Was the origin of half of all Isekai plots hiding right under our noses?

[NotaNuffian]

Well, I get the whole "defeat the demon king" ideology, like usurping an evil figure head.

It is the "summoned hero" part that kind of irks me. It is self insert of the ordinary wanting their mundane life to do something extraordinary. But it always ticks me off that everything in the otherworld revolves around the "hero".

Legion20's phrase of "A world of six billion people that can be saved solely by a single person isn't worth saving" rings hard. I kind of hate the prophesied saviour because it feels like a cop out to the otherworld and the fact that destiny exist and I am not even in its footnote.

 

[Redemit]

Why do I have to keep re-explaining this? Are people actually reading the premise at all?

Yes, I KNOW THE CONCEPT OF ISEKAI PRE-DATES JRPGS BY A LOT!!! I'm not talking about that! I'm talking about the plot of specifically "summoned from another world for the express purpose of defeating a demon king!" That plot. Those points exactly. If they go to another world for any other purpose, it doesn't count. If they go to the other world via their own power, like in the earlier Narnia example, and fight something that's not a demon king, it doesn't count.

It is specifically that plot that I'm talking about here.

EDIT: Ok, so the snow queen from the Narnia example needs a bit more in terms of qualification for this to hold up.

The objections to Narnia in particular are a few. One, the children weren't summoned or pulled to the other world in any fashion, they crawled through a wardrobe. After this, they were not greeted by a royal court or anything of the sort, they just wandered around the world exploring.

The defeating of the snow queen plot, because that's pretty much what it was, she was a reference to an earlier villain known as the snow queen from a like-named story, came about as a result of one of the children being captured by her. They were not pushed onto this quest by a force of government pleading with them to save the world.

Finally, after completing the quest, they were made rulers. This also does not line up with the standard plot.

It's not a plot of liberating a world from the demon king as summoned heroes, it's a plot of personal growth in another world, as was the case with the overwhelming majority of portal fantasy stories before Anime picked up the concept and turned it into something else.

Yes, I am using the "strip down the plot" argument to qualify FF1 for this, but you would have to remove a LOT more things from Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (because there are other books in the Narnia series) than you would FF1 in order to get to this plot. FF1, you just have to change the name of the big bad from "chaos" to "demon king" and it basically works. Wardrobe, you'd have to flip a lot of motivations and actually ADD elements in order to get to the repeated plot we keep seeing in half of modern Isekai.

TL;DR, The Witch from wardrobe is a villain and a queen. Chaos from FF1 is almost literally a demon king by another name. Therefore, yeah, I don't think wardrobe really lines up quite that well.

First the children ARE summoned just not in the way you are most familiar with

Secondly They (or at least Lucy) was met by a representative of the snow queen the only "royalty" of the land at the time

Thirdly the snow queen literally represents the actual devil not a demon "lord" not a demon prince but the actual biblical Devil AKA Satan AKA Lucifer you don't get more demonic than that

And finally they were asked by Aslan the representation of Jesus Christ AKA GOD the highest authority in the world in the story to face the snow queen and her army in battle

 

[SailusGebel]

An important question is, why do you spend your time on this instead of writing? An even more important question is, why do I keep checking this thread?

 

[NotaNuffian]

An important question is, why do you spend your time on this instead of writing? An even more important question is, why do I keep checking this thread?

1. OP is bored.
2. You are bored.

 

[SailusGebel]

1. OP is bored.
2. You are bored.

Of course!

 

[Shrimp_eater]

There have been manga's that followed this exact same plot of "high school boy reincarnates in fantasy medieval world and must defeat demon lord" from before Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were even conceptualized.

Final Fantasy itself is also inspired by D&D and western rpgs like Ultima games. The reason why the characters were memory-less "blank" states was most certainly because they were to be stand-in for the players as you said, after all that is sort of what your D&D character is supposed to be.

I think you're trying to rationalize what are essentially multiple cultural pieces that derive from multiple different places to form the isekai phenomenon from the last decade. You won't be able to do that.

 

[miyoga]

Redemit is right on this. CS Lewis was hugely religious and confirmed that his novels all had that biblical slant in one way or another (his novel "Perelandra" has the MC knowingly isekai'd to the namesake planet, which is actually real-world Venus as we find out in the book and he talks with god about why he needs to save Perelandra). This also means that the Narnia series is also based on the greatest isekai ever told: the Bible.

