A good friend from my days in Ottawa had an interest in doing Tarot card readings. I told her that I didn't understand the appeal in it since I don't believe in anything supernatural. To this day, her answer sticks with me and I have repeated it many times (paraphrasing heavily because... memory):

"Don't look at it as something supernatural. Just think of it as a story I am telling you. The cards represent characters and as I describe these characters, you may realize similarities to people in your life. From there, maybe you can see the story from their points of view more easily. This may give you a different perspective."

Recently, I have been watching a bunch of those "reaction" channels were people were watching the Frieren anime. Something I started to notice was patterns in character assessments across these channels. Most would give the same meaninglessly simple perspectives on characters (Sein is corrupt, Richter is a jerk, Genau is heartless, Serie is gate-keeping, etc) while a few would actually talk about their though processes in trying to understand character motivations and why they appear to act as they do.

I found this difference quite interesting and it reminded me of that old story about the Tarot cards. It makes me wonder if those giving such simple assessments were doing that just because of the story (it is a fictional world, after all), because of their environment (they assume they should be simple in their online discussions), social pressure (there is an odd affinity for reducing things into trivial sound-bites, these days - "memes", although that isn't what that word means), or if they generally assess people in such simple ways (given such simple condemnations I hear from people, I fear that this is all too likely).

I guess it just reminds me of the curiosity associated with what the thought processes of other people feel like, when they are living inside of them.

Hmm,
...Nights