How much do fictional characters mean to you?

[Carol the Dabbler]

This just came in on the Sherlockology newsfeed:
 

 

The QI team present a few interesting facts in their new book, ‘1,339 QI Facts To Make Your Jaw Drop’ and the following information caught our attention, but do you agree?

'One in ten women cares more for a fictitious male character than her actual partner.'

All I can say to that is -- thank goodness I'm happily married and John Watson is fictitious! 

 

[T.o.b.y]

I don't think you can compare the way one cares for characters in stories with the way one does for real people at all. But if I imagine some evil brain surgeon of the future were to tell me "you have to choose between forgetting about your partner and all the fictional people inside your head", it would be a very hard decision...

[Carol the Dabbler]

Yeah, it's sadly all too possible to lose a partner, but fictional "friends" truly stick with us for life (or at least as long as our memory remains functional).

 

[Caya]

My husband has complained several times about me being preoccupied with a fictional character to the point that he was starting to feel jealous of a nonexistent man . Never happened so far with a show or even a book, though, but I do bond strongly with some characters I'm writing about, whether fanfic or original, and once or twice it happened in an RPG (Carth Onasi from Knights of the Old Republic will forever have his own small place in my heart ).

 

Nevertheless, I think "cares more for a fictitious character than for her actual partner" is a bit of a fallacy. Might as well ask a typical man whether he prefers his football team to his wife. Those are quite different kinds of affection, and small is the heart that loves only a single human being.

[T.o.b.y]

...small is the heart that loves only a single human being.

 

Precisely. Which is why the people who leave comments like "I hope she dies soon" (and meaner things) underneath articles about a certain fictional character whom they haven't even seen in action yet are beyond my power of understanding.

 

Getting back to the main topic here, I think that fictional people, even if they were invented by somebody else, automatically become part of you once they're inside your brain. Having that inner social circle well filled makes being alone a lot more bearable, but does not make you less alone. Whereas loving a physical human being is actually connecting with something foreign to one's self.

 

Now, the more you've got inside you, the more you have to offer the other person to connect with. So why would being a teeny bit obsessed with a work of fiction stand in the way of a real-life partnership? (Okay, if that obsession leads to massive annoyance on the part of the other person who does not share your liking, that may be difficult - but that was what internet forums were invented for; to vent one's feelings elsewhere...)

 

[Caya]

Well, yeah, there's the impulse to talk about it entirely too much but also the mental preoccupation; especially when I've written myself into a corner and can't seem to find a way out.  Both sure can be annoying to your better half, but, again, I don't see it as any worse than when the playoffs are starting / he's in a new raid guild / the stupid carburetor refuses to cooperate / [insert hobby of choice]. And really, dating someone with no interests at all must be dreadfully boring.

[T.o.b.y]

Just came across this article, where the "Sherlock" actors, among other things, are quoted on what it's like to play characters that have such a devoted following. I particularly like the bit about the rabbit...

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/sherlock-series-3-benedict-cumberbatch-and-martin-freeman-provide-teasers-for-the-biggest-comeback-in-british-television-8988545.html

[Alice Holmes]

My boyfriend has sometimes accused me of wishing I was dating Jeeves (from the P.G. Wodehouse stories) instead of him, which is not wholly true... He seems to think that I am some sort of genius (which I am not complaining about) and that I think he's an idiot (which I do, but I don't tell him that). My love for P.G. Wodehouse's stories led him to believe that I prefer Jeeves to him, I suppose. 

[Omega]

 

The QI team present a few interesting facts in their new book, ‘1,339 QI Facts To Make Your Jaw Drop’ and the following information caught our attention, but do you agree?

 

'One in ten women cares more for a fictitious male character than her actual partner.'

I think we all agree that it's not the same kind of caring...

As you don't love your mother with the same love you love your friends, and you love none of them with the same love you love your partner...

 

[aely]

I remember crying my eyes out over Jane Eyre as a kid in the bit where Helen Burns dies. I still cry over books now, when I get a chance to read, and I'll go ape if I think there has been any character assassination of a character I love in a film adaptation or a review of a film/book (I was very cross about what they did with Faramir in LOTR until I saw the extended version, for instance). 

 

So yes, I care. Yes, I might pay more attention to ficitonal characters at times (because the ones in my RL just aren't as interesting sometimes) but I wouldn't say I love them more.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 What I love about my favorite fictional characters is that they never let you down. You know them in side and out. You know their flaws, the darkness, the light, the secrets they keep from everyone else in their lives. You can love them without getting hurt by them.

[T.o.b.y]

 What I love about my favorite fictional characters is that they never let you down. You know them in side and out. You know their flaws, the darkness, the light, the secrets they keep from everyone else in their lives. You can love them without getting hurt by them.

 

That is very true. And it may explain why people can develop fully-fledged crushes on fictional beings - they may forfeit the advantages of a real relationship, but they gain the safety you mention above.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

It may be rather sad and even seen as pretty pathetic....but.....if one has been bitten hard in a real relationship, they know someone they can go to that can't hurt.

[T.o.b.y]

No, I don't think it's pathetic at all. But sad, definitely, if that is the only love a person has to cling to. Because yes, you can't get hurt, but you also can't get loved back. It's better than one-sided adoration of a real being who ridicules you, for example, but still one-sided. 

 

That said, fictional characters (and places and so on) are terribly important, no question about it. And a well-stocked mind bears loneliness a lot better than an empty one.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

That said, fictional characters (and places and so on) are terribly important, no question about it. And a well-stocked mind bears loneliness a lot better than an empty one.

 

  And maybe even therapeutic.

[T.o.b.y]

Maybe, yes... Certainly comforting. When things are bleak and ugly, it makes a world of difference to know that there's art and beauty and humor around, too.

[Alice Holmes]

Also, fictional characters don't argue with you.