Based Fiction and Franchises
- Thread starter LindyAF
- Start date
DocSolarisReich
Esoteric Spaceman
Oh for sure. That one is so useful for triggering fluffy bunnies with, as the society described is basically Space Athens but they can’t help themselves to argue ad hitlerium against it.
And perhaps ‘Glory Road’ with its anti democratic authoritarian setup. But those are rather exceptions to Heinlein’s penchant for personal autonomy uber alles.
Space Viking is a really interesting case, as I read it as a young lad and really enjoyed it, but I find it doesn’t hold up when revisited with the eyes of cynical experience.
It starts off promising with going a Viking and blood and thunder and vengeance and then it loses the plot in a very ‘big men with screwdrivers’ sort of way.
Bassoe
Well-known member
The Mote In God's Eye by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven.
It isn't the moties fault that their inability to control their reproduction makes them dangerous, and none of the in-story debate frames the situation as if it was, purely in terms of 'are they a threat to humanity and the empire' and if so 'how can the threat be nuteralized and/or contained with minimal war crimes and/or expenditure of resources, money and lives'. Plus, recognizing that if given a chance to negeoate, the moties would easily use the offer of trading technologies and labor to recruit human allies/useful idiots, who'd be able to sabotage the motie quarantine efforts through economics if nothing else.
It isn't the moties fault that their inability to control their reproduction makes them dangerous, and none of the in-story debate frames the situation as if it was, purely in terms of 'are they a threat to humanity and the empire' and if so 'how can the threat be nuteralized and/or contained with minimal war crimes and/or expenditure of resources, money and lives'. Plus, recognizing that if given a chance to negeoate, the moties would easily use the offer of trading technologies and labor to recruit human allies/useful idiots, who'd be able to sabotage the motie quarantine efforts through economics if nothing else.
Vargas Fan
Head over heels in love :)
Perhaps Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant books, the main character is NOT a nice guy, not even in the second trilogy where he is not as much of a jerk.
LindyAF
Well-known member
I mean I wouldn't really consider being an asshole based.
DocSolarisReich
Esoteric Spaceman
Not having read the Thomas Covenant (isn't that the fantasy retelling of the Joseph Smith story?) I can't say one way or another, but being an arse does not make one debased either.
Nice ==/== Good
Vargas Fan
Head over heels in love :)
The Covenant series is kind of hard to describe but part of his nature is at least in the first part sort of understandable due to circumstances, though it doesn't excuse some things he does. It seems that he tries to find a path to a self-redemption which has mixed results.
This is about the first two trilogies though. Donaldson wrote another sequel series which I haven't managed to finish.
I can't really comment on the Joseph Smith aspect.
This is about the first two trilogies though. Donaldson wrote another sequel series which I haven't managed to finish.
I can't really comment on the Joseph Smith aspect.
DocSolarisReich
Esoteric Spaceman
Neither can I but plot summary per le Wik is certainly Manichaean enough to be Mormon fanfic.
"The main character of the stories surround Thomas Covenant, an embittered and cynical writer, afflicted with leprosy and shunned by society, is fated to become the heroic savior of the Land, an alternate world. In ten novels, published between 1977 and 2013, he struggles against Lord Foul, "the Despiser", who intends to escape the bondage of the physical universe and wreak revenge upon his arch-enemy, "the Creator"."
Circle of Willis
Well-known member
I'm surprised the original Deus Ex from 2000 hasn't been brought up yet.
I could go on and on, but I've already laid out thirteen long points. The long & short of it: Deus Ex champions a healthy skepticism toward government, bureaucrats and the press, neoliberalism, globalism and big woke corporations in general, and further suggests that 1) governments the world over might just use a pandemic as an excuse to mount a huge powergrab and 2) there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to reset to an earlier period in time, even an age of feudatories and city-states, instead of progressing toward a technocratic one world order. Coupled with the emphasis on player free will in its design and its well-written, thought-provoking sociopolitical & philosophical debates (which the game never takes sides in, DX lays out its arguments eloquently and fairly but then it's all up to you to decide who's right) it's perhaps the most based video game in existence, and still one of if not THE best ever overall.
Sadly, the sequel sucked (mostly due to gameplay and level flaws, but the writing wasn't quite on the first game's level either). And the prequels made by Square Enix have shied away from the original themes about the convergence of unchecked government & corporate power, anti-globalism and skepticism toward authority as well as technological & social progress to go in an increasingly BLM-esque direction within a 'mechanical apartheid' allegory instead.
