Cult of Dan Brown: Trilogy

That's not necessarily the case; it really depends on what purpose the author needs that "partner" character to serve. There are certainly a lot of male-male "buddy" and "mentor" stories out there--it's almost a whole genre unto itself, really.

In Brown's novels, however, he just uses the partner character as a surrogate for the reader, and not as a love interest or a "buddy." The main requirement for this partner is that he or she not know much about the subject areas that Brown wants to teach the reader. The partner thus becomes Langdon's "student," asking all of the questions the reader is likely to have, which gives Langdon the excuse to explain things to him/her. The partner's gender is unimportant for this purpose.

That raises the obvious question, then: why does Brown always choose male-female pairings in his novels, when there's little or no romantic reason for it?

It's possible that he's trying to cultivate some low-level sexual tension between the characters (they're always both single and therefore "available"), hoping to leave readers excitedly wondering whether the couple will "get together" before the end of the story. The fast-paced plots generally don't allow time for the characters to do much more than run from one crisis to the next, though, so any gratification is going to be limited to the final page or two. Still, it gives readers something to hope for, and hope keeps the pages turning.

It's also possible that he chooses "vulnerable" female partners for Langdon in order to showcase the chivalrous and protective qualities Brown believes are important in a hero. Brown's version of the heroic ideal does seem to be the classic "protector of women," and in that case he has to take pains to avoid pairing Langdon with a "strong" woman (or man), lest he have no damsel in distress to rescue. Langdon's female partners are always imperiled by the plot, unable to get themselves out of their predicaments without help, and therefore reliant on him to get them through the crisis.

In the end, this is also why Brown's female partner characters are generally disappointing and unmemorable: we don't really get any sense that they were important to the story. Langdon could very well have done everything without a partner (though the internal monologues would have become tedious to read), but the fact that Brown used Langdon's partner characters as little more than dialogue prompters and emotional foils is not a whole lot better. Vittoria and Sophie were effectively interchangeable for that purpose, just like the requisite Sympathetic Female Character in any Bond movie.

This, too, raises an interesting question: how would the story have been different with a male partner character?

The same prerequisite "vulnerability" needs to apply, of course, otherwise there's little reason for Langdon to pair up with this guy (if the partner can take care of himself, why does he need Langdon's help?). It could work with a younger character--a son, a nephew, a student from one of Langdon's classes, etc.--someone that Langdon is likely to feel "protective" of.

You'd lose the sexual tension, of course (if you posit that Brown has no interest in exploring homosexual themes, based on the evidence of his four novels), but you'd introduce a "parent-child" bond that resonates with a lot of people instead. Most parents live in constant fear of something untoward happening to their children, so there's ready sympathy for a man willing to go to extremes to save his child (or some similarly dependent charge). In this case fear, rather than hope, turns the pages.

Often in the male-male partner scenario the teacher-pupil relationship is stressed, with the more senior character mentoring the younger one--a rookie, an apprentice, a novice, etc. (e.g. the Adso character from Eco's Name of the Rose). This model offers the contrast of the old pro's experience and the novice's reckless eagerness. The reader identifies with the novice, who makes the mistakes the average reader would, and slowly learns from the master over the course of the story.

In short, there's no reason that a female partner character is essential to the Langdon stories. The fact that he always chooses to pair Langdon with female partners says more about Brown and the kinds of stories he wants to tell than about the genre itself.

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