(...)while it's true that the unexamined life is not worth living, it's also true that the unlived life isn't worth examining. - Robert McKee

A character is no more a human being than the Venus de Milo is a real woman. A character is a work of art, a metaphor for human nature. We relate to characters as if they were real, but they're superior to reality. Their aspects are designed to be clear and knowable; whereas our fellow humans are difficult to understand, if not enigmatic. We know characters better than we know our friends because a character is eternal and unchanging, while people shift - just when we think we understand them, we don't.

We cannot ask which is more important, structure or character, because structure is character; character is structure.

The minimalist storyteller deliberately gives this last critical bit of work to the audience.