* The main villains are Majestic 12, a globalist cabal of technocrats and scientists who are working to weld the world into a totalitarian police state under their unblinking surveillance and the jackboots of their merciless soldiers. They express nothing but contempt for laws (which their AI Icarus writes off as 'arbitrary' and meaningless), traditions (they're explicitly secular and background materials suggest they never bothered using religion as a tool, unlike their Illuminati predecessors) and human life itself (as demonstrated by everything they do in-game, in the backstory, and literally every single one of their labs; per the intro sequence they're even proud of their lack of ethics allowing them to make scientific breakthroughs in areas & ways their more moral opposition refused to consider).
* How are MJ12 taking control of the world? Why, they created and are actively spreading a plague, while secretly withholding the cure. They use the plague to kill and marginalize people they can't control (the underclass of society for the most part) and the cure to compel governments into carrying out their will, which is usually to give MJ12 members positions of power and pass draconian laws. Both the plague and the cure are made of nanites manufactured by MJ12, so whether you catch the former or willingly consume the latter, you're actually putting yourself at their nonexistent mercy. Meanwhile, members of the public who don't uncritically buy the gov't line think the plague is being used to kill off 'surplus' populations, which is indeed part of (but not the whole) truth.
* The leader of MJ12 is Bob Page: the world's first trillionaire and richest man, CEO of the all-encompassing corporate conglomerate Page Industries, and publicly a generous philanthropist who only wants to help uplift humanity. In reality he's a totally sociopathic megalomaniac who never demonstrates any benevolent intention, he just sees himself as a god and wants to make that vision a reality. Oh, and Page Industries specializes in 1) electronic communication via the Aquinas Protocol and 2) biomedical R&D through its subsidiary VersaLife. So basically, he's the lovechild of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates with a good helping of demonic charisma to fool the masses.
* The US federal gov't has been thoroughly corrupted by MJ12. FEMA has become little more than a skinsuit for above-ground MJ12 ops in America, the FBI is mentioned to be running youth prisons called 'good behavior camps' with populations in the tens of thousands, and the president is paying dues to the UN over congressional objections. Washington blatantly doesn't give a crap about the people it represents and yet, despite a 35%-and-dropping approval rating, said president is implied to be clinging to power through illegitimate means according to the NSF leader you arrest at the end of the first level.
* Speaking of the UN, they're another one of MJ12's public faces and churn out propaganda proclaiming that perfect liberty requires a perfect police state with perfect(ly intrusive) surveillance, centralized control of communications and a universal electronic currency. The latter two already exist and MJ12 is working hard on the first item. In general, if MJ12 or any of its catspaws say something's good for you, they 100% do not have any good intentions beneath the rhetoric.
* Oh, and they have their own army, the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition! While ostensibly a benevolent and humane peacekeeping organization, UNATCO is extremely secretive, and for good reason - besides being MJ12's public military arm, they actually employ mech-aug (cyborg) agents who are blatantly bloodthirsty psychos and encourage you to indulge in similar behavior. Even their rank-and-file grunts express a most un-peaceful eagerness to kill dissidents with lines like 'You got the right idea, cap the bastards before they get lawyers involved.' and 'A bullet to the head, now that's justice. You catch on quick.'
* But at least UNATCO pretends to be working for the public good and the majority of its members are shown to be unaware of MJ12's existence, much less their motives - they genuinely think they're doing good work, ridding the world of dangerous terrorists. The same can't be said of the actual MJ12 army which openly operates in France (and secretly around the world) and brutally puts down dissent, to the extreme of torturing prisoners and murdering entire families in their beds just because one of them criticized MJ12's actions (as evidenced by a conversation with an MJ12 trooper's family in Paris). They're well aware of what they're doing, unlike UNATCO and the cops you run into from time to time, but knowingly continue to serve MJ12 for sweet paychecks or out of genuine loyalty while the press covers up or justifies their atrocities. Amusingly, they're thought to be either some French military faction that's staged a coup or an outright EU army by the French public.
* Speaking of the press...in addition to virtually every gov't on the planet, every known media outlet is also under MJ12's thumb. Throughout the game you literally can't find even a single one that's actually reporting the news objectively and honestly instead of just parroting MJ12-crafted narratives, not even the one that seems to be anti-government (and is demonized as a future Infowars by the mainstream) at first glance. You want actual news, you have to listen to the resistance, which MJ12 has declared to be terrorists deserving extermination on sight through the fake news and their many other official fronts.
