A shocking realization about the "kicked from the hero's party" trend. (Please don't do this.)

[Jemini]

So, I just made a post in "looking for" a short time ago asking if anyone knows of a "kicked from the party" based story that doesn't follow the 9 point plot that absolutely every single one of them follow.

1. MC is under-appreciated by the hero's party (possibly even bullied) because they under-appreciate what they contribute.
2. MC is kicked from the hero's party.
3. MC strikes out on their own and immediately start succeeding now that they are free of the hero's party.
4. Hero's party starts falling to pieces when they discover just how much the MC was really contributing.
5. MC starts to make a major name for themselves.
6. Hero with the possible addition of all or some of the Hero's party start actually BLAMING the MC for their down-fall after they were kicked out of the party.
7. Hero or Hero's party start on some kind of deranged vengeance plot against MC.
8. Hero's party is soundly defeated upon their first attempt at misguided vengeance, thus cementing in how much more OP MC really is compared to their old party.
9. Hero's party makes a 2nd attempt, this time aided by evil powers of some form or another, often at a heavy price to the "hero" character.

It's ludicrous how every single one of those stories follows that exact cookie-cutter plot down to the letter. But, while griping about that plot outline they all follow, I came to a rather shocking and sudden realization. There actually IS an absolute gem of a litenovel series that follows this plotline, and it's one that's become very famous lately. The reason it's good is because it adds so much extra stuff that it's almost unrecognizable to this core story plot.

The series I'm talking about is one the majority of you out there should know. I'm talking about Rising of the Shield Hero.

The worst part of this, however, is that it was written back in 2011, before this plot theme became such a major thing. In other words, it's not that Shield Hero took this dead plot and dressed it up and made something good of it. It's the other way around. Someone looked at shield hero, stripped it of absolutely everything that made it interesting, and for some twisted reason thought it was a good idea to make that their story.

Think about it.

Spoiler: Rising of the Shield Hero major 1st season plot points

1. The Spear, Sword, and Bow heroes don't understand how this world's system works, and therefore believe the Shield is the weakest.
2. Princess makes false-rape accusations against MC, thus depriving him of his hero position and ostracizing him.
3. Naofumi (the MC) resorts to whatever he needs to do to survive, and manages to somehow scrape together the ability to gain power.
(Note, he's not automatically strong. He starts weak and needs to build his strength from zero, with a severe handicap compared to the rest.)
4. The other 3 heroes start making messes all over the kingdom without realizing it.
(Note, the other 3 are not coming to a realization here, they genuinely and blindly think they are still doing good.)
5. Meanwhile, Naofumi goes around cleaning up their messes and earning the adoration of the towns people while the other 3 worsen in reputation.
6&7. When the King and Princess see how well Naofumi is doing despite their harassment, they start egging the other 3 heroes on to join in on tormenting Naofumi.
8. Naofumi begins out-performing the other 3 heroes again and again. (This is not a single instance, because it's not so simple and black-and-white as in these tired old plots.)
a. King arranges a tournament between Naofumi and the spear hero, which Naofumi wins quite soundly.
b. Naofumi heavy-carries the other 3 heroes HARD during the 2nd wave.
c. Naofumi protects the 2nd princess when the 1st princess tries to assassinate her... on multiple occasions.
d. The queen discovers what the King and Princess are up to, and puts an end to it.
9. It's not the other 3 heroes who appear in the "power at a price" fight, it's The Pope, because the other 3 heroes played a "rest of the party" role in this plot, while it was the king and the 3 heroes church that played the "hero/party leader" role. In the "power at a price" fight, the "price" is the fact that the church is suddenly sticking their neck out and making a power grab. So, it's not all that severe a price other than the fact that if they're defeated then there's no future for them. In this fight, Naofumi winds up having to team up with the other 3 heroes in order to defeat The Pope.

