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

[Jemini]

You all know it. The classic plot of the hero summoned from another world to defeat the demon king.

At least half of all Isekai are based around this basic core plot, with various permutations on it. Various different ways they try to just off-set it a little bit from that basic core so it doesn't come off as too base and bare-bones, almost as though they are cleverly subverting it just a bit but really they're all just telling the same story.

But, after reading a while, I started to realize... are they actually referencing and trying to "subvert" a plot that has ever actually happened in history? Or did it just originate as a myth in someone's mind, one of the first to come up with this "subvert this basic plot" trope in Isekai, and then everyone else read that and thought it actually sounded plausible it could have theoretically existed somewhere at some time?

Well, I think it finally clicked for me what story this plot actually originated from. First off, for a plot this basic to possibly exist, it would have to be from the NES era of JRPGs, and it would have to be popular enough to actually have become part of the cultural subconscious.

Well, there are literally two franchises that actually fit those criteria. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. I didn't quite see a plot exactly like that core basic thing in either of those, so that lead me to thinking it was a myth still. But, it just occurred to me. That exact storyline may not have been something that existed, but what if it was a stripped down version of one of the plots in one of those games?


This is when it finally clicked. The original Final Fantasy features four warriors who suddenly wake up right outside of a small town with no memory of their past, and the only thing they know is that they have four crystal orbs on their possession, one for each of them. When they enter the town, they are told they are the heroes predicted to arrive in some legend, and those crystal orbs are the proof.

Sound familiar? They are said to have no memory of their past so they can be a self-insert for the player. If they are a self-insert for the player, that means they might as well actually be from Earth. They are literally Isekaied characters without it actually saying so.

As for their quest, it is to restore balance to the elements and defeat the force that has thrown them out in the first place. This force is called "Chaos," not "the demon king," but it is not a large leap in logic to see how later writers might want to strip off specific names in order to not make it too close to a copyrighted intellectual property held by a large corporation. And, it wound up being this more generic "demon king" version that got echoed through the rest of the stories.


So, in other words, the origin of this "defeat the demon king" plot we keep seeing over and over again was pretty much hiding in plain sight, in a game a lot of us hardcore fans might have even played several times, and yet it is a little hard to make that connection to the plot we keep seeing in Isekai due to the stripping down of the identifying content from the original, and then the little twists they keep putting on it in their retellings.

I just thought I'd leave this here, going over the thought process and the reasoning, for anyone else who was wondering and bothered by the same impression of a phenomenon of copies without an original that we seemed to have going on way too prominently in Isekai.

 

[Satansoul]

I don't understand what you wrote, but the text seems quite long and interesting, so I approve.

 

[Tyranomaster]

The origins of Isekai as a genre go back way further than modern times. There are lots of Eastern (and even a few Western) stories from hundreds, if not thousands of years ago that involve a character getting transported to a new world. The origin of RPG elements within those stories can be traced back to RPG games though.

 

[Jemini]

I don't understand what you wrote, but the text seems quite long and interesting, so I approve.

The TL; DR (literal here it seems) is that the "Heroes summoned from another world to defeat the demon king" plot that appears in about half of all Isekai came from the first game in the Final Fantasy franchise. FF1, if you will, even though it doesn't have a "1" in it's name.

The full reasoning and breakdown of that idea is in the OP.

The origins of Isekai as a genre go back way further than modern times. There are lots of Eastern (and even a few Western) stories from hundreds, if not thousands of years ago that involve a character getting transported to a new world. The origin of RPG elements within those stories can be traced back to RPG games though.

I'm not talking about the origin of Isekai, I'm talking about the origin of the "hero summoned to defeat the demon lord" plot within Isekai.

I am aware of Isekai from before RPGs were even a thing, and they tended to have less of an emphasis on "summoned hero" and were more along the lines of "child or hapless adult stumbles into the other world and explores."

 

[Generic.Archdemon]

the origin of the "hero summoned to defeat the demon lord" plot within Isekai.

Conscious choice by creator or subconsciously ?

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

I thought about an isekai plot before I knew about isekai. I think it's pretty natural, but now the genre is cemented.

 

[Jemini]

Conscious choice by creator or subconsciously ?

