Special interests main character has changed?

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An interest I had years ago when I was much younger came back to me a few months ago and I had the same favourite character at first no all of a sudden I feel like that character has changed. Some of me puts this down to now seeing the character as who she really is compared to who I made her in my mind. It feels strange and like I've neglected her- the character I am relating to know had some romantic connection to her and I think that's where he's sprung from but I don't see any way of relating to him at all- I found her much easier to relate to. Have I just used him as another arm off my interest? Or could he become my permanent fave character. He has a more action filled and interesting life than she does and discovering that has been really strange for me- I just feel sort of down about this.

No they are separate people- the bit about a romantic connection between the two I thought would have made that clear, sorry

I know that feeling, it's weird and made me feel... I dunno, kind of empty? It was definitely a downer, and kind of like my eyes were opened to something and I "learned the truth" so to speak. Hard to describe...

I can relate to that feeling. I think we subconsciously tweak the character's personalities within our own minds until they match how we think they should act vs. how they are supposed to act. Our perception of that character becomes distorted over time, and if we go awhile without seeing/reading the work of fiction that they came from, it will be quite a shock when we pick it up again and discover that the character is not how we "knew" them. This seems to be a common phenomenon, as evidenced by the fact that there is a large amount of fanfiction where the characters don't act like the way they do in the show/book/movie and it's labelled OOC (out-of-character).

The first time I watched My Little Pony, I went through a phase where I adored the character Twilight Sparkle. I used avatars of her and would tell anyone who asked that she was "[the] best pony". I even bought two different plushies of her and often cuddled with them.

It's been a long time since I've seen the show (and also a while since my Twilight Sparkle phase ended), so I decided to watch it again a few days ago. I am amazed at how much different the character actually is than the one that was in my mind. The one on the show seemed so much more negative and less friendly than I had remembered (even after she gained her group of friends in the two-part pilot). I've found that to be true of other characters too, such as Alice and to a lesser extent the Mad Hatter from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (I used to be majorly obsessed with both characters for a about a year or two after the movie first came out). Heck, even the Tonner dolls that have been made of Alice look pretty dour.

Please note that I'm not trying to bash Twilight Sparkle, Alice or the Mad Hatter; in fact, those characters still have a special place in my heart even though they no longer play major roles in my imagination. All I'm saying is that my perception of them had become distorted with time and when I took a second look at them, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the versions in my head didn't match up to what I saw on the screen.

I'm more likely to find myself more sympathetic to a character I used to hate.