I often love those moments when a hero gets jealous of the heroine. But at other times, the jealous hero appalls me. Here’s why:
Jealousy is an emotion with a 3 place predicate: the subject/hero — the rival/guy — the beloved/the heroine. The jealous hero is worried about losing his beloved to the other guy. Jealousy, of course, feels awful: insecurity, fear, and anxiety can all be a part of the phenomenology of jealousy. For alpha heroes, anger often masks these feelings of helplessness and fear of loss, and, in the romance novel, such a potent emotional brew often generates a nice head of passionate steam.
Jealousy has a possessive element: the jealous hero wants to hold on to what is his own, or he wants to restore what he takes to be the proper relation between himself and the heroine, or he wants that relationship to be recognized. This is the part of jealousy that makes me think it can be a kind of virtue, and it’s why we think it’s odd if a man feels absolutely no jealousy when he sees his partner seriously flirting or being courted.
(Envy is a different emotion altogether — it’s one of the 7 deadly sins after all– as it involves feeling bad when our rival does well. Envy is a two party relation, involving comparison. A envies rival B. When we are envious, the locus of our concern is this particular rival. The rival cannot be replaced in envy, whereas it is the beloved who cannot be substituted in jealousy. Envy is primarily about competition with the rival.
What I like about hero jealousy is that it’s often the prelude to moving the relationship to the next level, whatever that level is in the narrative.
Here are some examples of jealousy that I thoroughly enjoyed in romance:
Sarah Mayberry’s Anything For You features a hero and heroine who have been friends and business partners forever. The heroine has been pining for the hero all along, but decides he’s never love her and quits him altogether. They live in the same building, and when the heroine gets a makeover (it is interesting how often the makeover scenarios goes with the jealous scenario) and starts dating, the hero goes bananas. the hero wasn’t a jealous person, per se, but his strong jealousy made sense for this book, because it clued him in to his feelings for the heroine. And, of course, it was marvelously entertaining. As a reader, it’s enjoyable to see a heroine who has felt under appreciated get her due. But for me, “good” jealousy has to be a prelude to something else, a temporary means to catapult the relationship forward. Once the h/h/ come together, he won’t have anything to be jealous of, except in rare cases.
Ann Aguirre’s Grimspace: The h/h are locked in a battle of refusing to admit they want each other. What will bust them out of it? Jax, a heroine of healthy sexual appetites, is flirting with Hon, the sexy leader of a renegade space station where they are docked. There’s dancing, drinking, and now Hon’s pulled her close for a kiss when the hero, March, clears his throat and stonily orders Jax to the ship. He’s seething, furious. Jax is confused, but savvy readers know all too well what March is feeling and what he is going to do about it. Sure enough, they hit the bed a few paragraphs later for the first time, taking their relationship to a new physical and emotional level.
Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series provides lots of opportunities for male jealousy, as Sookie has so many admirers. But nobody does jealousy like vampire Bill Compton. In the second book, Living Dead in Dallas, the two have split up. Jealousy is the push they need to get back together. Sookie attends a high school football game with a handsome former classmate, JB. As JB gives her a kiss, Sookie glances down and sees Bill on a lower bleacher twisted around, “staring a hole in her”. Sookie first thinks it was a “wonderful screw-him moment”, but then immediately realizes “I just wanted him”. This scene precipitates their reunion: Sookie comes home from the game to find Bill waiting for her. They make mad love and afterwards Bill, always suave with the ladies, says, “You smell like him.”
At almost the very end of Megan Hart’s Dirty, Elle and Dan have split up. Elle cannot get past her fear of losing herself in a relationship. Things are stalled, but jealousy overcomes Dan’s inertia. Elle has dinner in a local pub where Jack works. She and Dan had had a threesome with Jack (who gets his own book later). As Elle is leaving the bar, Dan enters it. Jack runs after Elle, to give her her sweater, and Dan thinks they are together. Elle is so upset at seeing Dan with another woman, she takes the long way home, but when she gets there, jealous Dan is waiting. He asks, “Did you fuck him?”, “Have you been fucking him the whole time?”. When Elle tries to dodge the question, Dan insists “It is my business! I love you!”. His jealousy publicly establishes the connection he has to her, and is the final push she needs to give in to their love.
