There’s a sense in which all protagonists are antiheroes. Most, when we meet them, are flawed and partial and only become truly heroic if and when they manage to change. Any attempt to find a single reason why we find characters root worthy is probably destined to fail. There isn’t one secret to creating empathy but many. The key lies in the neural networks. Stories work on multiple evolved systems in the brain and a skilled storyteller activates these networks like the conductor of an orchestra, a little trill of moral outrage here, a fanfare of status play over there, a tintinnabulation of
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