It ' s not a narrow view . It ' s my view . I didn ' t say IMO for no reason this is only in my opinion . Edit Also , everything I have said is only a in general , or usually but I am lazy and do not want to add these words before every single sentence . broad , generic , unoriginalNone of those are bad qualities for a theme . Many popular works are driven by plot . Many popular works also suck . In truth , I would guess that you only find characters and situations exciting when they are thematically exciting . But plot plot is itself shallow and boring . At the end of the day , stories are about peopleYes ! But they aren ' t about characters . Themes are only themes because they ' re about people sacrifice is about people , death is about people , love is about people . threedimensional people will spring fullyformed out of the pages of your work just as soon as you ' ve determined what your themes areThat would be bizarre . I mean that you should build your magic and characters , now you mention it to fit the themes , not that they will spring out of them . I also absolutely do not mean that you should determine your themes before you start writing or at all ! You can do this stuff semiconsciously . You might start building a magic system and realise afterwards that what interests you about it is the sacrifice . What I mean is that you shouldn ' t coldly analyse it through the lens of plot limits and powers . Incidentallyserving as nothing more than twodimensional mouthpieces for a particular conflict or ideologyI personally hate those kinds of works , because the author has coldly decided on their themes and then hit you on the head with them . Everything about them is simple , not just the characters . But it ' s worth remembering that many such works are widely considered to be great classics Divine Comedy , Aeneid , Faerie Queen that doesn ' t mean they don ' t suffer from their nature . And twodimensional characters that don ' t engage the reader in the thematic conflict aren ' t doing their job properly .