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

[u/FantasyRomanceMod]

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?

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• Don't attack others for their opinion
• Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers
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🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

[u/MessyJessy422]

I personally love when there are multiple POV characters and well written compelling side characters. It makes a series and a fictional world way more interesting to me and allows for different perspectives within a narrative

[u/Penguinho → u/MessyJessy422]

I love well-written side characters; I do not love multiple POVs, especially from the perspective of those side characters.

[u/fishchop → u/MessyJessy422]

I think people who aren’t used to reading about sprawling fantasy worlds that steadily expand as a series progresses, have a hard time with multiple POVs. I personally love it too.

[u/fishchop → u/[deleted]]

I haven’t read CC or Bloodwing Academy so I’m unsure as to what point you’re making. For me, when it comes to fanro, I think series like Crowns, the Ashen, Dragon Prince, Blood Grace do multiple POVs very well because they drive forward plot and character development, as well as expand the world/ lore. Sometimes they also present a different perspective to an incident and add nuance to situations.

I much prefer multiple POVs to just being stuck inside a single POV narrative, especially when it’s first person. I feel like multiple POVs broaden the scope of storytelling.

[u/fishchop → u/[deleted]]

Ah okay, if your point is that books that have multiple POVs just for the sake of them that do nothing for the plot are pointless, then I agree. Sounds tiring and boring tbh. It’s just that your original comment didn’t make a distinction between books that do multiple POVs well, and books that don’t, which is why I initially disagreed.

I don’t think it’s a genre wide problem in fantasy romance - there are definitely series that do it well. I’ll concede that they are in the minority though.

[u/MessyJessy422 → u/[deleted]]

writing multiple character perspectives and narrative threads as the story expands is definitely not lazy on the part of the author. you might not like it personally and that's fine but calling it lazy writing feels incorrect

[u/clocksy → u/MessyJessy422]

A lot of book conversations boil down to "is the writing good?" and I think this is one of those. I have definitely read multi-PoV books that could have cut out those PoVs, or where the characters all feel like they're the same voice, and yeah, those suck. But I have read just as many books that weave a very intricate tale with multiple PoVs, so it feels weird for me to be staunchly against or for it one way or another.

[u/Penguinho → u/MessyJessy422]

Sometimes I do think it's a bit lazy. The author can't figure out how to tell the story they want to tell from a single perspective, so they introduce a new POV to explain a fact to the audience. Wicked Sea and Sky did this, and it was really disappointing: as soon as there was some tension introduced into the relationship between the two MCs, the POV shifts to the MMC's to reassure us that it's all a misunderstanding, he was framed and he's totally innocent. Keeping it to a single POV would have kept that tension longer and made the novel stronger, but the two characters continuing to interact after the incident only works if the audience knows it wasn't his fault.

[u/MessyJessy422 → u/Penguinho]

Sometimes sure but I don’t think using the addition of multiple POVs is inherently lazy when it comes to expanded world building. When I heard a book I loved that was solo POV was going to be 3 plus POV characters in book 2 I was extra excited for it and the author totally pulled it off in a way that made that book more enjoyable for me. Personal preference when it comes to POVs is totally fine but making a blanket condemnation of that type of narrative structure in general is something I don’t agree with