Musing on hurt/comfort

[elspethdixon]

Sparked by reading the responses to morgan32’s hurt/comfort poll.


I’m a self-admitted h/c junkie—I’ll read almost anything where a character is tortured/injured/frozen-in-the-snow/afflicted-with-ptsd/what-have-you. I like watching characters go through the wringer, watching them be made vulnerable, watching them bleed. I liked that sort of thing in published fiction long before I ever discovered fanfic, as witnessed by my longstanding devotion to Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series (for those of you who haven’t read it or watched the movies: if a book goes by without Richard Sharpe getting beaten up, shot, or sustaining some other kind of injury, he has been a very lucky rifleman indeed). It wasn’t until I got to fandom, and began seeking out more of my own particular narrative kink that I began finding h/c stories that I didn’t like.

They felt ooky. They felt overly touchy-feely. They oozed mush all over my nice character torture. They felt weirdly like emotional voyeurism. They felt, in a word… smarmy.

And I felt conflicted. Much like when I read Wurthering Heights for English class, I felt that I should like these stories, but just couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm. They contained h/c, my particular kink, and were often well-written, but I just couldn’t get into them.

I couldn’t figure out what it was about these stories that turned me off. For a while, I thought it was because the writers were making the characters all co-dependant. Then I read C.S. Freidman’s Coldfire Trilogy and re-watched Starsky & Hutch and remembered that I like them co-dependant. It wasn’t because of the high h/c levels, because I like h/c. Next to long, well-plotted epics, it’s the best thing going.

After reading the responses to morgan32’s hurt/comfort poll, however, I’ve finally decided that it might be as simple as the fact that I like the hurt part of the h/c equation, while smarm writers appear to prefer the comfort.

The more I read my way through the post’s comments thread, the more it began to seem like people’s answers were falling into two distinct camps regarding h/c. To quote (without permission, natch) two of the ones that seemed to best articulate the divide:

“I also admit to enjoying the hurt; as I said, I've always been attracted to the weak sides of my heroes, the display of vulnerability. Can't explain exactly why - especially as my favorite characters tend to be the badasses; I like them to be strong, but I also enjoy the, hmm, challenge, of breaking them believably.” - xparrot

“To me H/C is about the C rather than the H. Or at least I don't like them to suffer tremendously 'on-screen' so to speak.” - nakeisha

Some posters, like xparrot (who writes wonderful h/c and wonderful gen fic in general, btw), admitted to liking the “h” part of h/c at least as much as the “c.” One or two commenters even admitted to liking it more. They cited the universal appeal of watching a character struggle to overcome adversity, the thrill of seeing a usually strong character made vulnerable, the almost physical pang one feels when sympathizing with the injured character (I told you it was a kink, people). A happy ending was preferable, but the comfort did not have to outweigh the hurt, and in fact was often best when delivered in an understated manner—a “less is more” kind of thing. In short, the whole “pretty when they bleed” aesthetic that defines much of the appeal of h/c for me.

Other posters, like nakeisha, stressed the comfort part of h/c, often saying that they found the gritty details of blood/pain/injury secondary to the greater appeal of seeing characters display their love and concern for one another, seeing a usually undemonstrative character take on the role of nurturer. The best part of h/c, they argued, was the care-taking, the affirmation of the bond between characters, the thrill of seeing one character tend to the physical or emotional needs of the other, often setting aside his own angst or discomfort in order to do so.

After reading everyone’s opinions on the subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that hurt/comfort isn’t one single kink, but two (or possibly more) intertwined kinks. One can have comfort!kink without onscreen hurt, or hurt!kink without comfort, or one can have both at once; real “Hurt/Comfort.” A fic that is heavily weighted to one kink or the other is likely to appeal more strongly to fans of that particular kink than it will to the average reader, just as a pwp written to fulfill a particular kink may leave readers who are not fans of, say, cross-dressing or bondage scratching their heads and wondering what exactly is so hot about Jack Sparrow in a corset, or Sirius Black in a collar.

