Heroes in the Whedonverse

I sat down to start watching Angel from the beginning, streaming from Netflix the other morning, and as I was watching Season 1 Episode 1, "City of" a thought came to me. Many of Whedon's male characters have some seriously similar traits. Though it is not ALWAYS the case, Angel, Mal Reynolds and Paul Ballard are often very chivalrous heroes, relating to female characters without much sexual motivation.  And when they do finally give in, "bad things" happen.

**Warning: Dollhouse Spoiler if you've not seen the whole series!**

Angel: In "City of" he offers his apartment to the woman he's just rescued as a safe place for the night. She basically offers herself to him on a silver platter by saying something along the lines of, "I guess you'll want a reward." The vamp simply brushes off her offer and goes about his business. He learned his lesson the hard way. When he did the deed with Buffy, he lost his soul AGAIN and became evil AGAIN and had to break it off.

Mal: Our swashbuckling captain seems almost asexual in some episodes, only truly showing his desires in banter with Inara (and sometimes Jayne) and that one time in "Heart of Gold." In "Our Mrs. Reynolds," Mal suddenly finds himself with a wife, Saffron, and Book tells him he's going to Hell if he does anything to her. Mal wants nothing to do with her other than to get rid of her in a kindly manner.  When he finally caves to her "womanly wiles," he finds himself unconscious and his ship in the middle of being hijacked by scrappers.

Paul: Agent Ballard is on a mission. From the very beginning of Dollhouse, he wants to save Caroline from the clutches of the Rossum Corporation. He doesn't have feelings for her, but he does fall for his neighbor, Mellie, who he thinks is just a typical girl-next-door. Little does he know. Sadly, he does end up sleeping with her even though he knows she's a doll, but he regrets it and is horribly conflicted. When he finally gets to Echo/Caroline, he eventually falls for her, too, and gets hurt SO badly that he has to have doll hardware implanted in order to survive. In doing so, the part of his brain that held all memories of his relationship with Echo is destroyed.  He lives, but he never gets the girl. 

Moral of the story: If you are a male lead in the Whedonverse, come in on your white horse and save the fair maidens, just don't bed them, or disaster will find you.