Is it okay to switch protagonists between books, if the main protagonist is a hidden "actor"?
On my research I stumbled upon this question and it matches somehow with my question, that lingers in my head for a long time.
In the mentioned question I read the common thinking is: Switching protagonists between books can be annoying, frustrating or discouraging to read about new characters in every new book.
Now I come to my question. In my novel I developed a very complex background story. Part of the background story is a being with a simple mission. But the difficult part is: This being is not the main character of my novels. The novels center around people, who are "used" by this being for the success of her mission. The person has small appearances in the books and remains mysterious and acts behind the curtains, until the final act/novel.
My question is: Is it okay to switch between multiple protagonists between books, if the true main character stays hidden behind the curtains?
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I wouldn't say that the premise that you shouldn't switch protagonists between novels is an absolute truth in the first place.
What's so frustrating about reading about new characters? Doesn't one do that every time one picks a new book? Isn't that what one picks a new book for? So two books happen to be in the same setting. Why should they necessarily also follow the same characters?
Terry Pratchett, in his Discworld series, switches protagonists between books a lot. Sometimes the old protagonists later have another book all their own, sometimes they appear in the background, sometimes they walk out of the story entirely. I wouldn't want to read 40 books all about the same protagonist - that would be extremely tiresome. But I greatly enjoyed reading 40 books set in the same world, following different characters in different situations.
Ged is not the protagonist of all Earthsea books. Cat is not the protagonist of all Chrestomancy books. Old Man's War switches protagonists between books. Foundation gives you a new protagonist for every period - more than once in the same book. Different protagonists allow for different stories to be told, different POVs, different understandings.
So it seems to me that if your overarching story demands a switch of protagonist, then it would be served best by a switch of protagonist.
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I disagree that the protagonist can be a true man-behind-the-curtain, only giving orders to other characters. Yes, this character knows more than the the other characters, but is this character undergoing tension and growth?
It seems that the characters that are being given the orders are the real protagonists. An example from fiction is James Bond. M gives him orders, but James is the protagonist.
In the Laundry Files books, especially the early ones, Bob Howard (the protagonist) is constantly being given orders and mentoring by people/beings that work behind the scenes, but he is still the protagonists.
The protagonist is a fictional creation. He isn't necessarily the hero, nor is he necessarily the character giving the orders. He is the character that is undergoing dramatic tension and (hopefully) growth. He is the character that the reader (again, hopefully) cares about. By this definition, he must be visible to the reader.
Even giving hints, it is rare that a character working behind the scenes will be developed enough for me to care about. The only one that I can think about is Mike from Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
As for changing protagonists, there are many ways to do this. Some writers do this every book, some do this when the original protagonist has become too powerful (in some way) to fit the role the author wants. Some do this when they want to explore a new part of a world.
One of the later Miles Vorkosigan stories jumps to Miles' mother as a character and you learn more about her marriage to her father than you ever expected. By doing this it explores things that could not be explored if the writer had still used Miles or his brother as protagonists.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34910. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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