* In general, technological & social progress are depicted in a far from universally positive light - indeed it's clearly why MJ12 has come so far in the first place, and you're left wondering how much of either were organic developments and how much were steered by MJ12 or the Illuminati before them. One of the endings has you actually destroy both, throwing the world into a period literally called the 'New Dark Age', and this is presented not just as a viable course of action but potentially a moral one; the game doesn't call you a bad person or otherwise judge you for choosing this path.
* So, who dares stand against the power of MJ12? Well, obviously there's you: a vat-grown clone baby designed from the ground up by MJ12 to test their nanotech. Said nanotech also includes a function to kill you in 48 hours if you ever go against your creators.
* But then there's also the NSF and X-51 in the States. The former are a right-wing militia that rebelled because, according to the backstory, Washington has pretty much outlawed private ownership of firearms. From a conversation you can overhear in the first level and an ex-NSF bum who sells you sniper ammo upon your return to the second, they're established as explicitly religious and conservative-minded, allying with inner-city minority gangs only to pad out their depleted manpower after a decade of guerrilla warfare against the feds. X-51 is a less ideological and much more recent rebellion, the result of a bunch of MJ12 scientists and soldiers defecting from Area 51.
* In Asia, the resistance's main representative are the triads. Who are condemned for indulging in techno-piracy and selling bootleg materials to small businesses, which are all too happy to take said bootlegged stuff because it's cheaper than if they'd bought legitimately from megacorps like Page Industries and its subsidiaries. And their primary representative, the hacker Tracer Tong, is the one who gives you the idea to inaugurate a 'New Dark Age' in the first place.
* In Europe you deal with Silhouette and the Illuminati. The former are basically a Situationist International-type avant-garde revolutionary cell, so fine, not exactly based - though they still have the stones to risk their lives against MJ12, and have caused enough of a nuisance that MJ12 staged false-flag terrorist attacks to make them look bad. The latter are a more conservative, spiritually inclined conspiracy (they actually chide Bob Page for being impatient and overly materialistic, thereby failing his spiritual exercises when he was still part of their cabal, in-game) whose leaders are contemptuously referred to as 'pretentious old men' by Page himself. Also, the former ultimately prove to be little more than the latter's subverted muscle, and are outright absorbed by them in the sequel...tell me again, how effectively are the socialist Democrats like Bernie or AOC standing up to their betters in the establishment?
* How are MJ12 taking control of the world? Why, they created and are actively spreading a plague, while secretly withholding the cure. They use the plague to kill and marginalize people they can't control (the underclass of society for the most part) and the cure to compel governments into carrying out their will, which is usually to give MJ12 members positions of power and pass draconian laws. Both the plague and the cure are made of nanites manufactured by MJ12, so whether you catch the former or willingly consume the latter, you're actually putting yourself at their nonexistent mercy. Meanwhile, members of the public who don't uncritically buy the gov't line think the plague is being used to kill off 'surplus' populations, which is indeed part of (but not the whole) truth.
* The leader of MJ12 is Bob Page: the world's first trillionaire and richest man, CEO of the all-encompassing corporate conglomerate Page Industries, and publicly a generous philanthropist who only wants to help uplift humanity. In reality he's a totally sociopathic megalomaniac who never demonstrates any benevolent intention, he just sees himself as a god and wants to make that vision a reality. Oh, and Page Industries specializes in 1) electronic communication via the Aquinas Protocol and 2) biomedical R&D through its subsidiary VersaLife. So basically, he's the lovechild of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates with a good helping of demonic charisma to fool the masses.
* The US federal gov't has been thoroughly corrupted by MJ12. FEMA has become little more than a skinsuit for above-ground MJ12 ops in America, the FBI is mentioned to be running youth prisons called 'good behavior camps' with populations in the tens of thousands, and the president is paying dues to the UN over congressional objections. Washington blatantly doesn't give a crap about the people it represents and yet, despite a 35%-and-dropping approval rating, said president is implied to be clinging to power through illegitimate means according to the NSF leader you arrest at the end of the first level.
* Speaking of the UN, they're another one of MJ12's public faces and churn out propaganda proclaiming that perfect liberty requires a perfect police state with perfect(ly intrusive) surveillance, centralized control of communications and a universal electronic currency. The latter two already exist and MJ12 is working hard on the first item. In general, if MJ12 or any of its catspaws say something's good for you, they 100% do not have any good intentions beneath the rhetoric.
