Death+in+Fiction+vs.+Reality

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=REASONING BEHIND THE IMPORTANCE OF FICTIONAL DEATH=

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we encounter death a plenitude of times throughout our lives. It is present in our television programs, literature, games, and through our friends and family. Interestingly, everyone reacts differently to the various ways that death enters our lives. Unfortunately, scholars rarely focus on this topic or on what causes these differing reactions. Since researchers solemnly acknowledge this topic, it is difficult to understand the correlation between the reactions that both types of death cause. However, there is some gathered research below that allows to understand why people grieve fictional characters more than foreign deaths.

=** PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS **=

It is common for an audience to react more strongly when their favorite character dies than when they hear about the death of a person in a foreign country because the viewer or reader forms a parasocial relationship with the character. A parasocial relationship is a one sided relationship where a subject is invested in someone else, while that character is unaware of the subject's existence.



These parasocial relationships seem real to the reader/viewer which evokes similar emotions to those created from a real life relationship, even though the magnitude is much smaller. An example being, feeling loss after a favorite character is taken off air which is similar to the feelings after a breakup (Tukachinsky 74).


 * This is a survey conducted in order to further explore the correlation of the effects of fictional death and actual death: **







=**SELF EXPANSION & EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING**=

Numerous professionals help establish studies of our long term relationships with fictional characters. The night Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr. Derek Shepard died in a car accident, fans were distraught. A character they’d grown to love and idolize over 10 years, even nicknaming him McDreamy, was killed with no warning whatsoever, and social media felt the ripple effect. The death being the conversation starter for many fans in the following days. In a coinciding interview the next day with TIME magazine, Christiane Manzella, a clinical director and grief counselor at the Seleni Institute of Women, stated that “human beings love stories and making connections, even if it’s to fictional people”, which is sensible.

The everyday lives and struggles of normal people are reflected in these character’s journeys, which is one of the foremost ways we relate to them. The studies of Arkin et Al further these thoughts. In their (Self-Expansion through Fictional Characters) the group suggest that the same cognitive quality overlap that occurs in a real-world relationships between friends and family is possible in relation to fictional characters as well. As social beings, we connect to fictional characters on a variety of levels, from similar personality traits and mannerisms to interests and hobbies. This concept of Experiential Learning is what Jana Kratka expanded on in his In the report, she suggest how we as individuals bond with the characters we do because of a “Close correlation between the identification of the viewer with the character and situation common to the viewer”. We attribute these character’s situations and how they handle them to our own situations where they apply correctly, and so we allow these characters to teach and guide us in our everyday lives, most times without realizing it. The longer we are exposed to these characters intertwines them into our routines and lifestyles to the point that some of their qualities may pass over to us, so it will have a greater impact when a character we've associated with for so long is no longer active for us to connect with.

= = =EFFECT OF FOREIGN DEATH =

On the other hand, the audience does not have similar feelings when they become aware of deaths occurring in other countries. A large contrast between a story, television show, video game, or comic and the death between a person in a foreign country is how involved the audience is in the presented narrative. It is very rare that we hear about the death of a person in another country unless it was an important person, mass deaths, or an unfortunate manner of dying. However, when these deaths are reported it is usually through news articles, radio, or television. When the mediums present a deceased person it is usually in an impersonal manner. The reader will have a difficult time making a connection with a person presented this way because they do not have any personal details about the deceased. Bal and Martijn explain that when people are not transported into something they read or watch, that they can actually have a decrease in sympathy. This lack of information about the deceased person makes it difficult for the audience to become more invested into the occurrence. While on the other hand, television shows, books, etc. have the audience follow characters for a longer period of time and give more information that allows people relate to the characters. =

= =SIMILAR PAGES =
 * Effects of Fictional Death
 * Fictional Deaths vs. Real Deaths

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==== Bal, Matthijs, Martijn Veltkamp. “How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation.” //PLOS One// 8.1(2013): 1-12. Web. 2 Feb. 2016. ====

Psychexchange.co.uk (2011) //The Attraction of Celebrities// [Power Point Slides]. Retrieved from Slideshare.net.

Tukachinsky, Riva. “ Para-Romantic Love and Para-Friendships: Development and Assessment of a Multiple-Parasocial Relationships Scale.” //American Journal of Media Psychology// 3.½ (2010): 73-94. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

Dockterman, Eliana. “Grief Counselor Says It’s Ok to Mourn a Fictional Character’s Death.” TIME. TIME., 24 Apr. 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2016