Emotional Responses

I am such a nerd. I freely admit this to any and all who might think to question the fact, not that I think my readers would question it. I am not only a fan of Star Trek and Star Wars, but I also count myself as a Whovian, a fan of BBC's Doctor Who. It's an amazing show that defines a completely different spectrum of science fiction than the other franchises I mentioned, using or ignoring the actual "science" parts in favor of a storyline that is one part children's fantasy, one part complex characters and characterizations, and one part running. Well, maybe two parts running. Well, maybe more. There's a lot of running.

But more to the point, I've recently gotten my wife hooked on it as well, and as we're rewatching the show, I'm realizing just how sad some of the best episodes are. When the Ninth Doctor left, she cried even though she didn't really like him. Just last night, we watched the last episode with Rose Tyler, and she cried. We had started with the Eleventh Doctor, and when we finally watched the midseason closer of series 7 and saw the Ponds leave the show, we both cried. (Yes, I'll admit it. If you didn't cry, you very well could be a dalek.)

So I'm just trying to figure out now, is this a part of how humanity works? Why do we consider stories that can make us weep like that to be superior? I mean, I may be making my wife cry with Doctor Who, but she has openly admitted that she enjoys the show.

It could be that we simply enjoy finding works that can make us feel emotions that deeply. After all, we don't cry for poorly-written characters or badly-executed stories; only detailed stories will do. But by that logic, we should be happy for characters that do well, and shouldn't that be a more desirable outcome, a better way to do stories? You don't want your audience to walk away from your work in tears, do you?

But that would make for a boring story. Who would like a story where the main character is happy all the way throughout? After all, it is in the darkest times that we find out who we are. Conflict and yes, tragedy, define us in ways we can't even name. In the end, I guess the question kind of answers itself: we enjoy these types of stories, the ones that don't always end well, because they are unquestionably human stories. Every life has its ups and downs. And while we may not see the ups very often in our stories (though Doctor Who does have many of them, thank goodness), we come together over the downs because each and every one of us has been there.

I'll just have to remember to keep a box of tissues at hand next time we watch the good Doctor. For my wife, I mean. Yeah...