I wouldn't say it's a fetish, as there's nothing sexual about it, but I find it a fascinating way to view any kind of heroic character.
Suffering, at least on the scale you mean, tends to strip away anything artificial. All of the pressures that society and others put on us, everything we ourselves try to live up to when we're really not all that good at it... that's all thrown away. And what we're left with is the character himself (or herself) in the purest, distilled form. No masks, no deflection techniques, just core response.
For me, this technique is especially fascinating when done with male heroes. In my (admittedly limited) experience, men seem to close themselves off much more than women, hiding their true emotions from view until you begin to doubt that they feel anything strongly. H/C, by stripping the veneer away, allows the reader to see him not as a male hero with all of the attendant social expectations, but as a living being in all their frailties and insecurities.
Of course, it doesn't stop there. Once that's done, the "comfort" part of H/C is then required to not necessarily "make it all better," but to acknowledge the hero's frailties and reaffirm their self-worth along with their failures. This enables the hero to grow as a character, revealing a dimension hitherto unseen.
I really hope this makes sense. In short, I adore H/C, in a gut-twisting, melancholy sort of way. It's not a turn-on, but I get a real visceral reaction from it and, when it's done properly, I come through it loving the characters even more than I did before.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 01:15 pm (UTC)Suffering, at least on the scale you mean, tends to strip away anything artificial. All of the pressures that society and others put on us, everything we ourselves try to live up to when we're really not all that good at it... that's all thrown away. And what we're left with is the character himself (or herself) in the purest, distilled form. No masks, no deflection techniques, just core response.
For me, this technique is especially fascinating when done with male heroes. In my (admittedly limited) experience, men seem to close themselves off much more than women, hiding their true emotions from view until you begin to doubt that they feel anything strongly. H/C, by stripping the veneer away, allows the reader to see him not as a male hero with all of the attendant social expectations, but as a living being in all their frailties and insecurities.
Of course, it doesn't stop there. Once that's done, the "comfort" part of H/C is then required to not necessarily "make it all better," but to acknowledge the hero's frailties and reaffirm their self-worth along with their failures. This enables the hero to grow as a character, revealing a dimension hitherto unseen.
I really hope this makes sense. In short, I adore H/C, in a gut-twisting, melancholy sort of way. It's not a turn-on, but I get a real visceral reaction from it and, when it's done properly, I come through it loving the characters even more than I did before.