: Re: How ordinary must my protagonist be if the book is written from his/her point of view? What I've found in most books I've read is that the protagonist is "normal" and/or "average" (at least

@Hamaas631

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I think you've gotten some bad advice. Lead characters do not need to be "ordinary", they need to be realistic. You could easily write a book from Luna Lovegood's point of view, provided you could make her actions relatable, which is to say, logical and reasonable. That's not the same as "ordinary", that just means we can understand why she's doing things. If you don't, it will be a frustrating read.

Same goes for Sherlock Holmes. In fact, he did narrate two stories himself, "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" and "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane".

This isn't just true of books, it's also true in other fiction. For example, consider the character of Joey from the sitcom FRIENDS. In that show he's VERY two dimensional: He's astonishly stupid, and fixated on the simple things in life. He's not very realistic at all... which became a big problem when they span him off into his own TV show, JOEY.

Your central characters need to be realistic in order to be relatable (and also to generate good stories). Your peripheral characters can be bizarre and two dimensional.

How much the reader enjoys spending time in their company is a completely different matter. I don't think Hodor is particularly realistic, but either way, he's also very dull. The world through his eyes probably wouldn't be very interesting.

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