A question for all the SciFi/Fantasy lovers on my F-List ...

[celticheart531]

(Reposted from "GoodReads")

I have just finished an Urban Fantasy series written in 1st person.  As the series progresses, the protagonist keeps discovering new gifts/powers/talents, much like a "Mary Sue" in romance novels keeps becoming a more perfect version of a heroine, and that really bothered me.

With the last book, however, we find out why

Comments

[armadillogoddes]

I think it's a pretty common device in a lot of fantasy (regardless of whether it is urban or not, or in first person or third). It's a device that's easy to do badly, but I don't think it's possible to evaluate whether having an explanation for it in the last book redeems it or not... it would just depend on how well that resolution was done. I think once read a bit of advice that was something along the lines of that a good ending to a story should feel both unexpected and inevitable. If the ending felt satisfying and the whole series had a strong story arc, if it felt at the end as though all parts of the series were driving towards that conclusion and it couldn't have unfolded any other way, I'd say it worked. If it didn't feel that way, I'd say it didn't work.

What series was it?

I don't usually pay much attention to whether something is written in first or third person, and I never thought about one or the other working better. I think both could work equally well. Maybe writers whose characters tend towards the "Mary Sue-ish" are more inclined to write in first person, which might mean that a larger portion of fantasy novels written in first person are poorly written. I don't think that means there is anything inherently wrong with writing fantasy in first person, though.

I've certainly read some urban fantasy books in first person that were good. I'm reading one called "A Madness of Angels" right now that's in first person and is not bad--it has problems, but they aren't due to the main character having Mary Sue-ish attributes (which he doesn't).

On the other hand, I tried to read this series called Chicagoland Vampires written in first person and featuring a vampire heroine named Merit who was working on an English Literature Ph.D. (how Mary Sueish can you get???) that I gave up on because, besides being Mary Sueish, the quality of the writing was appalling. So, again, I don't think the problem was that it was in first person, and I don't think the main character was Mary Sue-ish because it was in first person--the characters were all just very poorly developed, and would have been just as bad in third person.