is, I believe, inspired by this post at Book Smugglers on "why alphaholes are terrible", but the Andrews post is 1000% more interesting to me because it talks about what's appealing about the trope, and why people like it.
What I particularly liked about the Andrews post is this part:
... which was food for thought for me, because I think it nailed why I tend to like characters with alpha traits, as long as they have some basic decency to go along with it. I don't usually like characters who are irredeemable bastards and have no decency or niceness to them -- I like the ones who tend to do the decent thing, most of the time, even if they won't admit that they want to -- and the amount of assholishness I can tolerate is often in direct proportion to the narrative's willingness to acknowledge that the character is an asshole and deal with that. And there are many characters I adore who are basically just nice. But I have a huuuuge competence kink, and competent and assertive snarky jerks are definitely a type I go for.
Key emphasis on the competent, though. Just a jerk? No. Snarky jerk who's really good at what s/he does? Yes please. (Not specifically as a male-character thing, but there are a lot fewer female than male characters who really nail the specific elements that get me -- the Luideag in Seanan McGuire's October Daye books is a good example of one who does, or SL Huang's Cas Russell.)
Actually, "competent and smart" might be the one big, overriding thing that makes me fall for a character. It's not just competent jerks; I also adore the ones who are super competent but are so quiet about it that nobody tends to notice until they're backed against a wall, or the ones who are competent but play the fool so no one realizes until Sudden Surprise Competence happens.
ALL THE COMPETENCE, BASICALLY. ;D
What I particularly liked about the Andrews post is this part:
The modern definition of alphahole has evolved, but it does retain some of its primary characteristics. Modern alphahole is generally aware he isn’t a good guy. He is, before all else, competent. He excels at his chosen profession, whether it is making billions, being a Duke, or running a ragtag crew of immortal werewolves trying to guard the world from horrible evil. By extension, alphahole is often rich, because he manages his money well. Alphahole delivers. If he invites you to dinner, you can bet your life that he has made a reservation; if your car breaks down, he will either fix it himself (points for additional competence) or make a mechanic appear nearly instantly out of thin air; if a monster is demolishing downtown, alphahole will run toward it; and if a sick child requires rare medicine that isn’t available at any pharmacy nearby, alphahole will find it. Alphahole has no chill and takes no crap.
... which was food for thought for me, because I think it nailed why I tend to like characters with alpha traits, as long as they have some basic decency to go along with it. I don't usually like characters who are irredeemable bastards and have no decency or niceness to them -- I like the ones who tend to do the decent thing, most of the time, even if they won't admit that they want to -- and the amount of assholishness I can tolerate is often in direct proportion to the narrative's willingness to acknowledge that the character is an asshole and deal with that. And there are many characters I adore who are basically just nice. But I have a huuuuge competence kink, and competent and assertive snarky jerks are definitely a type I go for.
Key emphasis on the competent, though. Just a jerk? No. Snarky jerk who's really good at what s/he does? Yes please. (Not specifically as a male-character thing, but there are a lot fewer female than male characters who really nail the specific elements that get me -- the Luideag in Seanan McGuire's October Daye books is a good example of one who does, or SL Huang's Cas Russell.)
Actually, "competent and smart" might be the one big, overriding thing that makes me fall for a character. It's not just competent jerks; I also adore the ones who are super competent but are so quiet about it that nobody tends to notice until they're backed against a wall, or the ones who are competent but play the fool so no one realizes until Sudden Surprise Competence happens.
ALL THE COMPETENCE, BASICALLY. ;D
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I mean, that whole construction is based in the misconception of back dynamics blah blah blah fishcakes, but deliberately using the language of that construction: being alpha means you lead. You take power. Your responsibility is now exactly proportional to your power.
It's kind of like competence, except that I'm actually quite happy for the only meaningful competence involved being "delegation" - finding exactly the right person to do the right thing based on skill needed. (Actually this is an amazing superpower). You don't need to be good at doing everything - but you need to make sure what needs to get done gets done.
