Extreme Agency
This year I read both Dune and the Red Rising trilogy, enjoying both. There was something that nagged at the back of my mind as I read them. Paul and Darrow both border on the uncanny, not in terms of raw ability or even Chosen One powers, but more in terms of agency . Both protagonists share an almost superhuman ability to wreak their will upon the world around them. I don't simply mean that they have an iron will in the face of difficulty, but that they are able to assert their will and nothing other than another agent might stop them. It's not just that they are protagonists, other characters act as Extreme Agents in these stories and many others like them. Extreme Agents are named characters. In these universes, all important events happen because one of a select few individuals made them happen. Extreme Agents are hyper-competent, unaffected by types of common failures that doom many of life's endeavors. They don't fail due to lack of tools, organization or cooper...