So, yeah. This is a rather shocking realization, but it actually reveals that this cookie-cutter plot actually does have some solid viability. It doesn't have to be such a stripped-down and stale plot. The reason it seems so ridiculous and cookie-cutter is because everyone who's doing this plot these days seems to be giving us nothing but the emaciated skeleton of the plot structure. If you want to make an actual gem like Rising of the shield hero, you need to feed this plot skeleton and give it some skin, bones, muscles, and organs. To stop using figurative terms here, I mean dress up the plot a lot so that it's not so easy to see those bare-bones of the plot. Because that's what all these copy stories are giving us, literally just the base bare bones of the plot used in Rising of the Shield Hero.

 

[ForestDweller]

Shield Hero isn't good though.

 

[SailusGebel]

Shield Hero isn't good though.

supremely based ForestDweller

 

[Jemini]

Shield Hero isn't good though.

Fine, I guess we're all entitled to our opinions. But how about by comparison to these more generic "kicked from the hero's party" plots?

I mean, if you're comparing it to stuff like Overlord, Mushoku Tensei, and Re:Zero (titles selected on purpose for the fact they're contemporaries to Shield Hero,) then I guess you could make an argument that there's better stuff out there. But, if you compare it to others within it's own genre, which as we've just discovered is "kicked from the hero's party" plots which has pretty much sprung up in the wake of Shield Hero, it suddenly looks like an indisputable masterwork by comparison.

Also, I've gotta ask. When you say "Shield Hero isn't good," are you talking 1st season, 2nd season onward, or whole series including the 1st season? Because there is a notable quality difference. The 1st season, which is the one that follows the "kicked from the hero's party" plot structure, is the part a lot of people actually do consider to be rather good.

 

[TotallyHuman]

I don't think they all copy the shield novel. I think I've seen some jp novels that did this thing before 2011. I am fairly sure that broken engagement (the useless young master thing not the villainess) trope came before it too, and the kicked out trope is a variation on that

 

[Generic.Archdemon]

Does [I Became the Hero Who Banished the Protagonist] by 김선인장
Fit the bill somewhat?

 

[Sweetmeat]

You see this plot a lot in any villain/antihero protagonist story, it isn't exclusive to just 'kicked from hero's party' style stories.

How do you make the audience root for a villain protag? One of the he easiest ways is to make the 'good guys' way worse so they look good by comparison.

 

[Jemini]

Does [I Became the Hero Who Banished the Protagonist] by 김선인장
Fit the bill somewhat?

Not finding a good synopsis on that one to judge it by, I'd have to check it out to say for sure. (The effective lack of a synopsis that it gives in it's description is not very helpful.)

You see this plot a lot in any villain/antihero protagonist story, it isn't exclusive to just 'kicked from hero's party' style stories.

How do you make the audience root for a villain protag? One of the he easiest ways is to make the 'good guys' way worse so they look good by comparison.

Hmm... interesting observation. One can say Shield Hero made it's protagonist out to be a person unfairly cast as a villain in it's 1st season. As such, it would make sense for it to follow a plot meant for villain protagonist stories. Perhaps Shield Hero was the one that proved the plot structure's viability for a hero character as well, and it started something of a trend.

So, yeah, assumptions and speculations from here. What I'm reading is that the plot structure developed and was proven in these Villain/antihero protagonist stories that start with a confrontation with the supposed "heroes." From here, my perception of thins is that Shield Hero proves itself as an excellent antihero story, while at the same time pulling the plot structure into the world of Isekai high-fantasy heroes trope. Then, from there, a bunch of people also start trying to adapt that plot to the hero's trope when the first person writes a "kicked from the hero's party" story without even dressing the plot up all that much like it's predecessors had done. Others copy the 1st "kicked from the hero's party" plot with almost no variation, also failing to dress up the plot in any way.

That's my take on things, removing Shield Hero from any claim to credit for the transition and rather having it just coincidentally the one to do a good antihero plot before a million people do far worse renditions of the plot with the antihero part removed.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

I got three recommended isekais...

