While watching a new episode of The Walking Dead, junior Blake Vetetoe recounts his reaction to Glenn’s ‘death’.

“I honestly had a heart attack. I sat on my couch and screamed,” said Vetetoe.

Many students experienced heartbreak over the recent ‘death’ of Glenn from The Walking Dead along with the previous characters who’ve died throughout the hit television show’s six seasons. Though, no one can tell if Glenn actually died or if he somehow was able to survive, avid watchers were still upset that his death could be a possibility.

“I got tears in my eyes and then just started going into denial,” said senior Logan Slater about Glenn’s ambiguous ‘death’ scene.

Being emotionally distraught over book characters specifically the young adult genre of fiction, is more common. Junior Brady Rose developed a bond to Matt Freeman from the Power of Five series by Anthony Horowitz.

“I felt a connection that was more of a relation. I felt like we were in many of the same circumstances; he was very alone and in need and I related to that on a very deep level.” said Rose.

The anime club, with over 40 members, meets regularly, allowing for the students to build a sense of community over their emotions or opinions about manga or animated television shows. President of anime club and junior, Chelsea Hidalgo, commonly finds herself forming emotional attachments to characters from her favorite animes.

“You see the characters kind of grow, and it sounds really weird to people who don’t watch anime, but after a couple of years it’s not strange. It’s kind of like reading a book except you see it versus imagining,” said Hidalgo.

Human attachment to characters is commonly looked down upon, whether someone doesn’t understand the reason behind it or they simply don’t enjoy wasting time and energy getting worked up over something that doesn’t affect them in a major way.

“It happens to me all the time, but I don’t understand why. It’s a waste of time, I mean, they’re fictional,” said junior Grace Cameron.

The media in which character attachments knows no bounds. Getting attached to a fictional character can happen through television, movies, books, comics, mangas, even animation or cartoons. Typically, human attachment to fictional lives are formed because of the relativity or comfort that people feel when they either read or watch the plot unfold in front of them, as though it’s them that is about to get taken down by walkers.