Heroic Traits - ugh

I pretty much nailed this question with the example I gave.

A man who doesn't have a moment of serious thought or reflection seems like a huge clown. Jo Beverly's hero in My Lady Notorious made my teeth ache. Everyone around him, including the heroine were in serious straits but this guy approached everything like life was a huge lark. I'm all for loving life but this is the kind of guy who would be laughing while his house burnt to the ground. Ugh.

Counter balance him with Rupert from Mr. Impossible and you have a charming character. One who is definitely a clown but knows when to be serious. He wouldn't laugh while the heroine was fighting off the villian.

I'm not sure if I have run across too many romance heroes who have the 'oh woe is me' thing as bad as the so called hero in Interview with A Vampire by Anne Rice. I couldn't figure out why the guy didn't just walk into the sun.

Boom!

Whiny ass cooked.

Onwards!

So, if a hero goes on and on about his sucky life and never does anything about it then I'm looking for that bolt of lightning to come out of the sky to put him and I out of our misery.

Now, men who are big asses. I believe I have mentioned I enjoy these kind of men when they are paired with the right heroine. For me, Anne Stuart manages to do this admirably. Shanna McKenna's book Standing in the Shadows proved just how much an ass can hurt a story. Near the end of the story the heroine shows up in a dress that she put on at another man's house. The hero has a fit, rips the dress off her, makes her kneel on it and take him in her mouth.

Ugh, yetch, Bobbit.

I know that that might be a fantasy for some women but, I'd have punched the guy in the gut.

Super Asses need not apply in my romance fantasies.

Oh, oh!! Uber-rich men. I don't mind a man with money but those men who have billions and are hot and crap.

Two words.

Donald Trump.

Not enough money in the world. You know what I'm saying.

So rich men in contemporaries are hard to swallow (stop it) but I don't mind them in historicals because I don't understand the money in those books so they can tell me they are rich but I know the royal family still had more than them. So, I'm good.

Men with ponytails. Sorry, that's not a personality trait but, egads man, cut your hair!

Oh, and men who are huge physically. You know the ones where the author talks about the hero having thighs the size of tree trunks? You ever see a man with tree trunk legs walk? Think Sumo Wrestler because whether it's fat or muscle in the way of the leg motion it doesn't matter. There's no panther like grace. It's just a huge waddle and I don't care what anyone says, it's not sexy. Edited: Sumo Wrestler's are not what my TV makes them out to be. Some of them look like lean mean fighting machines. I found this picture and fell in love because you know he would never harm a child and there they are trying to be like him.

Hmmm, that's all I can think of right now but, that doesn't mean I won't bitch, whine and complain if I run across a hero I don't like.

*thunder rolls in the background*

Ohhh, aren't we all hilarious.