Character

I have taken to reading more fiction in the last few years, once I emerged from the stranglehold of my father's influential aversion to it.

There are two things that I would like to point out about characters in books:

One is that I am often impressed and wooed by the noble, upstanding, charismatic, and absolute qualities that a character is given in a book, but I always wonder if that character were real, how would they handle new situations outside of the book? How would they handle mundane obstacles? Because in the book they are usually solving bigger, more important issues and never have to worry about tying their literary shoes. What would they do if they were cut while waiting in a line, or made fun of?

The second point I would like to make is that a character in a book is allowed to do more evil and be weaker than a real person and still be revered and admired from a literary standpoint. I suppose it is because they are not real, but some of the themes echo real life obviously. Yet I feel infinitely more willing to politely pity the weak in a book, than I do on the bus, for instance.