We Always Hurt the Ones We Love

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Title:	We Always Hurt the Ones We Love
Creator:	Lucy Gillam
Date(s):	November 1, 1999
Medium:	online
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External Links:	We Always Hurt the Ones We Love
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We Always Hurt the Ones We Love is a 1999 meta essay by Lucy Gillam.

The topic: hurt/comfort and angst.

It as part of a series at Fanfic Symposium.

Excerpts

Theory #1: The George Syndrome

Years ago, a friend and I came up with a term for a certain kind of guy: guys who were not only attractive, but who inspired a certain maternal, "awww, I'll make it better" reaction. We called them "Georges," from the old Bugs Bunny/Abominable Snowman cartoon ("oh, I have found a little bunny rabbit. I will hug him and pet him and call him George" - you get the idea).

Women are socialized to be caregivers. We like guys who need us, whom we can take care of. At the same time, we want men who are strong, capable, etc.How to reconcile these two contradictory desires? Take a strong, capable man, and hurt 'im (in the fictional sense, of course <g>). This allows us to be vicarious caregivers (through the non-favorite character). We get our George "awwws" without compromising the character's strength (at least in-IMHO-good fic. There's certainly a lot of fic that seems to like turning strong, capable characters into weepy, whiny, helpless children, but I can't even begin to figure out what that's about, so we'll leave that alone).

Theory #2: The Angst-Boy Syndrome

A (male) friend recently asked me why so many female Buffy fans liked to see Angel in perpetual angst. It got me thinking.

Yet again, we have conflicting desires. Women are socialized to like "strong, silent types." At the same time, we have a deep desire for our beloveds to actually talk to us about their feelings, to show affection. How to reconcile this? Again: hurt 'em (in fic). Throw them into a crisis where talking about their feelings and showing affection is realistic.

Theory #3: The Puzzle Box Syndrome

Most fans, hell, most people, are drawn to characters who are emotionally complex. This complexity may be what draws us to a character on a tv show or in a movie, or, if the character is not shown as particularly complex but appeals to us anyway, what leads us to write fanfic about that character.

With a character who does display complexity in the original text, pain, suffering, etc can serve as a key to bring that complexity to the forefront in ways that often do not occur on screen (since, let's face it, most of our favorite shows tend to focus on things other than emotional complexity). Take, say, either Casey McCall or Dan Rydell from Sports Night. Obviously, both have quite a bit going on under the surface, but in a half-hour "dramedy" with a fairly large ensemble cast

More often, tho' (I would argue), the character isn't necessarily shown to be particularly emotionally deep or complex, even if the potential for it is there. Two examples that spring to mind are Tom Paris and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Paris was made for emotional complexity, but somehow (bad writers, anyone?) it never materialized. Obi-Wan, whatever complexity he got from external sources (the books) or good acting, just didn't have enough screen time. Both these scenarios present the temptation (need, even) to create depths to plumb.

And, let's face it: pain is more complex than happiness. Very few people spend hours in therapy of buy books on the many different ways in which we are happy, or the complication of happiness.

Fan Comments

... this essay poses possible theories (3 of them, in lovely detail) about why people enjoy writing h/c.