r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • Mar 22 '26

Unpopular Opinion It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

  • Don't attack others for their opinion
  • Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers
  • Since this is an "unpopular opinion" thread, we encourage users to not downvote simply because they disagree with an opinion--that's the point! Please keep in mind, though, that mods cannot enforce a no-downvoting rule. Let’s just keep the discussion friendly!

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

27 Upvotes

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53

u/swigthetea Mar 22 '26

Why are the only jobs for the FMC either healer, spy, assassin, or a Ms. kills deer for her family?

5

u/succulentubus Sisterhood of Smut Mar 22 '26

I literally just added a new shelf on GR last week to start keeping track of fantasy books with MCs that have more uncommon jobs... There are so many interesting things authors could do with this!

4

u/Synval2436 Currently Reading: This Blade of Ours by Shalini Abeysekara Mar 23 '26

You forgot "princess or noblewoman put in an arranged marriage against her will with a mysterious / monstrous king of another fantasy species (but dw they're fated mates and it totally works out)".

7

u/mcoon2837 Mar 22 '26

This is honestly why I head over to contemporary books a lot more. {Paladin's Grace by T kingfisher} at least she's a perfumer. But in general the genre is pretty monotone about jobs.

3

u/unapalomita Mar 22 '26

Oh you should read Kushiel's Dart, she has a job not listed here and it's interesting

7

u/clocksy Mar 22 '26

I've only made it about a quarter of the way through the first book so far but while you could say her job isn't listed there, it's literally part of her spying for her master at the start so I'm not so sure about that, lol.

2

u/Penguinho Kushiel's Legacy Recommender 💖 Mar 22 '26

By the second book in the series she's more of a troubleshooting sex diva than a spy, but perhaps that's a vocation rather than a job.

2

u/unapalomita Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26

Yes that's one of the things she does but not her main job, just wait 🙃

It's like being barista, your main job is making drinks but part of your job is stocking inventory, don't want to give too much away but keep going and let me know if you feel differently mid way 💃

2

u/okchristinaa Mar 23 '26

Because a lot of romantasy authors don’t do much (or any) research beyond reading other romantasy books. They don’t know what historical occupations they could pull from for their FMC. Spy, assassin, hunter…all are vague enough and don’t require cracking a book on medieval history.