Wednesday, December 31, 2008

When the Hero You Want Isn’t the Hero She Gets- the Eric Factor

Sandy at All about Romance writes...

I'm thinking of calling it The Eric Factor.
For those of you who don't read Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series, Eric is a 6' 4" thousand year-old Viking vampire who - and I don't think I'm giving away much here - isn't likely to get the girl.
Yep, it's true. No matter how much I keep wishing and deluding myself into finding "hopeful" clues in the books, it's crystal clear that telepath heroine Sookie isn't going to hook up on a permanent basis with the devilishly sexy Eric.
It's a situation I should be used to since it's not the first time I've found myself in the position of rooting for a hero the author.well, obviously isn't. (And, gee, something tells me it won't be the last either.) But this time out, it hurts bad, baby. And I blame HBO and True Blood, the series loosely (and by that I mean really loosely) based on Dead Until Dark, the first book in the series.
Whatever else I found disappointing about the show's first season - and this isn't the post to get into the depths of my displeasure - the casting was perfect and quite simply the best I've ever come across when something I've loved was made into a TV show or film. Stephen Moyer's vampire Bill was hot
- hotter than I ever imagined him. Heroine Sookie as played by Anna Paquin was perfect. And Sam Trammell's adorable Sam was exactly how I pictured him
- only cuter.
And then there's Eric. Oh yeah. Not only did Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard physically embody my vision of Eric to the peak of stupendous perfection, it's also clear that he totally "got" the character: Eric's charm, humor, lethal menace, and imperious nature - all were perfectly realized. In short, he was as devastatingly, bone-meltingly sexy as I ever imagined Eric the Viking to be. (And my imagination? Let's just say it was pretty freakin' hot.) But despite the heap 'o melted bones into which he turned me - and no doubt tens of thousands of other women, too - Eric just isn't going to get the girl. (Nor, for that matter, much screen time either.) Frustrated by developments (or, more appropriately, the lack thereof), I found myself wondering if creating a fantasy-inducing character the writer knew she wasn't going to let the heroine - or readers - ever really have wasn't some kind of Big Authorial Tease. I decided to investigate. (Tough job, I know.) Since I hadn't read the series from the start in several years, I began revisiting the books in order to determine if my Eric fixation was the result of my own shallow fascination with a smokin' hot Bad Boy. The good news? It's not. Charlaine Harris makes it perfectly clear that Eric really and truly cares about Sookie - at times even more than Sookie's first lover Bill - in his own uniquely powerful and vampiric way.
And he re-gravels her driveway. (Nothing like giving a woman exactly what she needs, right?) ................... And you know what I think that means? That sometimes the best hero for a good girl heroine really is a semi-reformed Bad Boy. Maybe even a semi-reformed Bad Boy vampire.

read full article http://www.likesbooks.com/blog/?p=407

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did she read the same books I did?
Has she checked out some of the comments Charlaine Harris herself has made about Eric and Bill?

" Dallas " said...

I don't think so - remember i post them don't write them !

Keyse said...

Hi Dallas,

I love that you post all of these articles here but sometimes its hard to distinguish what you specifically write. Maybe create some type of format in the beginning? btw, Happy New Year!!!!

" Dallas " said...

I try to introduce posts by saying John at XX blog writes ( like I did here.)
If I’m commenting at the beginning of an article it’s always in bold and italicized text.
If it’s just me writing there is nothing at the beginning and NO URL at the end
I hope that helps…..thanks, Keyse

Anonymous said...

Until the end of CH's book series, I'll always hope for Sookie to become Sookie Stackhouse-Northman!

Let's hope Book 9/Dead & Gone gives we TEAM ERIC fans what we've wanted for so many years now...that TALK between Sooks and the Big E once and for all!

TES
=^..^=