The Regency Romance Reviewer's Fallacy
There is a phenomenon known as the Gamblers’ Fallacy. It goes as follows: If my chance of throwing three ones on three six-sided dice is 1 in 36, then if I throw two dice and get snake-eyes, my chance of throwing the third 1 is one in 36.
But this would basically require that the dice remember what you threw previously. At any time, one’s chance of throwing a one on a six-sided die, whether one has thrown the die previously or not, is 1 in 6.
As I have been reading reviews of Regencyland romances, I have begun to run into a similar kind of fallacy. I have dubbed it the Regency Romance Reviewers’ Fallacy.
An example of this fallacy can be found in the article “How Accurate Does A Historical Romance Have To Be?” In this article, the author writes:
Another book featuring a duke, and I swear I’ll scream. There were only around 25 dukes in the Regency period.
On the second point, this reviewer is correct: there were 33 dukes, if one counted the royal dukes who were sons of the king.
But on the first point, she is not.
In precisely the same way that no matter how many times I have thrown the dice, the chance of a one on a six-sided die is still 1 in 6, a duke in a Regency romance is still one of approximately two dozen, plus some royals.
The dukes do not exist in each other’s background.
The fallacy is to treat them as if they do.
If Georgette Heyer mentions a duke and Julia Quinn mentions a duke and Mary Baloch mentions a duke and Rachel Knowles mentions a duke, those dukes—unless specially noted as homages to another author—can never arrive at the same rout, because they occupy the same literary space, so to speak—they are each one of the slightly more than two dozen dukes in their world.
This is true even when the books are written by the same author.
The whole point of including a duke is because dukes are exclusive.
If the dukes existed in each other’s background, they would lose the quality that makes them desirable—the aroma of power that clings to them like a masculine musk.
True, in life, dukes were not always the most powerful of men. There were earls or even mere gentlemen, such as Beau Brumell, who may have wielded greater power.
But in a book, you only have so much time to set up your situation. And it is far easier to get across the message this is not a man to be trifled with by making him a duke than by inventing a reason why he is a commoner, but as influential as Brumell.
(If a good number of authors decided to go the Brumell route, we would soon be reading reviews committing the RRRF by complaining that there were not so many commoners who had such substantial sway with the Prince of Wales in real life.)
The Regency Romance Reviewers’ Fallace, or RRRF for short, (not to be confused with RRR, an excellent over-the-top Bollywood action flick in which one of the heroes throws a leopard) takes other forms as well. Any complaint about how “there just were not that many women in the Regency age who…” followed by some convenient trope used in romances to produce a pleasant reading experience is committing the same fallacy.
Three different books about a widow who, for some crazily contrived reason, is still a virgin does not equal three separate women to whom this unlikely event occurred. Rather, it indicates that it happened once, to one woman, in the particular background world that the character inhabits.
If a Regency census were held which included the question: was your marriage consummated?—and were the question to be answered truthfully—the number of yes answers would not be equal to the number of Regency novels in which this particular trope occurs.
Rather it would be equal to the number of times such a thing happened in real life—whatever that might be—plus one.
But back to this is not a man to be trifled with (this is not a man with whom to trifle?). As I explain here, the emotion readers look for in a romance is the result of contrast between the masculine and the feminine.
The greater the contrast, the stronger the oogly-boogly sensation that assails the reader.
So the more masculine the man, the more alluring and effective the romance.
This is why the hero is always a duke or an earl or a doctor or a pirate or a vampire or a cowboy. These are things that convey masculinity (or power, depending upon how they are portrayed) to the modern reader.
And this is why Regencyland heroes are nearly always hermits or rakes. Giving the hero an untouched heart—because he avoids women (either due to lack of interest or prior heartache) or because he seduces them all and is touched by none—ups his masculinity factor and adds another hurdle that the heroine must jump.
Can one write a romance with a hero who is neither a hermit nor a rake?
Yes.
Are they as good?
In general? Not qua romance.
They might be better plotted, or more historically accurate, or excel in some other area, but it is harder to achieve the all-glorious oogly-boogly feeling so precious to romance readers if your hero does not present a truly thorny dilemma to the lovely heroine.
The problem with RRRF reviews is: they criticize the tropes of the field without analyzing why those tropes exist.
Authors then rush to write something that doesn’t contain whatever it is that the RRRF-wielder* objected to…and nine out of ten times, or ninety-nine out of a hundred, or maybe even 999 out of 1000, what they get instead is just…not as good.
And they did all this extra work for nothing.
*—as stated above, not to be confused with a man who wields a leopard.
Maybe a reader who has read sixty kabillion romances between a tormented duke and a sweet ingenue would find a romance where the hero is a milquetoast member of the gentry refreshing…
Or maybe not.
Maybe reviewing Regency romances as if they, as a conglomerate, represent Regency society, and can thus be criticized for the things that regularly reappear between novels, is always a fallacy.
Throw the dice six hundred and fifty-seven kabillion times? The chance of throwing a one the next time?
Still 1 in 6.
I have no problem with a duke, but I would politely dispute the idea that hero is who is neither a hermit nor a rake makes for a less satisfying regency romance. Exhibit A: Jane Austen, generally regarded as the best writer of regency era romance in every possible way. Neither Mr Darcy (the most romantic man in fiction), nor Mr Knightly, or Captain Wentworth were either rakes or hermits, or even titled. Exhibit B: Georgette Heyer, the queen of regency romance has many wonderful, much beloved hero's who are not rakes, hermits or titled (along with all her rakes and lords). Cotillion and Arabella are two of her most beloved novels, both staring mild rather effeminate men, titleless and modelled vaguely after Beau Brummell. If they can do it, then it can be done, even if other people have not thus far managed.
I would also note that "rake" heros in regency romances which aren't written by Heyer are almost never actual rakes (and if you do some research into actual 18th century rakes you will realize why, because these were stomach churning men who would be almost impossible to turn into hero's). Even Heyer's rakes were all very toned down. Lord Vidal (from Devil's cub) was the only one who really qualified as a real life rake, and he was the most minor end of the rake spectrum (the wild young man with too much money and too much time on his hands variety, ala the Earl of Rochester and Lord Littleton, and his modern day equivalents, young men in a rock band). Even his dear old dad, the Duke of Avon, really really really wasn't a rake by actual 18th century standards. He was just a standard 18th century man of fashion with a nasty streak. Don't get me wrong, I adore the Duke of Avon, and I think he's a marvellous creation, but he's not actually a rake.
Also, even though I have no problem with a duke, the so-called-rake and aristocrats in general have been so overused, that I can appreciate the "if I read another one, I'll scream" sentiment. They have been done to death, and there are a lot of under explored corners of the regency and 18th century that are ripe for really romantic romance novels. Pirates (if you set your novel in the early 18th century), navy officers, army officers (have your heroine follow the drum - during the Napoleonic wars, what an amazing setting), smuggling/smugglers, a black former slave from a family of witch doctors turned highwayman. There are no shortage of manly and potentially romantic men who have been badly under utilized by regency romance writers.
The problem is that these statistics are in tension with the notion that this is really taking place in the historical era. It can interfere with suspension of disbelief.
It is far from the worst offender in that respect. Part of the general problem of historical fiction is that they tend to congregate about periods. So you get so many featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine, or Stephan, Maud, and Matilda in the Anarchy, or all the royals in the War of the Roses, and each book ascribes to each historical figure such a character as fits the book's plot, and they are not miscible. Consciously thinking them as separate fictions means you are thinking of them as fictions. (Mind you, my issue with the War of Roses was compounded by my reading books set there before I learned there were two times a King Richard was overthrown by a Henry.)