From: Dana Shilling dshilling@worldnet.att.net
Kathryn Andersen asked:
what is it about Hurt/Comfort fiction that fans seem to pick certain characters most often to be tormented, tortured and hurt?
- I think that, to a significant extent, h/c is a way for readers to feel
really sorry for themselves, and vicariously be taken care of 2. IMO, more readers identify with Avon than identify with Blake (which is different from ideological advocacy and/or lust) 3. If you wanted someone to fuss over you, you'd certainly think Blake would do a better job than Avon (who, if he were your beta reader, would actually tell you what he thought of your story, whereas Blake would tell you it was brilliant). Offhand, the only person less likely as a comforter would be Servalan.
My take on h/c is completely different. I did an article on it in AltaZine 3, where I proposed that the Patient (usually Avon) is the actual character, but the Nurse (the comforter) was a surrogate for the writer/reader - a kind of Mary-Sue in disguise. I think this works (at least some of the time) for stories where the Nurse role is filled by Cally or Vila, at any rate. The dynamic here is one of levelling off - or reversing - a perceived imbalance of power to facilitate access to the Patient. Both Cally and Vila can be regarded as 'weaker' than Avon, until Avon is debilitated and needs to be nursed to recovery.
Cheryl wrote: <Maybe it's because these characters ...are always in control of situations that call for clear thought, that the writers find them perfect candidates for situations where their intellect not only can't help them but actually suffers along with the physical because they find themselves in this situation > and for A-C/A-V I think this is spot on. The physical impairment might even act as a metaphor for the intellectual impairment, either standing in for it or exagerrating it.
(In the original article I referred to the Victim rather than the Patient, but in retrospect I think Patient is more applicable).
The process of debilitation can be important and might often be regarded as symbolic (though not necessarily of a phallic object) and there might well be some unwritten rules underlying the way in which it can happen. The most transparent one I can think of is a story in an old Horizon zine where Avon gets a high-tech widget literally embedded in him. What's the widget called? A 'rectifier'...
I don't know if it's signficant that the impairment might occur while the intended Patient is acting or working alone.
I would expect head injuries, brain damage, permanent disfigurements and amputations to be very rare or non-existent in such stories (though I've not read enough to say for certain, since I hate the bloody things). 'Embarassing' injuries might also be included (though I can see how they might be deliberately selected by some writers). The debilitating process is one from which the Patient can make a complete physical recovery, because the recovery is the process by which the Patient undergoes the necessary emotional growth to meaningfully bond with the Nurse (who, as I've already suggested, is really the author and/or reader).
Basically, A-C or A-V h/c fic is about the symbolic death of a cold, arrogant, supercilious bastard and his symbolic rebirth as an understanding nice guy.
A-B is probably a bit different, because there is no imbalance of power to level off. There is, however, perceived to be a gulf of mutual understanding to be bridged (though personally I don't think it was all that wide or all that deep and neither of them wanted to bridge it anyway). Slash is one way of bridging the gap (if we take the sex in A/B slash to be at least in part a metaphor), h/c is another.
It may be so that more readers identify with Avon than with Blake, though I don't recall seeing any poll results. I suspect that the readers' relation with Avon might be very complex, with identification, attraction and repulsion all operating at variable strengths. In A-C or A-V stories, the attraction would be the most important - h/c is a means of getting emotional access to Avon, who is in a state that prohibits him from shrugging off or actively blocking that access. In A-B ... well, I have never understood the fascination for this supposed A-B dynamic, so I won't speculate on who might be identifying with whom.
Neil