3 stories
Chronicles of Amber
High fantasy, powered royalty succession & survival battles, duty vs desire.
Vorkosigan verse
Watch Miles and friends advance to new levels of bafflement by way of battles, betrayals, & bs Welcome to Barrayar, son. Here you go: have a world of wealth and poverty, wrenching change and rooted history. Have a birth; have two. Have a name. Miles means "soldier," but don't let the power of suggestion overwhelm you. Have a twisted form in a society that loathes and fears the mutations that have been its deepest agony. Have a title, wealth, power, and all the hatred and envy they will draw. Have your body ripped apart and re-arranged. Inherit an array of friends and enemies you never made. Have a grandfather from hell. Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live. Live.
Gaiman's Sandman
(from the wikipedia entry for endless - comics): They have existed since the dawn of time and are thought to be among the most powerful beings in the existence. They are distinct from and more powerful than most gods. Dream is the protagonist of The Sandman series, but all of the Endless play major roles. ... The Endless spend most of their time fulfilling their functions as embodiments of natural forces. For example, Death leads the souls of the dead away from the realm of the living, while Dream oversees the realm of dreams and imagination ("The Dreaming") and regulates dreams and inspiration. One notable facet of their depiction is that none of them are "representations" or "personifications" of their function, they simply are their function.
