People naturally form connections with others, even when those others exist only in a fictional world. Humans possess empathy, the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings. Over time, this can develop into what psychologists describe as parasocial relationships. Readers become attached to characters, sometimes more so than real people. An important question arises in the process: Why do fictional characters often seem easier to trust than real individuals?
When characters feel trustworthy
When readers are given insight into a character’s thoughts, it becomes much easier to understand their actions. Even if those actions seem unreasonable at first. Readers are placed inside the character’s mind, where every decision is explained step by step. This enables cognitive empathy, which can be defined as understanding another person’s point of view.
A character like Victor in Frankenstein shows how quickly understanding can alter one’s judgment. His ambition drives him to ignore the consequences of his creations, which can come across as cruel. At the same time, his isolation and obsessive focus explain why he acts the way he does. Similarly, in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie’s behavior is shaped by past experiences that are gradually revealed to the reader. In each case, access to a character’s inner world shifts the response from judgment to understanding.
This deeper understanding changes how readers feel about fictional characters, encouraging a more thoughtful and forgiving response. Psychologists connect this back to cognitive empathy. Literature guides readers directly through a character’s inner world. Gaining perspective becomes much easier, allowing emotional understanding to develop naturally throughout the story.
When characters feel familiar
Fictional characters are usually written in a relatable way. Writers give them personalities, emotions, and experiences that feel familiar, or sometimes even qualities that readers admire and wish they possessed themselves. Such characters feel more human and emotionally recognizable, which helps readers form a stronger attachment to them from the beginning of the story. Psychologists have linked this to the idea of identification, where individuals emotionally connect with characters they see themselves in.
Relatability becomes stronger when characters behave in realistic ways. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet feels relatable because of how human her behavior is. She is confident and intelligent, but also quick to form judgments based on first impressions, something that resonates with many readers. Her flaws make her feel realistic rather than perfect. Characters like Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games create a similar effect. Her strong sense of responsibility and protectiveness feels grounded and emotionally believable. Rather than acting like a flawless hero, Katniss makes decisions based on survival and the desire to protect the people she cares about. Clear motivations like these make characters feel authentic and emotionally legible, building the reader’s trust.
In contrast, people in real life are not always easy to relate to. Everyone has different backgrounds and personalities. It is not always possible to see ourselves in others in the same way we do with fictional characters. While some people may share similar traits or emotions, others can feel completely unfamiliar. Real individuals are also shaped by complex and unseen circumstances. This makes their behavior less predictable and not always easy to interpret. Because of this, the sense of familiarity present in fiction is not always maintained in real life, which can make the people around us feel more distant and harder to fully connect with.
When characters feel safer
Characters provide emotional safety. Because fictional characters cannot respond or react, readers can engage with their emotions more freely and without the fear of saying the wrong thing or being misunderstood. The absence of real-world consequences also allows emotional investment to develop more naturally, as readers process a character’s experiences without pressure or discomfort. Psychologists call this feeling “emotional safety,” where secure and controlled environments foster emotional openness.
Characters typically feel safest to connect with when they display vulnerability. In Girl in Pieces, Kathleen Glasgow writes the main character with a raw vulnerability that encourages understanding rather than judgment. Openly revealing her struggles makes her feel deeply human and emotionally real. where Hazel and Augustus speak honestly about illness, fear, and mortality. Their reflections allow readers to engage with difficult emotions from a safe distance, creating emotional connection without forcing readers to experience those situations directly. This allows readers to connect with difficult emotions without experiencing them directly
In contrast, real-life emotional connections tend to feel less secure because they inherently involve uncertainty and unpredictability. Misunderstandings, judgment, or discomfort can quickly change the way a conversation feels, which makes emotional openness more difficult. Unlike fiction, where thoughts and emotions are carefully presented for the reader to understand, interactions in the real world often lack that same clarity. Because of this, opening up can feel complicated and emotionally risky, as there is no guarantee of empathy or understanding in return.
The comfort in the fictional world
Literature shapes the characters specifically for the readers. Readers gain access to a character’s inner world in a way that real life rarely allows, building a strong sense of familiarity and understanding. Because literature carefully reveals a character’s thoughts, emotions, and motivations, fictional characters frequently feel more trustworthy to many readers. Their actions seem clearer, their emotions seem more open, and their experiences are easier to connect with, even though they are not real people.
