Why Our Hearts Will Never Stop Thumping For Fictional Characters
Snuggled in my bed, I scrolled through videos of viral dances, transition challenges, and comedy skits on Tik Tok until I was handed a Gen Z Marauder’s Map of all the secret passageways to dun dun dun: Harry Potter Tik Tok. As I swiped my thumb, edits of Draco Malfoy with thousands of teenage girls commenting “I want Draco to Slyther-in my pants” played, people tried on outfits that they would wear at the Yule Ball, fans fought over whether the books were better than the movies and I kid you, not people were listing colleges that have the Hogwarts aesthetic. High arched ceilings, ginormous dining halls, and you could feel like you are studying at the school with alums like The Boy Who Lived and He Who Must Not Be Named for only $30,000 a year.
My initial reaction was to ask, “Where were all these people five years ago when I was infatuated with Harry Potter in the fifth grade ?,” no one wanted to be the Harry Potter to my Luna Lovegood for Halloween then. Yet there seemed to be a mutual warm joy amongst us all indulging in the simple days where we read our favorite childhood book. I reminisced on the days I snuck Goblet of Fire under my desk to avoid spoilers from my classmates who threatened to unleash them by the end of the day, waited in line outside Barnes and Nobles with my mom at midnight to buy J.K. Rowling’s last installment of the series, sequel Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the dozens of HP Funko Pops I have collected since then. Now Harry Potter was a trend, and whether people liked the series for the plot or were solely there for the hot characters is unknown. Yet I wondered why the 800 million users of Tik Tok decided to rediscover their comfort in fictional characters that were last on the big screens a decade ago? Just as J.K. Rowling is on her downfall over a thread of transphobic actions, her beloved work was rising all over again.
It all has to do with empathy. In our brains' empathy lives in a lobe called the right supramarginal gyrus. When we interact with humans in front of us we are always doing an unconscious scan to figure out how they are feeling. We read their body language, pay attention to their speech, and analyze if they are tenser in some areas than others. If we sense something is wrong we use our internal experience to project our emotions onto them by giving them hugs, squeezing their arms, patting their backs, etc. It's even easier to empathize with fictional characters because we have an emotional corridor between each other, where we can’t physically interact with them. Sadly, I will never be able to call Hermione on the phone for a chat after school.
And that is what makes fictional characters so endearing! We are left to fill in the blanks about who they are as a person and create alternate universes where they exist as real humans — aka every fanfiction on Wattpad ever. Because we don’t know fictional characters on a real-life level we tend to be more understanding towards them because we have a world’s eye view of their life. For example, let’s say the character on your favorite tv show was late to work because they just got evicted from their apartment and had to move out. But their boss doesn’t care and sees that as another sign that their employee is irresponsible. The viewer on the other hand will be a lot more empathetic because they’ll know the character's mother just died and cut them out of the will, her dog also just ran away, etc. The reason we read books, watch television and movies is to experience things we have not experienced before. To understand the external and internal of other people’s lives and how personal experiences contribute to the homogeneous beautiful mess that is the world.
But being in love or wanting to be BFFs with fictional characters from your childhood in particular— whether it be Ron Weasly, Prince Naveen, or Jessica Rabbit, goes further than empathy. It also has to do with the nostalgia syndrome our generation has. Elite Daily says the reason we are always nostalgic is that the past is viewed as “Always distorted, always yearned for, and always seen as better days. It keeps us from the truth of the present and the pain of reality. It’s seen as something beautiful, something irrevocable and somewhere that will always be better than where we are now.” Take for example Throwback Thursday, Playbuzz quizzes that tell you if you are a real 2000’s kid, even Y2K fashion has made a comeback. We aren’t the only generation that experiences nostalgia, but our parents and grandparents tend to show theirs by keeping photo albums and crumpled handwritten letters instead. My mother and I bonded because Harry Potter was also a symbol of her childhood, and there is no doubt this children’s classic will become nostalgic for generations to come.
Last year on Twitter #1stCartoonCrushes was trending after people shared the cartoon characters that played a role in their sexual awakening. From Tarzan, Shrek, and Maximilian Goof to Nala, Sally from Pixar’s Cars, and Jane from Tarzan; everyone found comfort in bonding over their first fictional character crush. It’s not unusual to crush on fictional characters as a child according to Dr. Kathryn Seifert, a psychologist who has studied immensely on child development and sexuality. “Children are not looking for a partner, they are trying to understand relationships … They are curious and learning about relationships and what they mean,” she says. While we crush on these characters we might subconsciously take on their traits as well. Psychologists call this “experience-taking” where we change our behaviors to match the characters we identify with. You’d be lying if you said you never looked up how to play quidditch so you could impress Harry. A friend of mine told me she had a sudden passion to excel in school because of Hermoine Granger, the childhood crush that made her realize she was lesbian.
We find comfort in these characters because they are a golden ticket back to our simpler days as a child. However, humans tend to back to the past with what, “psychoanalysis is referred to as a screen memory -- not a true recreation of the past, but rather a combination of many different memories, all integrated, and in the process all negative emotions filtered out.” So we remember that our first childhood crush was Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, but forget that the Titanic actually took place and affected real people — not just Jack and Rose. Similarly, with all the edits of Draco Malfoy going around the internet, people are forgetting that Draco is a mean, spoiled, and a petty bully who inflicts his pain onto others.
J.K. Rowling doesn’t approve of this Draco crush either. Six years ago in 12 Days of Pottermore, she said she believes there is “some unextinguished good at the heart of Draco” but she still considers him a character of "dubious morality." "Draco was not concealing a heart of gold under all that sneering and prejudice," Rowling informs fans, adding "and no, he and Harry were not destined to end up best friends." So the fanfictions of you and Draco sipping butterbeer at a summer carnival aren’t Rowling's cup of tea. However she did say she does understand the appeal of Tom Felton, the actor who played Draco in the films, who she laughed is "ironically, is about the nicest person you could meet."
So while you might not agree with POPSUGAR’s list that ranks: Cedric Diggory at #13, Harry Potter at #7, Dean Thomas (one of the only Black wizards !) at #3, and Neville Longbottom as #1 on the hottest Harry Potter Guys Chart; it is ok to have a deep attachment to fictional characters. We live in an age where joining fandoms is as easy as following an account on Instagram, goodbye to the days where you had to join pricey fan clubs just to connect with your mega crushes. There is nothing wrong with surrounding yourself in the warm yellow blanket called childhood because living in 2020 is rough and it can feel much easier to fall into the trap door of the past. As long as your crush on Michael B Jordan’s character of Killmonger doesn’t turn into you looking for guys on Tinder who have Wakandian blood — fall in love all you want.
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