There was this one comment I came across on a discussion about if Isekai is ever going to run out of steam:
The most popular trope coming from a single place is usually indicative of the biggest problem there. Japan with isekais (deaths & escaping reality), Korea with returns (social pressure & regrets), and China with Cultivation (breaking free from/overthrowing the upper control). Those common tropes are what the people wished they had in real life.
I've been reading quite a few manwha's recently as well as manga and this are REALLY common trends. Enjoyable too as on each side we can easily relate to that desire.
So why not apply it to western fiction, what was the main trend there?
In the past, when the leftists weren't involved, I'd say it was more inspirational, from the obvious Superman to the relatable trying to do his best despite personal issues Spiderman, even in a nihilistic world of mega cities, Judge Dredd could be inspirational just because he still stood up for the values of law and justice in this husk of a world.
After the leftists, I think the worst thing is not just the tranny, race and gay pushing, it's that it's no longer inspirational. Rather than inspire to do better, they want everyone dragged down to their level, have everything given to them and not have to struggle because 'they're on the right side'.
Even though it's majority leftist propaganda, if we apply the same rule here 'Most popular trope indicative of biggest problem' then the West's biggest issue is stagnation, no inspiration to push forward or lead the way for others to follow your example. It might be another reason for the great switch to manga and Anime as people would rather adopt another trope than be stuck in essentially the West's limbo trope. At least the Asian tropes offer a way out of the current problem in a fictional setting.
You can see how much people are deprived of inspirational media with the success of films like Top Gun Maverick or John Wick but what do you guys think, this ring true to you?
It's not just the most popular tropes that show how they behave and what they believe.
Take for example China and their Cultivation genre. One of the frequent tropes in it is the Pill, a good shortcut to becoming more powerful. Most of the time it is portrayed as a necessary step. This reveals how the Chinese mentality of cheating isn't seen as bad, like it is in the west. After all an aimbot or esp is just a shortcut to getting better to a Chinese.
The trope of “fair play” is incredible white and particularly British.
This says a great deal about the rest of the world.
"When you're playing, play fair. When you're fighting, fight dirty."
Presumably, combat sports such as MMA count as playing.
I've seen that, I've also seen a lot of Korean ones where essentially they 'read ahead' so they are returnees in that know how the story they've been isekai'd to will go or they know how the world will change in some stories.
"Who wouldn't take a pill to make more money at their job? You would. I would."
Chris Rock, on steroids in baseball
Interesting theory but somewhat at odds with the decline of western media into full-throttle degeneracy coinciding with the west’s actual decline into degeneracy.
This might be explained by two factors, both racial/ethnic.
Firstly, Asian cultures are, broadly speaking, more repressed and collectivist, so it would make sense that Asian escapist media reflects a desire for greater freedom and autonomy. Traditional western cultures were already more individualist and “free”, yet our media did not reflect a desire for greater collectivism.
I used to judge the west superior for this, but I no longer make such claims. Asian cultures seem to be fairing much better than the west, of late, no?
Secondly, thanks to unchecked mass immigration, western cultures are no longer “one place”, so our media tends to fall into two categories: schizophrenic or centralized. Put another way: at best, our media is all over the place, representing many different views and aspirations, and at worst, our media is dictated top-down by whichever demographic cohort controls the levers of power (guess who).
Increasingly, it is clear that we are suffering under the latter case, which is why breakout counter-culture successes don’t seem to move any needles right now. The control mechanisms are too fixed and effective. Under OP’s theory, we would be enjoying a renaissance of anti-authoritarian media expressing our deep-seated desire to break free from leftist thought control. Instead, most people seem content to mindlessly support corporations up to and including objectively evil big pharma.
We probably need to collapse.
Another one? Jees I think we're up to our tenth by now if we count all the European empires throughout history...
Holy crap, the West constantly dying and resurrecting into a new power structure, the west has the same story line as Re Zero! /s
How exactly does the west resurrect itself when half the population aren’t even western anymore? Ideological purges and bloody civil wars are not even a fraction so destructive as mass immigration.
If you think "leftists" weren't involved with early DC and Marvel comics think again. It was an earlier and comparatively simple program, but it was a program. Ancestor to what we have now. You have to escape the false presentation of right and left. If you can identify the changing face of your enemy it places all of modern American history into a context in which all of these little things make sense.
I think this applies to lots of low-art media, but especially to comics; don't try and "team claim" shit. Yes the old stuff is better than the new, yes it seeded culture, but it was abused for the same purposes that programming ever has been (and by the same people). I spent years at a job where I was cataloguing perhaps tens of thousands of comics all-told, as well as vintage and antique magazines, and it eschewed the concept of old=based and of "team ownership" of old trash from my mind.
The same social class of people have been up to the same thing, evolving yet on-track, for a generations. The program changes shape one step at a time as the years progress, advancing, dropping the old and pushing the next new provacative, destructive, intellectually limiting cage narrative sold as freedom, the newest garbage consensus crack.
The reason things have gone nuts? The reason for the bump in volume, the increase in velocity, the swell of the cacophany? Internet plain and simple. I can simply share this info with you. In as much specific detail as you choose via the degree of censorship in the forum you've selected. A consolidation of information is occurring across countless millions of people. Soon we or our children will look collectively back at our precious treasure trove of "Good Ol Days" culture and call to BURN it with the rest with such a berth that would make even a hardcore present-day ConsumeProduct user's heart hurt.
Black pill, the comic
I'll tell you a trope I got sick of in the 90's. Everyone was angry, but it was all angst aimed to control the story. It never made sense why two best friends would argue and separate for a few comics. War Machine looked like a jerk several times because he couldn't recognize Iron Man letting him go off and be his own hero. It kept happening, but had no real explanation except the writers were aiming at early teens.
It was a lot of anger, but no real answers. Lots of teachers promoted that anger. It's weird now that I think about it. Since I moved a lot, I saw how different schools used that anger for different purposes.
I don't see that in other cultures. I never thought in that way till now.
That was worse than the thope in the late 90s to early 2000s of trying to have everything set in high school as at least we got great shows like Batman beyond, xmen evolution and Smallville.
Unfortunately that trope I think slowly led to the current situation we are in with western media, it's just in the early days they had writers who knew how to make the trope be very inspirational
Doesn't 'cultivation' belong to the martial arts world, which the Chinese consider separate from the rest of society? 'Cultivation' is portrayed as building up inner energy and refining martial arts techniques to reach higher levels of combat prowess and ability. The older you are and the longer you've been at it, the more powerful you become.
The only way you can legitimately overcome one of those powerful and (older) individuals is by teaming up with others and/or cheating.
I know a bit about Chinese history and yes you are right, in fiction, cultivation usual has masters isolated from the world to return years if not centuries later to a new world changed without them as they spent years building their power in secret.