u/Erantical

I've noticed an element that I personally greatly enjoy: normal situation and life being disrupted by something impossible / awe-inspiring happening or otherwise just totally unexpected (in that given context). This is often used as an element to kickstart some major plot event but I realized that this is also frequently present in outsider POV chapters where various "NPCs" get their life disrupted by MC's actions.

I've noticed some webnovels lean heavily on these outsider POV chapters for emotional payoff and I want to find more of them. Some examples would be The Archmage Coefficient that clearly does this very deliberately and frequently and is the primary example I can currently think of - and similarly the New Life as Max Level Archmage that inspired it. Return of the Runebound Professor has quite a bit of these sections.

While it's an element that is present in small quantities in many fantasy webnovels, it being a very frequent element still seems quite rare. While reading The Eternal Mage series (used to be Keiran webnovel) - which has close to ideal MC to my taste (highly competence driven, mature mentality, not a boring goody two-shoes) - I was in a way disappointed in not seeing almost any outsider reactions and constantly wishing almost an extra fifth simply dedicated to those from variety of perspectives.

Which prog fantasy webnovels (or OPMC etc.) would you recommend that cater specifically to this? Obviously it needs to be ones that take the world and setting seriously (not the meta, edgy, etc. stuff).

Edit: to expand upon this a bit, the emotional payoff from transition from normalcy to something grand happening can of course often come from MC perspective storytelling but there is a severe limit to how often writers can utilize it before it becomes rote and expected. Outsider reaction POVs sidestep this issue by temporarily grounding expectation to a "short-lived" outsider's perspective with normalcy which enables total upheaval of the world from that outsider's point of view (since there is no need to keep that POV around after the single throw-away section).

Of course that runs the risk of just generic copypaste "NPCs oh and ah about MC" which is obviously not very satisfying to read either. Good writer needs to rather quickly provide sufficient background for the perspective to truly establish normalcy for the upheaval to then have emotional payoff. The point is seeing the MC's actions immediate impact on individuals around.

I remember several magic academy themed stories utilizing this technique though not many specific names immediately pop to mind (some of it in the excellent Practical guide to sorcery).