Historical romance provides a veritable cornucopia (ahhhhh, it took me 8 months of blogging to work in that phrase!) of possibilities for jealousy, since so many of the relationships are forbidden, and take place against a backdrop where either the heroine or hero or both are ostensibly courting more suitable partners. In Julie Ann Long’s Like No Other Lover, the hero, Samuel, intends to marry a woman whose fortune can advance his scientific endeavors, and, besides, after the heroine snubbed him years ago, he can’t possibly have any feelings for her. But when Samuel hosts a house party in which the heroine charms several of the bachelors there, he finds himself curious, interested, annoyed — jealous. His jealousy keeps him from walking away from her.
I generally don’t like jealousy if it doesn’t generate some awareness on the part of the hero of his feelings for the heroine, as in the following cases, which I feel are closer to envy (the heroes are more interested in their rivals than in the heroines).
In Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Heaven, Texas, Bobby Tom Denton is the womanizing good ‘ole boy football legend and virginal naive Gracie Snow is the mousy assistant. She gets a makeover and starts having a good time dancing at the local bar when B.T. begins to get irritated and indignant. He feels she looks like “bimbo material”, she’s having too much fun, she’s flirting, etc. She should be embarrassed, and that her “hormones are out of control”. She’s liable to sleep with the first guy who asks her, and that bothers him, because her first lover may be selfish or fail to use protection. He decides that he has to “set aside his feelings about mercy fucking and do what needs to be done.”
In Jenny Crusie’s Bet Me, Min’s former boyfriend wants her back and comes to her apartment to convince her, leaving his tie behind. Later, the hero, Cal, asks Min whose tie it is, and she tells him it is none of his business. She says, “you can’t be jealous”, and Cal replies, “And yet, much to my own disgust, I am.” He must know the details of the ex’s visit, and as he hears them, his jaw tightens and he starts biting off words, referring to the ex as a son of a bitch. Never daunted, Min tells him “the first step in solving your problem is admitting you have one” and when Cal asks her to stop seeing her ex, it’s a request, not a command. But Cal doesn’t identify his feelings, and not much happens right at this point to move the relationship forward.
Jealousy can go wrong in at least two ways: by being delusional (there is no actual threat, and no sensible person would see one), and by being disproportionate (there is an actual threat, but the jealous hero’s reaction is way overblown. In such cases, jealousy is either really about the rival, and comes closer to envy. Or it’s really reflective of some negative traits of the hero. It often comes with a huge dose of possessiveness. A lot of “old skool” historical and contemps featured this kind of hero, who would seethe with rage if the heroine even looked at another guy. In those days, the heroes couldn’t be honest about their feelings until the last paragraph, so I guess the jealousy was meant to telegraph to the reader that the heroine should hang in there and take the abuse. Paranormal romances feature this kind of jealousy, and I get the feeling I am supposed to really enjoy it, but the truth is, I often find myself wondering if the heroine knows the number of her local domestic abuse hotline.
Examples would include the guys in J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood. In Lover Revealed, the human cop Butch decides to becomes a vampire. Part of the ritual involves him drinking blood from Wrath’s woman, Beth. For some reason, Wrath has to be in the room, and several characters have to hold him back to prevent him form killing Butch. Earlier in the same book, Butch is seized with jealousy by the thought of Marissa feeding from another man. During one of their separations (Black Dagger couples are always breaking up and getting back together) he sees his rival awaiting her and becomes crazed, throwing her in the back of his SUV and having his way with her (which she enjoys, it must be said). While this scene did generate a reunion, it didn‘t reflect very well on Butch. The same kind of fury generating possessiveness is found in Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld, and in Christine Feehan’s Dark series. A last example is Jacqueline Frank’s Jacob, in which the hero tries to kill his mentor and best friend for just looking at the heroine.
I don’t expect my heroes to be perfect, at all. But when they do act like jealous nutcases, it’s nice to have their lapse dealt with rather than ignored or embraced. Like in this example:
In Lauren Dane’s Taking Chase, the hero, Shane, was cheated on by his fiance, who left him for his close friend. He struggles with jealousy as he becomes closer to the heroine, Cassie. When Shane shows up at Cassie’s house and sees her embracing another man, he lashes out: “Fuck all if you didn’t totally fool me with your act. I’m as damned as you’re faithless, apparently.” It turns out, Cassie was hugging her own brother. But Shane’s actions have very negative consequences: Cassie dumps him, his family excoriates him, and he feels guilty. Shane’s delusional and overblown jealous reaction is treated for what it is, and he has to do some serious groveling before he gets back into everyone’s good graces.
