How do I avoid the Chosen One trope? How do I have an epic sci fi/fantasy story where the main character is an ordinary unremarkable person? Know any good stories that pull this off?
Chosen One Trope
How do I avoid the Chosen One trope? How do I have an epic sci fi/fantasy story where the main character is an ordinary unremarkable person? Know any good stories that pull this off?
“Why do I keep finding a major driving trope of genre fiction in all these genre fiction books that I am reading”
Same as
“Why do people keep getting murdered by a creeper slasher in all of these slasher films I am watching?”
If you dont want genre tropes, dont read genre fiction. Try sone real literature, kid. Nothin personal
There's nothing wrong with a main character as a Chosen One! People only get soured on the concept when it isn't an idea that the premise is effectively built for at the start.
Genre fiction has a habit of making main characters Chosen Ones as a means of creating new plot momentum or retroactively giving characters agency: it is the figurative plug to stop the leak, despite the fact that the boat is still sinking. Chosen Ones end up with bad reputations as a result.
What you should be more concerned with is whether or not your main character has agency and motivation, internal drive, and if they're interesting/dynamic/multi-faceted/dimensional. Afterwards, it doesn't matter if they're a Chosen One or not, so as long as it doesn't diminish their agency.
If they where ordinary and unremarkable, why focus on them?
Them being protagonist material already presupposes them being chosen ones. A chosen person(s). They had some sort of quality that merited following them. An elect people like the israelite or Roman? or a firey spirit, a great wit, or the right place at the right time. all are permutations of being the chosen one. and you as the author are the one choosing.
>If they where ordinary and unremarkable, why focus on them?
>There's nothing wrong with a main character as a Chosen One!
True, but I guess my real problem is how do I make a character start off as ordinary and unremarkable and have them become central to major events. Especially in a sci fi story where I can't just magic it into existence.
For a concrete example, I want my story to have the character start off barely able to escape homeworld, into having a direct role in the major events in the solar system. Their motivation is to solve the mysterious alien structures that have been found, but there's really no reason they'd be given special access to these structures, or able to figure out something nobody else in society could. Even if they did figure it out, they'd just pass that info to scientists, it's not like they'd be put in charge of alien research or other major events. I guess I need help with a rags to riches or rags to power story that depends on events and not the character themselves being "The Chosen One" all along.
>If they unremarkable, why focus on them?
correct, if they are unremarkable, they would not be remarked upon.
All bachelors are unmarried.
The point is they become remarkable through the events of the story.
>give them information no one else knows due to a lack of cultural context or something
That would be interesting, but it seems to require the character withhold this information from the rest of society. Information that would presumable be incredibly important to share.
>Spice was great for that
>make them a secondary character to someone else's escapades.
This was my current thought. Have them, after their series of scrappy space adventures, meet up with a friend who welcomes them into their higher level escapades.
>The point is they become remarkable through the events of the story.
and thus being chosen.
Like the orphan boy becoming king. or the literal whoville of butt frick nowhere Italy becoming the eternal empire.
>orphan boy becoming king
That's still someone inherently being special at the start of the character arc.
>butt frick nowhere Italy
That's not a character
Or from a nuclear family with 2.1 kids and a father who works as an accountant.
you know, being radically, blindingly normal is pretty suspect in itself.
Pretty sure sargon of Akkad was a son of a ladle maker or some shit.
Wouldn't being "chosen" inherently mean their path is pre-determined? If a character is making choices that eventually lead them to becoming President or something, would that really mean their chosen? I feel like someone being "chosen" would mean they would end up becoming President no matter what course of action they take. If they didn't become President, they wouldn't be chosen.
> Wouldn't being "chosen" inherently mean their path is pre-determined?
“chosen” pre supposed compatabalism. that all the potential is there and that the outcome is a composite of all the factors present in the word, but the will is necessary to make it actual. Which is the standard historical view of things. That free will exists within a larger reality and is a part of it. Abraham himself had to make the pact of his own, but the israelites where always to be the chosen people. Ceaser was meant to become a divine, but he had to chose to cross the rubicon.
>All bachelors are unmarried.
But the word 'bachelor' in actual usage, is use more commonly in the sense of "eligible bachelor" than it is to refer to any arbitrary man who happens to be currently unmarried. A young but established man who has not yet been married is more commonly referred to as a bachelor than an old widower, even if the logical meaning applies to both, and to the connotations of the word are influenced by this.
add a plot device that turns them special, or give them information no one else knows due to a lack of cultural context or something. Spice was great for that.
Alternatively, make the chosen one explicitely someone else.
so you're writing The Expanse?
>The Expanse
More like Seveneves, a desperate attempt to survive in space without a naturing homeworld. Except without the absolutely terrible plot that follows.
>I guess my real problem is how do I make a character start off as ordinary and unremarkable and have them become central to major events
It's called being skilled in your writing? Like...you can literally just make it up? Do you think Napoleon or Hitler came out of the womb with a mandate to command huge armies and make their mark in history? No, they were just fricking randoms who over the decades grew their influence and power. Why do you need some supernatural shit for that? Why can't they just be intelligent and grow as characters as the story progresses?
>Do you think Napoleon or Hitler came out of the womb with a mandate to command huge armies and make their mark in history?
Napoleon definitely did.
What SPECIFICALLY is it about the Chosen One trope you dislike? That will give you better insight towards what to replace that with.
Do like Arthur C. Clarke in Rendezvous with Rama and make the most compelling character a giant rock. I’m just saying it can be done, not that I know how to myself
for me, it was the simps
make them a secondary character to someone else's escapades.
Just use the trope, but make it new. Like the chosen one, except bad/gay/black.
What has to be wrong with your head that you literally cannot conceive of someone being heroic not because some supernatural force made them so but because they simply choose to be heroic?
Create another character who is the real hero of the story, and your protagonist who is just a friend or helper. also, make sure that the real chosen one is as distant as possible
You can't. You chose main character(s) to be main, they are the chosen.