The Hero/Heroine Fantasy

Dear Papabear,

When I was younger I was bullied, but I would always imagine myself as a superhero named Wolf Girl. She was the queen of a planet called Tacton, had green, light-green, blue, light-blue, and yellow scales.

I always imagined saving people and sacrificing myself, usually imagining myself dying in many different ways (even saving those who bullied me). But as I’ve grown older my infatuation with being the hero has lessened and being the “damsel in distress” has increased.

Now I see myself as a Leafeon furry, or a wolf furry that has an injured and horrific life, but I often find I’d rather live that life than my own....

My OC Leaf, who is the furry I’d rather be, lives a now peaceful life with a husband and daughter... I have feelings for the person who owns the husband OC. I even have my head in the clouds, imagining meeting him in real life.

Why would my head be in the sky wanting the horrific life Leaf suffered instead of the life I live now?... And wanting to die for others all the time... or simply wanting to die (as in the RP she always seems to die a lot but comes back to life too)?

Leaf

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Hi, Leaf,

My early life has some similarities to yours. As a cub, I was bullied as well and was very much the outsider, rejected by almost all my classmates because I was shy and unathletic. I, too, imagined myself as an amazing furry, only for me it was being a dragon, usually, who was very powerful and lived in a cave with his hoard of gold but would also help knights and other adventurers on their quests. Sometimes, too, I was a wolf or a stag with a proud rack of antlers who lived in a cartoon parallel world rather reminiscent of the ones you see in “Marry Poppins” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks.”

I would say it is not uncommon for someone who is a frequent victim of bullying to have such fantasies. In fact, I think that is why a lot of young people get into furry—because they are unhappy with their lives and themselves in some way and wish to become much more, such as a skinny kid who is picked on wanting to be a muscular wolf or gorilla or some such. In your case, you prove yourself to be better than your enemies not only physically but also morally in that you save the bullies from danger, too.

Now, the death scenario. This is a psychologically valid construct in that it is a kind of bid for attention. Most people who are bullied are the kind that are socially ignored by their peers. They feel invisible. In your fantasies you become this amazing heroine, and the heroism becomes all the more dramatic when you lay down your life. The result of this is that you have shown those around you how incredibly noble you are and you get psychological gratification in knowing they will weep over your dead body and miss you very much. But! How can you enjoy their sadness over your death if you are dead? Therefore, you must come back to life to observe their sadness, and then, even better, their utter joy when they see that you are not really dead.  It is, rather, something you see a lot in movies, too, such as the “death” and rebirth of the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast.” Baloo does a great job of it in "Jungle Book."

Why would you prefer this to the later life of Leaf when has a happy life with a spouse and daughter? For the same reason we don’t care what happens to Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella/Snow White/Sleeping Beauty/Ariel and the Prince,  Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and many more after they reach that “happy ever after” stage: it’s BORING.

There is your explanation, then, Leaf. Life is more interesting when it includes tragedy, for without tragedy there is no need to be a hero or heroine, and we love heroes and heroines and enjoy imagining ourselves as them.

Hugs,

Papabear