Giving Blondes Guns (Ah, Leon)

As you read this (if you're reading it on the day I posted it), I'm probably sitting in a salon having my hair done. So last night when I sat down to write this post and schedule it for today, I decided to go with that theme: hairstyles. More specifically, the hair styles I give my heroines. But a few minutes' consideration of that fairly mundane topic led to a more interesting discovery.

Honestly, when I sat down and contemplated my heroine's hairstyles - perhaps an intrinsically shallow subject - I didn't expect to come up with any earth-shattering revelations. But after I got past the initial stages of noting things like the fact that I've given all of my heroines long hair, I realized something pretty weird about myself: every time I write a blonde hero or heroine, I give them a gun.

Mandy from Lonely Alpha. A hero and heroine couple from a not-quite-finished WIP. All blonde. All armed. James from Taken Hostage, not quite blonde with his golden-brown hair...still has a gun (a necessity for any serious bank robber). Why do I always arm my blondes? I thought about it, and then the answer hit me all at once, like lightning...

Leon.

Oh, Leon. Is your awesomeness really that deeply rooted in my brain, affecting my subconscious thoughts to the point that I literally cannot create a blonde hero or heroine without writing a gun into their hand?

I guess when I think of a strong and likeable blonde hero(ine), I think of Leon Kennedy, who's always armed to the teeth, and a great shot (thanks to the fact that I'm the one manning the Wii controller). If you don't know who that is, he's a character from the Resident Evil video game franchise, and also my video game crush (well, one of them...there's another blonde, with a sword, but anyway...). So everytime you read about a gun-wielding blonde in one of my books, you have this guy to thank.

That might seem a little weird, but it would probably seem even weirder if I explained how much I love Leon Kennedy (I may or may not have, but definitely did, try to name my son after him). I've already admitted to my childhood crushes on Raphael the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Peter Pan in another post on this blog though, so I don't really have any reservations about 'fessing up about my favorite fictional heart-throbs. I mean, just look at him - he may be a bit pixelated at times, but he's fearless, and he has adorable hair.

Anyway, now that I've identified this strange habit of mine, maybe I'll start letting some unarmed blondes into my stories. In fact, a novel I recently finished includes a blonde heroine who never lays hands on a firearm. She's a character from a classic American folktale though, so I can't claim her as a pure creation of my Leon-biased imagination.

Or maybe I won't stop. I really like all these blonde, gun-wielding characters. Especially Leon.



Leon as I first fell in love with him, playing Resident Evil 4. He's so much braver about the zombies than I am.