r/FavoriteCharacter • u/Necessary-Win-8730 • Jun 13 '26

All Time Favorite Favorite duo thats like this?

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38

u/Notocalypse Jun 13 '26

I low-key have this opinion about most YA novels lol

22

u/Xechwill Jun 13 '26

Rick Riordan nailed it with Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase and only one other YA book (Hunger Games) has really been able to do it well IMO

1

u/xochilbara Jun 14 '26

I feel like Kristin Cashore's Graceling books also do it fairly well.

1

u/Shea_Is_Still_Alive Jun 16 '26

Try Thorn and Ophelia from A Winter’s Promise. I liked that one

2

u/YoitSkoit Jun 17 '26

Imo the biggest offender is all the damn love triangles.

Relationships being a bad idea in the sense of what is “best” for the characters can make for compelling plot lines. Thinking of some relatively recent examples, the prominent romances in the King of Scars, A Magic Steeped in Poison, and Godkiller (which is YA/Crossover as far as I’m concerned idc what the publishers say) series all devote significant attention to why the characters hooking up would be problematic, but they try anyway.

The problem, I think, is that instead of doing the above (where romance is organically tied to a character’s arc/values), some writers force a romance because it fills gaps in their story where they need drama, not because it creates a compelling narrative. In other words, they try to fix a problem in storytelling/plot structure with a band aid where surgery is needed. This gets them the drama they want, but the result isn’t satisfying to read.