Take camp two’s “comfort” emphasis, ramp the emotions up a notch, and add a bit of character infantilization (what slashers may recognize as “weepy uke syndrome,” and which can show up all too often in gen fic, too), and you’ve got smarm. Of course, taking camp one’s “hurt” emphasis too far can result in out and out over-the-top character abuse of the most sadistic sort, so neither half of the equation is really superior to the other. In fact, the best h/c fic is generally the sort that lives up to its genre label and uses elements from both sides of the equation.

But it is an equation, something that combines multiple variables to produce a result—not a single quantity.

I can and do enjoy fics by the smarmier brand of writer once in a while, but generally these are well-laced with snarky banter, stick pretty closely to canon characterization, and tend to be on the restrained side when it comes to weepy out-pourings of emotion.

When it all comes down to it, I’m really here for the angst and blood. And gunshot wounds, and diphtheria, and concussion, and hypothermia, and dehydration, and fever, and broken ribs, and stab wounds, and cruciatus curses, and floggings, and…

*troops off to look up defibrillation for her current wip*

Comments

[melannen.livejournal.com]

After reading that poll and the responses this morning, I would have said that I fall firmly into the "comfort" side of the equation, because all of the H/C fics I can recall that I really, really liked did not go into too much detail on the hurt; in many of them, in fact, the hurt was well in the past, and only described as neccesary for the comfort.

Now that I've read *your* thoughts, though, I think what it really is, is that I don't really have an H/C kink at all: because I don't particularly like my hurt and comfort to be all mixed up together. If I'm in the mood for healing through codependency - which is really what the C in H/C usually is - I don't particularly care to know the details of the hurt; I just want to see the characters bond. And if I'm in the mood for hurt - for seeing somebody get systematically broken - then I don't particularly want the codependency - I'm in it for the *character*, making them into just half a relationship is a let-down. And hurt *not* followed by detailed, sloppy, romantic bonding-through-healing gets classified in my head as darkfic, not H/C, even if there is some hope at the end. So maybe it's not so much that I like comfort better, as that I think the detailed comfort, not the hurt, is what makes a fic H/C.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

healing through codependency

Best definition of h/c ever.

if I'm in the mood for hurt ... I'm in it for the *character*; making them into just half a relationship is a let-down.

*nods* I think I see what you're getting at. Some of the schmoopier h/c I've read has tended to short-change the characters' individual personalities in favour of emphasizie their Special Bond (tm). It's not about X dealing with their trauma; it's about X's dependance on Y.

That said, fic that features only X getting hurt, with no comfort or at all, can be grindingly depressing at times (or cathartic, if I'm in the mood for that particular brand of angst).

[melannen.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that I don't want to see them get healed. But. H/C to me is essentially about a pairing; if they go to their friends and family and loved ones or even *professionals*, and eventually work it through, remake their lives, come to terms with how they've changed and who they are after - that works.

That just isn't H/C to me. I think for it to read as H/C to me, it needs to be very, hmm, claustrophobic perhaps. Codependent, yes? Just the two of them. Which isn't to say I don't like that us-against-the-world sort of story; I just ... skip the graphic torture when I read those.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Useful distinction.

(Forgive me for what I may or may not unleash next. I ramble too much to contribute comments to polls like this in a useful way, so I inflict it on my friendslist instead, on the basis that I have my claws piercing at least a few layers of flesh.)

I like the h and the c to be in balance, or maybe skewed a bit toward the h. I don't, however, care much about the gritty details of the h. I'm not squeamish, and, hell yes, there's something compelling about seeing Richard Sharpe bloody, limping, and spitting fire, and something equally as compelling about that kicked-puppy look Sean Bean can whip out on a moment's notice, but someone getting kicked around or beaten or bleeding in great detail gets repetative quickly. Extended scenes of mental torture bore me unless they're exceptionally well-done (George Orwell levels of well done).