* Oh, and they have their own army, the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition! While ostensibly a benevolent and humane peacekeeping organization, UNATCO is extremely secretive, and for good reason - besides being MJ12's public military arm, they actually employ mech-aug (cyborg) agents who are blatantly bloodthirsty psychos and encourage you to indulge in similar behavior. Even their rank-and-file grunts express a most un-peaceful eagerness to kill dissidents with lines like 'You got the right idea, cap the bastards before they get lawyers involved.' and 'A bullet to the head, now that's justice. You catch on quick.'
* But at least UNATCO pretends to be working for the public good and the majority of its members are shown to be unaware of MJ12's existence, much less their motives - they genuinely think they're doing good work, ridding the world of dangerous terrorists. The same can't be said of the actual MJ12 army which openly operates in France (and secretly around the world) and brutally puts down dissent, to the extreme of torturing prisoners and murdering entire families in their beds just because one of them criticized MJ12's actions (as evidenced by a conversation with an MJ12 trooper's family in Paris). They're well aware of what they're doing, unlike UNATCO and the cops you run into from time to time, but knowingly continue to serve MJ12 for sweet paychecks or out of genuine loyalty while the press covers up or justifies their atrocities. Amusingly, they're thought to be either some French military faction that's staged a coup or an outright EU army by the French public.
* Speaking of the press...in addition to virtually every gov't on the planet, every known media outlet is also under MJ12's thumb. Throughout the game you literally can't find even a single one that's actually reporting the news objectively and honestly instead of just parroting MJ12-crafted narratives, not even the one that seems to be anti-government (and is demonized as a future Infowars by the mainstream) at first glance. You want actual news, you have to listen to the resistance, which MJ12 has declared to be terrorists deserving extermination on sight through the fake news and their many other official fronts.
* In general, technological & social progress are depicted in a far from universally positive light - indeed it's clearly why MJ12 has come so far in the first place, and you're left wondering how much of either were organic developments and how much were steered by MJ12 or the Illuminati before them. One of the endings has you actually destroy both, throwing the world into a period literally called the 'New Dark Age', and this is presented not just as a viable course of action but potentially a moral one; the game doesn't call you a bad person or otherwise judge you for choosing this path.
* So, who dares stand against the power of MJ12? Well, obviously there's you: a vat-grown clone baby designed from the ground up by MJ12 to test their nanotech. Said nanotech also includes a function to kill you in 48 hours if you ever go against your creators.
* But then there's also the NSF and X-51 in the States. The former are a right-wing militia that rebelled because, according to the backstory, Washington has pretty much outlawed private ownership of firearms. From a conversation you can overhear in the first level and an ex-NSF bum who sells you sniper ammo upon your return to the second, they're established as explicitly religious and conservative-minded, allying with inner-city minority gangs only to pad out their depleted manpower after a decade of guerrilla warfare against the feds. X-51 is a less ideological and much more recent rebellion, the result of a bunch of MJ12 scientists and soldiers defecting from Area 51.
* In Asia, the resistance's main representative are the triads. Who are condemned for indulging in techno-piracy and selling bootleg materials to small businesses, which are all too happy to take said bootlegged stuff because it's cheaper than if they'd bought legitimately from megacorps like Page Industries and its subsidiaries. And their primary representative, the hacker Tracer Tong, is the one who gives you the idea to inaugurate a 'New Dark Age' in the first place.
* In Europe you deal with Silhouette and the Illuminati. The former are basically a Situationist International-type avant-garde revolutionary cell, so fine, not exactly based - though they still have the stones to risk their lives against MJ12, and have caused enough of a nuisance that MJ12 staged false-flag terrorist attacks to make them look bad. The latter are a more conservative, spiritually inclined conspiracy (they actually chide Bob Page for being impatient and overly materialistic, thereby failing his spiritual exercises when he was still part of their cabal, in-game) whose leaders are contemptuously referred to as 'pretentious old men' by Page himself. Also, the former ultimately prove to be little more than the latter's subverted muscle, and are outright absorbed by them in the sequel...tell me again, how effectively are the socialist Democrats like Bernie or AOC standing up to their betters in the establishment?
