Unpopular Opinion: The Extra / Transmigration tropes are boring.

[BigBadBoi]

The Novel's Extra seems a exception, he knows the story until suddenly he doesn't and he makes choices that reflect that. I love that in the end, he doesn't even actually win. It's a faux victory

The irony of TNE's premise being about an author with a good story slowly fucking it up halfway and having a shit ending then gets isekai'd to fix his fucked up novel only to fuck it up in the middle and have a shit ending is kinda funny when you think about it.

 

[Rezcore]

Yes

 

[Justhetip...]

What are you defining as a thinking system? Since most of us think (well not everyone does), that can be anything.

No, thinking and system weren't together. I'm assuming he was talking about the system trope, where MC gets a system as a cheat.

 

[naosu]

No, thinking and system weren't together. I'm assuming he was talking about the system trope, where MC gets a system as a cheat.

Oh ok. Yeah, I kind of like it when the MC EARNS what he gets. Not for free. I just don't see someone dishing out godly powers without thinking err why don't I keep some of those for myself...

 

[Justhetip...]

Oh ok. Yeah, I kind of like it when the MC EARNS what he gets. Not for free. I just don't see someone dishing out godly powers without thinking err why don't I keep some of those for myself...

Or the god was bored, so he decided to have some fun by giving OP powers to some random dude. Always cracks me up.

Though I do admit that it's great to read when this is executed well. But in most of the good instances, the god most times gives the MC just enough powers or potential to sow the seeds of chaos in whatever new world they're dropping them rather than just dumping OP abilities on them.

 

[Corty]

It's a good thing I never read something about being an extra in anything. I am not into the idea of reading the adventures of a background character. If I was, I would go back to living my actual life.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

"Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra" "Path of the extra" "The Extra's rise".

ETC.

No disrespect to the others who have poured hundreds of hours into the creation of their respective stories following these tropes, but as much as I hate to say it, these stories just feel 'Tacky'.

My disdain for these stories where people are transmigrated into a game, novel, show, book, whatever source of media, stems from the fact that they are simply boring. The stakes feel nonexistent because the Main Character knows what is going to happen because they read/watched the book/show/game.

Take for example the popular webnovel:

Extra's Death: I Am the Son of Hades​

The main character, Neo, is transmigrated into a novel, and from then, all of his decisions are influenced by his knowledge of the novel.

*SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD*

There is no critical thinking involved. Neo is transported to a pond that is highly dense in natural energy that the characters use to powerup, and is greeted to the sight by the sea princess and her guard.

The sea princess is trying to use the pond to get stronger, but is shocked by the sight of Neo (Who she doesn't know is recently transmigrated and very weak, which leads to her confusing him for being a spawn of a god) and is wary of his presence.

Neo, taking advantage of this confusion, decides to ask for a council with the Queen of the sea land.

Here are where my problems arise.

The MC, Neo, doesn't need to make any critical decisions. Because he has knowledge of the novel, he knows what the next best thing to do. In this case, because Neo knew the Queen had access to a tremor level spell (Extremely powerful ability) that could shake the course of the world, he knew that he needed to take advantage of the situation and go to see her.

Nothing is earned. The MC didn't need to scheme, think, fight, or scavenge for knowledge, it's all just magically there and allows him to basically do everything with relative ease.

*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SHADOW SLAVE*

Now when you compare that to a story like Shadow Slave, the difference is night & day.

*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SHADOW SLAVE*

You compare the events of a story like Extra's Death: I Am the Son of Hades, to a story like Shadow Slave and you see a sharp contrast.

Sunny has little to no knowledge of future events and everything must be earned. And you can see him pay the price dearly in events such as the betrayal of Cassie, and the introduction of Mordret.

In a story where a character is brought to life with essentially fully omniscience due to knowledge of future, present, and past events, it makes it hard for the reader (AKA myself) to feel like MC actually EARNED anything, it feels moreso as if MC was rewarded just for existing.

I'll give another example.

