Conflicts in an Isekai
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, in general main characters have to be in conflict with something, whether themself or the world or another character. And in an Isekai story the main character has to be special in the world. I'd say unique but there are many isekai stories where several characters go to the new world, possibly including the nemesis/rival character if there is one. If you have a special character vs. the world, you're naturally going to have a "take control or advantage" story. Personally I think a Wolf of Wall Street story is fun to start with, but more fun in a fantasy world; I don't think there's any problem with writing or enjoying that kind of story, particularly if you leven it with a romance subplot or humor. There's also no reason the main character can't think the new world is amazing and be enthusiastic to learn about it; I think this is just not the personality Isekai writers usually want in their main character, because it can come across as geeky or draw too much attention to the wish-fulfillment basis of the move to the new world, which might break readers' immersion. But anyway, this type of "vs. World" conflict can also be done as a cleverness-focused story or wisdom/insight-focused story, with the main character becoming the best at solving the puzzles of the world. Cleverness stories are harder to write than RPG strength growth stories, so that's why their less common. And it's pretty rare writer who is even interested in writing a wisdom or insight story, especially without being preachy about it. I've seen a few though.
That all applies to the "vs. the world" conflict option, but there are more options to consider. If you have two characters who are special in similar ways vs. each other, then it's also a natural choice to have the new world being the interesting stage for their struggle. Both of them would probably be wrestling to understand and control the new world or a new aspect of it like magic or super combat ability or monster taming or spaceship racing or whatever is the world's unique fantasy or science fiction element. So that's partly what you are complaining about but partly not, since the focus is more on the rivalry.
"vs. Self" stories are often the most different. These tend to occur more as the "reincarnated as a baby in another world" or the "man up through playing a VRMMO" story type, but there are also a fair number of isekai stories where the main character is deeply unhappy with themself at the start of the story and is inspired or forced by the new world to remodel themself. This can go either direction of "open your heart" or "become a casual killer", or even, oddly, both. These kind of stories generally have lots of wandering exploration and little to no politics unless the MC decides to settle down to kingdom building or as the champion of a king.
What I was trying to say about Tidus is that the reason I'd never write a fanfic about him is that for the first 2/3 of FFX he has neither agency nor emotional investment in his story beyond a kind of confused panic. Confused panic can have its moments in stories, but it makes quite a weak beginning.
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