I won't go to far into this but think about Jesus. Where did he come from? He's got (literal) god-level abilities. His only purpose is to save humanity from Lucifer (aka The Devil, aka the king of fallen angels/demons). He grows up and realizes/tells people he's from a place other than Earth...Jesus was an isekai MC.

 

[Vnator]

Subtract the amnesia plot and the actual origin of hero goes on a quest to defeat the demon king is the Ramayana. Thousands of years old and it does all of the major tropes and still kicks ass

 

[Redemit]

Redemit is right on this. CS Lewis was hugely religious and confirmed that his novels all had that biblical slant in one way or another (his novel "Perelandra" has the MC knowingly isekai'd to the namesake planet, which is actually real-world Venus as we find out in the book and he talks with god about why he needs to save Perelandra). This also means that the Narnia series is also based on the greatest isekai ever told: the Bible.

I won't go to far into this but think about Jesus. Where did he come from? He's got (literal) god-level abilities. His only purpose is to save humanity from Lucifer (aka The Devil, aka the king of fallen angels/demons). He grows up and realizes/tells people he's from a place other than Earth...Jesus was an isekai MC.

One correction Jesus comes to save humanity from SIN the devil is kinda just a symptom more than the root cause

I'd also add he is betrayed by his disciple and his government and then tortured AND killed and during his 3 days of death he's sent to HELL before rising himself up to defeat death itself thus saving humanity from sin
(This is also something that Aslan goes through in the lion the witch and the wardrobe)

 

[Jemini]

An important question is, why do you spend your time on this instead of writing? An even more important question is, why do I keep checking this thread?

Actually, I've been churning out about a chapter every couple days, and am also in the middle of a mass editing project of my entire series. It's just that getting super into my own work somehow makes me start very actively thinking about story tropes in an almost manic manner.

Which admittedly is not the best in terms of getting things right.

 

[ElliePorter]

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Why do I have to keep re-explaining this? Are people actually reading the premise at all?

Yes, I KNOW THE CONCEPT OF ISEKAI PRE-DATES JRPGS BY A LOT!!! I'm not talking about that! I'm talking about the plot of specifically "summoned from another world for the express purpose of defeating a demon king!" That plot. Those points exactly. If they go to another world for any other purpose, it doesn't count. If they go to the other world via their own power, like in the earlier Narnia example, and fight something that's not a demon king, it doesn't count.

It is specifically that plot that I'm talking about here.

EDIT: Ok, so the snow queen from the Narnia example needs a bit more in terms of qualification for this to hold up.

The objections to Narnia in particular are a few. One, the children weren't summoned or pulled to the other world in any fashion, they crawled through a wardrobe. After this, they were not greeted by a royal court or anything of the sort, they just wandered around the world exploring.

The defeating of the snow queen plot, because that's pretty much what it was, she was a reference to an earlier villain known as the snow queen from a like-named story, came about as a result of one of the children being captured by her. They were not pushed onto this quest by a force of government pleading with them to save the world.

Finally, after completing the quest, they were made rulers. This also does not line up with the standard plot.

It's not a plot of liberating a world from the demon king as summoned heroes, it's a plot of personal growth in another world, as was the case with the overwhelming majority of portal fantasy stories before Anime picked up the concept and turned it into something else.

Yes, I am using the "strip down the plot" argument to qualify FF1 for this, but you would have to remove a LOT more things from Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (because there are other books in the Narnia series) than you would FF1 in order to get to this plot. FF1, you just have to change the name of the big bad from "chaos" to "demon king" and it basically works. Wardrobe, you'd have to flip a lot of motivations and actually ADD elements in order to get to the repeated plot we keep seeing in half of modern Isekai.

TL;DR, The Witch from wardrobe is a villain and a queen. Chaos from FF1 is almost literally a demon king by another name. Therefore, yeah, I don't think wardrobe really lines up quite that well.

i dunno man, highlight your words? bold them? people have short attention spans. I mainly skimmed the thing myself. Im a long winded cunt myself so i aint saying you're wrong here. Just that this be the way of SH--ya gotta make your TLDR, your bullet points, your highlights, when saying more than two paragraphs. Half of us probably got ADHD

 

[SailusGebel]

Actually, I've been churning out about a chapter every couple days, and am also in the middle of a mass editing project of my entire series.

Good job!

It's just that getting super into my own work somehow makes me start very actively thinking about story tropes in an almost manic manner.

Which admittedly is not the best in terms of getting things right.

Understandable.