A Cast of Many Voices

One of the things I enjoy about writing the Forgotten Gods series is that we have such a varied cast of characters. Instead of following a single narrative and a single point of view, I get to explore various angles of the same core story. Everyone is effected differently by the conflict. Everyone responds differently. Everyone sees different issues as important or trivial or ethically challenging. It's easier to show that the heroes aren't squeaky clean or entirely correct in their perceptions, and that the bad guys genuinely think they're working for the greater good.

Having a number of characters with markedly different backgrounds is also an excellent opportunity for worldbuilding. Each of these people will experience aspects of their world and society which the other characters may ignore, dismiss, or never have the chance to encounter. By showcasing these viewpoints, your reader gets to explore the world in greater depth-- no infodumps required! And much as exploring the plot from various angles adds nuance, different characters will show off the inspirational and shameful aspects of your fictional society as it helps them achieve good or fails them entirely, and every permutation in between.

The key here is to have characters with truly diverse backgrounds. One of the reasons I get annoyed with the Generic White Narrator is that we, the audience, get robbed of the potential for varied perspectives in favour of telling the same story about the same character with the same worldview. A cast with real diversity-- not just surface quirks, but fundamental differences in their experience and life stories-- can give your story a lot of depth and interest, and allow you to build a complex story in a complex world.