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RE: Netoju no Susume - On Compersion and Virtual Identities
Can you not love someone because of how different they are, rather for how you see yourself in them?
Are there not characters that are enticing because of how dissimilar they are from us?
We get to know characters in shows and books, we get to see them for who they are, and then we can be happy for them. If a character is not shown to us, not revealed, not built, then we cannot feel compersion.
Is this true? Part of the discussion about "Self-insert characters" is that we are building them with our own building blocks, rather than the ones the author used. Unless the point here is something else and I'm missing it.
Interesting question. I love raising questions in these posts more than I love answering them. Also because I'm better at asking than answering. But, I'll give it a try, following the logic of the piece: They still present points of contact. If someone truly has no points of relation to you, you can't even compare to it. By being able to point and say, "Here and here, in this and that manner, we are dissimilar from this character," then we already have both a point of reference, and more importantly, a mirror that reflects back on what we are, or what we think we are.
And perhaps we love the mirror, or the point of view. And perhaps we can just love someone else. One of the points this post makes subtly is that to a degree, all love is self-love, sort of.