Recommendations Blind protagonists

Conqueror_Quack

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Yea I've red "the academy's blind swordsman" where the protagonist isn't blind at all so give me something else
 
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Blind, but she "sees" with mana sight.
 

Satansoul

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Succubiome

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...You know, I'm surprised there aren't more blind protagonists in books-- it feels like it'd be the perfect medium.

(Or maybe there are and I just don't know about them.)
 

Iamnotabot

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I can't help but feel a bit ironic, like a book of a blind person. A BOOK, which is used by people who can see. Yes i know braille exist but imagine a blind guy touching it getting confuse at all the stuf only people can see know.
 

Daitengu

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TheMonotonePuppet

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...You know, I'm surprised there aren't more blind protagonists in books-- it feels like it'd be the perfect medium.

(Or maybe there are and I just don't know about them.)
One of the biggest problems is how heavily books rely on visual descriptions. It is often a sign of a poor novel when you cannot imagine anything because the author left out visual descriptions, so having a blind protagonist risks mimicking those poor novels. Language has a severe dearth of descriptors and comparisons for smells, sounds, and touch in comparison to visual ones, so it is a lot of effort to communicate a world without sight. I would know, having tried and failed to communicate without some form of visual elements.
Now, you can make allusions to visual elements in order to communicate the other senses via that connection, but it is still mind-numbingly difficult. The pitfalls are numerous.
There are a few nonfiction or fictional biography books with blind protagonists, all of which I have found absolutely wonderful to read. But in fantasy, there generally a lack of such protagonists (that are blind, and stay blind, and do not simply have some other form of sight. It rarely actually matters beyond the cool factor of looking blind, but really, you can "see" better than everyone)
 

NotaNuffian

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Paradise of Demonic Gods had MC went through blindness for a third to half of the entire story. He had vision, got poisoned and then regain them after godhood.

And it is awesome in a violent chunni way.

The author is Bear Wolf Dog.
 

Muddy

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I went for a partially blind protagonist in my novel, where vampires can see perfectly fine at night but are mostly blind in sunlight. Since my vampire protagonist prefers to blend in with people, there are plenty of daytime scenes where she has to compensate by other senses. Even at night, there's a reduced focus on sight, as my protagonist just doesn't consider it an all that important sense to have.

It's not perfect blindness though. But even this half-blindness is already challenging enough for me. First-person POV where you can't describe anything is hard.

Going to keep an eye on this thread because good fantasy with blind or partially blind protagonists is rare and I want to see more of it.
 

SsemouyOnan

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Relatively new fic, might wanna wait for more chapters. Very promising so far though.

MC does have 'mana sense', but it has very noticeable limitations. It works like radar so if she 'pings' anyone who can also sense mana immediately knows she's there, likewise if something has a weak mana signature she can't see it all. 4 chapters and there were already multiple occasions where she had to stumble around using sound and touch.
 
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