Yes. It's easier to understand an idea-world when you have a bunch of familiar archetypes/stereotypes blundering through it. I read an essay a long time ago that said that a more general name for a lot of science/fantasy fiction is "environmental fiction," because science isn't the important part, it's the portrait of an environment. And the way we get to understand this environment is in the ways the characters react to it. If the characters are also confusing or unintelligible, then there's no grounding for the reader.

Of course, that's why all of these genre clichés build up - because in a stereotypical Fantasyland that readers will be familiar with, you can write your character drama.