How real is fiction? When we read a book or watch a movie, there are times we feel the characters right next to us as living, breathing humans. They all have their dreams, their fears, their own personalities. Yet beneath it all, perhaps even dominating this feeling of realness, is the knowledge that they are not real - they are the product of the author's imagination, conjured to the likeliness of life, but at their heart have never really existed. It is sad, almost, to think that no matter how great the trials a fictional character overcomes, at the end of the day they are forever bound to uselessness simply by virtue of never having existed.
But have they existed? Undoubtedly not - there will never be a Darth Vader or Sherlock Holmes. What matters, however, is not their existence to the world at large but their existence to the reader. As long as their was once a point in time where the reader believes them, where they feel their heart ache with their sadness, where they feel their spirits soar with their jubilation - that is enough. For the reader, for that one moment, the fictional character is real.
There are 6 billion people in the world. They are all real. This is undeniable fact. Each of them leaves their imprint upon the world, a trait unfortunately not shared by fictional characters. But let us think for a moment. How real is your family to you? Your friends? Your teachers?
Now let us ask some other questions. How real is the boy in Africa to you? How real is the young businessman in China? The Hispanic gas station attendant on the other side of the country? The president of the Langcolm Republic? They are indeed real people, but have they impacted your lives? If someone told you that the existence of the president of the Langcolm Republic has been a huge prank constructed by everybody you know for the sole purpose of deceiving you into believing his existence, would you believe them? How real is reality?
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