Staying True to your Character's character

I finished a story, recently, where the author attempted to paint the hero as a cruel and hard man out for vengeance. Now, right away she's handicapped, because this a romance and the hero is "The Hero".

So, the question is: Just how far was she willing going to go to make me believe--*truly* believe--he was a sum'gun of a bastid?

Sure she could 'tell' me he was; but actions shown, speak louder than telling words, baby. So when he has the heroine locked up in a dark, rank, rat-infested dungeon? Good show! But when the author then has him take pity on the heroine, because she hasn't eaten for several days, and whisks her out of the jail and upstairs to a luxuriously appointed suite of rooms? Lame. The author just pulled her punches. Everything she'd written beforehand became null and void. A total fake-out. Where's the consistency? Where's my evil bastid, dammit!

::yawn::

Here's what would have worked better: Hero realizes that heroine is likely to die in dungeon but her dead carcass is of no use to him, he needs her alive. So his motive for moving her to more luxurious accommodations is presented as pure selfishness ( a character trait that bastids have in spades). Then, later on, as the story develops there's the question of ‘is he treating her nice because he's beginning to care, or are his action due to his own underhanded bastid reasons’? And once we (the reader) see that it may have started out selfish, but now it's caring, well wallah! Character Arc. See how that happens? Hope you didn't blink.

The reason I'm blogging about this 'going soft' on the character now, is because I just came smack dab up against something similar in my current project. I finally switched to the hero's pov and one of the first things that runs through his mind is how the heroine responded to him. She obviously finds his disfigurement disgusting, but not enough to affect her sexual/physical reaction to his touch.

This is of significance to him because he's use to *commanding women to his bed*. urk!

As he expanded on that train of thought, it became clear that what he'd been engaging in was a “type” of.... cue music from PYSCHO shower scene..... Force Seduction.

*Gulp* Baby, I was backpedaling outta that scenario so fast, all you could see was smoke.

But then I thought, what was I gonna do, have the poor guy be playing with his meat puppet for the last 200 years? Sure, he's a beast, but I didn't fancy giving him the ole hairy palms. And his disfigurement in conjunction with his dark powers, made woman fear him. Plus, I figure, he's probably not the 'nicest' guy in the world, given what's happened to him.

So, no, women weren't knocking down his door, even if he did know how to Pleeeze da ladies. *ting!*

Which left only one logical choice, if I wanted to be true to his character: he's practiced, without qualm, forced seduction in the past. And, if the heroine hadn't already shown that she was responsive to him, that's probably what he'd be doing with her too. ::cringe::

I’ll admit to being relieved I’d already shown she wasn’t completely adverse to him. But the physical stuff between them isn't *really* about the seduction/sex (although, there'll be plenty of that given the subgenre). It's about one single kiss. And, about sacrifice.

Anywho, being true to character can be scary, and maybe no one’s gonna love what you’re going while you’re doing it, but they’ll respect you more in the morning.... ;-)