Single Woman Seeks Good Man / Literature

Single Woman Seeks Good Man in Literature.

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• 1632: All of the Happily Married couples come from women who fall in love with genuinely good men.
• Abandon All Hope: Melissa's boyfriend, Andrew, and her afterlife crush, Sean, are both well-rounded, smart gentlemen worthy of someone like Melissa.
• The Asterisk War: Julis originally didn't think much of Ayato, but after getting to see his kindness and desire to protect her no matter the cost, she develops feelings for him.
• Audrey, Wait!: All of the successful romantic leads are decent, all-around reliable guys.
• All of Jane Austen's heroines fall for good men and usually after being temporarily interested in and/or pursued by thorough cads.
• Baccano!: Scarred Pyromaniac Nice Holystone is in a relationship with her longtime friend Jacuzzi Splot, who has got to be the most nonthreatening man in America — at least most of the time, anyway... Whether or not the affection existed beforehand, it was definitely solidified the moment she saw that he had gotten a scar-like tattoo on his face so she didn't have to feel alone after her explosives accident left her scarred and without a left eye. They're quite close and a bit chaste as it took them ten years to actually kiss and by the 2000s, (the two and their gang exist in the late 1920s and early 1930s), they have at least one great grandchild.
• The Belgariad
  • Polgara has some Ship Tease with Kamion, a true Nice Guy; she falls in love with Count Ontrose, the very definition of Knight in Shining Armor, and her eventual husband is Durnik, who's quite possibly the most decent, kind-hearted man in the entire series. It's Played for Laughs a little when she practically swoons after he insists that they can't kill a couple of guards just doing their jobs, but mostly it's straight.
  • Part of why Ce'Nedra loves Garion is that in the midst of her bewilderment during the first series, he is compassionate, understanding, and (mostly) friendly to her.
• Blood and Chocolate (1997):
  • One thing that Vivian repeatedly states she likes about Aiden is how "sweet and kind" he is, and she emphasizes she wants a romantic partner who accepts her fully. Unfortunately, Aiden isn't as open-minded and understanding as she believed, although it turns out that Gabriel is.
  • Gender-flipped with Gabriel towards Vivian; he states one of the reasons he fell in love with her was because he admired her deep and sincere concern for the pack, to the point she was willing to kill herself rather than endanger them.
• In Patricia A. McKillip's The Book of Atrix Wolfe, the Scullery Maid Saro is sent to deliver a tray of food to the prince in the haunted and half-ruined hall. She drops it; he takes the blame for startling her, especially after she had braved the ghosts and owls, and offers her a white lily. She goes back to the kitchen dreaming of him.
• The thirteen brothers from Brothers Conflict all like the heroine, Ema Hinata, because of her kindness and Ema falls for one of them (depending on the route chosen) because they are all good (if flawed) men who promise their undying love for her.
• A Brother's Price has a lot of this. Jerin's sister Summer remarks that the boy her sister Corelle has a crush on "has a temper with the babies", which she dislikes. The protagonist Jerin, on the other hand, is a good man, which in addition to the fact that men are rare causes lots of women to pursue him.
• In Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, Tej tells Ivan that his attractive points are that he's nice and he makes her laugh — even when they are trapped underground and awaiting the end of their air.
• Touma Kamijou of A Certain Magical Index is a genuinely down-to-earth Nice Guy who does not hesitate to Always Save the Girl, which almost always causes women to fall in love with him.
• The Chronicles of Prydain has Official Couple Eilonwy and Taran, but the UST only really starts bubbling once he grows up a little. This trope pops up a lot in all of Lloyd Alexander's works, where it's always the Nice Guy protagonists who get the girl, often after they Took a Level in Kindness or three.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses: Feyre falls in love with Tamlin because he's one of the first people in years who cares about her wellbeing, protects her, encourages her to put her happiness first for once, and likes her for herself rather than what she can do for them. She falls in love with Rhysand for similar reasons, especially as he helps her deal with her PTSD and she realizes he's not as wicked and tyrannical as he pretends to be.
• In Crime and Punishment, Dounia ends up marrying Razumihin instead of the rich but immoral Luhzin.
• The "Beta Male" theory is explained in detail in A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. It boils down to the observation that the nice-but-average guys who make up most of the population win in the end after girls get kicked to the curb one time too many by the Jerk Jock and cutthroat businessman.
