It’s not that I had an imaginary friend…
It was more like I would get so caught up in a story that the characters would never leave me. After I left a book or a film or a cartoon, a troupe of characters was always following close behind. They lived in my mind, but they walked with me, talked with me. We acted and played together.
The greatest stories that captured my imagination as a child were stories like: The Hobbit, The Mists of Avalon, anything to do with dragons and unicorns, Greek Mythology (any world mythology really), Mortal Kombat (90s kid), The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Ball Z, and the works of Miyazaki, just to name a few.
Aw yeee, Link to the rescue!
As I got older, my tastes grew and all I wanted to do was read and read and read. Anything I read became a part of the world I lived in and I carried it with me wherever I would go. The Outsiders, Jane Austen, Jack Kerouac, Dorothy M. Johnson, and Harry Potter (duh), to name a few.
Aaaaand this really hasn’t stopped. I still have my imaginary world I love to live in. Sometimes, that world seems more real to me than this world does. My imagination has never stopped growing and I still try to hold onto my childish sense of wonder!
I think we all can afford to have a bit of an imagination ^_^
This is still the world I visit the most.
As I’ve grown, my characters have grown. Situations and stories in my mind have developed and changed. And the original characters in my brain are starting to make it onto their own pages. People and places that have never been written down before or known to anyone else besides myself.
I think imaginary friends grow imagination and creativity and I don’t think I’ll ever stop having them around, inviting them over. And if I ever want to visit them, they’re just a page away.
Does anyone have a favorite world or character they met in a book/movie/video game that follows them around? Share with me, I’d love to know!
Slim Crescent Moon 
I have two diametrically opposed characters from two movies which have stuck with me. The first is the high Lama from the movie Lost Horizon, whose overriding philosophy was ” Be Kind”. His attitude of calmness and detachment stuck with me particularly when he chooses the Ronald Coleman character to be his replacement at Shangri La. Coleman argues that he is not fit to lead the community and the Lama simply answers “it is not my problem, it is your problem” over and over again. He finally wears Coleman down who agrees to take the post, but as we see in the movie, not without much difficulty.
The second, a polar opposite is Don Corleone from the Godfather. His cunning, strength, ruthlessness, greed and courage in taking care of his family in the context of Godfather movies, is surprisingly admirable. Some ways like Arjuna, he is born into a caste which values honor, wealth, family and violence to achieve their ends. When the Godfather kills it is in the spirit of non attachment, it is business, not personal. Now granted he does not achieve spiritual enlightenment through these actions, but then he does not have Krishna as his consigliere.
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Krishna as consigliere! hahaha. That’s a good one – I’ll have to tell the nuns. Uhhh yeah those are quite the opposite characters. I haven’t seen the first movie, have to watch it sometime soon!
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The first man I ever fell in love with was Aragorn, and all men have fallen short of his perfection ever since for he is always there in my minds eye, the yardstick by which all others can only fail 😉 The Mists of Avalon is one of my top favourite books ever, and Morgaine has stayed with me forever as she was and is who i wanted to be in spirit.
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Ugh I know Aragorn…. Who didn’t fall in love with him? And then the movie came out and Viggo was just so perfect looking.
And for Mists, it totally got me into Arthurian legends and then boom! Your world gets even bigger.
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Loved this post. Seems many of us are writing about books and the characters we fell in love with when we were small.
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Aw thank you! That’s why they are there right? To inspire us.
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