Character study. Yes. I think I've always been more interested in the characters of a story than the plot. As an aspiring writer I quickly grew weary of English Lit, and switched to Psychology, thinking if I was ever to write anything worthwhile, I needed to try to understand human beings and the way they thought and acted.
What makes a human being a human being?
It's a life-long thing. Try to understand your own motives and actions too. A complicated web for sure. So the latest mind-boggling, heart-rending tragedy in Orlando - the shooter is a character worthy of a Dostoyevsky.
A man "sick in the head." Seems there was a war raging in the man's head - rage, self-hate, hate of "the other." Instead of suicide, a mass murder of innocents. So sad, so terrible. Actions of a human being, being human - inhuman, monstrous. A very troubled mind.
We want to understand that which is totally not understandable. And absorb another tragedy.