• In the Doctor Who Expanded Universe Eighth Doctor Adventures, Trix falls in love with Fitz because he's honest and trustworthy. The degree to which these particular positive traits are only relative to the fact she's a bit of a Femme Fatale and a Master of Disguise to boot is debatable, but he is indeed caring, sensitive, and dependable. He's also a consummate Deadpan Snarker, a Manchild to the point of getting on her nerves, and a Chivalrous Pervert, but all told, he is indeed a good man.
• In Sarah A. Hoyt's Draw One in the Dark, it's finding that Tom has not eaten all her food, and had cleaned up after himself that really makes Kyrie think about him.
• Dresden Files
  • Margaret La Fey ultimately found happiness with Malcolm Dresden, who is always described as a genuinely good guy.
  • And Charity fell in love with Michael, (a compassionate, responsible Christian whose job is literally to fight evil) after he saved her life when they were teenagers. By the series' beginning, they are very Happily Married.
  • This is the reason a number of women fall for Dresden himself, even though he'd dispute his characterization as a "good man".
• Earth's Children:
  • In The Clan of the Cave Bear, Oga falls in love with Broud as a young woman because he offers her comfort when she's grieving for her parents. Unfortunately, she later came to realize Broud's kindness in this instance was a rarity for him.
  • In The Mammoth Hunters, Fralie tells Ayla the reason she chose to mate Frebec is that he adores her, treating like something to be treasured, and offered up everything he had (even though this wasn't much) to become her husband. She believes he's not a bad person deep down and is simply desperate to prove he's worth something, and says he still dotes on her in private. Fralie notes to Ayla that compared to her first mate, who had little interest in her beyond her status and then only mated her out of obligation, it was wonderful to have a man who would do anything just to be with her even though her status had fallen greatly.
  • This trope is one of the main reasons Joplaya decides to marry Echozar. She's not passionately in love with him, but she is fond of him, he treats her well and she knows he deeply loves her.
• Edgar Rice Burroughs' heroines chose the hero for his heroic traits — eventually. Culture Clash and misunderstandings complicate matters even on top of their usual Damsel in Distress separations.
  • In Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Monster Men, Bulan's heroic defense of Virginia wins her heart — even when she thinks he's the product of her Mad Scientist father's experiments.
• In The Finder's Stone Trilogy novel The Wyvern's Spur, Cat quickly falls for Giogioni Wyvernspur because Giogi is a genuinely kind, respectful man who treats her like an actual human being, something no other man in her life—least of all her abusive husband, Flattery—had done before.
• Happens in all of Alex Flinn's fairy tale novels.
  • Beastly, being a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, has Lindy only develop feelings for the cursed Kyle after he shows genuine affection for her.
  • A Kiss in Time has Talia end up undergoing some Character Development and loving the modern-day guy who kissed her awake because he helped her out while she was in a strange place and treated her like a capable person (instead of being treated like a baby, as everyone else did).
  • In Cloaked, the dorky shoemaker Johnny has a number of girls fall for him, one of which is a beautiful princess (though she later admits that while she cares for him, she doesn't actually want to marry him.)
• In The Girl from the Miracles District, Nikita notes that the women working at the Music Box burlesque and brothel positively adore Robin because he always treats them like a gentleman.
• In Harry Potter, female lead Hermione Granger has a long-running Belligerent Sexual Tension-style attraction to fundamentally good guy Ron Weasley. The thing that finally pushes her to kiss him senseless? It's when Ron realizes in a panic that the House Elves are unprotected during the Battle of Hogwarts. The welfare of House Elves has long been a moral cause close to Hermione's heart, and one that had opened her up to general ridicule in previous books (especially from Ron). Although it's worth pointing out there's a difference between forcing unwanted freedom on them and trying to make sure they don't get killed.
  • And even Hermione's brief love interest Viktor Krum, although he's introduced as an intimidating world-class athlete from a rival school, turns out to be a pretty nice guy.
  • In fact, this is a trend throughout the series. Fleur Delacour falls in love with Bill Weasley, Cho Chang falls in love with Cedric and later pursues Harry, Ginny goes to the Yule Ball with Neville (before he fully Took a Level in Badass). Arthur and Molly Weasley must count — they're into each other enough to have seven children!
