Yeah, can't agree with that. My perspective is that you need both, to some degree, but empathy is more important. Taking Breaking Bad as an example, we all feel sorry for Walt of course. He's dying of cancer, his life didn't end up how he wanted, now all of these people are pitying him and shit, and he's just so incredibly angry. You'd have to be a legit sociopath not to feel sympathy for him. But when we talk about the characters and the actions within the story, empathy is more important, I think. Do the character's actions make sense within the story? Can I imagine that given a similar set of circumstances I might make a similar decision? Why or why not? Also, it exposes more subtle character motivations that are important to the story even if they aren't spelled out.
It's important, also, because underlying themes can really get lost in the storytelling. It's easy to forget that Walt is a villain. He's likable, he's the underdog, it's very easy to forget that he murders with impunity and poisons his community and has utterly destroyed his family's life, and that he didn't have to do any of it. I think that attempting to empathize with the character really highlights this, rather than clouding it. Removing yourself from the situation in the story makes it easier to tell yourself an altered version of the story where we aren't examining the themes, actions, consequences, or motivations throughout the story.
I'm sure it's whatever works for the individual, results are more important than the method used to get them. But for me, I don't know how you can get to the level of analysis needed to interpret a story without that empathy. And for some people, all that analysis shit isn't important. That's cool too.
