Emotions and Fictions: How Do I Give A Shit?

In an earlier article entitled "Siding With a Murderer: Confessions of An Immoralist, which can be found here: http://cliffsmovietalk.blogspot.com/2016/01/siding-with-murderer-confessions-of.html, I asked a question concerning my tendency to cheer or root for Jason, Freddy, or Michael of Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween, respectively.  The question was: am I immoral, bad, wrong, evil etc. because I cheer for Jason to murder his victims even though Jason and his victims are fictional?  Built into this question, and the article as a whole, is an assumption, namely - that real people are in fact able to have real emotional reactions to fictional characters and fictional happenings.  So, the purpose of this follow-up article is to address that assumption and elaborate on it because it's an important piece of our experience when we watch movies, listen to songs, and/or read novels etc. that goes unnoticed and ignored.

If you have ever read a novel, poem, watched a movie, or heard a song and were moved emotionally

by it, then you have experienced what is commonly referred to as the fictional paradox.  The fictional paradox, to put it simply, is when a real person has a real emotional reaction to something that happens to a character, who is fictional or not real, in a movie, song, poem, novel, or painting etc..  This is called a paradox for one primary reason which can be stated as such: how and why is it possible for real people to have real emotional reactions to non-real characters in a fictional space?

If you have ever experienced this paradox, then you should be bothered by it because it should disturb your rationality a little bit.  Essentially what the paradox is implying is that every time you have an emotional reaction to a fictional movie character in a fictional space, your feelings are irrational.  However, I doubt that you would would accept that your real emotional reaction is irrational (I know I don't accept this).  My emotional reactions are real when I watch any SAW movie and the tortures that the characters endure gets under my skin.  I do not want to deny that those reactions are real.  I want to say that they are real and rational, but the paradox slaps me in the face and screams:

"No, your emotions are irrational, nobody is REALLY being tortured.  Those characters are NOT REAL."  Yet, I still want to argue that my emotional reaction is REAL despite my knowing that the characters are fictional and in a fictional space.  But how and why????

The 'how and why' pieces of puzzle are so crucial because without the 'how and why,' we basically have a huge gap in our understanding of the human condition; our condition.  I don't know about you but I am hostile to the notion that I am unable to explain a part of my own self.  In other words, since I have access to my own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and moods, then I should be able to explain why and how it is that I can have an emotional response to a scary movie, romantic comedy, poem, or novel.  However, this task seems to be endlessly complicated, yet we go on watching movies, reading poems and novels, listening to music without giving the paradox any considerations.  I find this part of the human condition dissatisfying, in that, we can be aware of something that needs explanation but because its hard we just ignore it.

So, the bottom-line is that the paradox lingers in and around us all the time and we ignore it. However, I challenge anybody to attempt to enter the ring and spar with the paradox and explain how and why we are able to have real emotional responses to fictional characters in a fictional space.  I am eager to hear thoughts and opinions on solving this paradoxical puzzle.