How to survive in the Romance Fantasy Game.

In this story, MC is reincarnated, and of course he knows everything. He knows that his childhood friend/one-sided love interest is a maniac who will kill him as soon as she loses interest. He knows about all the female leads, what they like, and how to steal them from the protagonist. And he knows all the critical events that happen in the story, where to find all the items that can benefit him, and how to 'Beat the game'.

You see my point here? What exactly did MC do? He did nothing but rely on prior knowledge in order to get better, stronger, and gain respect/interest from the heroines.

The trope in all honesty, is a form of wasted potential in my eyes.

You have the opportunity to create a unique world where your character has to earn, conquer, learn, and grow, and instead you make it so where your MC does essentially nothing but rely on prior knowledge. And that to me, is a disservice to the reader and author themselves.

Even in those stories where MC is stupidly powerful and 'can't lose'. (Villain Retirement, My Three Wives are beautiful vampires, Kingdom Building Game: Starting out with a million upgrade points!, etc.) these stories are made interesting by the fact that we don't know what's going to happen next in the story.

That randomness and slight mystery builds intrigue for the reader, whether they know it or not.

But once again, when you remove all this mystery, and have the MC in a role where he is essentially omniscient in terms of knowing what will happen next, it is incredibly boring and isn't worthwhile.

It is why I write a not in the know fanfic~.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Opinions you see on Online Forums such as this one make up less than 10% of the general consensuses of readers on platforms such as Webnovel, Royal Road, Wattpad, Scribblehub, etc.

If people really genuinely despised a certain trope, you would never see it anywhere close to the most popular novels.

You are right. At the same time, people a lot of people despise Rap music, but Rap is still super popular. What I mean here, the more popular a thing is, the more 'haters' it will get. The more 'haters' it gets, the hate gets less controversial and unpopular. I think it's logical.

 

[NotaNuffian]

I always hate the whole Extra trope because of two things in their extremism.

It either fucks with the supposed premise, making all the supposed players into something unrecognizable such as turning the supposed heroes into cunts because "there can only be one good guy and it HAS to be the new slotted-in nepobaby."

I mean, I cannot even stand it even if the supposed work the MC got inserted in as an extra is non-existent in the first place aka fiction-ception. The whole notion that MC is an agent of chaos that ends up ruining things is enough to make me go "crud, I don't like this."

OR, MC is a complete wallpaper. Literally a mob character whose existence make me question their purpose. Omnipresent third person view exist and therefore this type of MC should not. The reason of "not wanting to ruin canon" is weak as hell.

And as I type finish this, I kind of see myself as a cunt, because I plainly just don't like the Extra premise at all.

 

[JayMark]

You are right. At the same time, people a lot of people despise Rap music, but Rap is still super popular. What I mean here, the more popular a thing is, the more 'haters' it will get. The more 'haters' it gets, the hate gets less controversial and unpopular. I think it's logical.

 

[StoneInky]

"Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra" "Path of the extra" "The Extra's rise".

ETC.

No disrespect to the others who have poured hundreds of hours into the creation of their respective stories following these tropes, but as much as I hate to say it, these stories just feel 'Tacky'.

My disdain for these stories where people are transmigrated into a game, novel, show, book, whatever source of media, stems from the fact that they are simply boring. The stakes feel nonexistent because the Main Character knows what is going to happen because they read/watched the book/show/game.

Take for example the popular webnovel:

Extra's Death: I Am the Son of Hades​

The main character, Neo, is transmigrated into a novel, and from then, all of his decisions are influenced by his knowledge of the novel.

*SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD*

There is no critical thinking involved. Neo is transported to a pond that is highly dense in natural energy that the characters use to powerup, and is greeted to the sight by the sea princess and her guard.

The sea princess is trying to use the pond to get stronger, but is shocked by the sight of Neo (Who she doesn't know is recently transmigrated and very weak, which leads to her confusing him for being a spawn of a god) and is wary of his presence.

