"What permits a writer to depict such seemingly real personalities?" Agreed upon traits/stereotypes, that's what. Our simplification needs make us rely upon stereotypes, and by exploiting such conventional views of people, writers can easily portray rich personalities in rather few words.
"It's nice to be able to trust our firends, but we need to be able to trust ourselves. How can that be possible when we can't be sure what's in our own heads? One way to accomplish this is by thinking of ourselves in terms of traits -- and then proceeding to train ourselves to vehave according to those self images." Theme again: this view of personality requires that complexities be ignored.
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