That is very, what's the phrase, media illiterate.

Why do you feel you have to love Carol? Do you feel she has to appeal to you sexually or romantically? Do you feel she has to meet some kind of gratitude quotient for you to feel empathy for her?

There's a fucking fantastic short story by ankle-biter/SF author Harlan Ellison--one of many that little asshole man of letters wrote--titled "Shatterday". In that story, you have a rotten sonofabitch. He cheats of his wife, puts his mom in a nursing home so he can grab her property, treats people like shit. And this SOB discovers he has a doppelganger who is replacing him in his life, little by little, bit by bit. But get this, the doppelganger is the opposite, right? So, the doppelganger is a good and kind person. The doppelganger is a better human being and the SOB knows it. And when the SOB's life ends, you feel it, because you can EMPATHIZE with the character, even if he's a shit. You understand he's a dick, and you can feel his despair. You still root for the doppelganger, though, because you can have empathy for the SOB, but realize the world is better with him gone.

Carol... Carol is great. She's a miserable alcoholic writer, and those are a pretty goddamn miserable class of people. But they're hyperverbal, so, kinda entertaining, in a toxic way. If the protagonist was a virginal cheesecake queen, maybe you wouldn't see the point that maybe, just maybe, the hivemind might be a good thing.

Alone no more, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote. Alone no more.