Fandom meta: The links between shipping and empathy/sympathy for fictional characters

[chameleon_irony]

When I learn new theories in class, often the first thing I think about is how they can be applied to fiction and fandom. "So when Anakin did this, this is what was happening in his head... If Padmé were to do that, this is how she might justify it to herself; these are the defense mechanisms she might use..." Occasionally, there's also "So this is

Comments

[moralrelativist]

I've always favoured slightly awkward pairings, pairings that have no conceivable cannon basis but which have a very specific dynamic. I'm a big fan of Hermione/Lucius, for example, and I was a Snarry fan for years. In a similar (but less extreme) way, they're a bit like your Harry/Bellatrix example: canonically impossible, and probably requiring some serious character re-alignment for fic purposes

[chameleon_irony]

I used to write Lucius/Hermione, but I mostly lost interest in it. I'm not sure why.

what psychological keys make a fic pairing work?

I don't think there are any universal "keys" that can make a pairing work for everyone. There are things that can make it work for certain types of people, but there will always be others who won't like it.

To find any such keys, we need to understand what makes people ship pairings. I'm working on a theory, a rather complex one, with formulas.

I'm in the psychophysics dept. of psychology. We're all about people as manipulatable machines.

I've studied behaviorism and the theories of learning (classical and operant conditioning), which theoretically suggest you can make people feel/do anything with the right training. The possibilities are fascinating. It doesn't work with everyone, though.

We once managed to condition a lecturer into accidentally falling off the lecture stage.

Wow. How did you guys do it?

[moralrelativist]

Psychophysics is a bit different to behaviourism and learning, as it's (technically) a type of neuroscience. Rather than controlling behaviour, the logic goes that if you can stimulate specific brain areas you can trigger a measurable, predictable response, and that the same programming underlies everyone to some extent. My speciality is the visual cortex, from which you can provoke spectacular responses in this manner

[chameleon_irony]

That sounds very impressive. There are people who don't believe that kind of conditioning works at all - we like to believe in free will and self-determination. So stories like that one shock and amaze us. I'm jealous because the stuff you are learning seems much more interesting and practical than what I'm learning. ;)

[moralrelativist]

Heh, it's just different angles on the same thing, I think.

Interesting you bring up free will - neuroscience has got that one down, too (we don't have it - the studies on it are really interesting. It's all to do with consciousness being a by-product of the nervous system). Fascinating stuff.

I dunno about more practical though; my class does resemble a Mad Scientist Training Camp to a worrying degree, to the extent where my flatmate has advertised our spare room under the heading "Eng Lit student and future mad scientist seeks flatmate". MOOHOOHAHAHAHAHAAAAA.