1) Zero no Tsukaima
2) Shield Bro
3) Mushoku Tensei

 

[Theirl]

So, I just made a post in "looking for" a short time ago asking if anyone knows of a "kicked from the party" based story that doesn't follow the 9 point plot that absolutely every single one of them follow.



It's ludicrous how every single one of those stories follows that exact cookie-cutter plot down to the letter. But, while griping about that plot outline they all follow, I came to a rather shocking and sudden realization. There actually IS an absolute gem of a litenovel series that follows this plotline, and it's one that's become very famous lately. The reason it's good is because it adds so much extra stuff that it's almost unrecognizable to this core story plot.

The series I'm talking about is one the majority of you out there should know. I'm talking about Rising of the Shield Hero.

The worst part of this, however, is that it was written back in 2011, before this plot theme became such a major thing. In other words, it's not that Shield Hero took this dead plot and dressed it up and made something good of it. It's the other way around. Someone looked at shield hero, stripped it of absolutely everything that made it interesting, and for some twisted reason thought it was a good idea to make that their story.

Think about it.

Spoiler: Rising of the Shield Hero major 1st season plot points

1. The Spear, Sword, and Bow heroes don't understand how this world's system works, and therefore believe the Shield is the weakest.
2. Princess makes false-rape accusations against MC, thus depriving him of his hero position and ostracizing him.
3. Naofumi (the MC) resorts to whatever he needs to do to survive, and manages to somehow scrape together the ability to gain power.
(Note, he's not automatically strong. He starts weak and needs to build his strength from zero, with a severe handicap compared to the rest.)
4. The other 3 heroes start making messes all over the kingdom without realizing it.
(Note, the other 3 are not coming to a realization here, they genuinely and blindly think they are still doing good.)
5. Meanwhile, Naofumi goes around cleaning up their messes and earning the adoration of the towns people while the other 3 worsen in reputation.
6&7. When the King and Princess see how well Naofumi is doing despite their harassment, they start egging the other 3 heroes on to join in on tormenting Naofumi.
8. Naofumi begins out-performing the other 3 heroes again and again. (This is not a single instance, because it's not so simple and black-and-white as in these tired old plots.)
a. King arranges a tournament between Naofumi and the spear hero, which Naofumi wins quite soundly.
b. Naofumi heavy-carries the other 3 heroes HARD during the 2nd wave.
c. Naofumi protects the 2nd princess when the 1st princess tries to assassinate her... on multiple occasions.
d. The queen discovers what the King and Princess are up to, and puts an end to it.
9. It's not the other 3 heroes who appear in the "power at a price" fight, it's The Pope, because the other 3 heroes played a "rest of the party" role in this plot, while it was the king and the 3 heroes church that played the "hero/party leader" role. In the "power at a price" fight, the "price" is the fact that the church is suddenly sticking their neck out and making a power grab. So, it's not all that severe a price other than the fact that if they're defeated then there's no future for them. In this fight, Naofumi winds up having to team up with the other 3 heroes in order to defeat The Pope.

So, yeah. This is a rather shocking realization, but it actually reveals that this cookie-cutter plot actually does have some solid viability. It doesn't have to be such a stripped-down and stale plot. The reason it seems so ridiculous and cookie-cutter is because everyone who's doing this plot these days seems to be giving us nothing but the emaciated skeleton of the plot structure. If you want to make an actual gem like Rising of the shield hero, you need to feed this plot skeleton and give it some skin, bones, muscles, and organs. To stop using figurative terms here, I mean dress up the plot a lot so that it's not so easy to see those bare-bones of the plot. Because that's what all these copy stories are giving us, literally just the base bare bones of the plot used in Rising of the Shield Hero.

well isnt it because there is actually consequences for the betrayal? naofumi get traumatized and his trauma actually is portrayed all other betrayed novels, is almost bizarre how clean cut the protagonist get over his old team.

i understand that this genre must come from extremely competent japonese worker that must suffer a similar fate and that its more a therapy session than a story in my opnion. shield hero doesnt give that feel cause naofumi actually was well writen, even if the story is a little shitty tho

 

[Temple]

I think that the stripping to the barebones thing is to capture what makes web novels very sellable. The underdog story, becoming OP MC, and the catharsis of getting one up on the bullies. Essentially, wish fulfillment. The nine points you outlined basically are about that. All other matters are "useless".

