Quote:
Originally Posted by missimpossible
I agree though that often characters, even main characters aren't meant to be liked, and that works differently.
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Yes, agreed. That is different from being irritated by a protagonist who is probably meant to be positive and likeable.
Although there have been plenty of times I've just disliked a narrator/protagonist (regardless of POV, but it really is more of an issue in first person for me) so much that knowing they're meant to be that way doesn't really help. Yeah, so the author managed to make them as dislikeable as they meant to - great for them, but I'm still stuck reading someone who annoys the hell out of me... and not in a "what a brilliant antihero / negative protagonist / love to hate them" way, necessarily.
More generally, though, for me it doesn't matter if I don't notice it. If I don't consciously notice either the POV or the tense (although I tend to notice present tense even if I'm not as completely turned off by it any more as I used to be), the author has done their job well (for me, anyway). It could be first or third person - if I'm into the book, if it's grabbed me from the first sentence - I often have no conscious realisation even whether it's first or third person, and have to stop and check. If it's something that jumps out, though, then I'm less likely to enjoy it.