Alicornutopia

Both "Water" and "Mana" have "contrived" plots and especially endings, in that they both rely on coincidences/confluences that would be unlikely in "real life" within the universe the story takes place in. In Water, off the top of my head: Niomah runs into Sanuar/Ens just after being fired, Sanuar can arrange the housekeeping job for Niomah, Niomah leaves the ghetto at the right time to see Sanuar and Ens, Sanuar has the potential of being a late-onset mage, Niomah and Sanuar have the correct different in age to realize that potential. In Mana, again off the top of my head but in no particular order: Kizi is "whatever she is" in such a way that she's accepting of the whole situation, Sanuar knows someone appropriate to set Kizi up with at the end of the story, Kizi owns property such that she can set Niomah up with a job, Sanuar learns about mana spots and uses them such that he can thwart Absam and does that thwarting at precisely the right time that he can rescue Niomah from Hesh, Niomah can set up Sanuar with Arnysh.

So why did the contrivances bother me in Mana but not (as much) in Water? In both cases almost everything (Sanuar's birthday, mana spots, Absam as a pure mana specialist, Tasnan's existence and desire for marriage) is carefully set up in advance. So the problem I'm having isn't with narrative structure, it's with suspension of disbelief. I *think* what's happening is that my brain is okay with arranging *events* to fit the narrative (Sanuar/Ens/Niomah's coincidental meetings, etc.), but it's less okay with arranging *people* to do so. So Niomah being able to activate Sanuar feels like good plotting, but Kizi feels like a character whose major traits were determined to enable the particular ending of Mana. Again, I can totally understand how that *also* counts as good plotting, but for some reason I'm reacting negatively to it when I didn't to, say, the date of Niomah's birthday.