Cardinal Sin of Writing: Godmoding the Plot

[Fitzgibbon]

Hope this is the right place to rant about something like this. Is anyone else bothered by the trope of someone getting isekai'd into a story, or another universe, or back in time, etc who uses their knowledge to effectively hijack the plot in their favor? I mean sure, this can be done organically in such a way that the protagonist's effort leads to a better outcome than the source material, that's even pretty good. What I specifically refer to are the times where 1. Something happened in the source material, 2. The protagonist figures out a way to hijack said event in such a way that benefits them, and 3. Life goes on as normal in the plot without any significant deviation. It feels like godmoding in a story in the laziest way possible. This is the kind of stuff that should have ridiculous knock-on effects, but so rarely change anything. Been reading a lot of fanfiction lately, and a lot of them feel like this. Happen to remember where a valuable treasure is? Yoink. Happen to remember a critical plot moment that moves things forwards massively? Full speed ahead!
Ghost in the City is a great example of a story that interacts with this trope in a way that feels organic and natural, in that some things of this nature happen occasionally, but the majority of the outcome is either inconsequential to larger plot or largely based on the protagonist's efforts. I really enjoyed reading this one so far.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Yes.

 

[Glitched]

Yep. Why I could never read stuff like omniscient reader.

 

[Viator]

Personally, I hate the isekai with modern knowledge advantage trope altogether. Realistically how many average joe people, of the type usually thrown into these senarios, would remember or use that kind of thing effectively? Secondly, I consider it the height of arrogance to immediately assume your modern human status puts you at any sort of advantage. When you are magically whisked away into a foreign environment your previous knowledge may account for nothing, as the very foundation of what you know to be scientifically accurate can no longer be relied upon thanks to the introduction of magic. The trope just doesn't make sense to me. It is way too convenient for your "average joe" mc.

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

A lot of isekai / regression isekai stories are like that. Hell, a lot of villainess isekai / romance isekai stories are like that, often to an obnoxious degree. Story becomes too gamified to take seriously anymore, like MC already has all these hacks built in, so plot tends to become boring after a while. It tends to ruin the stakes / sponteneity for me.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

My wife was listening to one that seemed to USUALLY handle this well (a few times it did not work so well) - the MC was in his favorite game, one that he had played through several times. Sometimes he was not sure which path he took before, sometimes events happened out of expected sequence, sometimes he derailed events by forcing things out of order. I think it was "My Assassin System"
I have not encountered this trope (or is it just "laziness"?) to be irritated by it yet but have heard a lot of complaints about it.

 

[LilRora]

Ghost in the City does a great job portraying Night City as a huge place where some interference from the main character doesn't mean much in the short term. Different parts of the city and various groups are huge moving machines that do not interact much with each other, so the chance meddling in one part will have an impact on another is relatively minor. There will probably be heavy deviations from the source material later on, once the story moves to a greater scale, but that's probably still ways off.

I believe there's one underlying cause behind the issues you described, and that's extreme focus on events and characters of the original material while neglecting new content. Ghost in the City doesn't even look like fanfiction at times because there's so much new things, new characters, new plot points that are completely separate from the stories we know. At most maybe one out of five chapters is directly related to the plot of the game or anime.

Compared to GitC, a lot of those stories seem hyperfocused on the source material and add very little new characters and content - this is the actual problem. Like Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, I'm pretty sure the first chapter of the manga that described anything Kim Dokja hadn't read about before was shortly after 100th chapter. This isn't bad per se, but it's going to get boring quickly to a lot of people.

 

[PancakesWitch]

Yep. Why I could never read stuff like omniscient reader.

omniscient reader viewpoint is not an example of this though, it changes the "original story" story tremendously

 

[beast_regards]

YESNOTHIRDOPTION!

Lot of readers are obsessed with the concept of the "smart protagonist" (or, sometimes "Competent protagonist" it is the same thing)

It's prevalent not only on the Royal Road but also here, or even on the Spacebattles.

The "smart protagonist" is the one who acts, and thinks, exactly as you described, even in the situation where he doesn't have any reasonable way of obtaining the information he need, doesn't have any preknowledge, doesn't even seen the setting before. They just know, just because. He is just "smart" or "competent" which ironically doesn't mean "intelligent" or "good in his job" but "clairvoyant" (sees the future) and "instantly gain proficiencies as the plot demands".

This makes a certain sense in self-insert fan-fiction, where the protagonist isn't much the character, but the force of nature, the wrecking ball which carried the fan-fiction's author vengeance upon the pre-existing work of fiction, but the most "smart protagonist' aren't self-inserts.

They are original fiction main character.

They are audience surrogates, either. The audience surrogates are the blank slate character which symbolizes the audience, they are character of their own.

By the way, audience surrogate and self-insert are two different things. Self-insert is an avatar of the author, audience surrogates are avatars of the audience.

They are "smart protagonists". They are Garu Stu, but ironically enough, they aren't intended to be Gary Stu, they just are the default for the most web novels, because the audience expects "competency"

 

[MajorKerina]

The only aspect of that I can really believe is if they're in ancient times I'm pretty sure they'll remember to try to wash their hands and keep basic hygiene. But that doesn't put them at much of an advantage.

 

[UberNuber]

I find those fanfics to just be plain lazy, and they never last long because after the author mirrors the original story, and ruins it enough, they then can not continue since they can not think of any compelling original story lines... unless it devolves into Smut.

YESNOTHIRDOPTION!

Lot of readers are obsessed with the concept of the "smart protagonist" (or, sometimes "Competent protagonist" it is the same thing)

It's prevalent not only on the Royal Road but also here, or even on the Spacebattles.

