Understanding

If you've been watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, you'll know that Lydia and Lizzie have finally made up, much to everyone's relief and joy. I know I have been very emotionally invested in this story, but one thing that stuck out to me was the intro to episode 87, "An Understanding."

Lizzie was in tears because of the awful hole in the relationship between her and her sister, and she realized just how much misunderstanding that had been going on. That's the thing about this story—while it is a love story, it's really a story about pride and prejudice. I love the LBD because they are able to focus on Lizzie's own prejudice, not just with Darcy, but with almost every character.

But I empathize with her, because being prejudiced is easy to do. I hate being judgmental, but I do it all the time. I assume that I know enough about a person's life to make decisions about their needless faults, regardless of their background. It's even worse because I spend so much time, through journaling and writing, exploring the ways that a person's past can affect who they are. Why do I forget it when I actually come into contact with others?

Recently there have been multiple instances where I hear, for the first time, a certain detail or story about someone's past, and suddenly everything clicks. Maybe I was irritated because I thought they had no good reason to be a certain way, but who am I to decide what kind of person they should be? And now that I've come to an understanding, everything about their character makes sense. And somehow I don't mind their faults anymore.

So that's something not only Lizzie Bennet needs to work on, but I need to work on it too. "Seeing from other points of view," as Darcy would put it. And reserving judgement before I come to understand somebody else.

Fairytales

There's something I find interesting about people's connection to fantasy stories, whether in books, movies, or some other format. We love them. They're riddled with clichés, usually fairly predictable, but we love them. We love every time the hero conquers the seemingly unbeatable odds or wins a great romance.

The other day, I was watching Disney's Tangled, and I thought about how utterly unrealistic everything was. Not just the magic healing spells or the ridiculous length of Rapunzel's hair or the fact that no matter how far Maximus jumps, he always lands perfectly. I thought about how a daughter, an only child, isolated from the world, would hold up under the emotional manipulation that Mother Gothel put her through. Or how Rapunzel felt the amazing connection to the lanterns and was able to remember the day she was born. Or how the first guy that came into her life happened to be the right one, and how wonderful Flynn's transformation was.

In stories like these, there isn't just the obvious magic that the fairies or wizards or drops of sunlight provide. There is some kind of deeper magic, the force of good, that prevails throughout any fairytale. This is the magic that brings together all the right people at the right time. This is the magic that makes sure things don't stay cursed and miserable for too long. It guarantees that good will triumph in the end.

But this magic isn't confined to fairytales. Many, many works of fiction have that thread, that underlying surety that the story will fit together exactly the way it should. That the ending will be the right ending. That the author knows what he or she is doing.

I think that's what draws people to fairytales, and any kind of story. We want to believe that good will triumph in the end, that our lives will be patched up in all the right ways, that we, just like fictional characters, will meet all the right people at the right times.

All things working together for good. That's the story people love.

Living in Fiction

If you anything about me, you know that I love reading. I love being submersed in an amazing, fictional world, and being pulled along for the story.

This goes for any story. Books, of course, are my favorite format, but there are many formats to tell a story. Movies. Graphic novels. Even a web series can be a phenomenal and touching look into a character's life.

Last year I started watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, one such web series, a modern-day video blog adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I loved it from the beginning--Pride and Prejudice is such a wonderful and classic love story, and the team behind the web series is amazing in how they adapt and develop everything. The characters just draw you in, expressing the ups and downs in hilarious and meaningful ways.

But lately, things have taken a turn. Recent events in the web series are the equivalent of Lydia's running away in P&P, but it's so much more heartbreaking for this Lydia. It's gotten to the point where I've told interested friends to avoid starting to watch the series because I don't want to inflict the emotional trauma on them.

Or it could be that I just get too involved. If I care about something, chances are I care about it a lot. And fictional stories and characters are no exception. In fact, I'm amazed at how much I can care for someone who doesn't actually exist.

It's not a bad thing, necessarily. In many parts of my life, I tend to become emotionally invested, even if I don't have to be. I think that I, and perhaps many other people, simply like to be emotionally engaged. We like to hear stories and respond to them. We like to connect with other people, real or fictional. And I think that's wonderful.

So if a narrative can grab me with the emotional power of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries or the Fault in Our Stars or Les Miserables, all the better. I continue to breathe fiction, learning more about my own emotions and other people's amazing stories.