Favorite Hero -- JAFF in October #3

It's day 3 in the #JAFFinOctober game! Today's topic is #FavoriteHero.

My favorite Austen hero is Mr. Tilney. Why him? In part because he is the least flawed of all of them. Not that there's anything wrong with having flaws, of course, but honestly, his only drawbacks are a mean and miserly father and a playboy brother, and he probably didn't have to see them often. The only reason he spends so much time in his father's company in Northanger Abbey is to give his sister some relief from the general's strict coldness. I can actually identify with the Tilney siblings in a way -- my dad's not exactly miserly, but he was never very affectionate when I was younger. I suppose that is due, in part, to his being the disciplinarian of the family. It's also a result of his own upbringing, as his own father died when he was very young and his step-father, as I understand it, wasn't an affectionate man. 

Another of Mr. Tilney's flaws, I realize, is that he does little to discourage his brother from his pursuit of Isabella Thorpe. But as much as I wish he had done more, I understand that he's so used to Frederick doing whatever he wanted regardless of what his morally upright brother thought that Henry had given up trying to correct his behavior.

Henry Tilney is also one of the most open and artless of the Austen heroes. He's lively, witty, intelligent, honest... He shows how kind and caring he is both in his desire to see his sister happy as well as how easily he forgives Catherine for suspecting his father of murdering his mother. He very clearly understands that it's not entirely Catherine's fault her fanciful imagination led her to such a shocking idea; after all, she's led a very sheltered life and prior to the trip to Bath with the Allens had only experienced the world through books. And let's not forget that he feeds that imagination himself when he teases her about the abbey's "horrors." 

Further cementing his favorite hero status for me is that he accepts Catherine for who she is, naivete and all, rather than rejecting her for not being smart or better informed. Unlike Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy, who attends a public assembly in Meryton in a bad mood and insults the book's heroine, Elizabeth -- within her hearing, no less -- without even having been introduced to her, Mr. Tilney delights in both dancing with Catherine and conversing with her. He doesn't despair over her not being rich (like Darcy did about Elizabeth's "situation in life" because she had no dowry) because he knows he has more than enough for them both. 

Overall, he's the most well-rounded of Austen's heroes. And it doesn't hurt that in 2007, he looked like JJ Feild.