I guess my view at this point is that what hero jealousy reveals about the hero’s character has to be considered one case at a time. But in general, jealousy can be a virtue when it alerts the hero, or heroine to strong feelings that should be — and are – be dealt with. But it can be a vice when it has less to do with the value the hero places on his relationship with the heroine, and more to do with his own negative qualities, or his competition with male rivals.
Jealousy is such a real emotion so I don’t mind when a hero or even the heroine feels it. Lisa Kleypas’s heroes are a nice example of men who become a bit jealous and tend to think of the heroine as theirs. In Seduce Me At Sunrise, the hero Kev is very possessive of Win. One scene where his jealous overtakes him is when Win becomes too close to her doctor. Some may think the way Kev reacted was a bit too much, but it felt so romantic the way Lisa wrote the scene. In the hands of a good author, a character’s jealousy can work.
But sometimes I go back to the romances of the 70′s and 80′s where the hero’s jealous lead to those forced seduction scenes that became cliched.
Great post! Really made me think
@ katiebabs:
I agree — it’s down to the writing is so many cases. I know there were some major jealous-hero historicals I had on the outskirts of my brain as I was doing this post, and SMAS is one of them.
{{The same kind of fury generating possessiveness is found in Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld…}}
Gee, I wish I’d waited to buy the first book in the series until after you made this post (only off by a day!) because I would’ve saved myself the $$, then. That was quite possibly the biggest turn-off in the book, for me, and substantial enough that I’ll avoid the rest.
{{The rival cannot be replaced in envy, whereas it is the beloved who cannot be substituted in jealousy. Envy is primarily about competition with the rival.}}
Very well said. Years ago I read Nancy Friday’s Jealousy, and her delineation between envy and jealousy has remained with me. Jealousy she uses in the sense of ‘jealously guarding an item’ — it’s when the fear/anxiety is driven by having someone else take what you (already) have. Envy is when you want what someone else has (and that you see yourself as lacking).
Which means that many of what you ascribe as jealous behaviors are, from Friday’s (and my) POV, in fact envious behaviors. The man who sees a woman — with whom he has no specific or deep relationship, currently — flirting with another man and reacts badly is a man who is not jealous, but envious. His focus is on the woman: ‘He feels she looks like “bimbo material”, she’s having too much fun, she’s flirting, etc. She should be embarrassed, and that her “hormones are out of control”.’ That guy isn’t launching himself at the rival (to jealously protect what he has), he’s launching himself at the woman to tear her away from anyone else and/or cajole her into being with him only.
One illustration Friday used that has stayed with me always was her question of a person’s reaction when they find their romantic interest in an intimate clutch with anyone else. A jealous man would pull the rival-man away and deck him for violating what’s the man’s to guard/have. An envious man attacks his own lover, instead, out of the subconscious fear that she and someone else have something he lacks.
Another way she put it was that we attack what we see as the closest enemy — and if your relationship with the beloved is solid, then s/he is ‘within’ the boundaries of one’s castle/self. The beloved, then, doesn’t even register as an outsider — but if one is envious, then one is inside the castle and everyone else is on the outside, although the beloved may be the closest among them.
Unless, of course, it’s the kind of envy you’re describing — of the rival being the focus — and that’s not really an issue of a romantic relationship so much as the groundwork for a rivalry. What gets fought over isn’t nearly as important as the act of fighting, much to the glee of all those fans just waiting for subtext to drop into their lap and prompt a jag of slashfic. Long live rivalry as foreplay. Ahem.
(Heh.)
Jealousy is a very tricky emotion to write for a hero because at the core of it, it implies a lack of trust in the heroine – something that can be a real turn off. I like your example of Bet Me. At least Cal admits it’s a problem for him. I think that might be the key. If the hero knows he’s acting irrationally he can be forgiven. Roarke in the In Death books can act a bit unreasonable but he is easy to forgive because he knows it’s his issue – not a lack of faith in Eve. But if he’s just jealous for jealousy’s sake, it’s a trait I don’t care for at all. The example you use in Heaven, Texas he sounds like a total jerk in blaming the HEROINE for his issues.