Sadly, the sequel sucked (mostly due to gameplay and level flaws, but the writing wasn't quite on the first game's level either). And the prequels made by Square Enix have shied away from the original themes about the convergence of unchecked government & corporate power, anti-globalism and skepticism toward authority as well as technological & social progress to go in an increasingly BLM-esque direction within a 'mechanical apartheid' allegory instead.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
I'd nominate the old (probably now ancient) game Shadow Watch.
It's got Tom Clancy's name so you have some idea of how based to expect it to be. In-game you're a private security team working for a company trying to get mankind off the earth and into space, and they're being sabotaged by various political groups who want to maintain their power on Earth.
I spent my entire first playthrough waiting for the moment the company would turn on me and reveal that they were really just corrupt and evil, but it never came. The Elon Musk-like figure (years before Elon Musk) genuinely wanted to get humanity to the stars and the people wanting to chain humanity down were the political elites who would be left behind.
It's got Tom Clancy's name so you have some idea of how based to expect it to be. In-game you're a private security team working for a company trying to get mankind off the earth and into space, and they're being sabotaged by various political groups who want to maintain their power on Earth.
I spent my entire first playthrough waiting for the moment the company would turn on me and reveal that they were really just corrupt and evil, but it never came. The Elon Musk-like figure (years before Elon Musk) genuinely wanted to get humanity to the stars and the people wanting to chain humanity down were the political elites who would be left behind.
Marvel Comics maybe lost but Jim Steranko remains as based as ever.
Gotta love a man who kicks over a Hornets Nest and then doesn't even address the outrage that follows in the least but just keeps on doing what he's going to do.
Gotta love a man who kicks over a Hornets Nest and then doesn't even address the outrage that follows in the least but just keeps on doing what he's going to do.
Bassoe
Well-known member
The RoboCop: Citizens Arrest comic. It's baffling, a mainstream comic distributor was able to get this published in 2018. It takes the original eighties cyberpunk dystopia and updates it to the modern version, with mobs of nosy Useful Idiots trying to cancel people, billionaires trying to reinstitute company town feudalism via rent and subscription services which require entire salaries just to break even rather than onetime purchases, the surveillance state panopticon, out-of-touch billionaires talking down to blue-collar and middle class plebeians about how supposedly 'money can't buy happiness', selectively enforced laws to allow violence against the competitors of corporations but not the alternative, media portrayed as the propagandists of the corporations who pay their bills, all portrayed negatively. With a heroic police officer as the protagonist and a Jeff Bezos expy as the primary villain.
Last edited:
I keep telling people comics is more then Marvel and DC
Just to bump this thread up.
There are some Conservative Mainstream Comic Books I could recommend:
> Fables by Bill Willingham whose one of the better known Conservative Comic Book Writers in the industry. He wrote Fables somewhat as an metaphor to the State of Israel and the associated diaspora of those people and the like. So it's heavily Conservative from that POV if you agree with it. But there's also themes such as ridiculing a self described "Marxist" whose an early villain in the series, gun ownership, individual and property rights, nation building and other disparate themes and fairly Libertarian.
Most importantly though, it's an excellent story.
> Punisher (2014/Vol. 10) by Nathan Edmondson. Has Conservative themes which... according to some seemed so Conservative it made some people uncomfortable, which of course should only increase its appeal.
> Punisher War Journal (1988)/War Zone/Armory by Chuck Dixon and others, most notably Mike Baron. These are the iconic Punisher storylines... and ones that made the Punisher an iconic character before Garth Ennis and the ultra violent MAX imprint almost made him a caricature of himself (and more leftist randomly in his quips). Like the previous entries... not very political but if there was a theme, it'd overall be defined as right wing or conservative.
Chuck Dixon also wrote Nightwing and Birds of Prey both of which had good story arcs but again, not overtly political.
> Squadron Supreme by Mark Gruenwald back in the 80's. It's a miniseries that has everything to do with the Tyranny of Do-Gooders and people who want to make everything "better" for everyone. It was one of the first serious attempts at 'superheroes' being more pro-active in changing society.
There are some Conservative Mainstream Comic Books I could recommend:
> Fables by Bill Willingham whose one of the better known Conservative Comic Book Writers in the industry. He wrote Fables somewhat as an metaphor to the State of Israel and the associated diaspora of those people and the like. So it's heavily Conservative from that POV if you agree with it. But there's also themes such as ridiculing a self described "Marxist" whose an early villain in the series, gun ownership, individual and property rights, nation building and other disparate themes and fairly Libertarian.