Doesn't matter, I'm talking about the origin, not the motivation. Of course it's entirely possible it can happen subconsciously due to how thickly it permeates the genre these days, as such someone who's been exposed to that soup may very well wind up subconsciously mimicking others who are writing in a similar genre.

This doesn't matter, because the subconscious idea would not have existed in the author's mind if they weren't exposed to the idea so frequently within the genre. I'm talking about the origin, why the plot became so thick within the genre in the first place.

 

[SailusGebel]

Is it so interesting?

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Like the 'classroom gets iskai'd but the goddess is actually evil' stories. It's supposed to be a subversion of troupes, but it isn't. I don't think I can name a single one of those stories where the goddesses character isnt evil.

Let me know if you figure out where that horrible troupe comes from.

 

[SailusGebel]

I don't think I can name a single one of those stories where the goddesses character isnt evil.

I can name one.

 

[Satansoul]

The TL; DR (literal here it seems) is that the "Heroes summoned from another world to defeat the demon king" plot that appears in about half of all Isekai came from the first game in the Final Fantasy franchise. FF1, if you will, even though it doesn't have a "1" in it's name.

The full reasoning and breakdown of that idea is in the OP.

"The Chronicles of Narnia" was written thirty years before "Final Fantasy" was made.
And Narnia was literally an Isekai novel about a group of children who go to another world to defeat the devil.

 

[melchi]

The origins of Isekai as a genre go back way further than modern times. There are lots of Eastern (and even a few Western) stories from hundreds, if not thousands of years ago that involve a character getting transported to a new world. The origin of RPG elements within those stories can be traced back to RPG games though.

I agree, folklore about the idea predates the game quite a bit.

As for fighting the big bad, a good summary of all final fantasy games is "Basically star wars." Most of the portal fantasies before (alice in wonderland, wizard of oz) don't really have truck-kun / reincarnation because that was not really a thing in the west.

Also, FFI wasn't really the first of the kind. Earlier in the 80s other jrpgs predate FF. Square published dragon slayer years before FF1, it is just that FF1 was their first commercial success.

 

[Generic.Archdemon]

Doesn't matter,

Too many assumptions generalizations in that case.

I reject this theory.

Edit: sorry, I meant generalizations

 

[Redemit]

Why am I having a weird memory about someone like Mark Twain or someone else writing a novel with RPG like elements to it?

 

[CupcakeNinja]

You all know it. The classic plot of the hero summoned from another world to defeat the demon king.

At least half of all Isekai are based around this basic core plot, with various permutations on it. Various different ways they try to just off-set it a little bit from that basic core so it doesn't come off as too base and bare-bones, almost as though they are cleverly subverting it just a bit but really they're all just telling the same story.

But, after reading a while, I started to realize... are they actually referencing and trying to "subvert" a plot that has ever actually happened in history? Or did it just originate as a myth in someone's mind, one of the first to come up with this "subvert this basic plot" trope in Isekai, and then everyone else read that and thought it actually sounded plausible it could have theoretically existed somewhere at some time?

Well, I think it finally clicked for me what story this plot actually originated from. First off, for a plot this basic to possibly exist, it would have to be from the NES era of JRPGs, and it would have to be popular enough to actually have become part of the cultural subconscious.

Well, there are literally two franchises that actually fit those criteria. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. I didn't quite see a plot exactly like that core basic thing in either of those, so that lead me to thinking it was a myth still. But, it just occurred to me. That exact storyline may not have been something that existed, but what if it was a stripped down version of one of the plots in one of those games?


This is when it finally clicked. The original Final Fantasy features four warriors who suddenly wake up right outside of a small town with no memory of their past, and the only thing they know is that they have four crystal orbs on their possession, one for each of them. When they enter the town, they are told they are the heroes predicted to arrive in some legend, and those crystal orbs are the proof.

Sound familiar? They are said to have no memory of their past so they can be a self-insert for the player. If they are a self-insert for the player, that means they might as well actually be from Earth. They are literally Isekaied characters without it actually saying so.

As for their quest, it is to restore balance to the elements and defeat the force that has thrown them out in the first place. This force is called "Chaos," not "the demon king," but it is not a large leap in logic to see how later writers might want to strip off specific names in order to not make it too close to a copyrighted intellectual property held by a large corporation. And, it wound up being this more generic "demon king" version that got echoed through the rest of the stories.


