Fiction? Nah.

Fictional characters are real. In fact, fictional places are real. As real as anything else you can think of. Yeah, I said it. Partially because I hope it'll be shocking, but mostly because it's true.

Sherlock Holmes? Real. Tom Sawyer? Real. Frankenstein? Real. Roland Deschain of Gilead, gunslinger and last of the line of Eld? Definitely real. Every one of those names I mentioned (well, almost every), you recognized. You probably had an image of that person pop up into your head, and maybe even know a story or two about something they did or who they are.

Let's try some more. George Washington. Harrison Ford. Adolf Hitler. Thomas Edison. I would wager that with each of those names, you were able to picture what they looked like, and briefly remembered a few facts you know about each of those people. Interesting that both lists elicit incredibly similar reactions.

My argument is, at its most base, quite simple. They're real because they have to be. If they weren't real, we wouldn't be able to readily bring to mind information about them. Sherlock Holmes solves crimes by using his incredible powers of observation and his exceptional use of deductive logic. James Bond is a secret agent with a license to kill, who works at MI6.

In an effort to better illustrate my point, allow me to explore some of the arguments for why they are not real, and how I would deal with said arguments.

You can't interact with fictional characters.

This is true. I highly doubt that I'll ever be saved from a burning building by Spiderman or go on an archeological adventure with Indiana Jones. Of course, I'll also likely never have an opportunity to interview Abraham Lincoln about the horrors of the Civil War. President Lincoln died long before I was even born. I'll never be able to talk to him, or shake his hand. And yet, despite my being unable to interact with him in any way, he is still considered to be real.

Fictional characters don't occupy physical space.

Since when did a physical presence become a requirement of reality? We deal with intangible realities on a daily basis. Emotions are considered real, and impact us in a very powerful way. "Happy," however, does not have a physical form. You cannot weigh "happy." It doesn't have a density or a mass, and it isn't affected by wind resistance. "Happy" is still considered as real as the computer upon which you are reading this.

The places that these characters are from don't exist.

This one is easy. Ask anyone this question, "Where does Alice go when she has tea with the Mad Hatter and meets the Red Queen?" You'll almost inevitably receive the answer, "Wonderland." However, if Wonderland doesn't exist, then how was Alice able to travel there? How does one go to a place that isn't? (And on a side note, if Alice doesn't exist, the answer to that question should be, "Who?")

If these fictional locations are real, how come we can't go there?

The quick answer? It's too hard. Allow me to explain. Saturn's largest moon is called Titan. We know it's there because we've seen it. But I don't know of anyone that's been there. It's simply too difficult. You'd need a massive rocket ship, stores and stores of fuel and food, some way to continuously make oxygen, and so on and so on. It's hard. It's really easy for me to walk down to the gas station on the corner. It's a little more difficult for me to get to work in my car. It's a lot more difficult for me to get on a jet and fly to Europe, and it's really really difficult to get to Mid-World. (Sometimes, you have to die. Geez.)

Ultimately, if these characters or places didn't exist, we wouldn't know anything about them. If there were no such thing as Luke Skywalker, then Mark Hamill would not have been able to play his role in a movie that detailed his adventures. There would be no role to play.

There are lots of categories of people in this world. Celebrities. Doctors. Fictional characters.

All real.