Talkin' Walton: Fear and Fiction

No matter what, there is certainly fear felt when something ominous or grotesque happens in fiction, there is a reaction. Walton claims though, that there can be no "real" emotion behind this. That we are telling ourselves it is make-believe and playing along. He claims we can feel quasi-emotions toward them, which are in fact real emotions. This is just a circular issue that the theory can’t get around. I feel real sentiment towards Thor when he appears in the Avengers movie. I feel fear when the zombies come breaking down the door, even if it is quasi-sentiment or not, it is still a real emotional experience. There are some aspects to the theory that make sense in some situations, like that a lot of our emotions come out of some realistic anchor but that does not apply to everything.