Stop Caring?

One of things I've been contemplating over the last few weeks is the notion of caring. People caring about other people is one thing, though only works well if the people you care for do the same for you. Which as I've been coming to know, isn't something easy to figure out some days.

Yet another type of caring I've seen can be about fictional characters, and I've begun wondering how wise that is.

When you care about something or someone, that gives them or it a certain level of power over you. Rather than doing things that might suit you best, you put the interests of the person or thing above what you may initially want at least.

This is fine with people, again as long as they care for you in return as well, yet when you take that over to entertainment like comic characters I have to wonder if that is a good thing.

Yes it can be fun and easy at times if a character strikes a personal chord with you, to look forward to reading their adventures. You come to feel as if they are a friends to you, who you enjoy visiting every month. Living vicariously through their highs and lows.

Yet I often wonder if that doesn't leave you open to taking a certain fall. One of the most common things is that no matter the character, there will come a time when the writing on the book will be subpar. Yet if you care about the character, you'll often find yourself continuing to buy it out of some sense of loyalty.

Without that level of involvement a reader might focus more on the things that make them happy. Where if the started gravitating to the stories they like, rather than focusing on who stars in them, they would enjoy comics more.

Yet too often in the current industry you don't see that. Whether it is the readers or the creators, there seems to be more importance on who the characters are, rather than what or how the stories are done.