So, in other words, the origin of this "defeat the demon king" plot we keep seeing over and over again was pretty much hiding in plain sight, in a game a lot of us hardcore fans might have even played several times, and yet it is a little hard to make that connection to the plot we keep seeing in Isekai due to the stripping down of the identifying content from the original, and then the little twists they keep putting on it in their retellings.

I just thought I'd leave this here, going over the thought process and the reasoning, for anyone else who was wondering and bothered by the same impression of a phenomenon of copies without an original that we seemed to have going on way too prominently in Isekai.

"...The concept of isekai started in Japanese folktales, such as Urashima Tarō. However, the first modern isekai works were Haruka Takachiho's novel Warrior from Another World and Yoshiyuki Tomino's television series Aura Battler Dunbine."--Wiki

neat theory tho, and it doe$ fall more in like with the modern perception of what "i$ekai" i$
(one of my key$ i$ fucked up, got an external keyboard but too lazy to bu$t it out right now even though it$ like only a few feet away from me))

 

[PancakesWitch]

You mean the whole modern weeb isekai? Yeah the japanese are obviously inspired by dragon quest and final fantasy, from the classes to the monsters. Dragon Quest had the chosen hero and demon king plot first i think, and it uses it for every game unlike final fantasy that moved away from it.

 

[Jemini]

I agree, folklore about the idea predates the game quite a bit.

As for fighting the big bad, a good summary of all final fantasy games is "Basically star wars." Most of the portal fantasies before (alice in wonderland, wizard of oz) don't really have truck-kun / reincarnation because that was not really a thing in the west.

Also, FFI wasn't really the first of the kind. Earlier in the 80s other jrpgs predate FF. Square published dragon slayer years before FF1, it is just that FF1 was their first commercial success.

"...The concept of isekai started in Japanese folktales, such as Urashima Tarō. However, the first modern isekai works were Haruka Takachiho's novel Warrior from Another World and Yoshiyuki Tomino's television series Aura Battler Dunbine."--Wiki

neat theory tho, and it doe$ fall more in like with the modern perception of what "i$ekai" i$
(one of my key$ i$ fucked up, got an external keyboard but too lazy to bu$t it out right now even though it$ like only a few feet away from me))

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.

 

[forli]

I think it's pretty clear that the game this trope is based on is Dragon Quest, not Final Fantasy. Not only is Dragon Quest a lot more popular in Japan, it is specifically a simple plot about a hero who has to defeat a "demon lord" that has an army of monsters, while the plot of Final Fantasy is a bit more convoluted (and I believe that the usual term for 'demon lord' used in Japan is the same as the one used in that game, but I'm not sure of that).

The thing is, since Dragon Quest is so popular in Japan and its plot is so basic, in the minds of most Japanese people that plot is the most generic, basic, and cliched plot for fantasy, regardless of if any other fantasy stories use it.

So when a Japanese author wants to subvert a 'generic fantasy Isekai', they first think of the most cliched fantasy plot, and they go with Dragon Quest's 'The protagonist is a hero who has to fight the demon lord'. Then, to make it Isekai, they add to that 'The protagonist is summoned to a fantasy world', and the result is 'The protagonist is summoned to a fantasy world to be a hero who has to fight the demon lord'. And that's why that plot 'feels' cliched, even if it doesn't even exist.

 

[SailusGebel]

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

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.

You moved the goal post. Opinion rejected. Narnia 100% qualifies as a Demon King isekai. FF1 doesn't say how the heroes arrived, does it? Taxi? Uber? Skateboard? Did they fart themselves into existence?

Narnia had the prophecy that human children would save Narnia from a great evil, and Aslan brought the kids there for that. This is why media literacy is important. True, the metaphores and such are "deeper" if you will, but the character's actions remain.

If you keep "stripping down" that trope you'll find yourself seeing Demon King Isekai in War itself, as the [Brave Person] is requested/ordered by the [Government] to defeat [The Great Evil in a Faraway Land]. Maybe that's where the trope started, maybe not. We'd have to ask the people who came up with Dragon Quest because theories will only result in goalpost moving.