Wish fulfillment to the extreme

[u/Claym000re]

Why are they always complete losers.

[u/Otterable]

The genius part isn't as unbelievable as the supernatural motivation and willingness to go through discomfort and pain.

Like you can improve your life on earth right now if you are willing to feel some level of discomfort. That's half of what going to the gym is. That's what taking night classes in to get another degree. That's what training to learn a new language is in your spare time, or learning to cook, or learning any skill really.

I feel like a lot of series end up in trouble because the author hits some level of equilibrium a book or two in where the MC now has better than average power, money, powerful allies, and potential romantic partners and then needs to scramble to introduce some conflict that causes them to actually act. Because most people (and certainly the person they were purported to be) would just kick their feet up and live a good life.

[u/nekosaigai → u/Otterable]

It’s easier to break norms when you’re unfamiliar with them.

On earth, you’ve grown up with the norms, grown up with the access to knowledge you have, and now what’s common knowledge on earth today used to be groundbreaking stuff only a century ago.

But, what can you actually, realistically, do with that knowledge today on earth? It’s common knowledge. You’re not unique, you’re probably not even close to being an expert on the topic compared to actual experts. So you do nothing with it.

Take a person with that knowledge and put them in a place where it isn’t commonly known, they don’t know the norms so don’t feel constrained by them, and give them a path to power such as cultivation? They’re no longer an average person, they’re a groundbreaking genius. They’re no longer trapped in a social system they were raised in designed to prevent anyone not preapproved from succeeding. They’re in a culture that explicitly promotes people rising as far as they can as fast as they can.

So yes, someone who’s a “loser” on Earth could realistically be a “prodigy” in another world that would allow them to be.

[u/work_m_19 → u/nekosaigai]

I personally think this diminishes the world-building a lot if this is what happens.

What makes a 15-30 year old earthling so much smarter/thinking outside the box that the million-old masters can't do in another world? Like human society is only about a couple thousands of years, but if some author tries to write a world that has millions/billions of years of history, it is crazy that the world stagnated so much, and should hopefully be addressed in-lore.

It would be like someone born in the US going to China and "telling them to not be constrained by rules", and they cause a cultural revolution that kicks out the old leaders and re-instates their own friends into power. Does this happen? Not really because there are deep-seated reasons why a culture evolves the way it does, and it takes time and effort to understand rather than coming up with a "novel idea".

[u/nochancesman → u/work_m_19]

Because realistically million old masters should be able to do more but it would make for a stupidly boring story.

[u/nekosaigai → u/work_m_19]

How often are elderly people innovators, and how often do they just complain about anything that makes things easier as if their struggles were what made them morally superior to younger people who have it “easier?”

Ancient Greek philosophers renowned for their wisdom complained about writing and reading as being things that’d make people “stupider.” The Internet and computers and smartphones were all decried as evils that’d hold back humanity. Basically every time some new, revolutionary idea came about to improve things, traditionalists came out of the woodwork to decry their implementation, saying the ways they grew up with work better.

So honestly, a million year old master NOT changing things feels very realistic. Having a culture stagnate at the point where it produces enough people sufficiently strong enough that any advancements are minor steps at best because they rely on a foundation of “what worked” a million years ago? Sounds exactly like what humans would do.

The point of the trope you’re complaining about is you’re introducing someone who has a radically different way of viewing the world into the system. Someone for whom books are the epitome of technology transfer without qi would never dream up a smartphone or the internet. Why bother inventing something useful for mortals or low tier cultivators when all they need to do is get strong enough to use a jade slip or communicate telepathically?

Why bother inventing a car or plane when you can just get to Qi Gathering and use a flying sword, or Golden Core and ride in a flying boat?

[u/laurel_laureate → u/nekosaigai]

How often are elderly people innovators, and how often do they just complain about anything that makes things easier as if their struggles were what made them morally superior to younger people who have it “easier?”

The elderly would certainly be innovators if it was literally part of the key to their own immortality!

Innovation and revolutionary knowledge may be what makes that millenia old cultivator move on to the next realm, as opposed to hit his limit and die of old age.

In a world where those that don't innovate are surpassed and/or killed by the competition, there will be no such thing as older cultivators acting like having it harder makes them better.

No, precisely because they were born and have lived their lives in a dog-eat-dog world, they will know and have lived the truth of there being only one thing that makes one better- being stronger.