Children

Whattaya mean Laertes is a Prophet? He’s a fictional character!

There’s a well-known critical essay called “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth” - well-known for Shakespeare geeks, at least - that mocks the idea of treating Shakespeare’s creations like real people. While the concern is understandable, this sort of analysis can help reveal aspects of these works of art, including why people find them compelling. Ultimately, it’s because good fiction should mimic reality enough to feel real.

We expect people to act in natural ways. “Walking casually” is easily visualized , “walking casually onto the ceiling“ had better be explained.  Someone angered by love, happy with death, or frightened by injustice would seem abnormal, although it would at least be obvious why a reader recognizes such abnormality. A good writer may not even recognize that he is setting up his world in this way, or realize that he is adhering to certain conventions. He may only be trying to make it as realistic as possible.

Other situations, though unnatural, can be more subtle. In "Bullets Over Broadway", co-playwright Cheech says that the play’s audience "know it’s wrong - they may not know why but they KNOW. " He is speaking of a play wherein a psychologist is played by a "horrible" actress who "ruins scenes she's not even IN!" We can infer that the clear impossibility of this actress being a doctor means other events in the play cannot be believed. Similarly, there are generational expectations that can be noticeable when not realistically portrayed. Some of them are more properly historical or sociological:  it’s unlikely that a galaxy-wide war that penetrated to the heart of the government wouldn’t quickly result in an end to hostilities. It’s much less likely for the decisive end to that war to be followed by a civil war that manages to continue for nearly 20 years. The two periods of war are understandable enough on their own - this is the civil war, this is the defensive war - but trying to make sense of the entire scope of history may be one reason the prequel trilogy didn’t do as well in the box office. 

A “real” generational constellation can enhance the believability of a story, in whatever form. Conversely, characters who don’t fit the archetypes relative to each other can make a narrative more difficult to accept. Laertes needs to make sense as his own father’s son, and as someone who has lived in a generally peaceful period - unlike, say, Old Hamlet, who lived in much more dangerous times. To the extent the playwright has been successful at this, we can talk about whether these characters work as Artist, Prophet, Nomad, or Hero.