I'm saying that because of my experience reading Mushoku Tensei. That was a long time ago, maybe 8 years ago or more. It had all the wish fulfillment stuff, boobs, harem, OP MC, being looked up by everyone. And then it actually busted out real emotions and drama and interactions, actual pain and tragedy. And I'm ashamed to say I dropped it because it interfered with the wish fulfillment aspect. Yep, very shameful. At least my tastes have since changed, probably also due to my experiences in life.

My theory is one doesn't need the "skin, bones, muscles, and organs" to sell the "marketable" plot skeleton. Yes, we have tons of copy-paste stories, but that's what the majority of readers want. If people wanted different, then a different trend will rise. From a business standpoint, (or at least from a getting readers standpoint) there's no need for the "skin, bones, muscles, and organs" you mentioned. I'd even say those can be detrimental to gathering readership, from my experience in writing web novels.

 

[APieceOfRock]

Does [I Became the Hero Who Banished the Protagonist] by 김선인장
Fit the bill somewhat?

that's actually the inverse.
Also good taste. It's a good novel.

 

[HungrySheep]

The Rising of the Cringe Hero.

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

I like Shield Hero, though I have only seen the anime.
I think that the focus of the story is cooperation rather than the exaltation of the MC. Sure, it happens but there is more to it than just that one plotline you mentioned. It's more like that 9-point plot is the addition to the actual plot rather than the focus.

 

[Voidiris]

So, I just made a post in "looking for" a short time ago asking if anyone knows of a "kicked from the party" based story that doesn't follow the 9 point plot that absolutely every single one of them follow.



It's ludicrous how every single one of those stories follows that exact cookie-cutter plot down to the letter. But, while griping about that plot outline they all follow, I came to a rather shocking and sudden realization. There actually IS an absolute gem of a litenovel series that follows this plotline, and it's one that's become very famous lately. The reason it's good is because it adds so much extra stuff that it's almost unrecognizable to this core story plot.

The series I'm talking about is one the majority of you out there should know. I'm talking about Rising of the Shield Hero.

The worst part of this, however, is that it was written back in 2011, before this plot theme became such a major thing. In other words, it's not that Shield Hero took this dead plot and dressed it up and made something good of it. It's the other way around. Someone looked at shield hero, stripped it of absolutely everything that made it interesting, and for some twisted reason thought it was a good idea to make that their story.

Think about it.

Spoiler: Rising of the Shield Hero major 1st season plot points

1. The Spear, Sword, and Bow heroes don't understand how this world's system works, and therefore believe the Shield is the weakest.
2. Princess makes false-rape accusations against MC, thus depriving him of his hero position and ostracizing him.
3. Naofumi (the MC) resorts to whatever he needs to do to survive, and manages to somehow scrape together the ability to gain power.
(Note, he's not automatically strong. He starts weak and needs to build his strength from zero, with a severe handicap compared to the rest.)
4. The other 3 heroes start making messes all over the kingdom without realizing it.
(Note, the other 3 are not coming to a realization here, they genuinely and blindly think they are still doing good.)
5. Meanwhile, Naofumi goes around cleaning up their messes and earning the adoration of the towns people while the other 3 worsen in reputation.
6&7. When the King and Princess see how well Naofumi is doing despite their harassment, they start egging the other 3 heroes on to join in on tormenting Naofumi.
8. Naofumi begins out-performing the other 3 heroes again and again. (This is not a single instance, because it's not so simple and black-and-white as in these tired old plots.)
a. King arranges a tournament between Naofumi and the spear hero, which Naofumi wins quite soundly.
b. Naofumi heavy-carries the other 3 heroes HARD during the 2nd wave.
c. Naofumi protects the 2nd princess when the 1st princess tries to assassinate her... on multiple occasions.
d. The queen discovers what the King and Princess are up to, and puts an end to it.
9. It's not the other 3 heroes who appear in the "power at a price" fight, it's The Pope, because the other 3 heroes played a "rest of the party" role in this plot, while it was the king and the 3 heroes church that played the "hero/party leader" role. In the "power at a price" fight, the "price" is the fact that the church is suddenly sticking their neck out and making a power grab. So, it's not all that severe a price other than the fact that if they're defeated then there's no future for them. In this fight, Naofumi winds up having to team up with the other 3 heroes in order to defeat The Pope.