Most importantly though, it's an excellent story.
> Punisher (2014/Vol. 10) by Nathan Edmondson. Has Conservative themes which... according to some seemed so Conservative it made some people uncomfortable, which of course should only increase its appeal.
> Punisher War Journal (1988)/War Zone/Armory by Chuck Dixon and others, most notably Mike Baron. These are the iconic Punisher storylines... and ones that made the Punisher an iconic character before Garth Ennis and the ultra violent MAX imprint almost made him a caricature of himself (and more leftist randomly in his quips). Like the previous entries... not very political but if there was a theme, it'd overall be defined as right wing or conservative.
Chuck Dixon also wrote Nightwing and Birds of Prey both of which had good story arcs but again, not overtly political.
> Squadron Supreme by Mark Gruenwald back in the 80's. It's a miniseries that has everything to do with the Tyranny of Do-Gooders and people who want to make everything "better" for everyone. It was one of the first serious attempts at 'superheroes' being more pro-active in changing society.
Bassoe
Well-known member
The Ship Beyond Time and its sequel The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig. Take what would would initially seem to be a cliché young adult novel plotline with a teenager aboard a time-traveling sailboat, then add hilariously Outside Context realism in choice of villains. Specifically:
- Cuban communist revolutionaries from the fifties portrayed as a bloodthirsty barbarian horde who killed the protagonist's mother and started the time war which consumed the series as her father tried to find a timeline where that didn't happen. He's been trying for quite some time. Several lifespans in fact, repeatedly appearing in front of his past self as an elderly man to hand off his ship's logbooks of things he already tried that failed.
- Modern hoteps who tried to travel back in time and give Africa enough of a technological edge that they'd be the ones colonizing everyone else, hampered somewhat by their total lack of accurate historic knowledge.
- Barbary pirates with anachronistic weaponry thanks to said hoteps.
- A totalitarian cyberpunk megacorp conglomerate from the twenty-second century, trying to track down the misinterpreted records of an impossibly ancient sailing ship since they'd won in their timeline and time travel would be both their only option to continue expanding via giving the past the East India Company treatment and their only weakness, someone could stop them before they became too powerful.
Bassoe
Well-known member
Add Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille by Steven Brust to the list. In the distant future, expies of the You-Will-Own-Nothingist plutocratic conspirators are winning. Without an Outside Context Miracle, the last remnants of humanity outside their control will be destroyed in a matter of months at most. Fortunately for them, the freedom fighters have a time machine, so they can try to change history in their side's favor, if the time-traveling agents of their enemies don't stop them first. And the entire story is told from the perspective of unintentional stowaways from the present day who got shanghaied aboard the time machine when it departed, who originally have no idea what's going on.
TheRejectionist
TheRejectionist
Dune how ? I read a few brief articles on how it is fascistic but have to read the book.
Lovecraft's statements about race are not based IMO. And as far I remember, he became something of a New Deal Democrat.
ERB you mean Epic Rap Battles of History?
JRRT still to read. But it was a conservative in a way.
Haven't read or seen any related to the last four.
As an example of the tasteful content that was in classic Punisher War Journal, here's an excerpt of Punisher War Journal #37, originally released in 1991 and written by Mike Harris. A popular conservative talk show radio host has been kidnapped by Leftist terrorists and the Punisher takes this time to explain the principles of Free Speech to these wayward young people.
A lesson so impactful that it stayed with these young people until the day they died...
Cyan Saiyajin
Well-known member
I find most Isekai stories to be oddly based. Mainly as a symptom of really, really, overthinking them. But basically if you look at most Isekai story what is an element that is almost always present? Is that the protagonist doesn't just win and is Japanese, its that he usually wins because of being Japanese.
Most Protagonists in an Isekai are directly benefited by their cultural roots. Not only do they rapidly win over the favor of Deities with their politeness, succeed with economic dominance with some cultural product such as food or saki, and of course winning the day historical or modern Japanese skills.
I know a lot of criticism can be thrown at Japanese social norms....But there is something downright refreshing with that kind of national pride.
Most Protagonists in an Isekai are directly benefited by their cultural roots. Not only do they rapidly win over the favor of Deities with their politeness, succeed with economic dominance with some cultural product such as food or saki, and of course winning the day historical or modern Japanese skills.
I know a lot of criticism can be thrown at Japanese social norms....But there is something downright refreshing with that kind of national pride.