[HPforGrownups] Re: Story analysis/Hurt/comfort

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 156169


> Alla:
> Draco's sufferings I just see as very **fair**, so I see nothing to
> comfort Draco with, and for me I see no hurt-comfort there.

Magpie:
But that's a different issue than what Elkins is talking about in that post, 
if I recall the post correctly.  She is talking about the word choice the 
author uses to write a scene--a technique which not all writers might refer 
to as "hurt/comfort" but one which fits that description.

You're talking about whether Draco is sympathetic based on whether or not he 
deserves to be punished, but Elkins is not, imo, claiming that he's 
sympathetic because he doesn't deserve it.  She sees the maliciousness of 
his actions and I think acknowledges that the scene is meant to be 
satisfying as punishment for him on one level.  What she's trying to do is 
figure out Draco's role in the story (writing pre-OotP), and that's where 
the "underdog" thing comes in.  Not to claim that Draco's really a poor 
put-upon creature, but to show that he's not powerful enough to carry the 
role of even a school-age antagonist (he's just lame).  So maybe that's not 
his role.  Throughout canon he's always punished or hurt more soundly than 
what he gives out, while he himself never causes any real long-term damage 
to anyone.  It's not that she's made him sympathetic, but she hasn't killed 
the possibility for sympathy as efficiently as she could have.

Elkins then looks at the language JKR uses to describe his scenes where he's 
in pain, the hurt/comfort factor, showing not that Draco inspires sympathy 
in everyone but that JKR intentionally allows sympathy to be possible by 
giving him scenes of real pain rather than just making all his pain scenes 
repulsive.  Lots of people feel no sympathy for him because of his own 
actions and personality--but lots of people do.  In every fandom I've ever 
been in there's been certain characters, often one character in particular, 
who gets the lion's share of torture fic, and it's always been the character 
most given to tortured scenes in canon.  In my experience Draco tops the 
torture-fic stakes in HP.  In the ferret scene, for instance, JKR chooses to 
write Draco suffering fairly stoically whether you want to grant him that or 
not.  Eyes watering with pain and humiliation is not wimpering coward, it's 
suffering but defiant.

Elkins didn't make specific predictions of what was going to happen with 
Draco, but I think HBP absolutely validated a lot of the things she was 
pointing out about the character. What Elkins calls the hurt/comfort factor, 
Draco the conflicted nutter--that's exactly the stuff that was used in his 
story.  (She even had Myrtle as the hurt/comfort fan!;-)  Lots of moments in 
HBP were like deja vu to H/D hurt/comfort readers.

JKR, of course, always knew where the character was going and has been 
writing him the same all along.  He hadn't had his feet held to the fire 
pre-HBP, but she was always preparing him for the sympathetic (to her at 
least) story of HBP and beyond--and I think completely understanding how 
some readers were going to react with too much sympathy.

-m