 On the basis of the essentialist idea that fictional objects necessarily have the properties that they are characterized as having in the relevant stories, neo-Meinongians have suggested a simple criterion for the identity of fictional entities, one which can be traced back to the criterion for the identity of Meinongian objects in general: If x has all the same nuclear properties as y (alternatively, if x and y internally possess the same properties), then \(x = y\) (cf., for example, Parsons 1980: 28, 188).