: Is First person perspective more intimate than Third person perspective? I know there's a lot of questions regarding this topic, but none of them delved too deep into if there's a different

First Person Can Be* Intimate

*emphasis on "can be"

When people say first-person is intimate they are probably thinking about a book like, The Catcher In the Rye (Salinger).

Reading the first couple of sentences is very instructive (and compelling):

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably
want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was
like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and
all that David Copperfield crap, but I don't feel like going into it,
if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores
me, and in the second place my parents would have about two
hemorrhages apiece if I told you anything personal about them.

It's as if you are really sitting and listening to a teen-aged kid who is letting you inside. That's what people think of when they think of first-person.

S. E. Hinton was another great writer of first-person narratives.
Check out the intro to The Outsiders.

When I stepped out into the sunlight from the darkness of the movie
house I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.
I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman -- he looks tough and I don't
-- but I guess my own looks aren't so bad.

Not Just Listening to Talk, But Experiencing Feelings

Again, this kind of writing is fantastic when done by great authors. And it does create a kind of intimacy with the character because you're not just listening to the character but you're sitting inside his head and knowing exactly what it feels like to be him.

Modern Problem With First-Person

The problem that has occurred with first person more recently is that amateur authors jumped on a band-wagon of the past success of these type of novels and started writing everything in first person.

First Person Can Sound Egotistical

However, first person is not a guarantee that the writing will be more intimate. Often if falls into other problems which make the character simply sound egotistical.

It can also become extremely overwhelmingly annoying as the reader is forced to listen to long monologues coming from a character who can't seem to shut up. This is the case when you have a poor writer deciding to use first person because it is easier.

Yes, sometimes first person is chosen because it is easier.

First Person May Be Easier

Here's what I mean. As humans, we all think in first person so many new authors think,

"Hey, I'll just write down what I'm thinking and I'll have a novel."

That is not an effective way to choose POV.

Third Person Can Be Intimate, Maybe More So

You could write a very intimate version of your story in third person by moving close to one character.

For example, if we re-wrote The Outsider's excerpt in third person you don't lose a whole lot and you could gain some possibly.

When Ponyboy stepped out into the sunlight from the darkness of the
movie
house he had only two things on his mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.
He was wishing he looked like Paul Newman -- Newman is tough looking and Ponyboy has a softer chin
-- but he's a good looking kid.

Couple Of Reasons For Choosing Third Person

There are other things you can tell the reader about your main character that won't sound egotistical in third person and you can tell more of the story than you can from the limited viewpoint of a first person character.

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I can surely think of a reason why 3rd person would be more intimate: it inserts the reader into the story, at the moment it happens (even if written in the past).

For us, intuitively/naively, if we stand next to somebody (as the 3rd person), we can be put arbitrarily close to the "target" person, as close or closer as we could be to a real person in the real world. This could be used to create an awesome closeness.

In 1st person, this effect goes away. The reader is not inserted into the world, he is instead inserted into the head of the protagonist, or, depending on how you write it, as if reading an after-the-fact story told by the protagonist; I'd argue the first ("in the head") is just not related to our real-life experiences; and the second ("after-the-fact") is just that - completely separated from the actual events.

As a practical, pretty dull, example: if you want to convey how sexy the protagonist is, in 3rd person, you can go to all lengths of describing the physical appearances, the outward behaviour, the clothes as seen (or not seen...) by someone else in the room, and so on. In 1st person... not so much. Sure, your protagonist can look into the mirror and tell us how sexy they feel or appear to themselves, but it's just not the same.

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The standard problem with third-person perspective is when it's written from the point of view of a god-like omniscient being. Not only can this spoil the narrative and plotting, because the reader knows things which the characters do not, but it tends to disconnect the reader from the characters.

The more usual way to approach this is with third-person limited perspective. The narrative is still written in third-person, but you are only given the viewpoint and experiences of a limited number of individuals (or perhaps only one). We tend to call them "point-of-view (PoV) characters".

Most people have read the books of A Song of Fire and Ice. You'll notice that each chapter tends to be centred around a particular character. During that chapter, the thoughts of other characters are never shown, even if those other characters may later be PoV characters themselves. What emotions you see from the other characters are strictly those which the PoV character at the time can see.

There are other ways to do this, of course. The Number of the Beast (which in all other ways is a tedious exercise in right-wing stupidity) is written in first-person perspective, but each chapter changes which of the four main characters is "I". Charles Stross's Laundry Files series are mostly presented as the protagonist's work journal, so are mostly in first-person perspective, but every now and again there are third-person perspective inserts of relevant events which have been inferred or discovered subsequently but which the protagonist was not aware of at the time.

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First Person means that you are stuck with that one person and its look on the world. This can mean a lot more intimacy, especially in situations that show the emotions of this one person. But a good author is able to show these emotions in dialogue and in actions between characters and can therefore convey the same kind of feelings in Third Person.

If you are good at showing the emotions of your characters there shouldn't be a big difference between the two perspectives in regards to intimacy.

The preference for one style or the other is frequently changing and it may just be the case that you are mostly interested in stories that choose Third Person instead of First Person, which leads you to the assumption that Third Person is used more often in fantasy. In the end it's just about what the author prefers and what he wants to do with it.

Third Person allows you to show the story from multiple different angles and to explore a bit more of the world even if your characters wouldn't know it. Writing in First Person is a bit more difficult as you have to be aware of what your characters knows and thinks all the time so that you don't give away details that your characters can't know. This makes the acquisition of information a far more important point. The focus is simply different and there may be some people who find one style or the other easier. If you prefer to show the readers extra details that are related to the current dialogue, but not known by any of the characters yet you may want to go with the Third Person, if you want to stick to the point of view of your character because you can better visualize the scenery that way you may want to go with First Person. But intimacy shouldn't be the consideration. If you are worried about that aspect you should try to think more about ways to show the emotions in the style that you think is harder for this - or simply choose the one that's more natural for you.

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