So, yeah. This is a rather shocking realization, but it actually reveals that this cookie-cutter plot actually does have some solid viability. It doesn't have to be such a stripped-down and stale plot. The reason it seems so ridiculous and cookie-cutter is because everyone who's doing this plot these days seems to be giving us nothing but the emaciated skeleton of the plot structure. If you want to make an actual gem like Rising of the shield hero, you need to feed this plot skeleton and give it some skin, bones, muscles, and organs. To stop using figurative terms here, I mean dress up the plot a lot so that it's not so easy to see those bare-bones of the plot. Because that's what all these copy stories are giving us, literally just the base bare bones of the plot used in Rising of the Shield Hero.

What I heard was that the rising of the shield hero had many good and bad points.

You see this plot a lot in any villain/antihero protagonist story, it isn't exclusive to just 'kicked from hero's party' style stories.

How do you make the audience root for a villain protag? One of the he easiest ways is to make the 'good guys' way worse so they look good by comparison.

I hate when people try to make villains to just pit them against worse villains, yes it is a villain but it feels more like a anti-hero especially if the villain only wants to take revenge and then he is even an true anti-hero in comparison. Or worse when the villain is only labeled a villain and the "good guys" are the villains. The worst offender are villainess, I can count with two digit all villainess that are evil and they come from the same author and aren't the main character and the worst thing is that the heroines are often the villain. I like to call them fake villains.
And why does the villain even need to look good or morally, they are a villains, a bad person. Yes, being a bad person or villain can be quite subjective and isn't always simple but you can say that about everything. Why do you make a villain if you plan to let him look like a lesser evil or even a secret force of good. I know most of the times it's plot purpose and I enjoyed some of the fake villain novels but still it annoys me that people call them villain. Rant over.

I think that the stripping to the barebones thing is to capture what makes web novels very sellable. The underdog story, becoming OP MC, and the catharsis of getting one up on the bullies. Essentially, wish fulfillment. The nine points you outlined basically are about that. All other matters are "useless".

I'm saying that because of my experience reading Mushoku Tensei. That was a long time ago, maybe 8 years ago or more. It had all the wish fulfillment stuff, boobs, harem, OP MC, being looked up by everyone. And then it actually busted out real emotions and drama and interactions, actual pain and tragedy. And I'm ashamed to say I dropped it because it interfered with the wish fulfillment aspect. Yep, very shameful. At least my tastes have since changed, probably also due to my experiences in life.

My theory is one doesn't need the "skin, bones, muscles, and organs" to sell the "marketable" plot skeleton. Yes, we have tons of copy-paste stories, but that's what the majority of readers want. If people wanted different, then a different trend will rise. From a business standpoint, (or at least from a getting readers standpoint) there's no need for the "skin, bones, muscles, and organs" you mentioned. I'd even say those can be detrimental to gathering readership, from my experience in writing web novels.

Such MC are somewhat entertaining if you see them as false heroes who are hypocritical and torment those around them. The harem part sucks. It's rare to see a wish fulfillment novel having these characteristics and these are the only ones I even bother to think about.

