My Over-attachment to Fictional Characters
When reading a book, watching a movie or TV show or even playing video game, I always find myself caring about the characters. It's like you become part of their world, you project yourself among them and start taking journeys and adventures they take, feel emotions they feel and become their invisible companion. It's strange how this happens when we realize they are not real.
If you're not one of the people who create emotional bonds with heroes, charismatic book or movie characters, then you won't know what I'm talking about.
Growing up pretty much as I can remember I got obsessed with things easily, whether it be books, movies or TV shows. These characters and worlds would live in my head long after I read the book or watched the show.
Some of my friends are able to, for example, watch the movie, appreciate it, and then never think or talk about it again. When I would ask them whether they fantasize about the characters and story or think about what would happen if it continues, they would laugh about it.
But I would always get really attached. Even now. In my early days it was superhero movies, old Italian comic books with Zagor, Blek and Comandante Mark, American wild west novels by Karl May, that black power ranger, Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle... Hell, even when playing Super Mario, I would experience ups and downs and try to do everything to help him get to his Princess Peach.
Later I became really obsessed with Lord of the Rings and the world Tolkien has created. I started fantasizing and daydreaming about how would it be to live in this world. To share epic adventures of my favorite characters, to explore Middle Earth and prepare for battle against the mighty enemy armies. One of my biggest goals still remained to help create virtual reality of some sort that could teleport me in this exact place and time these characters inhabited.
The Lord of the Rings is just mythology, it's a fairytale, it's an adventure. It never happened, except in our hearts. But then there was the Shire in 3 dimensions. And smoke coming out of the burrows where they lived….. And, I believed.
— McKellen on The Lord of the Rings
I would be bummed for days after reading some Hemingway, Kafka or Dostoyevsky novel. Even though the characters are completely fictional, I can't detach myself from sharing their sorrow and pain.
But these characters are specifically designed by their creators with this purpose in mind. When JK Rowling created Harry Potter she intended him to be an ongoing character that will appear in multiple books. So she wanted to make him the type of person readers would get attached to and follow him in his Hogwarts adventures.
You go through phases of attachment to fictional characters - first the discovery phase, where you meet the character and after that it slowly progresses to a stage where you spend hours reblogging their pictures on Tumblr, searching for their merchandise on flea market websites and matching your hairstyle with theirs.
So why do we get attached to fictional characters? Why do we get emotional when something happens to them? We all know that these characters aren't real and the stories they inhabit never really happened.
Our subconscious mind can hardly differentiate between real and imagined experiences, so it believes everything he sees. When a person sees or reads about a character that resembles him, he quickly identifies with that characters. Most of them are not perfect. They have their madness or their evil side and they are in a constant inner battle. That makes them more real and human. Characters like Batman, John Snow, Bilbo Baggins or Master Chief provoke emotions in us that manipulate our mind and our attachment towards them grows stronger with their every action. They become part of who we are.
How about you? Keeping yourself on a safe emotional distance from the fictional world? I guess everything is okay and under control until there's a point where you want to merge with them, enter their world and join them on their quest through the misty mountains and towards the gates of Mordor.
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Interesting post! "They become part of who we are.", I'm agree. About comics I love Zagor, Dylan Dog and Dampyr :)
I'm glad you feel the same way. :) Excellent choice of comic books! Italy has given us lots of amazing characters. :)
I easily get attached to the fictional characters of my own - so much, that I feel sad while bringing a story to the end. They become like family members to me. It has its drawbacks, though: I'll never be a "George Martin" with his loads of violent, but very logical deaths.
I guess we better relate to those similar to us. It's really hard to let them go, isn't it? Once the story is over. I often find myself coming back to the movie or book to watch it again if the story or characters left an impact on me.
Zagor and Nathan Never were my favorite comic books at the time. I had a huge pile of those comic books.
I still keep my pile of comic books from back then. :) Haven't read Nathan Never, but Zagor and his little friend Chico were my favorites. Good old days.