Elkins' Draco Malfoy Is Ever So Lame. Yet Sympathetic. And Dead, Too.

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 124505


>>Arynn:
<snip>
>I have problems thinking that women are that sadistic, to actually 
enjoy someone else's suffering (however fictional that person be).< 

Betsy:
The entire point of the hurt/comfort phenomenon is that after the 
male is hurt, the female will comfort him.  It is not sadism. It's 
not the actual pain that gets the ladies off, it's the chance to 
soothe the troubled brow.

The entire Romance genre bares this out.  It is an essential part of 
the Romance formula that the male lead gets hurt, generally fairly 
badly. And then the female lead swoops in to care for him.  (It's 
usually around this time that the hero, who's publically sworn off 
women because he's been so badly hurt before, suddenly realizes the 
intoxicating beauty of the heroine that he cannot live without, and 
the purple prose commences.)  The amount of money pulled in by this 
particular industry suggests that they know what they're doing.

And it's fairly timeless too.  Look at the old fairytales and 
folktales.  The prince usually has to go through some serious pain to 
get to his lady love.

Betsy