By Shivika Nanda
We live in a world where we are always surrounded by different fictional characters that connect us to a world we can only imagine in our wildest dreams. Our minds know that these words are not real but we still choose to believe in and connect to the characters that exist in that world. We as humans are always intrigued by extraordinary characters. Almost every kid tied a towel around his/her back and pretended to fly like Superman or when swinging from a banyan tree, felt like Spider-man. Why do we want or even aspire to be like them? That leads us to the question “How do Fictional Characters empower us in our real lives?”
Every Superhero represents a symbol, an idea that works for something bigger than ourselves, something more universal. But what connects us to these mighty, all-powerful beings? The one thing that connects our two worlds is humanity.
There are many characters but there are some which leave a bigger impact on our lives. We are in a society where superheroes are flawed, gender diverse, and represent different cultures, but that is what makes them so relatable to us, seeing them go through their own issues and overcoming them provides the utmost motivation to face our demons. A strong connection to fictional characters can help us tackle our life problems and give us a chance to truly understand what it means to be human.
While stories are classic and commonly outlandish and bizarre, characters can allow individuals to relate to and experience good character and attributes of themselves as well as tap into changing their meaning of the world surrounding them (providing insight & empathy).
As stated before, there are characters that make a bigger impact. Such characters display a level of humanity that resides beneath us too, and that makes us more like them and them like us. Superheroes do not necessarily mean beings with super-human strength, high intelligence, some genetic mutation that gives the ability to do extraordinary things, today the definition of superheroes has changed drastically as they continue to show different aspects, different sides of themselves which are more human, more earthly.
Today, not only superheroes but many fictional characters from books, television shows, movies, etc.,
make a big impact. Those characters can have superpowers or not have any abilities whatsoever, but if that character’s personality, journey, struggles, achievements connects with the audience, that being is not lesser than a super-hero for the audience. The essence of a superhero is in his or her good nature, strong values and unmatched wisdom. It’s in his or her innate ethics and not in the superpowers. Hero’s use of one’s skills and powers should be for the common good. There are a lot of things that one can learn from superheroes. Some of them being that everything that we do or happen to us is a result of our choices and if not, one can always make better choices and decisions.
Strong fictional characters, does not matter where they come from have but one power in common, to show us who we are, what our potential is, and what we can be. Such characters have a very human side to them and that is why they feel real to us even though we know they are just fiction. They do not need to have any superpowers as they show us that humanity, in itself is all we need to achieve greatness. Every character shows us different traits, a different personality, and a different journey but they all were created with human values and emotions which guide them through their difficulties. Fictional Characters, each with a certain quality shows us what is humanity and the power we have within ourselves to become the greatest versions of ourselves and to be a part of something much bigger than ourselves and the world that revolves around us. The answer to my question, “How do fictional characters empower us in real lives?” is very simple. The Characters we connect to have the power to enter our lives and inculcate values that define us and empower us to achieve great things in our lives and most of all they teach us how to be a human.
One of the worth reading authors is Rick Riordan. His bestseller series like Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Kane Chronicles, The trials of Apollo etc. ‘Wonder Woman: War bringer By Leigh Bardugo’, ‘Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie’ are also some of the interesting ones.
Gothic fiction also known as Gothic horror is a genre or mode of literature and film that mixes fiction and horror, death, and from time to time romance. Gothic fiction basically feeds on some type of terror. The name Gothic can be explained by anciently constructed buildings with mysterious styles of architecture in it. Within these constructions, several of those stories are formed. This extreme sort of romanticism was very talked about in European countries. The idea was to mix components of primitive old fashioned romance, which was believed to be extremely preposterous, and also the horror cum romantic novel, which was thought of to be too constricted to strictly reality. The basic plot was created with the help of several standard Gothic widely common attributes, together with a threatening mystery surrounding the family curse given few generations back, uncountable fixtures and ancient family ornaments and hidden tunnels and passages. But, a romance with irrational components, and negative intentions was thought of reverse and not acceptable by the readers of society.
Many authors developed the way of writing novels that explained supernatural within which each ostensibly supernatural incident is eventually derived back to natural causes. However, together with most novels at that time, they were looked down upon by several well-educated folks as pure nonsense.
The authors tried to clarify the excellence of text and the direct relation between horror and terror in Gothic fiction. Gothic literature is usually delineated with words like “fear” and “terror.” This sense of marvel and terror, such feeling and words are very crucial for gothic fiction. It requires the imagination of the reader to be willing to just accept the thought that there may well be one thing “beyond and before people.” The mysterious and wild imagination necessary for Gothic literature has been growing for a few times before the arrival of the Gothic. The requirement for this came because the proverbial world was commencing to be additionally explored, sighting the innate geographical mysteries of the planet. The boundaries of the map were being looked at and none of them was finding any dinosaurs and fire-throwing dragons thus vampires were created. The human mind needed a replacement. There are many evil spirit series that actually grips your attention and keeps you wondering till the end.
Some of them is ‘Twilight’ by Stephanie Meyer’, ‘The Vampire Diaries by L.J Smith’, ‘The lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis’, ‘The vampire’s assistant by Darren Shan’, ‘Dark Lover by J.R.Ward’, ‘Already dead by Charlie Houston’.