Oh, man, there are so many answers to this question! The baddies in any book that has them – the murderers, psychopaths, abusers, con artists, manipulators, power-crazy narcissists… etc. None of whom I’d enjoy being in the vicinity of. But that’s sort of the obvious answer, and while true, there are others I’d prefer not to meet as well. There are so many characters I adore from books. Everyone from Matilda (in Roald Dahl’s book), Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables), Scout and Jem Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird), to Cassandra Mortmain (I Capture the Castle). I adore all of these characters, as well as many, many more. I love the stories I’ve read about them, the way they’ve handled life’s challenges, and the way they’ve developed through the stories I’ve read.
I worry, though, that if I were to meet them in real life they wouldn’t be as I know them from the page. That they’d have changed or become harder. That they would have compromised themselves to navigate the adult world (in the case of those who were children when I met them in books, as the examples above were) or lost the wonder and openness that I loved so much about them when I read their stories. People change, all the time. The people who you are so close to at one point in your life can become unrecognizable later. They can betray or disappoint you. But the characters in books are static. You may understand them differently when you read them at a different point in your own life because you’ve changed, but they never do. There’s something comforting about knowing that they’re still there, right where you left them, and that you can go back and visit them anytime you want – anytime the darkness or despair or pain or heartache of the real world becomes too much. There’s a magic in that, and it’s priceless. So I wouldn’t want to bring them out of their world and into this one, because I need them right where they are.
What about you guys? Anyone else feel this way about characters they love? Or do you only want to avoid the bad guys in books and wish you could meet your favourites IRL?
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