Neo, taking advantage of this confusion, decides to ask for a council with the Queen of the sea land.

Here are where my problems arise.

The MC, Neo, doesn't need to make any critical decisions. Because he has knowledge of the novel, he knows what the next best thing to do. In this case, because Neo knew the Queen had access to a tremor level spell (Extremely powerful ability) that could shake the course of the world, he knew that he needed to take advantage of the situation and go to see her.

Nothing is earned. The MC didn't need to scheme, think, fight, or scavenge for knowledge, it's all just magically there and allows him to basically do everything with relative ease.

*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SHADOW SLAVE*

Now when you compare that to a story like Shadow Slave, the difference is night & day.

*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SHADOW SLAVE*

You compare the events of a story like Extra's Death: I Am the Son of Hades, to a story like Shadow Slave and you see a sharp contrast.

Sunny has little to no knowledge of future events and everything must be earned. And you can see him pay the price dearly in events such as the betrayal of Cassie, and the introduction of Mordret.

In a story where a character is brought to life with essentially fully omniscience due to knowledge of future, present, and past events, it makes it hard for the reader (AKA myself) to feel like MC actually EARNED anything, it feels moreso as if MC was rewarded just for existing.

I'll give another example.

How to survive in the Romance Fantasy Game.

In this story, MC is reincarnated, and of course he knows everything. He knows that his childhood friend/one-sided love interest is a maniac who will kill him as soon as she loses interest. He knows about all the female leads, what they like, and how to steal them from the protagonist. And he knows all the critical events that happen in the story, where to find all the items that can benefit him, and how to 'Beat the game'.

You see my point here? What exactly did MC do? He did nothing but rely on prior knowledge in order to get better, stronger, and gain respect/interest from the heroines.

The trope in all honesty, is a form of wasted potential in my eyes.

You have the opportunity to create a unique world where your character has to earn, conquer, learn, and grow, and instead you make it so where your MC does essentially nothing but rely on prior knowledge. And that to me, is a disservice to the reader and author themselves.

Even in those stories where MC is stupidly powerful and 'can't lose'. (Villain Retirement, My Three Wives are beautiful vampires, Kingdom Building Game: Starting out with a million upgrade points!, etc.) these stories are made interesting by the fact that we don't know what's going to happen next in the story.

That randomness and slight mystery builds intrigue for the reader, whether they know it or not.

But once again, when you remove all this mystery, and have the MC in a role where he is essentially omniscient in terms of knowing what will happen next, it is incredibly boring and isn't worthwhile.

Eh, my favorite novel right now is one of those types.

The MC is transmigrated into a horror novel. (Think SCP universe.) He has zero powers or magic or whatever, but he is a major horror geek and knows all the stories and legends. The story is about him trying to figure out a way out of the novel and back home...but he keeps accidently getting involved with the horrors, most of which are deadly, and may kill him.

Another one is about a girl who wakes up in the game she played. It's an LN romance. She falls in love with her favorite character, the peddler commoner, or the guy selling items in the interface... who turned out to be doing it illegally. But they somehow get along and decide to fall in love peacefully?

I also know two or three more similar novels using the trope, but these ones have darker vibes. No romance, just edgy survival, killing and war. Yep, it's either romance or edgy for this trope. It's only when it's about wish fulfilment when things go wrong. Or so I think. Maybe I just have bad taste.

 

[BearlyAlive]

I think of those prior knowledge cases as Chekov guns. If you give them omniscience you either take it away or let them fuck up so bad their knowledge is useless. But that's the hard way to write things. Having MC effortlessly replace the actual MC is much less effort, so most hack writers do just that.

Introducing discrepancies between said "omniscience" and slowly adding hidden lore that takes away the certainty of prior knowledge would be the way to go in this case. Be it the butterfly effect or the fact that the prior knowledge isn't complete, there has to be a twist outside of "reincarnated as an extra".

 

[beast_regards]

I don't understand the problem.