What I'm interested in seeing is someone becoming mentally fucked up (or more fucked up) by trauma and learning to cope with that. Cuts and broken bones mend the same for everybody; I know how it works and can read a textbook if I'm hazy. The mind, the emotions -- those are different.

Coping is the operative word. A bone might heal cleanly enough that you'd be hard pressed to find evidence of the break even in x-ray, but a person never returns exactly to a pre-trauma state. Healing in this case doesn't mean that everything's as good as new; it means that what's there can be dealt with, learned from, compensated for.

I like the hurt to affect the comforter, perhaps as much as, though differently from, the comfortee -- two fucked-up people feeling their way through life together is pretty much my perfect romance, platonic or sexual. The comfort should include a decent element of "Quit your bitching," regardless of whether that's an appropriate or sensitive attitude for the comforter to take. I cannot stand watching someone endlessly wallow in her own misery and getting nothing but coddling for it, again regardless of how much coddling may be deserved. I need for the hurt person to be able to grow past the hurt, for good or for ill, than to be mired in that hurt -- this is why I don't like the hurt person to be mentally incapacitated by the hurt.

For a concrete example: I adore the Apollo/Midnighter scene in your WIP. (I adore the Jack/Angie scene as well, but while Jack is a mess of a human being, I see Angie as the hands-down sanest member of the team, so the pairing doesn't hit my fuck-up/fuck-up buttons.) Apollo and Midnighter are two deeply messed up people. They will never be right in the head, they will never have a normal life, and they're fully aware of and okay with this. They were both hurt, physically, in the battles with Sliding Albion, and they were both hurt emotionally as well: Apollo, suspecting he was about to die, and later finding out how close Midnighter came to death; Midnighter was too close to certain Apollo would die, and the realization that he couldn't beat Regis -- could barely stand against him -- shook him deeply. And how you have them handle it? Perfect. Sex, to reassure one another that, yes, they're alive and well. Snark, to show that, yes, they're both cognizant and aren't planning to break down. And honest admission of fear, because if they cannot be honest with one another, absolutely and without shame, then they have a problem a great deal worse than amnesia and physical altering at the hands of a psychopath ever was.

This is also the sole thing I don't hate about how Mark Millar handled Apollo being raped in canon. Midnighter breaks down crying in public when the first shock of it hits, which, damn, man. It's right. The person who is not the center but the balance of his universe is hurt more than he thought Apollo could be hurt. That is not the time for macho bullshit. Afterwards, though, their recovery (what we see of it ... DROPPED BALL, MILLAR, DROPPED BALL) is equal parts "I love you, thus I snark at you" and "We're going to settle this debt."

[azarias.livejournal.com]

grrr, character limit ...


Tangentially, I first encountered smarm as ... well, it was icky. One of my early fandoms was Wild Wild West, and the gen side of fandom (there's not much het to speak of) is almost universally virulently anti-slash and heavy on smarm. Smarm in this case allows the characters to touch and hug and bathe one another and profess love, but oh, no, no gay here, no sir, and the writers can still fantasize about banging Robert Conrad. (Young Robert Conrad, who was hawt rather than crusty.) It's outright creepy. This has given me an unfortunate bias against smarm in general and gen smarm in particular, which is sad because there's good gen h/c to be had out there.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I cannot stand watching someone endlessly wallow in her own misery and getting nothing but coddling for it,

And the entire universe is now looking directly at Batman.

I like the hurt to affect the comforter, perhaps as much as, though differently from, the comfortee

*Nods* A well-written h/c scene should be as much about the "comforter" as it is about the injured/traumatised/whatevered character. That's one of the places where a lot of badly done h/c fics fail (they're so focussed on character X's horrible trauma and emo woe and the fact that no one understands hir, OMG, that they completely forget that character Y is an individual person who would react to the situation in their own individual way, and not a human plushie doll who hands out band-aids).

