Character resentment

[Dom]

Question - when reading a book with a large cast of POV characters, do you, as a reader, ever resent the second and third POV characters for taking time away from the first POV character you meet as a reader?

I'm just wondering if I'm unique in this.  I always consider the first POV character I meet in a series to be more..."alpha", or "better", or "THE main character".

If you do feel this as a reader, does it affect the way you write?

[ballplayer72]

i read Robert Jordans wheel of time series.
 
 I liked rand the most at first.   
  By the end of the series, i was skipping to the scenes with Matt, because Rand turned into a whiner.

[DragonFire]

Yup, I cringe when Isana is center stage in the Alera books, becuase I think she's boring.
Likewise, I can't stand the Nyneave focused parts of WOT and I really, really can't stand the Richard focus in LKH.

[Dom]

Lightsabre--LKH = Laurell K. Hamilton?  Because she's a one-point-of-view author.  We never get Richard's Point of View.  It's all Anita.  Unless you mean someone else when you say LKH.

Does anyone find them self resenting the screen time of the secondary POV characters, not because they dislike the character themselves, or think they're boring, but just because they're "stealing" time from the main POV character?  Even if the secondary POV character is written just as well?

It eventually wears off for me, I just notice it whenever I start books with a large cast of Point-of-View characters.  I really noticed it in Kate Elliot's Crown of Stars series...I wanted to stay with Liath (sp?), and didn't really care about anyone else.  I also noticed it with Robin Hobb's Ship series.

[DragonFire]

Lightsabre--LKH = Laurell K. Hamilton?  Because she's a one-point-of-view author.  We never get Richard's Point of View.  It's all Anita.  Unless you mean someone else when you say LKH.

When the focus of the story is about richard,not when the narrator changes.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I'm just wondering if I'm unique in this.  I always consider the first POV character I meet in a series to be more..."alpha", or "better", or "THE main character".

How do you react to something with a prologue or opening chapter from one POV that sets that character up and then goes into other POVs for the main story ?

Me, it depends on how much space they are getting in the story and how important their stuff is to the overall plot.  Lots of twiddling around on side issues can get annoying, but lots of shapes of stories do not have a single main character; the In Conquest Born shape where you have a major war between two very different civilisations and one major POV character on each side, for example.

[Cyclone Jack]

Depends entirely on how interesting/engaging I find the other characters.