Both fictional characters and the actors who portray them shape fans’ identities by inspiring fans to take on similar attitudes, values and behaviors. Having heroes and idols, such as the Winchesters or Castiel, is a normal part of identity development, allowing us to try on identities and forge our own in the process.
Supernatural has reflected this pathologizing view of fans, along with more positive models, in its tradition of incorporating its fans into multiple “meta” episodes (meta being a colloquialism for metafiction, fiction that somehow alludes to its own fictional nature).
One of the first researchers to conduct psychological studies of fans coined the frightening term parasocial relationship to describe the fan’s one-way knowledge of a celebrity, which is not reciprocated, and even warned of the possibility of erotomanic delusions if a fan went too far down this slippery slope of fannish enthusiasm. Psychological explanations for why people become fans have ranged from pathological - loneliness, attachment problems, even delusions-to an emphasis on normal developmental and social processes, such as identify formation, the importance of play, and the need to belong. But what can live on for many generations (besides the reruns) is the confidence that comes from recognizing our brokenness among our fellows embracing it and mending it with the virtues of love, courage, loyalty, certitude, and independence. This show, like everything in our finite universe, will one day end.
I call it the “inner orphan.” (c)Įmbrace your inner orphan. I have a theory as to what the “something” is that sits in the seat of the unconscious and is recognizable below words. (c)įamily is that something in you that resonates with and recognizes that something in another. (c)Īnd man oh man do they love to make the monsters burn. Maybe even hungry for it, even though you know that winning can break your heart. If you’re ready, if you’ve trained and armed yourself with weapons and knowledge, then you are ready for that fight.
It knows you, and sometimes it goes hunting for you. There is an argument to be made, at least from a “larger world” perspective, that once you peer into the darkness and see what’s there then it also sees you. Overall, it's a fairly interesting read into how angst becomes angst and more delicious topics how the psychological tendencies of imaginary characters came to be the way they were portrayed.īeing born to fire isn’t a flaw. Some ideas branch out into trauma theory, the nature of fandom, parasocial relationships, family systems theory, triangulation, attachment theory. This piece of fiction seems to have been done with regard to human psychology somewhat more advanced than 101 (or a lot of cherry-picking happened or not). Fiction sometimes is wiser than reality in that it shows the most salient points of some stylized idea.
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