This is also the sole thing I don't hate about how Mark Millar handled Apollo being raped in canon. Midnighter breaks down crying in public when the first shock of it hits, which, damn, man. It's right. The person who is not the center but the balance of his universe is hurt more than he thought Apollo could be hurt. That is not the time for macho bullshit.

It is, however, the time for me to fantasize about jumping into the panel and beating the camera guy filming it to death with his own equipment. There are some thing you just don't put on CNN, and that's one of them. (Of course, I also thought interviewing Hurricaine Katrina victims less than a day after their families had died and then looping the footage of them crying endlessly on the eleven o' clock news was out of line. I'm old-fashioned that way).

The couch scene later (why did it have to be so suckily drawn? Why?) was up there in my list of favourite 'recovery' scenes--in character, not over the top, and with a nice side of "let's avoid really dealing with this by killing things," but there should have been more. There really should have. That's not the kind of trauma that can be gotten over in a couple of panels, even if some of those panels do feature nicely cathartic revenge. (Though creepy rapist guy's dialogue just before Apollo and Midnighter kill him made me want to scream in rage and throw the book across the room. Rarely does fiction inspire me to "how can they print this filth?" moral outrage, but damn).

The hug at the end of the "shiftships" arc, on the other hand, was great. No dialogue, just one picture, but it somehow managed to communicate both how worried they'd both been, how much they love each other, and how relieved they both are to find the other alive and mostly-intact. I think it's the desperate excessive-physical-contact combined with the utter-lack-of-anything-sexual.

Another favorite scene of mine (to use Sharpe as an example again) is Harper replacing Sharpe's kit in Sharpe's Sword. The fact that he goes out of his way to mend or find a perfect duplicate of everything from Sharpe's uniform to his stupid non-regulation sword says a lot more about the bond between them than a weepy hug would have. (Well, the bit earlier in the book where he uses their Rifleman!soulbond to find Sharpe in the death room says a lot, too).

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

And on the topic of slash and emo woe, you must read this (http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2005/11/where-they-went-wrong-superman-and.html).

Batman and Superman spend the night together in the Fortress of Solitude, exchanging vows of eternal love. Also, there's alien worm porn.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

And the entire universe is now looking directly at Batman.

I think this is why I like the Batman Begins potrayal (aside from Christian Bale being Teh Sekks and omgwtfninjas): Darth Qui-gon beats half the emo out of Bruce and tells him a few uncomfortable truths about the world, while helping him build himself up from them.

Just in case Mercedes Lackey means anything to you, this is also why Kerowyn is my favorite Lackey heroine, and why I can still re-read By the Sword despite most of the other books losing terminal amounts of shiny since I was 15. Kero starts the book with dead parents, gender role conflict, and special powers that nobody understaaaaaaaaands, and then spends three years with her crazy mercenary grandmothers drilling her into being a decent person.

why did it have to be so suckily drawn? Why?

So much of the Millar/Quietly run would've been good if someone with a couple ounces emotional maturity had written it and someone who understood human anatomy had drawn it.

Rarely does fiction inspire me to "how can they print this filth?" moral outrage, but damn

... the editors made Millar change the scene where the nasty commander guy in charge of the evil not-Authority dug up Jenny Spark's corpse, dressed it in a nurse's outfit, and had a romantic evening.

I think that says ... too much, really.

I think it's the desperate excessive-physical-contact combined with the utter-lack-of-anything-sexual.

This comment, combined with the next paragraph, has given me an unfortunate flashback to a bizarrely bad Sharpe/Harper fic I almost managed to force my way through entirely. It starts off deceptively well, with Ramona thinking about Sharpe and Sharpe thinking about Ramona, and then goes on to horrible things with diseases, inappropriate hard-ons, and weepy uke Sharpe.

Sexual healing is great! Knowing that there's a time in a place is greaterest.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

the editors made Millar change the scene where the nasty commander guy in charge of the evil not-Authority dug up Jenny Spark's corpse, dressed it in a nurse's outfit, and had a romantic evening.