 

[Jemini]

I hate when people try to make villains to just pit them against worse villains, yes it is a villain but it feels more like a anti-hero especially if the villain only wants to take revenge and then he is even an true anti-hero in comparison. Or worse when the villain is only labeled a villain and the "good guys" are the villains. The worst offender are villainess, I can count with two digit all villainess that are evil and they come from the same author and aren't the main character and the worst thing is that the heroines are often the villain. I like to call them fake villains.
And why does the villain even need to look good or morally, they are a villains, a bad person. Yes, being a bad person or villain can be quite subjective and isn't always simple but you can say that about everything. Why do you make a villain if you plan to let him look like a lesser evil or even a secret force of good. I know most of the times it's plot purpose and I enjoyed some of the fake villain novels but still it annoys me that people call them villain. Rant over.

There's a reason why a lot of people sing the praises of Worm. Well, several reasons actually. So many that if you asked 5 people for 5 reasons each, you'd come up with over 50 between them. But, one of them is definitely the fact that the author committed HARD to making it's main character a villain, and a villain of the sort that you don't even realize that she really is becoming a true villain until you suddenly realize she's torturing and mutilating her enemies just for the shock-value message it sends to others. It uses the same slippery slope route that was used in Breaking Bad, of 1 step at a time of her justifying doing 1 thing, and then pushing it a little further and a little further, until she becomes one of the most genuinely terrifying villains without a kill-order on them (but she definitely pushes that line. Considering what she does, it's most likely only her complicated past and people knowing that she is more of a "stabilizing Yakuza boss" than a massive chaotic force that doesn't have her getting a kill order.)

But, yeah. Gotta agree with this statement. After having seen something like Worm where they fully commit to the villain protagonist, all these "anti-hero" characters out there come off as rather lacking by comparison.

 

[forli]

Fine, I guess we're all entitled to our opinions. But how about by comparison to these more generic "kicked from the hero's party" plots?

I mean, if you're comparing it to stuff like Overlord, Mushoku Tensei, and Re:Zero (titles selected on purpose for the fact they're contemporaries to Shield Hero,) then I guess you could make an argument that there's better stuff out there. But, if you compare it to others within it's own genre, which as we've just discovered is "kicked from the hero's party" plots which has pretty much sprung up in the wake of Shield Hero, it suddenly looks like an indisputable masterwork by comparison.

Also, I've gotta ask. When you say "Shield Hero isn't good," are you talking 1st season, 2nd season onward, or whole series including the 1st season? Because there is a notable quality difference. The 1st season, which is the one that follows the "kicked from the hero's party" plot structure, is the part a lot of people actually do consider to be rather good.

It's always annoying to see something as bad as Overlord in a list of "good isekai".

Overlord is one of the worst isekai ever written, far worse than any of the generic stuff you're complaining about.

 

[Bobple]

I remember way back talking about the "kicked from the party" based trope with a friend (We do this every now and again with tropes and story beats).

Yep that list sounds about right that .

You also have the ways the mc gets kicked, were they--just fired, abandon, attempted murdered.

Then we can't forget all the different ways mc leaving the party negatively effects the party--Was the mc secretly the strongest, was their support skills busted, were they just so good at the maintenance and taking care of the simple stuff, etc.

Even the stories where the mc retires with goodwill, many stories still somehow have something bad happen the original guild/party for some reason.

Overall, I have no issues with the trope.

 

[HungrySheep]

It's always annoying to see something as bad as Overlord in a list of "good isekai".

Overlord is one of the worst isekai ever written, far worse than any of the generic stuff you're complaining about.

I raise you the new isekai that just came out: Iseleve. I can't think of a single isekai that's worse.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

It's always annoying to see something as bad as Overlord in a list of "good isekai".

Overlord is one of the worst isekai ever written, far worse than any of the generic stuff you're complaining about.

I raise you the new isekai that just came out: Iseleve. I can't think of a single isekai that's worse.

I like Overlord. Taught me the important lesson that if a server of a game I like is shutting down, I need to be there playing.