If you're gonna "alpha" at anything, your whole deal now is looking after what you just took over. :P And for the most part, the annoying alphaholes either legitimately suck at this, or they're only any good at it because of authorial fiat, or both.
(For example, one book I love the setting of has a total alphahole for whom everything always works because of authorial fiat, so it becomes a GOOD thing when his response to the messed up teenager suffering from severe Acute Traumatic Stress Disorder - like it hasn't even been long enough for it to be 'post' yet - doing something thoughtless that endangers everyone is to yell at her and make it clear she's just been a horrible person and then take all her comfort actvities away from her while making it clear that the only way to get them back is to behave to his liking. In reality, of course, this is shit for which I would literally punch him in the face and which is guaranteed to fuck the girl in question up more! But it works, because Authorial Fiat.)
Now, do that with some style and a touch of magnificent bastard, and suddenly my id is in love. >.> But if any character is gonna get set up as a Natural Leader, he actually has to DO it, you know?
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I think that's actually the key feature that separates the versions of this trope that work for me from the ones that don't (well, besides the "are they really good at it or is the author tipping the scales on their behalf" thing you mentioned, because ... yes). The effective, competent alpha is the one that's confident and smart enough to recognize the things s/he isn't good at and restrict their alpha-ing to their areas of expertise, deferring to someone else for whatever they aren't so good at. And I think that's probably a big reason why most of the ones I can think of that really work for me are the ones that are hypercompetent, bossy, and dominant in a particular arena (supergenius scientist, say) but don't try to dominate everywhere.
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Yeah, me too. This is why I love BASICALLY EVERYONE on Agent Carter. Like. Seriously, EVERYONE is competent. Hell, even that mob guy that Whitney's going with is kinda competent at what he does (while being a complete a-hole, of course). It's so rare to see the entire cast of entirely different but very competent people, I love it! :D
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Or at the very least an awareness of exactly where your skills that rely on emotional intelligence END, and a lack of resentment/ego about finding some way to fill that gap when necessary. Which I suppose is in and of itself a facet of emotional intelligence; I'm just thinking about a couple alpha-type personalities I actually know who aren't great with finer feelings or delicate situations but have painstakingly trained themselves to recognize when such a situation is happening and to seek appropriate assistance or redirection or whatever from someone who IS.
Like one is FANTASTIC at galvanizing people into projects, inspiring them to do things, even getting them to want to cooperate . . . . annnd he's crappy at dealing with situations where COMPLICATED emotions or needs or whatever are getting in the way of his desired ends.Which messed things up for a while until he started figuring out how to recognize those situations and get advice on them, or whatever.
But I suppose being able to know yourself, know what you're good at and know your limitations/etc is in and of itself a specific targeted piece of emotional intelligence, come to think of it.
So yes.
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I like competent heroes a lot, and if the chips are in the middle of falling, and the world is burning down, and stuff needs to get done RIGHT NOW, I can handle him being a jerk to the heroine, especially if she's just as competent, but so often it seems like meanness for the sake of it.
Like, there's no reason for the guy to have been an ass to her, he's just an ass, especially when she's traumatised, and it just loses me. I guess that goes towards what you're saying above, that part of competence is emotional awareness, or at least being able to delegate the feelings shit to someone who's good at it. So seeing a hero we're supposed to think is amazingcakes competent and loved by all, and then have him wander around being a jerk who alienates everyone, doesn't often click for me. Like PICK ONE!
To use an example that I actually did agree with the book smugglers piece on, Why was the Dragon such a jerk in Uprooted? Yes, yes tragic past love, but he was REALLY AWFUL to her for months, when she was scared and alone and 18. There was no reason he couldn't have spent ten minutes explaining what was going on, and him being a jerk like that just killed the romance for me.
Anyway, feelings. I did really like the article, especially the snarky graphs.
