• Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
    1·
    24 days ago

    My college English professor absolutely hated the narrative device of “fate.” He felt it was a lazy excuse authors use to signify a character as “special” without having to work hard to justify it. Why work on character development to turn an average character into someone worthwhile, when you can just say they were born to be special? You can still use tropes like the refusal of the call to round out a protagonist and give them some illusion of choice, but ultimately the stamp of “fate” can only go one way.

  • fireweed@lemmy.world
    1·
    24 days ago

    That’s still better than the Japanese/Korean version: “I’m powerful because I don’t know to look both ways before crossing the street.” (Or for the c/fuckcars crowd, “I’m powerful because society still hasn’t fixed its motor vehicle violence problem.”)

    • weker01@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      24 days ago

      Actually that’s one thing I like from eastern entertainment literature, be it shounen anime or cultivation, they need to train. Train hard. Even if they are born a special snowflake many protagonists still train until that snowflake is a buff snowball!

      • fireweed@lemmy.world
        1·
        24 days ago

        I’m honestly mixed on that front. On the one hand, yes, effort is almost always required to become powerful in these stories: you’re not just handed an S-class ability all juiced up from the get-go, you have to earn it. But on the other hand, in most of these stories there’s also a LOT of luck and innate ability that also factors into the protagonist’s success that isn’t really acknowledged. It’s dangerous to imply to youth that effort = success, because it leads to a few erroneous assumptions, such as: successful people must have worked hard to get to where they are and people who aren’t successful must not have tried hard enough, effort is always rewarded eventually, pushing yourself past your limits is something to be praised not avoided, sheer willpower can overcome any handicap, etc. It’s a recipe for future disappointment and burnout (or even permanent disability), which seems extra dangerous in cultures that already abuse students and workers with unrealistic expectations for overexertion.

  • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
    1·
    23 days ago

    Same reason why the Mulan remake is shit. Original story is about a person who finds strength and perseveres despite her being physical weaker than men. In the remake they made her a Mary Sue, strong and magical straight from the beginning of the story and no explanation given.

  • Getting6409@lemm.ee
    1·
    24 days ago

    The Earthsea books play heavily on both born in attributes and acquired skills, and I’d even say the interplay between those two concepts. Really great books for youth and adults.

  • OccultIconoclast@reddthat.comEnglish
    1·
    24 days ago

    The Owl House

    Luz Noceda travels to the demon realm because she didn’t want to go to summer camp, and she discovers glyph magic because she has a smartphone with a camera. She’s the opposite of born special, she doesn’t even have a magical bile gland in her heart.

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
    0·
    24 days ago

    The reason is Star Wars. A whole generation of kids saw Star Wars where Luke is the hero, and then the sequels where you find out that he was a nepobaby all along, and then they went on to write stories teaching the next generation that your parentage matters much more than anything else you can do in life.

    Also, all the manosphere idiots are obsessed with Joseph Conrad because of this and have a big hissy fit when stories don’t conform to the hero’s journey, even though it is demonstrably not the only valid story form.