Children can move effortlessly between play and absorption in a story, as if both are forms of the same activity. The taking of roles in a narratively structured game of pirates is not very different than the taking of roles in identifying with characters as one watches a movie. It might be thought that, as they grow towards adolescence, people give up childhood play, but this is not so. Instead, the bases and interests of this activity change and develop to playing and watching sports, to the fiction of plays, novels, and movies, and nowadays to video games. In fiction, one can enter possible worlds. When we experience emotions in such worlds, this is not a sign that we are being incoherent or regressed. It derives from trying out metaphorical transformations of our selves in new ways, in new worlds, in ways that can be moving and important to us.
* pirate: 해적 ** incoherent: 일관되지 않은