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... I actually like Whitney's mob guy. I mean, I know he's probably going to die, and he's a ruthless bastard, but he's actually pretty awesome. I like that he's genuinely into her and doesn't care what her face looks like.
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.... right?? It's interesting because if you'd asked me beforehand which article I'd find myself agreeing with, I would've thought it'd probably be the Book Smugglers one. And then I read them both, and the Andrews one is GREAT! And yes, the graphics are really awesome. :D
But yeah, I know what you mean about guys who are a jerk to the heroine just for pure jerkness's sake, and yeah, that's where it becomes a really hard sell for me. It's much easier for me to take (and even appealing) in a platonic context. I like characters giving each other shit but actually caring about each other. But in a romantic context, it can tip someone over the edge from "snarky and fun" to "unlikable asshole" really easily.
Some of the Book Smuggler examples are seriously WTF (... does ANYONE think Wuthering Heights is supposed to be a portrayal of a healthy romantic relationship? Have they read a single essay on the Bronte sisters EVER?) but I agree about the Dragon one, at least up to a point. It was frustrating for me because on paper it sounded like it should have been entirely my thing (sexy professor is also a thing I go for!) but he was SUCH an unrepentant ass that it made the whole relationship a very hard sell. I ended up liking it in the end, but I think I would've liked it a lot more if he'd been her teacher but not her romantic interest, because I can accept a lot more emotional abuse from "grouchy mentor" than from "potential love interest".
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What gets me to hate alphaholes is when they are high-handed and dictatorial enough to assume that they know better about everything, and have the right to decide for everyone (whether everyone likes it or not) because they know better, about everything up to and including the heroine's (or hero's) interest in the alphahole.
Such as an alphahole telling the heroine (or hero), who has let him know that s/he has no interest in him, something like "oh haha, right, soon enough you'll be wet and begging for me".
WOW. I know this works for some people, though I'm not sure how (perhaps it can read as an expression of imposing sexual confidence and sexy dominance?). It really does not work for me. I have no words to describe how repulsive that alphahole has just made himself for me, and how much I yearn for the hero/ine to treat him like the delusional asshole fucktard that he is and never give him a second thought again.
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Seriously, almost none of her examples were supposed to be romantic in the first place. If you're going to pick non-romantic assholes, why are you picking almost exclusively on things written by women? Why not go after spy novels and Greek tragedies or something?
I will never understand why Uprooted didn't have an f/f pairing as endgame. It would have worked so much better.
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//FACE IN HANDS
I dunno exactly when Wuthering Heights got turned into "Romeo and Juliet, but with heather," but if I did know, I would take a time machine back there and stop it.
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YUP yes yes yes indeed
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I have met people for whom its tragic, obsessive fuckedupness is the attraction and point, and whose fantasy life gleefully plays with this idea, who get a lovely tight little shiver over it, but that doesn't actually mean people want it or think that in the really real world it's a good idea. (And that includes teenagers.)
I've also met a lot of people who highly disingenuously pretend that they don't realize that human fantasies often work like this, and that in the same way that ye average teenage boy does not actually want his parents to be terribly murdered so that he can go on an endless comic book quest to avenge them and become a Great Hero, women do not actually want an asshole. (And that when women and even - shock - teenagers stay with assholes, it has very little to do with Romantic Thrill of Bad Boys and a lot more to do with fear, manipulation, desperate lack of self-worth and loneliness.) And they drive me batshit.
[I've also met people whose LIVES SUCK SO MUCH ALREADY that having someone like Heathcliff seems like a step up because AT LEAST HE CARES A BIT, whose lives already contain so much abuse or whose lives contain SO MUCH neglect and loneliness, that the "I care that you exist and will protect you and buy you pretty things" actually seems worth pretty much anything. That has nothing to do with tropes and everything to do with how some people's lives really, really suck.]
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Because that's what tends to be the telling part for me - grief-trauma does often make people behave really badly, in ways that don't mean they're inherently a jerk but rather that they're just not coping well at all.
