I find it rather hilarious how strongly people end up associating an actor with the character the said actor is portraying. This, to the extent that they actually attribute the said character’s traits (good and bad) to the actor himself.

Sometimes I wonder whether people are actually capable of separating fact from fiction in their mind

I see this happen worryingly often, in fact, sometimes I wonder whether people are actually capable of separating fact from fiction in their mind.

Getting into the spirit of things is all very well. And I’m the first one to applaud an active imagination – heavens know that I’m very liable to pleading guilty for allowing mine to run away with me at times.

However, active imagination or not, I do try not to lose sight of the fact that that guy who’s playing a serial killer on some movie is not actually a serial killer in real life.

And that actress who is sleeping with all the characters of the movie? Chances are she isn’t really such a hussy in real life either. Well, actually she may very well be given the rather colourful lifestyles Hollywood celebs tend to lead, but you get my point.

What has brought all this on, you might ask. You can blame this week’s rant on the season finale of The Walking Dead a few weeks ago and the events that followed.

Before you continue reading, if you are a fan and you still haven’t caught up with the series, I warn you that you’re likely to find big, fat spoilers right ahead. So if you don’t like having your fun ruined, move on to the next page right now.

For all the rest, a sizeable chunk of the plot in the second part of Season 3 relied on making the viewers hate Andrea, the hot blonde who winds up separated from the main group and inadvertently defects to the antagonist’s base, sleeping with him and being branded with a huge ‘A’ in the process.

As every self-respecting viewer knows, sleeping with the enemy and retaining your character’s popularity is actually more implausible than having the whole US succumb to a zombie threat.

Within a couple of episodes, Andrea became the most hated character on the show. Pretty understandable, all things considered. Hell, even I found myself shaking my fist at the telly a couple of times.

What is not understandable, on the other hand, is the way a lot of viewers are transferring said hatred to Laurie Holden, who happens to be a real-life actress playing Andrea. And by hatred, I don’t mean a couple of sneers thrown in her direction on the geek threads, but actual death threats.

Yep, apparently fans were so miffed at Andrea’s general behaviour (the straw that broke the camel’s back, apparently, was the episode where she shoots Daryl, one of the most well-loved characters on the show) that they figured, hey, let’s make her pay.

In the meantime, who cares that Andrea doesn’t exist and is merely a product of the script-writers’ imagination?

This ridiculous hatred is not limited to those mad people in far-off lands either, it is also very much evident on our own home turf. The number of local fans who denounced the poor, unsuspecting Holden as a total bitch is rather unnerving.

Wake up people – it’s just a role. Mistaking fiction for real life sure is fun in the short term, but tends to create problems when indulged in once too often.

rdepares@timesofmalta.com