Are you complaining that the story is built around the premise that the protagonist knows how the world works and power function, because, well, it's oddly similar to some game he played?

Or do you have a beef with the overpowered protagonist, because of supposed challenge, or rather lack of thereof?

Or is the problem that stories exist, and you want them to stop existing?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I don't understand the problem.

Are you complaining that the story is built around the premise that the protagonist knows how the world works and power function, because, well, it's oddly similar to some game he played?

Or do you have a beef with the overpowered protagonist, because of supposed challenge, or rather lack of thereof?

Or is the problem that stories exist, and you want them to stop existing?

If I read the original post correctly the complaint is that MOST of the stories of this trope ALSO have an Overpowered Protagonist and thus are boring so should cease existing.

 

[beast_regards]

Telling people they should delete their stories and stop existing is not surprising.

This is 90% of the Royal Road interactions, and it's getting popular here too, it seems.

The transmigrator with pre-knowledge is a strange thing to have a problem with.

See, if you ever posted anything on the Internet, the number 1 complaint you would inevitably receive is "stupid protagonist", and it usually comes with some very negative rating to remember them by.

Only way to even try to avoid this kind of "critique" is having the "smart protagonist".

The "smart protagonist", however, isn't really intelligent, as in good in math, or so, he (or she) is the person who could make a perfect solution which would negate any obstacle they encounter practically immediately, learn thing instantly, and are making only choices which advances the plot forward, no matter how counterintuitive they are, allowing them to resolve the next problem right away.

However, unlike the transmigrator protagonist placed in the body of the novel's protagonist, the "smart protagonist" doesn't have any reasonable explanation why they know what is going to happen, and usually poses the very unlikely combination of skill set which they obtained either at contrived circumstances, or, once again, like the source of their knowledge, is completely unexplained. They act like they have a guide, and speed run the problem, except there is no way they knew all of this in advance.

Why you complain about the circumstances which explain the protagonist pre-knowledge, if the desired path for every novel has a perfect protagonist who never fails because of making perfect knowledge without any reasoning for it?

The transmigrators usually havea better explanation how they know than the smart ones.

Isn't this hypocritical?

The "overpowered protagonist" usually brute force the problem with the out of context powers, but this is often more plausible than the "smart protagonist" perfect score.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Telling people they should delete their stories and stop existing is not surprising.

This is 90% of the Royal Road interactions, and it's getting popular here too, it seems.

The transmigrator with pre-knowledge is a strange thing to have a problem with.

See, if you ever posted anything on the Internet, the number 1 complaint you would inevitably receive is "stupid protagonist", and it usually comes with some very negative rating to remember them by.

Only way to even try to avoid this kind of "critique" is having the "smart protagonist".

The "smart protagonist", however, isn't really intelligent, as in good in math, or so, he (or she) is the person who could make a perfect solution which would negate any obstacle they encounter practically immediately, learn thing instantly, and are making only choices which advances the plot forward, no matter how counterintuitive they are, allowing them to resolve the next problem right away.

However, unlike the transmigrator protagonist placed in the body of the novel's protagonist, the "smart protagonist" doesn't have any reasonable explanation why they know what is going to happen, and usually poses the very unlikely combination of skill set which they obtained either at contrived circumstances, or, once again, like the source of their knowledge, is completely unexplained. They act like they have a guide, and speed run the problem, except there is no way they knew all of this in advance.

Why you complain about the circumstances which explain the protagonist pre-knowledge, if the desired path for every novel has a perfect protagonist who never fails because of making perfect knowledge without any reasoning for it?

The transmigrators usually havea better explanation how they know than the smart ones.

Isn't this hypocritical?

The "overpowered protagonist" usually brute force the problem with the out of context powers, but this is often more plausible than the "smart protagonist" perfect score.

You should delete your story, now!

 

[beast_regards]

You should delete your story, now!

I already deleted one :)

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I already deleted one :)

You should delete the next story, now!

 

[beast_regards]

You should delete the next story, now!

No, it's Corty's turn.