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

[Cindy C.]

No: HPFGUIDX 57018

Derannimer:

> 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. 

Hurt-Comfort, huh?

Oh, I just *love* Hurt-Comfort!  It's just so much nicer than 
thinking of myself as all -- well, you know --  *Twisted.*  I'm not 
Twisted.  I just have a really bad case of Hurt-Comfort, that's all.

Still, though . . . 

If we're all going to be Twis -- er, Hurt-Comfort fans, then we need 
some sort of pecking order among the male HP characters.  There are 
so many possible Hurt-Comfort objects in HP, but have we ever 
actually ranked them?  Is it even possible to rank them?

Of *course* it is!  You can rank anything if you try hard enough.  I 
submit the following ranking of the male HP characters:

1.  Lupin.  Lupin wins, hands down.  A few gray hairs, just to show 
how much *stress* the poor man has suffered.  He has to endure this 
hideous and painful transformation every month unless he drinks a 
nasty potion prepared by his blood enemy Snape.  The poor guy can't 
even prepare his own potion -- how pathetic is *that.*  He can't 
find paid work.  He's poor, what with his tattered robes that any 
woman with a needle and thread could fix up for him.  And we'd 
*never* let him out of the house with peeling letters on his 
briefcase.  

2.  Sirius.  Handsome is good.  Handsome is *always* helpful.  
Picture him lying there in Azkaban, scratching little tally marks on 
the walls.  And for what?  He's not going anywhere.  The guilt, the 
awful, never-ending *guilt.*

3.  Harry.  Sorry.  No crushing on underage boys allowed.  

4.  Krum.  Took a bludger to the face and is duckfooted as well.  
Maybe OK for those who prefer the strong, silent type.  ::shudder::

5.  Pettigrew.  We have to consider all the possibilities, do we 
not?  He certainly gets hurt, what with the hand thing, but maybe 
self-inflicted wounds don't count.  And you just know that Pettigrew 
will rise up against Voldemort one of these days, when Voldemort 
least expects it.  After all, Pettigrew really is the low-hanging 
fruit -- there wouldn't be much competition for him, as no one seems 
to want him.

6.  Moody.  Elkins says the gnarled old mentor never qualifies as a 
Hurt-Comfort object.  Who am I to argue?  ;-)

7.  Crouch Sr.  So dignified, yet reduced to a crazed wreck of a 
wizard.  We know he has probably endured lots of abuse from Wormtail 
and Voldemort.  Still, we don't actually *see* any of that abuse, 
and I for one was quite disappointed.  Perhaps Eileen can explain 
the attraction to Crouch Sr.?

8.  Snape.  I must take issue with the idea that Snape's allure is 
based on Hurt-Comfort.  We hardly ever see Snape get physically 
injured -- just the thing with Fluffy, IIRC.  Snape suffers lots of 
indignities -- people don't listen to him, for instance.  But that's 
hardly Hurt-Comfort.  I think women lust after Snape for another 
reason entirely -- he's a challenge, a conquest-in-waiting!  Oh, if 
you can get Snape to love you, then you are without question 
supremely loveable.  Sorry, Derannimer, I'm not giving you Hurt-
Comfort!Snape.  Not yet, anyway.

I wish I could, as I suspect you dearly want him, but I just 
can't.  ;-)

Cindy -- also has not found herself in a string of Bent 
relationships, unless she's doing the Bending