Really, considering that she'd been dead for several years at that point, I doubt there'd be much more than bones left, which would make a "romantic evening" pretty difficult... And the fact that that was the first objection that came to mind is a sign of how deeply fandom has eroded my morals.

Also, ew. He seriously thought the editors would let him get away with necrophilia? In what parallel universe?


Sexual healing is great! Knowing that there's a time in a place is greaterest.

And that there is the reason why the book version of Sharpe's Sword,/i> is better than the movie. Because the movie has the creepy stalker!nun who takes advantage of the fact that Sharpe's too sick to say no to her to sleep with him.

Possibly in some romance-novel-addicted writer's head, that whole thing was romantic ("Bathe in the healing light of my vagina!") but to me it came across as creepy sexual harassment.

That said, if someone wrote "magical healing via sex" fic featuring Rose Tattoo, I'd buy it. Her sexual healin' powers are canon.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Also, ew. He seriously thought the editors would let him get away with necrophilia? In what parallel universe?

The pre-9/11 one, since everything I've read has said that that's the only reason they made him tone it down -- violence in media wasn't in vogue in the aftermath. Teuton was also a lot more scary-rapey originally, Midnighter walked in a little later, and the results were nastier.

... of course, I like Teuton scary-rapey, but only when I write him. Ego? Me?

And that there is the reason why the book version of Sharpe's Sword, is better than the movie.

Even La Marquesa had enough patience in the book to let him heal up and bathe before jumping his bones again. I understand why they couldn't use her -- she'd gotten bumped to a previous movie -- but why did they have to use that thing instead? Hell, movie-Marquesa was different enough from book-Marquesa that they still could've cannibalized much of book-Marquesa's personality and backstory and not had to have patched many holes to make a new character.

El Mirador kicked so much more ass in the book, too. I have to admit I dug the huge mutual Sharpe/Lord Spears mancrushes in the movie, though, which weren't quite there in the book. They tried so hard to wrestle some of the gay away from Harper, but the law of conservation of slash just forced it to relocate to Jack.

Though I'm of the opinion that sex doesn't heal Sharpe, not very often. That man has a very, very bad relationship with his own sense of attachment and need. There's a reaon he has a lot of sex with a lot of sexual nihilists, and there's a reason he tends to marry the ones that aren't (including Harper *g*).

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

They tried so hard to wrestle some of the gay away from Harper, but the law of conservation of slash just forced it to relocate to Jack.

They really should have known better. You cannot de-slashify a movie that contains Sean Bean. He has a magic field of slashibility that turns every film he's in into so much man-crush-ridden slash fodder. Even in Ronin, where he was a minor character, the power of his aura-o'-slash forced Robert De Niro and Jean Reno to act like they were about to jump into bed together. Some day, Joss Whedon will direct a project that contains Sean Bean, and the world will spontaneously combust in bonfire of subtextual gay. I await that day with eagerness.

[Sharpe] has a very, very bad relationship with his own sense of attachment and need. There's a reaon he has a lot of sex with a lot of sexual nihilists, and there's a reason he tends to marry the ones that aren't (including Harper *g*).

Sharpe manages to combine being a total man-ho with really, truly caring about each and every person he ends up sleeping with. It's never just sex with him; he's always in love, or at least, thinks he's in love (I think Harper even comments on it somewhere in Sharpe's Rifles, with an added smug little "so it's a good thing he's got me to look after him now").

He also is usually not the one to make the first move--strangely, for a guy who gets so much action, he's generally the seducee rather than the seducer. To quote some really whiny pop song, the title of which has escaped me, he "wants you to want him, needs you to needs him..." Because sex is validation, much the way winning a battle and getting some medal or promotion from Wellington is validation.

Which is why Sharpe/Wellington would be a bad, bad relationship consisting mostly of Sharpe being Wellington's bitch to a disturbing degree.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Some day, Joss Whedon will direct a project that contains Sean Bean, and the world will spontaneously combust in bonfire of subtextual gay.

