Compared to the first question, I had to think a lot harder about this one. First stumbling block - 'difficult'. Difficult compared to what? Second, 'reading'. Is it ok to also think about characters in films and TV here? Taken at face value, the answer would be no, but the question seems more about interpreting the story than about the medium that the story is in. So film and TV should be ok? I think?

Anyway, characters in stories tend to be pretty explicit in their intentions. Captain Ahab wants to kill the whale, Frodo Baggins wants to destroy the ring, Elizabeth Bennett wants to find a suitable husband. They will explain themselves in dialog, and sometimes even get their thoughts narrated. Sometimes a character's goals will be ambiguous or misleading, and that's deliberate on the part of the author. It's not a problem if you get to the reveal in a mystery novel and don't yet suspect the killer. So, I think I can follow stories well enough. But..

Is there some aspect to characters that I'm not getting, and that I am not aware I'm not getting? There's a kind of intrigue type of stories that just go over my head. I never know what's going on in Scorcese or Frances Coppola movies, for example. And then there's people in the fanfic space who like to ship characters, or imagine this character in that universe, and I don't get it. Back in school we had a book report exercise with questions about the characters and how they develop through the story, and I found it unreasonably difficult to apply those questions to the stories I was reading.

So I'm going to say Slightly Disagree. On the face of it, I can generally understand what I need to follow a story. But I have some doubts, and I don't think I have the insight to assess how relevant those doubts are.

E. After the discussion below, I'm revising this to Slightly Agree. I think there's more going on with this question than I'm able to fathom.

I took the test, aced it, got 10. What do I win?

I know that for most of these seemingly vague questions, I'm supposed to pick an average or likely scenario as it would apply to most people. Like the "do you prefer to go to a library or party?" question where the answer is wildly different depending on what type of party with what type of people and when. There I can assume it's a regular NT party of small talk, loud music, drunk people, irregular distribution of snacks, and a lack of comfortable place to sit.

But here, I'm stumped. What type of story? The choice of word "characters" implies fiction, but then what? Pulpy fantasy? Sci-fi? Yeah in those everyone has their intentions either spelled out so clearly nobody will struggle to work them out, or crafted to be vague/misleading in order to facilitate a plot twist in such a way that nobody is expected to work it out.

I do read some books with complex characters, but again books tend to describe what the characters are doing. Their motivation in the overall plot? Their intentions in a specific dialogue?

And in order to "find it difficult" I need to need and try to work them out in the first place. There are complex side characters in some books that I don't understand on a deep human level I guess, but I don't need to in order to understand the story. Do they count?

• Definitely Confused

This is definitely true for me. That's one of the reasons I love anime and manga because in most of those the innermost thoughts of the characters are shown to the audience.

Gawwwwwd I need to get diagnosed....

Disagree. When reading a story, it’s easy to go at your own pace and work intentions out.

Tried the test and got a 9.

Marks definitely disagree because it's not that I find it difficult. It's that I can't whatsoever. Looks like I'm not autistic after all 😀