Do you prefer consistent or changing protagonists / POVs in a long book series?

[dream]

Imagine you’re in a used bookstore and you come upon a fantasy novel that you immediately fall in love with. You settle into it and read it in a night. In the morning, you search for book 2 and are delighted to find there's dozens and dozens of books in the series! Rejoice! But every series is different. You're curious to find out—does the setting remain the same across books? How about the cast of characters? Does the protagonist/POV change?

In this post, I'm curious to hear people's opinions on protagonist/POV change throughout a series—particularly, a long series such as a web novel that spans millions of words across hundreds and hundreds of chapters.

[WK_0]

Yanno, it's not something I really think on now that it's been pointed out. Good question.

I guess, honestly, I don't mind any number of PoVs—per book or per chapter. Unfortunately my whole reading history has mostly stayed within the fantasy and sci-fi genres, which has books that often stay with a one-PoV-per-novel policy. I've maybe only read a couple of novels that actually shifted PoVs between chapters within a single book (not counting anthology books), and I didn't mind when that happened. In fact it makes sense to do so when there's a main cast who all equally contribute to the overarching conflict in their stories. I kinda wish I could find more books that do so, at least any that can also keep my interest these days.

--- 2 second later edit
I almost forgot the "long-running series" point in this topic, so lemme add to that.

My main experience with any long-running series of novels is both from the Redwall series and The Dark Crystal novels by J.M. Lee. With Redwall the main PoV changed per book as the series spanned entire generations and showcased how their world changed over time to establish a sense of history, which makes sense. Meanwhile with The Dark Crystal novels, the books switched between each member of the main cast as they journeyed through their quest, mainly to showcase how each member went through their own personal changes through the entire tale.

Again, my reading experience is a bit limited, which is why I wish I could find more books that switch between PoVs more often. Eh but you know what they say, if you can't find it may as well make it yourself.

[candycanearter07]

Well, my only real experience with the character-shift-between-each-book is Enders Game/Shadow and this really bad YA dystopia called Matched. Honestly, I really like it as long as it tells you who the POV is. It gives it more flavor, and I especially liked the overlapping storyline of the two Enders books. Then again, I don't read much anymore.

[varve]

I'm good with multiple POVs. Even within a chapter. It's the scenes that I prefer to keep a single POV character... and some kind of scene break indication so you know you might be switching POV character as well as time and/or place. As long as all of the POVs are contributing to the story and not running off on some side plot somewhere!

And in a long book series, sometimes *refusing* to change POV characters can create problems. Later events might not make sense to keep the book 1 POV character centred. The Hunger Games comes to mind: by book 3 Katniss was a figurehead being trotted out to inspire people, but others were making the decisions and shaping the story; she had very little agency. Alternately, the Expanse (book series, haven't seen the TV adaptation) has the same small crew go from 'wrong place at the wrong time' to 'important in system-wide politics' and the transition just didn't make sense to me. They were great in the first couple of books!

[invader_gvim]

I am torn on this issue and I think it ultimately comes to this question - "Is your story enhanced by having the reader know things that the main character doesn't?"

My favorite book series is Nightrunner, and that usually has the POV of Alec but sometimes it is from the POV of Amberley, or the antagonist. Pretty much all of the time this happens it is because the main character doesn't know what is going on yet.   

In my favorite movie, the 5th Element, the story would be utterly ruined if the camera only followed Bruce Willis around. We would be deprived of the best scene in the movie. Also notable is that in the movie the antagonist and protagonist never realize that eachother exist. 

But then sometimes following only a specific character can allow you to have more suspense, and also to feel a little helpless as a reader which I consider to be a good thing. In Ciaphas Cain, I can not think of a single time that it ever drifted away from Commissar Cain's perspective. In some instances this was really helpful for adding surprise, such as when the mining base turned out to have dug into a necron tomb. 

Gotrek & Felix also only ever is told from Felix's POV as far as I know, but that series is so long that idk if that is true for all of the books. 

I've recently uploaded chapter 3 of my series, which I intend to be long running. It usually has one POV per chapter, but in the most recent chapter, it has two POVs because I had written two chapters and felt that both of them were two short. 

[Tommie ΘΔ]

I was a Wings of Fire kid, so throughout the series you experience POVs from just about all the characters. So, I'm pretty used to that kind of story telling ahah

I think it depends on the story, in all honesty. Some stories can benefit from multiple POVs, whereas others might suffer from convoluted story telling in that sense. Like a mystery book for example, you don't want the killer thinking "hah yea I did it" in the next chapter lol

In stories with 2-3 characters, I think multiple POVs per book is very important. It allows you to understand other characters in the story via their own thoughts. Especially in the instance that the book is a one-off and doesn't belong to any series. Plus, it can be fun to see what everyone's thinking as long as there's no big mystery involved

[Seraphim]

I think after the most recent book(s) I read, I prefer changing protagonists in long book series! The ones I'm using for reference is the World of Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold, and the Lumatere Chronicles by Melina Marchetta. Five Gods is interesting because the first three books switch protagonists, the first two being related to each other, the third being completely independent. But then the next, like, 12 books are from a single character's perspective as he gets older.
Lumatere Chronicles on the other hand, is only three books, each with a different protagonist AND also different perspectives in each chapter. All relatedly to each other.

I loved the first three stories of World of Five Gods. In fact, the second book, Paladin of Souls is one of my favorite books of all time. But the later books focusing on Penric, being able to go through a character as they get older and stronger and wiser is such a sublime experience. It gets me invested on the peripheral characters that also age and sometimes pass away and sometimes end up leaving the protag's life. The Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hoob is very much like that as well, and both series use that as emotional cruxes in their stories.

But the perspective switching in Lumatere Chronicles is SO good. When something crazy happens, and then it changes to a different character, where something ELSE also crazy happens, and then you get back to the original dramatic event. Marchetta is a master at making you want to read one more chapter to see the resolution of a situation. Plus its also more fun to see more characters in total.

TLDR, I prefer perspective switching but series that stick with a single character can also rock.

Also, just read all those books, they are so good. All of them.