But where stories tend to lose me is particularly romantic relationships where the jerkness just sort of . . . stops being a relevant thing or is excused by the grief/trauma/etc. Where the dynamic seems to be the guy (it's almost always a guy) going "okay well I like you now so NOW I'm going to be nice" and just . . . no carry over whatsoever of the fact that he's just spent however-long being a Horrible Jerk.
Like, even Disney's Beauty and the Beast doesn't do that: yes, it's done in a song montage to save time, but we are shown the Beast going through a really effortful and difficult process of "my behaviour before was totally uncool I am now changing it and learning how to now be an asshole holy shit this is hard". With that, I'm cool. (Actually, I lie: that kind of thing I love. People making active decisions and Doing The Work to become a better self is totally a Thing.)
But, like. When it just sort of . . . whoosh, okay, I'm nice now! and at no point does heroine nor narrative go "what the fucking fuck" - or even worse, nice never happens, not even in an idiosyncratic way, but the heroine just sort of . . . decides it's love or something - that's when I'm out.
/ramble
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They just sort of started working together and she saved his life a bunch of times, and then they had sex. Oh, and she found out about his Very Tragic Past. He couldn't be a jerk because she was better at magic, and he couldn't control her, but I never got the impression that he felt like he'd been in the wrong.
It was an extremely annoying book.
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I just wanted it to be femslash, dammit.
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I mean I am not picky. We can go with a Wolverine-pology here. We can even go with a Stark-pology. But there needs to be SOME kind of awareness and demonstration of "well that was uncool and I will be behaving differently now."
Not the LOVE INTEREST changing and then him behaving better, but, like, yeah. /belabouring the point
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Agreed! I recently got the book from the library and kept expecting to find a good reason for the Dragon to be such an asshole but when it failed to materialize for too long it just felt like I was reading about a girl being bullied/badgered and liking it for no reason, so I couldn't keep reading the book.
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The example I used above is taken from an Ilona Andrews book, btw, and - along with the alphahole in question - is the reason why I stopped reading that entire series. Eventually I stopped reading her other books, as well, because her love for a certain type of alphahole will not be denied. ;-)
I guess in the end, it comes down to an old romance trope that links up competence with the overbearing, arrogant chest-beating gorilla-type of dominance that negates other people's agency (as well as general jackass-y behavior specifically towards the heroine) as though they automatically come as a package deal. They don't. Personally, I like my competence WITH an acknowledgement that taking away people's agency and refusing to take their decisions and feelings into account is NOT a sexy thing to do.
There's also a poisonous tendency in pop-culture (and culture as a whole) to simply disregard the woman's take on the matter entirely in favor of the man's. Pretty sure that plays into it, as well. Heroes who are interested in a certain woman will eventually get her, regardless of whether she intially objects or not. If she does, she is just misguided, and doesn't yet see what a great guy he is; he only needs to show her that her current boyfriend is a jackass; he only needs to stick with it until she comes around. The simple fact that she say she isn't interested is never actually taken as a reason for a guy to stop pursuing a woman.
If HE wants to, then of course she will come around! Her objections are never taken seriously by either the hero or the narrative itself. And that is a *problem*, not sexy dominance.
(On a tangent, I've recently noted a tendency of TV series to have parents, siblings and "friends" berate divorced mothers to take back their alphahole ex-husbands who are still hanging around making a nuisance of themselves. Apparently, if HE still wants to be together, and especially if there are children involved, then her misguided opinion on the matter is not relevant. She will realize she still loves him eventually! GRRRR.)
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This is of course super helpful in all respects.
"They" in most cases involving other women, because why police a group when you can get them to do it themselves.