    • Lily Potter is an interesting example. Her friendship with Snape fell apart due to his inclination toward the Dark Arts and that he made friends with some nasty people. On the other hand, she was greatly irritated with James because he was an arrogant show-off and the intensely antagonistic relationship with her best friend at the time, Snape. A theory is that Lily may be a Sweet-type Tsundere (generally sweet, but set off easily by their target of affection) as she went from disliking him in their fifth year to dating him by their seventh, indicating most of their relationship progress occurred in sixth year. In fact, one brief moment has Harry smiling at the flashback of his dad being hoisted by teammates for winning the match (much like Ron was in the present); Lily was present also there, rolling her eyes yet also indicating she was smiling. It's also stated that James went through some Character Development of his own, and it wasn't until he did so that she fell for him.
  • Harry himself is a Nice Guy, and Ginny has feelings for him for six books before they finally hook up. At the end of Half-Blood Prince, she says that one of the things she loves about him is his Chronic Hero Syndrome. The Cursed Child later reveals that she fell in love with him at the end of Chamber of Secrets, when he showed her kindness while everyone else shunned her.
• In Heart of Steel, Julia is initially put off by Alistair's scars, cyborg implants, and habit of coming on way too strong, but she starts to grow fond of him when she sees his human side, how dedicated he is to her safety, and how much he's willing to risk to make her happy.
• In the Mage Storms trilogy of the Heralds of Valdemar series, this more or less sums up Nice Guy Karal and Genki Girl Natoli's relationship, although neither realizes it at first — Karal because he's too self-conscious, and Natoli because she's more obsessed with technology than with boys. At least at first. They work it out in the end.
• In Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson's Hoka story "Don Jones", Doraleen sneers at Terwillinger as a stuffed shirt — until he defies Jones' attempt at Blackmail — whereupon she persuades him not to punish Jones because after all Jones and Tanni are in love, just like the two of them.
• Holes:
  • Miss Katherine, who fell for Sam the onion man because he was a generally friendly Nice Guy, compared to Trout Walker, who was rich, disrespectful, loud, and stupid. It doesn't end well for them, alas.
  • Gender-Inverted Trope with Elya Yelnats. At 15, Elya falls in love with Myra. His Intergenerational Friend disparages her thusly:
    Madame Zeroni: Myra's head is as empty as a flowerpot. [...] Can she push a plow? Can she milk a goat? No, she is too delicate. Can she have an intelligent conversation? No, she is silly and foolish. Will she take care of you when you are sick? No, she is spoiled and will only want you to take care of her. So, she is beautiful. So what? Ptuui! [spits on the dirt]

  He later ends up Happily Married to the sensible and capable Sarah, who he describes as everything Myra was not.

  He fell in love with a woman named Sarah Miller. She could push a plow, milk a goat, and, most important, think for herself. She and Elya often stayed up half the night talking and laughing together.

• In The Howling (1977), Karyn states that when she first met her future husband Roy, she thought of him as "stodgy", but that she soon realised that beneath that he could be gentle, thoughtful and kind, with these traits being what made her fall in love with him. As a result, Karyn realises there's something really not right when Roy - who unbeknownst to her has become a werewolf - becomes openly belligerent and mean-spirited; while he had already been losing patience with her, he'd never been outright cruel to her or made her feel unsafe.
• In The Hunger Games, Katniss initially does not want to fall in love or have children. But then she meets genuinely Nice Guy Peeta Mellark (who also saved her from dying of hunger years before the beginning of the books) and slowly falls in love with him. This is also one of the deciding factors when she's in a Love Triangle with Peeta and Gale. Peeta is a genuinely good man, while Gale turned into a ruthless Anti-Hero who bombed children.
• In Death series: Even though Eve and Roarke's relationship may have started out as All Girls Want Bad Boys, it seems to have turned into this. Coltraine and Alex Ricker had an All Girls Want Bad Boys relationship, but she broke that off and got together with Li Morris, the relationship of which clearly has this trope written all over it.

• In John Hemry's Paul Sinclair novel A Just Determination, Paul Sinclair testifies on behalf of a captain whom he neither liked nor respected, did not think a good officer, and never wanted to serve under again, because while the man had done wrong, he was being hammered. Jen Shen's original view of this is that it's crazy, but on reflection, finds it an attraction.
