The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Who is your favorite Male lead character? And why?

If I think about this very much, I’ll have way too long a list. But the first ones that come to mind are:

David Copperfield in the book of the same name by Charles Dickens. I like how he overcomes his disadvantages to become a decent man — even if it does take him too long to recognize the love of his life. 🙂

Sidney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. He comes from the wrong side of the reader’s sympathies at first, brilliant but drunken and languid, to give himself sacrificially for one he loves with no hope of being loved by her in return.

Jean Valjean in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. He comes from poverty, prison, and bitterness, changes in response to love and compassion, and becomes one of the strongest and most gracious leading men in literature.

Clark Davis in the Janette Oke Love Comes Softly series. A strong but gentle man, a leader without being a tyrant, with a high and strong moral core.

Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility. Strong, decent, kind, a “tortured soul” who lost the woman he loved twice — once because she was intended for another, and then permanently in her tragic death — who gives himself in his love for Marianne even when there is no encouragement at first.

I am seeing that though none of them is perfect, they have in common moral strength (eventually if not at first), perseverance, the overcoming of obstacles, grace, kindness, and sacrificial giving.