My understanding of culture is that one of art's purposes is to provoke an emotional response. Art is made up of drawings, paintings, sculpture, literature, movies, graphic novels, and even video games. They can make you feel happy, excited, sad, disgusted... If an artist or a video game developer spends thousands of hours on their work and the only response they get is "that is pretty", they would probably feel terrible. A developer would feel happy if they learn that players are able to make an emotional connection to the characters because that means they have made a memorable and high quality experience.Sofus said:Well this is highly disturbing. If a fictional character can provoke strong emotional responses, then i'm somewhat worried what some of you might do or how you would react when a family member dies.
These aren't disturbing or unnatural, they're just part of what it means to be human. If you tell a scary story to someone while on a camping trip and they actually get scared by it, does that mean they'll go catatonic when a real terrifying experience rears its ugly head? Not necessarily. Should we withhold any reactions we feel from every single movie, play, tv show, novel, and game simply because we know it is fictitious? Of course not! We care about and react to everything around us, regardless of its true nature.