Why do people care about power levels?

[dbzfan7]

We have fun messing around with levels and gaps.

[TheMightyOzaru]

They are fun to mingle with I suppose. Sure my levels aren't fact, but they help me see who's stronger than who from my point of view. It's also something quasi-fun to do when you're bored. Here's my list:
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... start=3380

[Blade]

They want to pretend things in DB follow some kind of logical sense.

Even though the point of power levels is that they really don't.

Or they want to track a narrative, which is more or less based on the interchange between 'X being is stronger than Y', using the given the numerical scaling system.

I think a better topic of discussion would be 'why do people care so much that people care about power levels?' I've rarely seen so much snide and, quite frankly, outright elitism directed to another portion of the fanbase, I'd even be as bold to say that it seems that even writing Dragonball slash fanfiction carries less of a taboo.

[Kid Buu]

@Blade: I think the question is, why do many fans treat power levels as if they were a reliable and comprehensive way of measuring a character's strength, when the series itself constantly goes out of its way to show that they are neither of those things, and that characters who think that they are die quickly? It's as if a significant chunk of fandom was convinced that Mister Satan really did defeat Cell and Boo.

Hey, it's arguable that Mister Satan did beat Buu (stopped Fat Buu from killing, created the anti-Kid Buu Genki Dama).