There are so many book series that are complete trash garbage that manage to have a few likable and interesting characters but they are often ASSASSINATED by the author. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves. Like why do authors create potentially multidimensional, dynamic characters but then either slander them out of existence or “redeem them” by removing everything interesting about them??
There is such a “tell don’t show” trend in writing nowadays, it drives me crazy. Why do we have to explicitly explain everything? There’s this weird morality around writing and “moral grey-ness” is just abusing women but make it sexy lol. Let characters be problematic, flawed, selfish, always changing and evolving and *devolving*. I’m sooo sick of one dimensional characters. We have enough dark brooding men who kill rapists and save babies and donate to women’s shelters but simultaneously stalk, degrade, and control the FMC. At this point, we’re just smacking new names onto the same bland tropes and calling it a story.
A couple examples of what I’m talking about:
ACOTAR: Lucian, Nesta, Tamlin interesting and dynamic characters with a potential for real moral ambiguity and complex storylines, turned into cheap tropes to move the plot along. Don’t even get me started on Nesta’s “ending” in ACOSF.
Twilight: Rosalie, her storyline and character growth could have been SO GOOD! She is the most interesting out of all of them!
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by books-crafts-cats