Characters aren't people but they still need to act like people
Characters aren't people: they are symbols and representations. They serve the story and the themes. They embody concepts. They are simplified and streamlined. They rarely eat, unless it is relevant to the story. They rarely go to the toilet, unless it is relevant to the story. They never sneeze, unless it is relevant to the story. They don't stutter or mumble or swallow their sentences or crosstalk. They have unlimited wardrobes, optional jobs, huge photogenic houses. Everyone at the coffee shop knows their name.
That's okay. We accept all this because it moves the story on. We can extrapolate. We don't need to see the minutiae of life. We know the minutiae of life.
But!
They still need to act like people: they still need to react in the realm of how we might expect people to react to perfectly normal human situations. Not jumping to completely wild conclusions. Actually using their words. Not picking fights with their loved ones just so they can be separated so something can happen. Not speaking in riddles, not not mentioning fully relevant information when it would be useful. Not constantly throwing factoids about and being able to quote reams of books and poems and speeches offhand. I don't believe anyone knows every single fact about baseball. I just don't believe those characters would know that.
That's not okay. That stops the story because I'm bewildered, if not so mad.
Someone recently explained baffling character decisions in a piece of media by telling me the writer didn't see the characters as people but as ideas. Okay. But they are human characters, hence people. They are ideas, but they need to be ideas that act like people.
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