Second Skin vs. Separate Individual

Let's start with a rhetorical question, just to make Kyle a saddens eyes panda: concerning the character Bruce Wayne played by Christian Bale, is Bruce another identity of Bale, or is Bruce a separate entity from Bale? Put another way, if Bruce drop kicks a character named Tom played by a guy named Bob, can Bob say he's been drop kicked by Bale?

So what's the importance of such a distinction, and how does it relate to what we've been talking about? As the title of the movie indicates, Second Skin inspects WoW players with the assumption that they consider their in-game characters direct avatars of themselves. However, Wednesday, we talked about roleplayers that enjoy acting "in character," meaning that they decide each of their actions and dialogues through the lens of "Is this something my character, as I've defined them, would do/say?" If they've created an evil character that delights in the slaughter of helpless rabbits, does that mean the player would make a bad rabbit-sitter? That depends on whether the rabbit slaughter trait was invented for the character or was based on the player's own rabbit slaughtering tendencies.

An interesting question was poised Wednesday: if a player is in a relationship with someone, and, while playing "in character," flirts or otherwise romantically interacts with another player who is "in character," has the player been unfaithful. I think I may have said yes too quickly that day. After some more thought, I have to change my answer to "it depends." If the player is truly able to maintain a certain degree of separation from the actions of their character, and if their significant other is kept aware and is comfortable with the level of activity in question, then I don't think there is anything wrong with it.