kakkahousu

@kakkahousu666

dumb

they/them

i like fonts and art and stuff e.g. communism

kakkahousu @kakkahousu6661/23/2023, 1:21 PM

dante, personally @dante

dante, personally @dante1/23/2023, 12:21 AM

the more I think about it the more I believe that why waves hands The Modern Isekai Tropes (as exemplified most recently in the dialogue that appears in Forspoken) bother me so much is that they seem to signal a sort of irreverent carelessness of the work's own setting &/or lore.

Like, if the main character, meant to be some sort of newcomer to this place, sees no issue with mocking/goofing on the traditions of the world that they are a newcomer to, why the fuck should I, the audience, care about the world? I feel like I am being told "this does not matter, don't worry about it"

#I am being a grump about this but I don't care #i do not understand the appeal of isekai as a genre

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in reply to @dante's post:

Sullivan @Sullivan1/23/2023, 12:34 AM

what do you think about stories where the Newcomer is resistant to the new world but not skeptical, like John Carter et al, and eventually buys in and becomes essentially another one of the weird guys. the Jake Sully story

dante, personally @dante1/23/2023, 12:39 AM

this might be kind of a dumb distinction to make but I don't mind that nearly as much since... the main character (John Carter, Jake Sully) are aware of the other world at least on a basic level before going there. John Carter is familiar with the idea of Mars. Jake Sully is extremely cognizant of what Pandora is.

They are less "entering another world" and more "entering a new social situation" that they are unfamiliar with. There is less character bafflement at physical laws being broken or something (read: less of the "I can move shit with my mind??" stuff).

Obviously both JCOM and Avatar have plenty of OTHER issues but I don't think either of them use the main characters as a cipher for "making fun of the unfamiliar setting that they are entering" and therefore I don't feel annoyed at that aspect

Sullivan @Sullivan1/23/2023, 3:55 AM

But there IS that same sense of wonder- like these stories both have scenes of wonder about how different the new world is, and the plot hinges on the newcomer's Swaggy Perspective showing all the dumb guys how its done. I definitely share your feelings on forspoken and most modern isekai stuff, but I wonder what specifically it is about its approach to the setting that I find so grating.

Off the top of my head, I think its that the heroes aren't taking the world they're in seriously. Like, incredulity is one thing, but they are acting like they're not really THERE. And not intentionally- it's projecting the audience fantasy of not just being in a thrilling new scenario, but also not really experiencing any challenges or friction. It's like the Forspoken heroine acts like an annoying streamer. Same with the guys who use their phones to solve medieval problems in isekai.

I guess these are just different approaches to "the hero visits a wondrous but naive land and eventually becomes its master" story, but i find myself not immediately recoiling at the versions that have the hero at LEAST show a little orientalist admiration to the place theyre in. Has me imagining Avatar/Dances With Wolves with like. Medieval Europe guys. Like a white guy goes back in time and masters the lifestyle of a bunch of king arthur type guys, teaches them Army Tactics and makes them all look fucking stupid.

dante, personally @dante1/23/2023, 7:17 AM

Off the top of my head, I think its that the heroes aren't taking the world they're in seriously.

Yeah, I think this is really it, imo! It's the idea that this New World for the character, in whatever form it manifests, is not like... a thing that matters to them. Jake Sully does not act like that, John Carter does not act like that. to Jake and/or John, their circumstances are extremely real and extremely something that they have to a) deal with and b) accept help when dealing with, or else they'll like, die.

cat @catacalypto1/23/2023, 6:12 AM

curious about examples that you think qualify as this: I don’t feel like I have enough knowledge about of the genre to comment but it certainly seems consistent with what I do know / have seen

dante, personally @dante1/23/2023, 7:19 AM

Honestly I wouldn't say I'm super well-versed in this either, which is why this is more a petty grievance than a considered criticism. But if you define "isekai" broadly, a lot of stuff sort of falls into that camp, and in another thread here I was talking about John Carter and also Avatar, which are both kinda sorta isekais, but don't grate on me in this specific way.

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