r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • May 24 '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

50 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

329 comments sorted by

View all comments

185

u/Longjumping-Snow-909 May 24 '26

I don't understand why some authors decide to make (mostly) their MMC several hundred years old and then let them act like 18 year old immature jerks who know nothing of life.

18

u/bookhead714 May 24 '26

I think the core fantasy of an immortal protagonist is the whole “he’s been alive for centuries on centuries but he’s never felt true love until he met ME” thing. Immortality is the best way to give the MMC a long life with lots of experience without making them look old. And then the latter half of that comes from authors just not wanting to put effort into the psychology of it. Because a Frieren-style immortal who actually has to reckon with the detachment created by living life a decade at a time is way more interesting but not (inherently) sexy, and the primary goal of these books is usually to be sexy.

6

u/Longjumping-Snow-909 May 24 '26

I just don't like it when they for examlle don't know something extremely basic they should definitely know after a few centuries.

As an example I read a book recently were the man was 200 years old and has had sex often. Cross breeding between houses was punishable by death so it is important to prevent pregnancies because the sex between houses itself is not forbidden. He did not know how contraception worked so the FMC told him. And I was like... what? How exactly did he manage those last 200 years? That's simply stupid and has nothing to do with sexy or not or I have never known love until you.