• In The Last Dove, Adrian is much more of a good man at heart, though he seems like a dark, evil Wolf at first.

• Deconstructed in Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.. The eponymous Nate is a nice, nerdy guy (who happens to be Jewish) and he attracts a number of lovely women. It should be noted though (1) the women are also attracted to his success as a writer, and (2) Nate has a jerkass side.
  • Pride and Prejudice, while Darcy's apparent arrogance puts Elizabeth off, she is won over by the revelation of his actual dealings with Wickham, the testimony of his servants, and his generosity to her family when Lydia elopes.
• In Memoirs of a Geisha, Sayuri falls in love with the Chairman because he's the only person who ever showed her kindness without strings attached. Even Mameha, her mentor, was motivated by the (correct) belief that Sayuri's career would be a good investment. In contrast, her other Love Interest is a grumpy, aloof man who refuses to recognize the very real ways that being enslaved constrained Sayuri's life.
• In My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, the trope likely applies to Yui. According to The Other Wiki, Hachiman saved Yui's dog from a car accident that had him in hospital for 3 weeks.
• Night World occasionally features this trope, though it also plays with it.
  • In Daughters of Darkness (1996), Mary-Lynette's usual type when it comes to boys is quietly gentle and empathetic, which she believes applies to Jeremy. Ironically, her soulmate actually turns out to be Ash, though he becomes a Reformed Rake after falling for her and turns out to have a Hidden Heart of Gold. As for Jeremy, his quietness turns out to be hiding something much more sinister.
  • In Spellbinder (1996), Thea is attracted to and falls in love with Eric because he's a gentle, compassionate All-Loving Hero who treats everyone with respect, up to and including animals. Thea is surprised by this, as she'd  never previously interacted too closely with humans and thought of them as mostly close-minded, bigoted jerks, only for Eric to flip that assumption on its head.
  • In Huntress (1997), Jez explicitly states that the reason she has feelings for Hugh is because of how kind and forgiving he is. However, her soulmate actually turns out to be reformed bad boy Morgead (whom she's known since childhood and has a lot in common with).
  • In Witchlight, Keller eventually falls for Galen because he's a genuinely kind and sensitive boy, who often tells her You Are Better Than You Think You Are, contrasting her cynical worldview due to being hurt and abandoned in the past.
• The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency has detective Precious Ramotswe, still getting over her disastrous marriage to the abusive Bad Boy Note Mokoti, fall in love with and eventually marry Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, a steady, gentle, kindhearted mechanic.
• In Ranger's Apprentice, a stand-out example is Horace and Cassandra. While Cassandra is exasperated by Will treating her differently once he learns she's a princess, he is always kind, gentle, and supportive, and she initially makes a pass at him, but Will isn't interested, which she later admits is for the best. She ends up falling for Horace, who is equally kind and supportive, but unlike Will, he never treated her any differently after the reveal.
  • Alyss and Will may be an example of this, though it's never explicitly stated that she likes him for his heart.
• In The Scholomance, Orion Lake is the only person in the entire school who doesn't think that El is secretly an evil wizard plotting to destroy them all, and thus the only person to show her kindness. As much as she professes to detest him at first for his Chronic Hero Syndrome, she starts falling for him because he's one of the first people who's bothered to get to know the real her. Ironically, he likes her because she's the only person willing to be rude to him—the aforementioned Chronic Hero Syndrome means he has a lot of worshippers, but not a lot of friends, and the fact that she's willing to acknowledge his flaws means she's also the first person to get to know the real him in kind.
• Shakugan no Shana: It is Yuji Sakai's kind and friendly personality that draws both Shana and Kazumi toward him.
• Sisterhood Series by Fern Michaels: After getting rid of their cold-blooded murderer bad boyfriends, Countess Anne de Silva and Isabelle Flanders are single once again. In the book Home Free, Anne forms a relationship with Fergus Duffy and Isabelle forms a relationship with Abner Tookus. Fergus and Abner are genuine good men.
