Discussion What Makes A Character Feel Real?

The characters who are discriminated against for being different can have a feeling of realism seeing as how discrimination is so prevalent in this world.

 

Realistic does not equal to 'feel like a real'.

Making up a story about golems that follow a the set of rules in which that world was made is realistic, but they aren't characters that feel real. They are just characters, set of elements that are there and are considered as such.

 

Mindless beings dont even qualify as characters. And you know exactly what I meant.

 

As our conceptions of realism don't seem to match, let me phrase a question instead.

We are talking under the premise of a thread that asks us what makes a character different from another one, making us feel how 'real' he is. Why are we even arguing over something subjective to begin with?

 

What is 'mind'? What makes a golem with an artificial mind differentiate from an organic being with a 'real' mind?

 

I really wonder whos the one with a flawed concept.

 

Kek.

 

I'm with Feng Tian on this one. Depending on what the character is, I don't necessarily need it to have human emotions and flaws for me to relate to it. I once read a dusty old sci-fi short story I forget the name of. In it, the main character was some amoeba thing from a different planet that used up its life just to say hello to a visiting human before it died. It didn't exhibit any particularly human characteristics but it still felt real and believable. It was compelling enough to keep me turning the pages right to the end and I'm still thinking about it 10 years later.

Anyway, to answer the OP. Sometimes it's an aspect of their character: their beliefs, a tic. Sometimes it's the situation they're in. Sometimes it's how the author builds up the world around them. There's a lot of things that can bring me into a story and have me invested in a character, but those are a few of the main ones.

 

They have a recognizable personality that is much more filled in than a blank page. You can imagine how they would react in a situation differently than other characters. You can understand their motives for doing things, even when the character themself doesn't say why.

The characters actions make much more of a difference than what they say.
For example, a character can tell you they are filial a thousand times, but then abandon their family for no strong reason, their character is not filial, it does not matter what the character or the author says.

TL;DR:
What makes a character....

• feel real is that they are a unique character.
• unique, is that you can easily identify them.
• have a character at all, is that their actions have reasons behind them.
• seem bland and unreal, is that their actions do not have reasons behind them.

That is my understanding of it at this moment in time.

 

The character needs to experiences losses and accept them instead of getting everything his way or being compensated by "heaven" with something better to make up for his losses

 

I guess for me to feel like a character to feel real for me is ummm.. has more to do on how the character respond and thoughts to situation and events they are in and maybe the outcome not going ideally on how they want?