goes back to at least Alice in Wonderland and probably a lot further
A lot further considering Lewis Carroll wasn't born until 1832 and other stories such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were around before then. Snow White was published back in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm and Sleeping Beauty can stretch as far back as the 14th century.
While not entirely embracing the isekai concept of "character finds out they are special and gets a fantastical life" the aforementioned stories still revolve around the protag being special in some way that the story revolves around them and isn't even limited to such romance stories like those above. The 'Kingsman' films are the male equivalent where a random young adult male finds out he has a special life and gets whisked away to become a super-spy because of the secret life his father had.
Spoilers ahead.
Sure the Kingsman story still requires the protag to put in the effort to get through the training but the basic premise remains that "a good man suddenly finds himself in a new world because he's special". Even his failures repeatedly end up being merits considering his crappy life is only crappy because he drops out the army to take care of his family, and he fails the training because he's empathic and doesn't want to shoot the dog he adopts which then ends up leaving him as one of the few people left to actually stop the world domination plot.
A lot further considering Lewis Carroll wasn't born until 1832 and other stories such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were around before then. Snow White was published back in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm and Sleeping Beauty can stretch as far back as the 14th century.
While not entirely embracing the isekai concept of "character finds out they are special and gets a fantastical life" the aforementioned stories still revolve around the protag being special in some way that the story revolves around them and isn't even limited to such romance stories like those above. The 'Kingsman' films are the male equivalent where a random young adult male finds out he has a special life and gets whisked away to become a super-spy because of the secret life his father had.
Spoilers ahead.
Sure the Kingsman story still requires the protag to put in the effort to get through the training but the basic premise remains that "a good man suddenly finds himself in a new world because he's special". Even his failures repeatedly end up being merits considering his crappy life is only crappy because he drops out the army to take care of his family, and he fails the training because he's empathic and doesn't want to shoot the dog he adopts which then ends up leaving him as one of the few people left to actually stop the world domination plot.