Imaginary Friends from elsewhere

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by Bloonan

I, for some reason, doubt that Plank's 100% imaginary...

Obviously we need to take into account that there are different levels of imaginary friends. The purest kind, and those that the Foster's IFs are evidentally based upon, are those that are fabricated completely from thin air and exist entirely within the imaginations of their creators. However, some of the other examples we've given, like Wilson the volleyball and the aforementioned plank (eep, creepy) do have a degree of worldly existence as a tangible inanimate object upon which their human friend is able to project such qualities as life and a personality. I reckon that they still meet the criteria for an imaginary friend, more or less, since the most important aspect, the relationship itself, is manufactured entirely within the human's mind.

On that note, it's mentioned in Victor Hugo's novel the Hunchback of Notre Dame that Quasimodo, in his isolation, forms imaginary friendships with the Notre Dame gargoyles. Whether or not the trio of talking gargoyles within Disney's version of the story are intended to follow this suit is debatable.