Hurt-Comfort and Comfort-Hurt--There's a Reason They Call Us "Bent."

[derannimer]

No: HPFGUIDX 56514

Er, well, this is all rather embarrassing, but as I seem to have 
disturbed Darrin, I thought I'd best take a shot at explaining this 
statement of mine, about Snape:

> 6. He's got guilt and angst and inner conflict. Plus, as I said 
> before, he's a sadist. So you get Hurt-Comfort and Comfort-Hurt all 
> in one! Woo-Hoo! <Derannimer breaks into helpless and rather 
> embarrassing giggles, until she notices that an awful lot of people 
> seem to be staring at her, at which point she stops the giggles.> 
> Ahem. Yes. Well. This would be the DeadSexy part of the argument, I 
> suppose. 

Darrin responded: 

> <This would be where Darrin stares aghast at his computer monitor  
> and decides it's best to leave this to someone of the female       
> persuasion to answer>

Er. Yes, well, sorry about that. But here's what I meant.

The Brilliant Elkins, in Message Number 39083, wrote rather a nice 
description of the Hurt-Comfort dynamic. (The message is primarily 
about Draco Malfoy, but you'll get the idea.) I'm sorry to snip such 
an enormous block of text, but it's just so *good.*

> What "Hurt-Comfort" comes down to is the fact that women are just 
> plain Bent, and adolescent girls even more so. They *like* to see 
> male characters suffer, so long as they do so with some degree of 
> manly dignity, because it turns them on. Male vulnerability garners 
> their sympathy, and it also kind of excites them. They like 
> it. No one ever wants to 'fess up to this, but it's true. Just look 
> at the characters most often fixated upon as drool-worthy by JKR's 
> adult female readers, will you? Lupin. Sirius. Snape.

> We all know what's *really* going on there, don't we? Are we all 
> grown-up enough to admit it? All three of those characters have 
> erotic appeal primarily because they all *suffer* so much. Lupin's 
> kindness wouldn't alone be sufficient to make him so sexy; it's all 
> of that exhaustion and illness and emotional damage that really 
> nets in the fans. Sirius without all those years spent in Azkaban 
> wouldn't have nearly the following that he has. And Snape...well, 
> it's all that angst that does it, right? 

>snip<

> And that's just the sort of thing that female readers -- and       
> particularly adolescent girls -- really go for. It's why they think 
> Harry's so sexy too, I'd warrant. It's because they're twisted     
> little FEATHERBOA wearers, each and every one of them.

> And JKR must know this. She *must.* I mean, even Draco himself -- 
> who's really rather stupid, honestly -- is hip to this dynamic.    
> Just look at how he responds to Pansy in _PoA,_ when she asks him  
> if his arm hurts. Draco knows the score, all right. A macho "nah,  
> not really, don't worry about it" just isn't going to win you any  
> eros points from an adolescent girl, unless there's one heck of a  
> wince accompanying it. And Draco knows that. To get the adolescent 
> girls crushing on you, you have to be hurt...yet still doing okay  
> with it. But not *too* okay. Not really okay down deep inside. Just 
> marginally okay. Okay for now. Okay, but tottering dangerously on 
> the cusp on not really okay at all.

> Yeah, I think that JKR knows what she's doing with that one. I     
> think she knew full well that all the adolescent girls were just   
> going to swoon in guilt-ridden sadistic crush-mode the second that 
> she smacked poor Harry with all of that Cruciatus in the graveyard, 
> and I think that she knew exactly what she was doing when she      
> started beating out her tune on that "Harry can't cry" drum, too. I 
> think that she knew what she was doing when she gave us poor pallid 
> haggard prematurely-grey Lupin, and I think that she knew what she 
> was doing when she told us all about Sirius' haunted Azkaban eyes, 
> and I even think it possible that she might have had some inkling  
> of what she was up to when she kicked Snape's emotional legs out   
> from under him for just a second there in "The Egg and the Eye." 

And if Elkins thinks it's possible, then who am I to argue? ("It" 
here meaning "something pertaining to Harry Potter analysis." I'm not 
adopting her as my new Guide to Life or anything.)

