What if your favourite characters were reading and writing “you”?

By Ayushi , BA Honours Psychology , 1st Year

Edited and Designed by Mannat ,  BA Honours Psychology , 2nd Year

What if the world you live in, is fiction in someone else's books? And what if that person is none other than the fictional characters from your books? Would Hermione find you relatable? Were you perhaps written by Jo March? Did Matilda find solace in reading you?

We often talk of parallel universes and its concept fascinates all those who are keen on science and facts, alongside those who delve in the world of dreams and imagination. Quantum physics is known for explaining such mystical sounding scientific concepts quite interestingly. The Many worlds interpretation theory conceptualizes branching of the universe on the basis of different realities originating from our choices. Spicing this up with a little imagination and drawing a metaphorical parallel to this theory, one could say that by choosing fiction, we are generating a different reality. And that reality in turn, to sort of balance the equation, is generating us.

As an aspiring writer myself, I often feel that it's not just me creating a character but the character also psychologically creates me. I wonder if somewhere beyond the Milky way; there's actually a cosmic interplay going on which makes me and my characters generate one another.

Simulation hypothesis suggests that our universe could be a simulation created by advanced beings. Making this parallel to religious context, these advanced beings could be gods, and most of the knowledge about gods of any religion comes to us from the respective religious books. This extends the initial idea a bit more, clearing it up in an ambiguous way.

In a nutshell, there are several strings of science and imagination, reality and fiction entangled together in our world. The answers to such “What ifs” are never truly found, however at the same time, paradoxically there are many answers and theories to them. But if this “What if” of mine is really true; I hope all my favourite characters are part of my fandom and love me, like I love them.