The "smart protagonist" is the one who acts, and thinks, exactly as you described, even in the situation where he doesn't have any reasonable way of obtaining the information he need, doesn't have any preknowledge, doesn't even seen the setting before. They just know, just because. He is just "smart" or "competent" which ironically doesn't mean "intelligent" or "good in his job" but "clairvoyant" (sees the future) and "instantly gain proficiencies as the plot demands".

This makes a certain sense in self-insert fan-fiction, where the protagonist isn't much the character, but the force of nature, the wrecking ball which carried the fan-fiction's author vengeance upon the pre-existing work of fiction, but the most "smart protagonist' aren't self-inserts.

They are original fiction main character.

They are audience surrogates, either. The audience surrogates are the blank slate character which symbolizes the audience, they are character of their own.

By the way, audience surrogate and self-insert are two different things. Self-insert is an avatar of the author, audience surrogates are avatars of the audience.

They are "smart protagonists". They are Garu Stu, but ironically enough, they aren't intended to be Gary Stu, they just are the default for the most web novels, because the audience expects "competency"

I think what readers are actually obsessed with is not reading dozens of chapters only for the plot to then fall apart because the Main Character flops at the end.

Readers treat action/adventure web novels like video games. No one wants to spend hours on a video game and never level up. The progress can be fast or slow, but readers need to see progress or they'll think they're wasting their time.

And honestly, that is the same for published works. Can you imagine if Harry Potter never learned a spell or if the girl from Twilight never ended up becoming a Vampire? people would HATE those books.

 

[Nolff]

Hope this is the right place to rant about something like this. Is anyone else bothered by the trope of someone getting isekai'd into a story, or another universe, or back in time, etc who uses their knowledge to effectively hijack the plot in their favor? I mean sure, this can be done organically in such a way that the protagonist's effort leads to a better outcome than the source material, that's even pretty good. What I specifically refer to are the times where 1. Something happened in the source material, 2. The protagonist figures out a way to hijack said event in such a way that benefits them, and 3. Life goes on as normal in the plot without any significant deviation. It feels like godmoding in a story in the laziest way possible. This is the kind of stuff that should have ridiculous knock-on effects, but so rarely change anything. Been reading a lot of fanfiction lately, and a lot of them feel like this. Happen to remember where a valuable treasure is? Yoink. Happen to remember a critical plot moment that moves things forwards massively? Full speed ahead!
Ghost in the City is a great example of a story that interacts with this trope in a way that feels organic and natural, in that some things of this nature happen occasionally, but the majority of the outcome is either inconsequential to larger plot or largely based on the protagonist's efforts. I really enjoyed reading this one so far.

...

I promise I'll make my MC face consequences because of him sticky jumping in the Quirk test and using Dead Ringer in the class, not realizing a spy and a hidden observer are watching over him.

 

[Lysander_Works]

I think what bothers me the most is something else; not that so many people are trying it; isekai can be done really well and it's a nice, easy, cheap excuse for one who wants to slightly shortcut world-building, (mainly for entry-level authors). My attitude towards isekai has recently become more positive as I've seen a couple good ones lately, though rare as they are. It's basically the genre that has five times the popularity at the moment, but for the same reason, the same proportion of (few good, many meh, plenty of them trash), inflated more.

I must say it now though. One element in isekai that bothers me a lot is that the MC almost never gives a single care about the memories of their old life. No realistic reaction to being home-sick, shocked or traumatized by being in a foreign different world, or generally ditching the memory altogether. I know I sound contradictory here, but I'm just tired of seeing virtually zero exceptions to it. I'm referring to an emotional connection to the past by the way; tactical use of "game paths" doesn't count. Isekai writers? Take this note if nothing else.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

In my story, HKN, it starts off with someone who never read the book or played the game winding up isekai'd, and his first reaction is to go : CIA Plot???

He has no idea what the plot is, but someone else showed up who did and she absolutely destroyed the plot, accidentally. The main hero DIES. However, the mc does use modern knowledge, but he uses it smartly because he tests it, finding out what works and what doesn't.

For example, radio waves don't work right, and potato batteries pump out way too much voltage.

However, I down have a side story to show what SHOULD have happened, and in The SS the author shows up in his own story, but everything is a little off. He has already started a cascade of fail.

I get your point, but I think you are talking about lazy writing, not a specific problem with the tropes.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

I think everyone's overthinking something that is meant for entertainment, not for deep, philosophical discussion.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I think everyone's overthinking something that is meant for entertainment, not for deep, philosophical discussion.

But if it is frustratingly bad, or just painful to read it may actually fail to be entertainment...

 

[Kalliel]

I think everyone's overthinking something that is meant for entertainment, not for deep, philosophical discussion.

This.

A portion of hardcore readers and most authors tend to judge the stories they read quite objectively, but most casual readers don't give a crap about the quality of their novels, they only care about whether they feel good/entertaining to watch.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

But if it is frustratingly bad, or just painful to read it may actually fail to be entertainment...

Means it's not for you. Drop, then move on.

 

[Fitzgibbon]

Means it's not for you. Drop, then move on.

Totally fair. I just tend to have a hard time getting out of my head when it comes to things like this.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Means it's not for you. Drop, then move on.

Well, unless its somehow required reading for a class or something. Still remember being amused by dad's reaction to being forced to read Danielle Steele for a class when he was getting his Masters of Library Science degree... He hated that book almost as much as I hated Portrait of the Lady by Henry James. 400 pages of the character making bad decisions and suffering for it, and it looks like she may be about to start all over again at the end. Ugh.