Great post!
I have to agree with you about the “paranormal jealousy” – I read it and go with it but in real life we’d be getting protection orders.
But, I disagree with the Bet Me and Heaven Texas examples. Both of these books are among my very favourites and are in my keeper shelf.
In Heaven Texas, I thought the narrative showed Bobby Tom’s self deception in a very humorous way – I don’t think that’s what he believed, that’s just what he told himself – the book was very much about him coming to grips with his image and what would actually make him happy and, generally, growing up. He wants her for himself and no-one else will do, a deep part of him has realised it but the superficial part (which is terrified of the dreaded – da dum, RELATIONSHIP – is still catching up (- oh (and completely off topic) this book had just the coolest secondary romance with Bobby Tom’s mother – HAWT!!)
As for Bet Me, I think the jealousy did move the relationship forward, (indeed, as in Heaven Texas) just not in the most obvious of ways (as per the earlier examples in your post, where the “move” was immediate, or just about). IMO, this part of the book was where Cal was starting to realise his feelings for Min (evidenced by “and yet, much to my disgust, I am”). Min and Cal spent much of the book avoiding their “fate” and this was, IMO, one example of that happening to Cal.
I guess what I’m saying is that in those 2 books, I also found the jealousy helpful to moving the relationship forward and appropriate in the context of the book – I mean the Bobby Tom thing was so firmly tongue in cheek – he was deliciously politically incorrect – right down to his “marriage quiz” which was a hoot.
just my opinion though…!
Wonderful post, Jessica. You sum up so neatly and logically a number of quite instinctive reactions to jealous/possessive heroes I’ve had with various books – that till now made me feel I was being inconsistent.
As Kaetrin said, there is a degree to which I can just ‘roll with it’ with paranormals but even with those, I have a limit. For instance, the jealous possessiveness of the heroes in Nalini Singh’s psy/changeling books really bothers me, but a similar reaction by Kresley Cole’s Immortal heroes doesn’t. Reading your post, I think it’s because there are hints in the Cole books that the heroes *know* they feel this way because of how they are made and they don’t necessarily think it’s fundamentally right. Indeed, sometimes they seem to struggle against it, and when the heroines take exception to it or laugh it, they seem to grudgingly accept her view. In the Singh books, by contrast, the heroes are unquestioning of their own behaviour and ride roughshod over the heroines to exercise their possessiveness and make their jealousy known and the heroines just go along with it. There’s a quite subtle difference in the tone between the two that makes one acceptable to be and one not.
@ kaigou:
Thanks for your comment! I think you may be right about my needing to recategorize my “bad jealousy” examples as envy.
My original intuition was that the difference between good jealousy and bad was that in bad jealousy, the man has no “right” to it, either because (a) there’s nothing to be jealous of (she’s hugging her brother, etc.), or (b) there is no relationship to speak of between him and the heroine, often because he himself refuses to acknowledge his feelings (as in the SEP). I do think the difference between envy and jealousy captures most of this, as you say.
kaigou wrote:
This is a fantastic image.
Kaetrin wrote:
I hasten to add that I can really like a book even when it has a few things I dislike, and Bet Me is certainly in that category. I loved Bet Me (Heaven, Texas is another story).
Kaetrin wrote:
I can definitely see your point of view. I probably should not have focused so intently on examples where the jealousy has immediate “action” effects. Thank you!
KristieJ wrote:
I think you are right. It also implies a fear of loss, and a bit of insecurity. none of these things are typical hero traits, especially alpha hero traits.
But I also agree with your point that if a hero knows he has a problem, as in the Bet Me and Taking Chase examples (although I don’t think Cal had a jealousy “problem” in a serious sense), and, as you say the In Death books, that self- awareness makes a big difference. Then, he’s not stupid as well as insecure.
Tumperkin wrote:
This was exactly why I wrote it! thank you! I could not figure out why sometimes hero jealousy made a book a wall banger, and at other times was sexy and riveting.
I am a big fan of the Cole series, and have read 3 of the Singhs without much luck (despite recognizing the uniqueness of her worldbuilding and her talent in general). I hadn’t thought about them on this issue, but you’re right!