Why Do We Get Attached To Fictional Characters?

throughout my whole life I have always loved works of fiction and I probably have my parents to thank for this because watching movies has always been our pastime as a little girl I would sit in front of the VCR watching and re watching my favorite movies over and over again and I did the same thing in high school but my attachment to the characters got even more intense I didn't have many friends in high school so connecting to certain characters gave me the outlet of friendship that I lacked in real life it's also what sparked my interest in the arts and my love for storytelling which is actually what I'm going to school for my dad grew up loving the x-men and taught my brother and I the importance of imagination funny enough my brother and I both grew up to these storytellers there are many reasons why someone may get attached to fictional characters there are characters that you might love because you relate to them some you may love because you aspire to be like them or maybe you found a friend in them like myself maybe you love a character that gives you hope within the dark story or maybe you just love a character because you find them attractive there's nothing wrong with that I tell you for a long time I've wondered why is it that I get so attached to fictional characters as if they were real so the past few weeks I've been doing some research on the psychology behind this exact phenomenon and it turns out I'm not the only one who feels this way so I figured I would share my findings but before we really get into it it's important to understand this particular relationship the type of connection that people have with fictional characters is called a parasocial relationship this is defined as a one-sided relationship where one party expends energy effort emotions while the other party has no idea they exist it's the same type of bond that people have with celebrities and influencers to one side feels connected to the other and feels like they know them on a personal level whereas the other side literally doesn't know who they are at all we feel a real human connection with them but without the negative aspects of interactions like rejection or embarrassment the downside is that you have to compromise an actual physical connection we know that fictional characters aren't real but they are representations of real people they have personnel these problems and corks just like us when watching a series and following the life of a specific character we often get every single detail about their life and emotions we learn about them and get invested into their lives in a way that connects us very deeply to them we see into their every thought and feeling so we understand why and how they are the way that they are especially if a story is written from their perspective we watch as they learn lessons and changes people throughout the course of their lives just like us we get invested into their character arcs especially if they're well-written we see characters redeem themselves we see them fall into despair and we see them achieve their goals among many other things of course even if the story is set in some kind of fantasy world fictional characters are usually given very real circumstances and oftentimes react in a very real way and sometimes it's two situations that we have personally been through so we can truly understand the ability to fully understand someone else's emotions as if they are your own is called empathy and this is what it all boils down to when presented with a character who shows even the slightest bit of sentience we see them as someone who has thoughts and emotions just like us and because of that we're able to connect with them we often spend quite a long time with a story sometimes we watch the same story progress over the course of years whether that seven seasons of a show a trilogy of movies or even a series of books we may even see a beloved character go from a child to an adult because of this they become familiar to us and we grow with them in a similar way that we would with real friends take Harry Potter for example we read the books through his perspective so we have insight on all of his emotions we know exactly what he's feeling at any given time so it's hard not to empathize with him and how his life has gone we're there with him through his happy moments in the dining hall with his best friends were there every time he faces a challenge really were there with him through it all and it's almost like we ourselves are students at Hogwarts growing up and many of us did grow up with the story of Harry Potter because we empathize with Harry and we're familiar with him it's understandable why it was heartwrenching to watch him go to the Forbidden Forest in the last movie a character that we love someone that we've been following and watching for years just walking to his death the characters themselves may not be real but every feeling that you get from watching them is as real as anything else you can't make up the love you feel for them or the sadness of a favorite character being killed off you can't make up the happiness you feel during the light-hearted beach episodes or the emptiness you feel in your stomach for a few days after finishing a series you were really invested in I mean people are still talking about the ending of Game of Thrones and it happened over a year ago at this point we know that these characters and their stories aren't real but we're able to suspend our disbelief long enough to be able to fully immerse ourselves in the content that we're consuming our human brains have the ability to think visualize and imagine but they can't actually differentiate between real and imagined experiences take this sentence for example the pebbles crunched beneath my feet as I walked along the rocky shore I could almost taste the salt in the air as the wind softly touches my rosy cheeks it's almost as if you can feel the rocks beneath your feet and smell the ocean without actually experiencing it in reality you're able to recall the scent without actually being near the ocean in this moment the characters that we love may not exist but our brains don't actually know that so on a subconscious level we react to them the same way we would a real person it's just like Dumbledore said professor is this all real or is it just happening inside my head of course it's happening inside your head Harry why should that mean that it's not real so I have come to the conclusion that the reason we get attached to characters basically comes down to empathy statistics even show that people who are more empathetic are more likely to grow a deeper attachment to fictional characters we have the capacity as human beings to suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves into fiction and connect on a real level with the characters that we love we've become familiar with the characters that we've invested so much of our time and energy in so although our beloved characters may not be real per se we can conclude that the emotions that we get from them are very real and it's actually pretty normal and mostly a good thing to get attached to fictional characters because it shows that you have the capability of connecting with and understanding other people anyways I hope you guys enjoyed this different video this has just been something on my mind for a while I hope you guys liked the conclusion I came to and let me know down below who are your favorite characters mine's Levi bye you

Channel: McCaffrey Melon

Views: 76,473

Keywords: anime, review, weeb, film review, film, essay, spoken essay, analysis, psychology, psych, physchology, fiction, fantasy, fictional characters, storytelling, story, book, movie, movies, books, television, tv, game of thrones, attack on titan, levi ackerman, eren jeager, jon snow, arya stark, sansa stark, owari no sereph, seraph of the end, banana fish, spirited away, howls moving castle, studio ghibli, love fictional characters, why do i love fictional characters, obsessed with characters

Id: Cxeg7qZaRQw

Length: 7min 27sec (447 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 25 2020