But you know, that post I just excerpted up there *is true.* I don't 
know that men generally understand it very well--I hope they don't at 
any rate--and I know that it's extremely Bent and Twisted and Warped--
but it is true. Not for everyone, obviously. But for substantial 
portions of those, as you put it, Darrin, "of the female persuasion." 

So that's what I meant about the Hurt-Comfort factor there. 

I personally go all Hurt-Comfort on Snape rather than on Sirius 
because. . . oh, I don't know. Sirius is a Good Guy--people wuv him, 
and he didn't really do anything all that wrong, and he's getting his 
act together quite nicely in GOF, and he's probably going to wind up 
quite happy at the end of the series. Although possibly heroically 
dead. And the author seems to crush on him. And--and--well, it's easy 
for him to be good--you know, as people go. He seems to be naturally 
a pretty decent--again, as people go--kind of guy. He doesn't have 
any massive tragic flaws that we know of--his life so far has been 
tragic, but largely through no fault of his own; and not through a 
_hamartia_. His problems arose more from external sources than from 
inward psychological or emotional or spiritual ones. Snape, OTOH, 
screwed up his life his own self, and seems--Egg and Eye--to feel 
pretty lousy about it. That's pain for ya. 

I like that, in a character. 

And no--I can't separate, I don't think, my enjoyment of a character 
as a character and my enjoyment of a character as a person. I just 
don't think that I can do that--if I enjoy reading a character, I 
just *can't* really hate them. I can certainly disapprove of them--
but that isn't necessarily the same thing. 

For example, I suspect that in real life, I would utterly *hate* Rita 
Skeeter. Even if I didn't *know* her, I would hate her reporting, and 
hate her as a reporter. (And she's got bad taste. ; )) But in GOF, I 
*love* Rita--and I *love* her articles--and I *love* her reporting. I 
enjoy her as a character tremendously, and so I would dearly love to 
see her more in future books--Eileen, you punctured my theory! Waah! 
You're not being no fun!--and I almost *root* for her, in some sense. 
And I enjoy her as a character in part because I know I *would* hate 
her so much in real life--she's just so wonderfully loathsome! How 
can you not love Rita?

So the fact that I might disapprove of a character--which I don't all 
that much, with Snape--or the fact that I might dislike them in real 
life--which I probably would, with Snape--doesn't mean that I hate 
them. It might even make me make love them more. 

As for the Comfort-Hurt factor. . . 

<winces>

Well, first of all, that's not probably the technical name for this 
phenomenom; "Comfort-Hurt" dates, I believe, from Captain Cindy's 
remark to Eileen--although perhaps "taunt" should be the noun there--
"You take *comfort* in the fact that Crouch Sr. would not balk at 
*hurting* you!" But as for how it works. . . well, here. 

Catlady, Message Number 39101

> In fact, maybe maybe the only masculine virtue that the romantic   
> [Hurt-Comfort] hero has to demonstrate is Nastiness! So the        
> romantic heroine is Even More Bent: a masochist as well as a sadist!

Or take a look at Marina's comment along similar lines, in 39209

> Which goes a long way toward explaining why I crush on both Snape  
> and Sirius, but not on Lupin. I'm *extremely* Bent, see, and the   
> problem with Lupin for me is that he handles his suffering too     
> well. I mean, Snape's gone all bitter and twisted, stewing alone in 
> his dungeon over wrongs done to him years ago. Sirius is oh-so-    
> damaged and post-traumatic, eyes going all haunted whenever        
> somebody says "Azkaban." But Lupin? Lupin goes along through life, 
> being kind to everyone who needs his kindness and forgiving to     
> everyone who needs his forgiveness, giving out chocolate at the    
> appropriate moments. I admire the heck out of him, but he's just   
> too darn *sane* for me to crush on, Edge or no Edge.

But I think you're getting the idea. ; ) Possibly to your own regret. 




Derannimer, who, in answer to your unspoken question, has not found 
herself in a string of hideously abusive relationships with Comfort-
Hurt guys--not yet, at any rate--and who doesn't know that either of 
those dynamics quite works the same way in real life. And who loves 
Elkins' line, in the post above, where she delineates the boundaries 
of the state of being "okay" in a Hurt-Comfort context.