Sean Bean is going to be starring in an adaptation of an Oscar Wilde piece, along with Annette Benning. I rest your case.

It's never just sex with him; he's always in love, or at least, thinks he's in love

Yep, though he sometimes realizes it belatedly. His reaction (in the books) to realizing that he's in love with Teresa is, basically, "Dammit." One more complication his life doesn't need, and he was just hoping for some quick sex with a hot, lethal woman, but it didn't work out that simply. Despite that he still loves Josefina; if he ever stops loving Josefina, I've not yet found the spot. Josefina is honest and explicit about her not being good for him, and her lack of inclination to be what he needs her to be, but he still follows after her every time he sees her because he just can't get fid of what he feels for her, unhealthy as it may be. He loves Jane before he ever meets her, and he has the presence of mind to think that, you know, maybe it's not her he really loves, but he doesn't manage to deter himself.

I can think of one example of him having sex with someone he does not, in any way, love: Lady Anne, in Sharpe's Company. It's mutual. He's whoring himself for information and she's doing the same thing, and neither of them is giving the other what they were hoping for. She's been doing it for so long that her expression is resigned, but his is devastated, that he's sold himself so cheaply -- and there's nothing to indicate that the sex itself wasn't physically good. (You may wish to take issue with my interpretation of facial expressions in this particular episode, of course, as my interpretation of Sharpe's face upon learning of Lizzy Sharpe's other child is not so much "I have a brother?" as it is "I hit my knees and sucked my brother off quick and hard in an alley one rough Saturday night when we were both drunk and had half the constables in Yorkshire ready for our heads?".)

To quote some really whiny pop song, the title of which has escaped me, he "wants you to want him, needs you to needs him..."

You're quoting a bastardization of "I Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick, which is neither whiny nor pop. Some ... thing did a cover of it that is ... *FIRE*

Which is why Sharpe/Wellington would be a bad, bad relationship consisting mostly of Sharpe being Wellington's bitch to a disturbing degree.

And yet no one writes it that way. Why can't sick, unhealthy 'ships be revelled in all their bad idea glory?

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Take camp two’s “comfort” emphasis, ramp the emotions up a notch, and add a bit of character infantilization (what slashers may recognize as “weepy uke syndrome,” and which can show up all too often in gen fic, too), and you’ve got smarm. Of course, taking camp one’s “hurt” emphasis too far can result in out and out over-the-top character abuse of the most sadistic sort, so neither half of the equation is really superior to the other. In fact, the best h/c fic is generally the sort that lives up to its genre label and uses elements from both sides of the equation.

Absolutely. But just to note-- the character infantilization isn't really a part of the comfort!kink itself, since that would focus on the emotions of the comforter. Right? (I'm trying to understand your definitions of the terms).

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Arg! Sorry I took so long to reply (Comment notification? What comment noticfication?).

the character infantilization isn't really a part of the comfort!kink itself, since that would focus on the emotions of the comforter. Right?

I'm not sure if the woobifying/infantilising of a character is actually part of the h/c kink for some people, or if it's just a lazy writing shortcut used in order to justify the levels of comforting/co-dependance/trauma the writer wants to include. You know, "I want to write a fic where X is broken and bleeding and in need of fixing and Y and/or Z has to take care of him, so I'll ignore the fact that in canon, X is inconveniently prone to being able to take care of himself."

A lot of the fic I've read that's mostly about the "hurt" part of h/c tends to focus more tightly on the character who's being injured/tortured/angsty/ill/whathaveyou, but most of the more comfort-focused fic I've seen has been more pairing-focussed, with the comforter sharing screen time with the comfortee.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

A lot of the fic I've read that's mostly about the "hurt" part of h/c tends to focus more tightly on the character who's being injured/tortured/angsty/ill/whathaveyou, but most of the more comfort-focused fic I've seen has been more pairing-focussed, with the comforter sharing screen time with the comfortee.

Well, after all, you can be hurt all by your lonesome, but comfort requires both roles to be filled.