As the ancient rhetors understood and employed it, pathos was the concept linked directly to the emotions of the audience. No matter the ethos or logos used, relating to the rhetorician’s experiences or education, a rhetorician could rely on making a personal, emotional connection that held the potential to sway even a hostile crowd, as hostility provides more potential than apathy.
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series deals with pathos in a way that touches its readers across a broad spectrum, one that often holds a reader’s interest well past the time of childhood attachment. In her use of pathos, Rowling uses a tactic not often seen: pathos across the formative years of a child. Readers meet Harry Potter as a, to put it bluntly, neglected and emotionally abused child, and an orphan to sink the emotional hooks deeper. The Harry Potter fanbase got to watch their beloved character grow, learn, and fail at times; with it all leading to his heroic destiny being fulfilled and a peace shared with his family.
In stark and bloody contrast, there is Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead; a graphic novel and television series dealing with a global extinction event caused by an unknown virus or bacteria that reanimates the dead and makes them voracious devourers of what were once their fellow human beings.
While Rowling forges emotional connections with her audience through hope, loyalty, and bravery, Kirkman engages the feelings of his audience via a darker, though by no means incorrect, tone. As seen in promotional material, the tagline for one particular season of The Walking Deads reads, “Fight the Dead. Fear the Living.” In those two short sentences, the emotional drive behind The Walking Dead is clear, Kirkman’s world is about survival, and its is their own living, breathing kind that the survivors must fear.While Rowling and Kirkman’s use of pathos can be seen as opposite ends of an emotional spectrum, the result that is the same. Two fan cultures have grown from both fictional worlds. From university Quidditch teams to Walking Dead inspired charity walks, both of these works would not have the same impact if not for the masterful use of pathos.
One element both writers use to create an environment of strain and danger is the erosion, or complete destruction, of the world as their characters, hence the readers, know it. A rising power of evil, Lord Voldemort, creates a wake of death and chaos while the victims of a virus, the unfortunate people of The Walking Dead, create a world of constant threat and harsh living conditions. In both, we see not only how the main characters respond, but also how their respective civilizations react. Speaking to human tendencies, we see characters from both stories that represent the choices made in order to deal with extreme circumstances. There is loyalty and bravery, but readers and viewers also see craven cowardice and rationalized betrayal of what most people consider basic morality. In these characters and their pathos, fandom members can look into a mirror and know that they are not alone in their weaknesses, and united in their strengths.