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screams. Later, Charles claims that he was terrified of the slime. Walton states that Charles cannot really be afraid of the slime because Charles knows the slime cannot really hurt him. Rather, Walton claims, Charles imagines that he is afraid of the slime. Charles plays a game of make-believe in which he imagines that the slime exists, that it is coming towards him, that he is in grave danger, and that he is afraid of the slime. Part of this game of pretend is for Charles to act as scared as he would if he were actually in danger, but Walton does not think that Charles’s emotion is limited to actions—Charles feels scared as well. Charles’s response, which Walton calls “make-believe fear” or “quasi-fear,” feels the same as regular fear. It is make-believe not because it is devoid of real feeling but because it is based on Charles imagining he is in danger rather than believing he is in danger. Walton, recognizing that film viewers often feel things that they may not choose to feel, describes make-believe emotions as involuntary. You pretend to have the emotions whether you want to or not.

Walton’s theory provides an internally consistent explanation for the paradox of fiction. We’re happy when Link defeats Ganondorf not because we actually believe that he has saved Hyrule, but because we’re pretending. Just as we use the patterns of light on the screen to imagine that there is a hero named Link and that he defeats a villain named Ganondorf, we use these images to pretend that we are happy about these events. This response feels like a real emotion but is not because it is caused by a fictional situation. Or so goes the theory.

Problems with Pretending

Unfortunately, the pretend theory is not a good solution to the paradox of fiction. Noël Carroll criticizes the theory by arguing that if Charles is merely pretending to be scared of the slime, then he should be able to start and stop pretending at will, because pretending is a voluntary activity. Indeed, an essential part of the idea of pretending is that the person pretending is consciously choosing to treat one thing as another. When Tom pretends that a yardstick is a sword, he does this by choice. The notion that Charles is involuntarily pretending seems to stretch the meaning of pretending past its limits. Walton must agree that Charles’s pretending to be scared is involuntary because most readers and viewers do not voluntarily pretend to have emotions when reading books, watching films, or playing videogames. This issue highlights a significant difference between children’s games of make-believe and playing videogames. Walton says that when you see Link using the sail, you pretend that the image you see is a sail. Yet it is almost impossible not to see that image as a sail. You can’t just “stop pretending” and decide to see the image as a bundle of individual pixels. In contrast, Tom and Jane can stop pretending to be Link and Tetra at any time. They can just stop pretending that the yardstick is a sword and the cardboard tube is a telescope.

Tom and Jane also have a lot more freedom in their pretend play than you have in playing a videogame. They decide how to use the props in their fictional world. Tom can pretend the yardstick is a sword or a lantern or a pogo stick. Any of these choices work in the context of his pretend world. When playing a videogame, however, you don’t have that degree of freedom. It’s true that videogames are much more interactive than traditional media like films or books. You can choose how to move your character and, in some videogames, what your character looks like. But your choices are somewhat constrained. If you walked in on your friend playing Wind Waker and said, “Hey, you found the giant lollipop,” they would think you were nuts.

Also, when they are playing make-believe, children can use the same prop very differently. Jane might pretend that her cardboard tube is a telescope, but another kid can take it and pretend that it’s a megaphone. In videogames, players can’t do this. When you press the B button, Link swings