• Spice and Wolf: Holo sometimes makes unfavorable remarks about Lawrence's soft-heartedness, but his kindness is probably the main thing he has going for him. That said, she does cultivate him to be more assertive and outgoing to an extent. And she dislikes it when he holds back from risky business endeavors for her sake.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • It is explicitly stated several times in profic (and a lot more in fanfic, but that's us mushy shippers for you) that this is exactly why Mara Jade fell in love with Luke Skywalker (finalized in Hand of Thrawn); she admires his idealism, honor, and willingness to give almost everyone a second chance. In Survivor's Quest she affectionately calls him "Farm Boy" and says in the narration that she's both exasperated by and loves the fact that he's always four or five rungs higher up on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism than she or almost anyone else is.
  • Galaxy of Fear's Tash Arranda seems to be crushing on Luke for this kind of reason. She hasn't had a crush since Alderaan was destroyed. Not only is Luke six years older than her classmates, but he carries the weapon of the Jedi she so idolizes, is Force-Sensitive like she is, and he's encouraging and understanding of her and her oddness in a way she's never experienced before, from anyone.
  • Outbound Flight: This is a large part of why Maris Ferasi, who was in a relationship with a coarse, suspicious smuggler, idolized Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo. She saw him as like the high-minded people she knew in school, but the mature version, grounded in reality. Cultured, intelligent, noble... Thrawn's much darker than that, even if he does possess the qualities she sees. Thrawn does tell Car'das, who sees Thrawn a little more clearly, not to disillusion her, because true idealists are so rare, and he wouldn't want to be responsible for crushing even one.
  • Jaina Solo's two love interests are Jagged Fel, who has a Hidden Heart of Gold, and Zekk, whose heart of gold isn't much hidden. Of course, in her case, there's another trope in play too.
• Sword Art Online: Kirito is an aloof loner who is, nonetheless, a gentle Nice Guy who unreluctantly helps anyone that needs aid. Sachi was hinted to have feelings for him, Lisbeth and Silica have huge crushes on him and his cousin Suguha loves him, but in the end the one that gains his heart is Asuna.
• In Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note, Aya herself sees her crush towards Sunahara being based on his chivalry, and several cases of Because You Were Nice to Me. However, Sunahara's skirting around the Japanese Delinquents trope makes viewers think it's a case of All Girls Want Bad Guys.
• Toradora! has Taiga in her attraction to Nice Guy Kitamura and later to Ryuuji, who's a Nice Guy too.
• Trapped on Draconica: Twice.
  • At first, Daniar couldn't stand Kalak because he was a jerkass but when she finds out this is an act and he's actually a good guy, she's all over him.
  • Rana Does Not Like Men but Taurok's nobility quickly wins her over.
• Gender Inverted in P. G. Wodehouse's Uneasy Money: Bill's recovery from Claire's rejection occurs when he imagines the ideal girl she should have been — brave, honest, kind — and realizes that it matches Elizabeth.
• In The Unhandsome Prince by John Moore, the character who insists she is entitled to marry a handsome prince is shocked and repelled by one brother of the unhandsome prince she disenchanted; she seriously considers marrying the unhandsome prince. As he has fallen in love with someone else in the meantime, she ends up marrying the third brother, who is both handsome and nice.
• In Warlock of Gramarye this was Christopher Stasheff's in-story explanation for why gorgeous redheaded witch Gwen chose to marry "lean, well-muscled, ugly" Rod Gallowglass:
  "[I]f a beautiful woman is betrayed often enough, she will begin to value trustworthiness, warmth, and affection more than romance. At least, she will if she is the kind of woman to whom love is the goal, and romance just the luxury...."
• In E. D. Baker's The Wide-Awake Princess, Lizette actually ran away with the ogre, because he was the first person in her life to make her laugh.
• In Piers Anthony's Xanth, the Gorgon fell in love with the Good Magician Humphrey after he prevented her from turning everyone she saw to stone. So she went to his castle, where he would answer any question in return for a year's service, to ask, "Will you marry me?" He made her work the year. He explains to Dor that while he knew from the beginning that he would say "Yes," she was just infatuated with the man who had rescued her from her curse; after a year working for him, she would know him well and thus know whether she wanted to marry him. A bit later, the Gorgon tells Dor she realized this and asks Dor what sort of man would do such a thing. Dor realizes that only a good man, a man worth marrying, would do such a thing. So they do.

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