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Anyway to your point, YES, and I suspect we share a very similar fannish id, lol. I LOVE competence kink and it's definitely one of the reasons I love Agent Carter so so so much. Peggy!!!! Plus the way the supporting characters are themselves also very good at what they do, generally - a show like this could have gone the route of making everyone dumb to make the protagonist Extra Competent (except not really...) but instead they made them all good agents. S1 they're kind of hampered by the starting assumption that Howard is selling weapons to the USSR, which Peggy does not have, but they do come round once they survey the evidence. OK, so Howard makes terrible choices sometimes, but he genuinely did invent really cool stuff, Jack is...so many things...but also good at what he does, and he really is trying hard in his role. (Whether he deserved to be boss of the NYC SSR over other agents, enh, but that's what good connections and schmoozing and the untimely demise of your boss via Leviathan infiltration can do, I guess.) And one of the things I really liked about Daniel's investigative skills is he's quite willing to see past his initial assumptions. He sees Peggy as "one of them", if not quite realizing her real potential, but generally, as someone who wouldn't be working against them. But as he puts all the evidence he has together, it paints a pretty ugly picture of Peggy, and he's willing to make a decision based on that even if it's someone he likes and thought was a friend/ally; then when he gets more information, he doesn't cling to it, he takes it into account and acts accordingly. Fenhoff didn't fail because he was stupid, or incompetent. He took the risk and he ultimately couldn't win against a united team - Daniel knowing Fenhoff's strength, Peggy being a match for the Red Room's combat training, Peggy & Howard's friendship being able to overcome the hypnosis.
I agree 100% on the combination of competence + decency thing, and then add a little bit of jerk and it's like catnip. It's so incredible that I know this is how I am, and yet I watch myself fall for characters like Jack Thompson every time. EVERY TIME. I also love the Silly Fop is Secretly Incredibly Competent trope (there's a few swordsmen like this).
What a lot of the dislike for alpholes for me breaks down into is basically if 1. they're just jerks to be jerks, because domineering man is not inherently hot to me, it's easy to be an asshole and nothing else; 2. sometimes the overcast of misogyny is just too much to bear in that particular book (because so much of romance is M/F and the alphole is usually the man). However I have read...reams...of romance and it really just depends on execution. I'm sure I've enjoyed hundreds of books where others would have said it's too much, our lines are just drawn in different places. I think it comes down to taste, and I'm not really reading romances to Understand Human Nature or to Educate Young Girls or whatever. It's entertainment.
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Plus the way the supporting characters are themselves also very good at what they do, generally - a show like this could have gone the route of making everyone dumb to make the protagonist Extra Competent (except not really...) but instead they made them all good agents.
YES. That was actually one of the big things that sold the show to me right off the bat, just on the basis of the first couple of episodes. They could easily have made the guys bumbling idiots to make Peggy look good - in fact, there are elements of that in the original Marvel short the show is loosely based on - but the show made them competent in their own right, not just straw-men chauvinists for Peggy to run circles around, and I really loved that.
I agree 100% on the combination of competence + decency thing, and then add a little bit of jerk and it's like catnip. It's so incredible that I know this is how I am, and yet I watch myself fall for characters like Jack Thompson every time. EVERY TIME.
Hahahaha yes. Total catnip for me too. (See also: Yon-Rogg, though somewhat heavier on the jerk in that case. >.>)
Anyway, this was an extremely good time for me to be thinking about this particular angle on it!
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They could easily have made the guys bumbling idiots to make Peggy look good - in fact, there are elements of that in the original Marvel short the show is loosely based on - but the show made them competent in their own right, not just straw-men chauvinists for Peggy to run circles around, and I really loved that.
Agreed. Also, I think this kind of set up is ultimately pointless, if your viewers spend more than a few mins thinking about the show - like Sherlock Holmes isn't very satisfying if Holmes is an idiot, like he's sometimes unfortunately depicted in some adaptations. The comparison can't be to someone incompetent! That's not satisfying at all.
Yes, I came out of Captain Marvel with a) I LOVE CAROL b) i now ship Carol/Yon-Rogg *facepalm*.