Why do we care?
I don't mean anything bad with this question. It's work for school. I'm just curious.
Why do we care about fictional characters? What makes us care about them? Why do we care about Lee and Clementine for example and not so much for others in TWD?
What do you think?
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Clem is actually one of my least favorite characters tbh, never truly cared about her much besides the whole "being a kid" thing. Everyone deserves a chance i wouldnt just leave her behind or anything, i would protect her, but i dont like her as much as lets say.. Kenny or Nick or Sarah.
BUT back to the main topic, i feel like we care about the characters simply because we get invested in the universe, its all fictional sure, but the whole deal with the game is that it makes you feel like you're actually in that situation and actually interacting with these characters. You actually get to spend time with them and get to know them and it doesnt matter because fictional or not, they feel like someone you know
We empathize with the characters.
It's more of "maternal feeling" or something like that,
Some people see Clementine as their fictional child, or their fictional friend. We sometimes relate to what the fictional character went through, like Clementine seeing her parents as "one of them" broke my heart, as I lost a loved one too,
I cared about Sarah with a similar reason as Clem's and because I underwent what she did in Episode 4.
I hope someone else can explain to you more than I can, and I hope that I helped you (even just a little bit.)
I will never kill a zombie. I will never know the direct feeling of looking at my arm and seeing the bite wound that will slowly kill me. I will never kill aliens. I will never be the hero who saves the world. I will never find the cure to an unknown pathogen. I will never get beamed up by Scotty. I will never converse with the different Xindi species. I will never fly through space with no propulsion grasping at the outside of a space station. But I live vicariously in these situations through works of fiction. I can create or partake in any imaginable event simply by opening a book, turning on the tv, or putting in a game. The connections to the characters are because I am there with them. I am empathizing with them and experiencing the same tragedies/excitements they are. The PC is the vessel for which I can do or be anything I want.
On a side note, this is one more reason I dislike S2. My empathy to the PC is always lacking. It's common because, I think, they are us, it's harder to empathize with yourself. S1 did a fantastic job of making me empathize with Lee through the reactions and judgments of the other characters of the group, mainly Clem. Something S2 had very, very little of. Just my opinion, though.
As soon as I saw Clementine my natural parental instincts kicked in and I desperately wanted to protect her due to the precarious position she was in. I've always wanted kids and love talking with them which means I found myself emphasizing with Lee & Clem's relationship to a surprising degree... It's not just the fact Clem's a kid that makes me love her though, it's that she reminds me so much of myself when I was her age. I was quiet and spent most of my time thinking and learning about the world, as well as playing with action figures and coming up with imaginative little stories.
When it comes to characters like Lee, Kenny, and Lilly, I find myself bonding with them because of how believable they are... They're all flawed individuals rather than one-dimensional slates which allows me to forget that they're even fictional throughout my play sessions; so when someone dies, it really feels like a friend died.
The combination of immaculate voice acting, writing, and expressive animations makes for an incredibly immersive experience that serves as great escapism. I can block out reality completely and just enjoy the story the writers have laid out.
Are you the UK version of me?
Personalities
Plays a important role, if you simply dislike someone's personality, then you often don't care about that person as much as you would for someone that you like.
Time Spent
The more time you spent with someone, the more you feel "family" / be friended with. It's often easy to just stop hanging out with someone, but it's much more complicated and difficult in a zombie apocalpyse.
Being controlled by
The character that's being controlled by you is often the one that you can't let go. After Time Spent you'll feel attached to this character.
Attractiveness / Charisma
You would be more interessted in someone that's attractive. sometimes people just ignore the fact that someone has a ugly personality because of this.
That's pretty much it. That's why we care. We care because they feel alive.
xD Maybe I am. Or I'm your long lost tea-drinking, crumpet-munching sibling.
The last one, probably.
Great South Park episode :P
We care because we know them, it's that simple. We don't care about David Beckham, that guy from Taleban or Santa the same way because we simply don't know their personalities.
We can care for them as icons, but not because we have an attachment to them through experience.
Thanks everyone for taking your time!
"We all are born with a certain package. We are who we are: where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised. We're kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people. And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us." -Roger Ebert
And yes, I'm aware of what his stance on video games was, but I feel the quote it perfectly applicable to any art form that can reach out touch people in meaningful ways. We all only live one life, but well crafted art can let you sample others.
I can see what you mean there with Clementine, I find it very hard to empathize with characters and while Lee worked Clementine did a better job with me, which sounds odd, but the way she is portrayed in Season 2 shares too many similarities with how I was and therefore I could actually put myself in Clementine's shoes more than Lee, Lee was great because just about everyone can empathize with him, but Clementine I feel like you need to be a very specific person to be able to feel like you're her, fortunately for me she's a lot like me, but I can see how other people would feel a lot of disconnect from her, Mass Effect comes to mind, as that was a game where I couldn't put myself in the protagonist shoes, not even a little bit and it kinda bothered me, I'm guessing that Clementine probably causes that reaction in a lot of people.
It could be because of many things:
Relating to the character.
Emotions we automatically feel from non-existing individuals.
Being the main character.
Some people can understand the emotion of a certain character in a certain situation, if a character's relative dies and the player feels said, he/she may have felt a similar emotion in the past, they could relate to the situation or can just empathise with the situation. Playing as the main character, usually the leader of the group, the player seems somewhat responsible for the well-being of these non-existing characters, especially if those characters share similarities to the player or remind the player of something they hold near and dear. Being given a multitude of options that the player chooses from helps enhance the relationship between the player and character, if a decision the player made caused a drastic scene, they may feel bad for having made that decision, however, when another character makes a similar decision, the player may feel anger towards that specific character, because we only truly care about the character whose perspective we see the game in and who the playable character strives to protect. Really there's so many reasons why people feel attached to non-existing characters, it could be that they feel attached to a character because of their own free will or are rather forced to be attached to the character because of the traits that character holds.