For the Love of Fiction

Yesterday I read the latest chapter of Tite Kubo's manga Bleach, and one of my favorite characters has died. I sat here staring at the screen with tears flowing down my face, feeling as if I'd been punched in the gut, as if I'd lost a friend. Over the years I have shed tears for many a character. When someone is as passionate about the world of fiction and form the strong bonds that I do with fictional characters, you not only emphasize and feel for them as they go through the various circumstances that us writers put them through, but you also feel their absence when/if they meet their doom. I cry for them when they cry. I bleed for them when they bleed. But I truly feel as if I have lost someone important in my life if I have to say goodbye.

I wasn't the most popular kid when I was in school. I didn't really find my stride in life until I got to college and found like-minded people. Or at least people who thought my nerdiness was endearing. I had very few friends who respected me for being different. In fact, I think I had a total of, like, 4 friends who stuck  by me even though I was a total dork. And only two of those shared my dorkiness.

I digress.

So, seeing as I wasn't exactly popular, I hated going to school. I was incredibly smart (which doesn't get you any popularity points either, unless the dumb jocks ask to cheat off you) so I enjoyed the learning aspect of things, but I got picked on pretty mercilessly in the early days. By the time I was 16 the bullying stopped because I refused to be bullied. I was a nerd with a temper.

Anyway, the world of fiction allowed me an escape. I'd been reading since I was 3, but it didn't truly become my refuge until I was probably 11. That's when I discovered the wonderful world of Harry Potter and fell in love with my first character. For the next seven years, not only did my love for all things fiction grow to include not only books but movies, anime, manga, video games, anything really, but my love for Harry Potter only grew. I became attached to the characters. They became my friends, my escape from a world where I was rarely understood. And then, when I was 18 years old, I lost the character that had not only been my favorite HP character since I was 11, but was also my favorite character in existence and still is to this day. I wept for an hour over the death of Severus Snape. I felt silly because I knew he wasn't real, but then another wise character by the name of Albus Dumbledore pointed out something to Harry that hit home with me.

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" Dumbledore's wise words explained so much for me. Yes, the worlds that I dove into were not happening in my immediate reality. I am not physically at Hogwarts, nor in Narnia, the Soul Society, or in some galaxy far far away. I can't Time-walk, date vampires, or go to Camp Half-blood. But that doesn't make these places any less real in my mind or in my heart.

The worlds I find myself in when I read or watch movies or play games are a shelter for me, a sanctuary. When this reality becomes too much, or too little, I can go find my place somewhere else. Will I ever physically go there? No. But that doesn't make the feelings I feel or the people (YES PEOPLE!) I meet any less real to me. So if you see me crying or hear me talking about being sad over a character I have grown to truly love and care for dying, don't insult me or their memories by saying that I shouldn't get so upset over something that isn't real. Because, to be honest, a lot of these characters are more real to me than most of you are.

And so this shall be a tribute to the characters who I have loved and lost and feel like I owe a thank you to. Sometimes it's the realm of fiction that has the greatest impact, and these characters have helped me through some of the greatest pain that this reality has handed to me. I don't care if you don't understand or you don't like it. All that shows me is that you don't understand me. Just remember, just because it's happening in a place you cannot physically see doesn't mean you have the right to negate it's excistance.
 

You will be missed, Kuchiki Byakuya Taicho