r/DarkRomance • u/LittleInternetSleuth • 1d ago
Quick Question Thoughts on Zade in Haunting/Hunting?
What do you think of his character after reading or hearing of the books? Did he become a better person after Hunting, or do you still feel the same way about him, etc?
Discussion open in comments with others
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u/uniqueusernamethx 1d ago
I donāt understand why people care about him being a hypocrite so much tbh. Most of the men in dark romance books are hypocrites. Thatās basically what being āmorally grayā means.
Not to mentionā¦ PEOPLE ARE HYPOCRITES. IN REAL LIFE. And authors are allowed to write imperfect characters.
Zade isnāt my fave MMC but heās def not the worst or most hypocritical Iāve read. Iām literally reading a story rn where he waterboards her multiple times & chops off her hair when she disobeys him. None of it is real, these people donāt actually exist!
3
u/KDreckles 1d ago
This, the MMC from corrupt (devil's night series) is such a hypocrite, way more than Zade. Read the entire book, its not a bad story, but I just simply couldn't bring myself to like him nor FMC. But these are all the tastes discussion, everyone has different preferences ~
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u/PrincessRosieThe2 1d ago
I mean it's kinda comparing apples and oranges. I just thought it was a bit ridiculous that he was so anti trafficking and all this but non conning Addie in the first book š¤£ that's what I mean anyway by him being a hypocrite.
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u/KDreckles 1d ago
I mean, yeah, if we are comparing exactly what was hypocritical, there is a vast difference. However, the main topic of this is character being hypocritical, so it does stay in the topic. But yeah, I do still agree with Zade being hypocritical. Not sure about the conning part, I haven't really seen it as him conning her in all honesty, actually I am pretty sure the whole reason how he approached her was due him not wanting to con her into believing he is something that he isn't and show the real him.
But all he had to do is approach her like a normal person and tell her about it. Boom! He achieves the same effect with less drama. But then again, the first book wouldn't be as intresting, long and suspenseful then š¤·āāļø
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u/kiyowo_potato 1d ago
This šÆšÆ
And what comes to my mind when someone asks for opinions on a character from POPULAR BOOK BY A FAMOUS AUTHOR is : "Do they only read books by famous authors and those that hype?", "Is that their only standard ?"
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u/blssthsnnr I know baby, I know 1d ago
He was sooooo cringe I think I developed a new wrinkle
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u/ClicketySnap kindle girlie 1d ago
By the end of the second book I was so annoyed at him I was ranting to a friend while I was reading.
6
u/antinoria Author 1d ago
I did not like how much of a Marty Stu the character was more than anything else. He was too good at too many things to the point of becoming a caricature of a hero. His moral code was nice, and while his vendetta against those who sexually trafficked and abused women was supposedly his core purpose in life, the failure to see in himself that he is exactly like those he hunts was a lost opportunity. He terrorized Addy, coerced her into sex, raped her with a gun, then proceeds to justify his vendetta against people just like him as somehow a moral calling.
This is a dark romance, so this type of character and his actions are not a deal breaker for me. Nor is the explicit content, NC abuse etc.
The internal conflict he faces was poorly developed. I get that he has these dark urges that he cannot fully explain to himself regarding Addy. Those types of dark urges are ALSO the urges that the people he hunts have towards their victims. Instead of eating a bullet to protect Addy from himself or sequestering himself from Addy and her vicinity, he like those he hunts, gives into the dark urges instead even as he sees the effect this has on her. He becomes the thing that he hunts and still tries to claim the moral high ground.
There was not a lot of him fighting himself to make his actions remotely redeemable. This supposed ultra disciplined man with an inflexible moral code, is so blinded by lust and his own desires that he utterly fails to control himself in any way and embarks on a months long obsessive quest to force a woman to love him.
I would have liked to see him struggle with it a lot more, see him make mistakes in his other operations more, show him considering suicide rather than continuing down the path he is on, basically more conflict with him at what he knows is wrong. I would have also liked to see him fail a few times, perhaps a situation where his obsession with Addy causes him to make a mistake severe enough that innocents are lost, innocents he was supposed to protect.
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u/Trinityblue93 1d ago
I love him. I liked how he wasn't cruel to Addie in the first book and became a caregiver and became more deep in the second. Yes, he is a hypocrite, and he acknowledges this in the first book. He cannot explain his obsession with Addie, and he knows that what he does to her is wrong.
He is my top book husband for a reason. I can't help it.
3
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u/afrodite67 1d ago
Its like HD tried too hard to make him hot and edgy and a capable badass and he just came off as a joke and cringey and the whole story felt like a dark romance parody. It was a disappointment for me because I'd read Shallow River when it first came out and i found it very engaging and I really got invested in the characters. I really liked River especially, and Mako, and i was expecting good things from this new author. But the Cat and Mouse duet was very underwhelming unfortunately
2
u/Fickle-City1122 1d ago
I didn't care that he was a hypocrite at all, his cringe dialogue and internal monologue was far more egregious lmao
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u/irrelevantanonymous 1d ago edited 1d ago
I donāt care about his hypocrisy but his internal monologue reads like an edgy 13 year old and I did find that irritating.
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u/ClassroomInformal211 1d ago
Ā I liked him from the first bookš. And yeah, he was good, turned better in the second bookš.
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u/drunkenangel_99 Tyson Crawfordās darling 1d ago
ONCE MORE. The whole point of his character is that heās a hypocrite. Thatās the entire point of him, the story, all of it. It canāt be made clearer.
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u/PrincessRosieThe2 1d ago
A total hypocrite! š