Last week we talked about weak female characters, and the week before, we talked about strong female characters. This week and next, I’ll do the same with male characters.

Strong?

If you remember, when I talked about strong female characters, I had a list of different kinds of strengths: Physical, mental, willful, spiritual, and emotional. They are different kinds of strengths, and when a character has one, they are ‘strong’ in that area. But in the end, if you are strong enough to do what needs to be done, you are strong. It is the same for both male and female characters. But there is obviously a difference between a strong man and a strong woman. Their strength is not the same. So, what differentiates a strong man from a strong woman?

Comparisons

After some thought, I decided that the best way to find what differentiates a strong man from a strong woman was to look through the strong male characters that I am familiar with and see what makes them similar. What do they have in common?

Strong Male Characters

Aragorn – Having grown up with the Lord of the Rings books and finding the trilogy one of the best stories in the world, naturally I turned to it first for characters. Aragorn seems the obvious first choice as a strong male character. And there is a reason for that. He is a king, a leader, he is a warrior, he has had a difficult life, and he is on a difficult mission that he must succeed, or everything he has fought and lived for will mean nothing. It is easy to see his strength. But he is not the most relatable character. His trials, his callings, and his blessings are so high that he does not relate to the average person. He is more like an Elf or like Gandalf than a human. But he is a good example of a strong male character.

Faramir – Faramir is a character who seems to be for the most part overlooked by most readers. But he is another strong character, and more than that, he is relatable. He is a leader, not a king, like Aragorn, but he has responsibility over a group of people, he is a warrior, he has had a difficult life, and he has a mission. His personality is different from Aragorn’s. He is quieter, and seems to be more studious, and he knows he is not a man of ‘great importance.’ He has no prophecies to fulfill, no crown to bear, no kingdom to rule. He fights the terrible fight of taking one day at a time, without any chance of ending the trouble himself, but he does it anyway because he knows it is right.

Tirian – Not from the Lord of the Rings, but he is another example of a strong man. The last king of Narnia, he is a leader and a warrior. His life has been difficult, and, from the beginning of the book, it will become even more so, but he has withstood it. His mission is at the same time simple and extremely difficult. Being a good king. That stays his goal throughout the story. But through all his trials, he stays true and firm and steady, and that is why he is a good strong character.

Zar – Zar is the main character from a children’s book, The King With Six Friends. He seems to be a strange choice, since the story itself is very simple and, compared to Lord of the Rings, shallow, and it’s written for children, and it is more of a fairy-tale than anything else, with the noble prince and the beautiful princess and the strange and wonderful magic. But he fills the role of the strong male character. He is a leader, he is a warrior, he has had a difficult life, and he has a goal. He is not especially powerful, and he comes across strange people who all have strange gifts that he does not have. But in the end, he fills his role. He knows how every person could use their gifts to get the job done, and he gives the command when no one else could. In the words of one of the characters, ‘He led us.’

I am certain that you can see the similarities in all these characters. They are leaders. They are warriors. They have struggled and still struggle, and they have a goal. They are not perfect by any means, they make mistakes, they make the wrong choices, but they always stay on the path they have been directed to, and they keep pushing forward, in spite of when they stumble and fall and do not know where to go or what to do. The man who goes off that path is not a strong man.

What Makes A Strong Man Strong?

Strength. Men were made to be strong, physically and spiritually. A man who is not strong is not fulfilling his role as a man. He cannot lead, he cannot protect, he cannot provide. Men are given natural strength, and when a man is not strong, it does not simply mean he has not built his strength, it means he has rejected every role he has been given. A strong man knows his roles, and because he has striven to fulfill them, he has become strong.

Direction. A strong man knows where he is going. He may not know how he is going to get there, and there will be times when he comes to a point that he cannot see how he can get through, but he knows his destination. A man who has no direction is weak, and cannot help anyone, even himself, until he comes to grips with the fact that his path follows one way whether he likes it or not, and he follows it.

Resolve. A strong man is determined to stay on the path he is going. He has a foundation that he comes to when things grow difficult. A man who has no resolve, no foundation, is lost and will run from the path to a simpler, easier path, a path that makes him only weaker.

Leadership. The man is made to lead. If he is not leading, he is not a strong man. This does not mean he has to lead everything in order to be a man. But a strong man has been given the responsibility to lead, to help, to guide, to protect, to provide for, these are all parts of leadership, and he must lead. This is the main thing that makes a man strong. Taking the lead. It is not always a glorious thing. It often means taking the brunt of the attack, striding forward to be struck by every single missile launched at you, for the sake of those behind you.

Conclusion

A strong male character has a great deal of responsibility, and does his best to guide and protect what he is responsible for. He will fail at times, but he will not stray from his path. That is what makes a strong male character.

Next Week…

I will talk about weak male characters. Just because a character is weak does not mean they are ineffective. Every good character is effective, even if they are a failure personally. Until next week, keep writing, keep learning, keep growing.