Fictional Love

(…or not.)

There is something about witnessing a life other than our own in a distanced point of view that allows us to learn of things about a person in a clearer manner than we are usually afforded in our personal lives. As gift of distance, we are given a sense of power, which goes hand-in-hand with knowledge that allows us to make more informed emotional attachments about the individuals we serve witnesses to. And what a great amount of added security this gives us as it is not part of the normal repertoire of our hearts to easily choose those to whom we give it to.

This is perhaps one of the reasons why we find it easier to exclaim our proof of affection to fictional characters encountered in television dramas, movies, novels, and other media of story-tellers rather than confess it in the same open manner to the people we interact with in our own lives.

Moreover, there exists in the fictional a promise of a one-way love. In the lack of true interaction between the fictional character and the real person, there are fewer complications compared to a two-way relationship where there are more variables to be considered, many of which continually change. There are fewer uncertainties between the fictional and the real. Metaphorically-- and for some types of media literally, fiction is in black and white and set in stone.

This is not to say that fictional stories are not as confusing, perplexing, or thought-inducing as that of real life events because that would be a lie and a great disrespect to the hundreds of authors and their works which have enthralled their audiences for many years. What I simply mean is that whatever is presented in the fictional stories is something that is constant, regardless of the multiple interpretations they may inspire. While motives are always tricks that confound and befuddle, events that happen and the actions that the characters go through cannot be hidden nor lied about.

As a result of the great amount of people who experience undeniable emotional attachment to certain fictional universes or characters, many banded together to share mutual interests. There is currently, in modern culture, the phenomenon called “fandoms”. A fandom is a collection of people who have declared themselves followers of a certain canon. People who are part of a fandom are those who share the same interests, and within themselves create their own jargons and fandom-specific creations. Various fan works are usually produced, either as tribute to the canon or simply as an endeavor of self- interest. Through these fan works, the power of the audience to play with the characters in a way which, more usually than not, diverts from the original universe they were from are greatly visible. Fan works’ existence portrays a magnified version of reader/audience response and the reality of how both creator and audience play a role in creating a work as the different perceptions and interpretations of creations become more obvious in the extremely public presentations afforded them by the Internet.

However, before any fandom could form, there is the prerequisite of a loved canon. Without a beloved universe with a set number of rules and fundamental information that make it original and its own, there can never be a fandom. It remains that what is canon is unquestionable, allowing the audience to choose to give themselves over to the fiction.

Loving a fictional character is an easier kind of love, but that does not take from it genuineness. In a way, it is different and separate from love formed and experienced in relationships in real life, but at the same time, the emotions that beat from our chests, the hormones, and the endorphins in each and everyone’s systems that it allows to form and excrete are undeniable. Attachment can be created, something like unrequited love but with more liberties and possibilities.

Thus love for fictional characters is not fictional at all. It is a different kind of love than what we experience with our families, friends, or partners, but it exists nonetheless. Just as there is a diversity of people, race, color, and specie in this world, there is also a diversity of love.