Discussion Short rant on reincarnation trope

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Jirachier, Oct 17, 2021.

  1. potato413

    potato413 Active Member

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    I think u could do some easy stuff to make some money first then hire some smart people to experiment with dangerous gunpowder and chemical experimentation and maybe making penicillin, sand glass, or kiln brick and you are set for life.

    1. You make some ice cream. Use some cream/milk and mix with salt so it freezes. Then sell it for $$$$.

    2. Use assembly line and make cheap goods compared to single person manufacturing.

    2. Sell cure for scurvy and stuff like beriberi. Disguise it maybe crush into powder so people dont know its fruit vitamin c.
    4. Bicycle, might be hard without rubber and gears though
    5. Distilled water and selling as clean water
    6. Distilled water and using it to make better alcohol
    6. Selling mosquito netting? Might be easy to copy though. Would need to think of method to prevent copy
    7. Selling chainmail armor method if they dont have chainmail
    8. Refrigeration and salt to preserve food? Maybe the native have not thought of that yet.
    9. Sell pamplets that teach people how to play tennis, soccer, chess, checkers, go/weiqi, mahjong, playing cards, etc for money. Ancient people are very entertainment starve so this will be very popular.
    10. Making large scale ponds or holes to evaporate seawater to get high quality salt and sale it.

    This is just quick list, but u have more time after transmigration i am sure you can spend days or weeks thinking through what u learn at elementary school, middle school and above
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2021
  2. Xian Piete

    Xian Piete Author of many mediocre stories

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    You could always invent the pet rock or the fart in a jar if you aren't too busy murdering people for talking shit to you.
     
  3. Alexcia

    Alexcia Belle of Banter

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    Shit, how accurate can u be? And me? If i could murder people, this original world of mine wouldn't survive either .....
     
  4. Xian Piete

    Xian Piete Author of many mediocre stories

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    Well, you know how it is... One day you are just minding your business walking in a crosswalk... Bang! Hit by a truck, and next thing you know you are a trash young master or young mistress with a system or growth cheat of some kind. A few hours of cultivation later and you are probably at a sect tournament or family tournament and your murdering is practically forced on you.
     
  5. Alexcia

    Alexcia Belle of Banter

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    the fuck! yes! isn't that the typical reincarnation theme lmao? What about u tho?
     
  6. frustratedguy109

    frustratedguy109 Well-Known Member

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    Another reason for the reincarnation trope:
    Authors can't write characters that are smarter than themselves. If you are of average intelligence and you're trying to write stories where your MCs go around crushing geniuses, you have to give them the advantage of effort and experience. They start training earlier because they have an adult's mind while still a baby/child. They have more experience because they have memories from their previous life.
     
  7. IrregularPerson

    IrregularPerson Well-Known Member

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    Pick and choose. It's just oversaturation in the market and poor authors. I really adore when they address it, but it really has just become a cop out to start off a series.
    It's popular cause it has a lot to do with relate-ability, but I do wish some authors just cut it out to begin with. Previous lives are fine, but not all of them should come from the 21st century and trying to push a technological agenda when it just has become an overabundant thing.
    Like there are interesting things regardless of the time period or setting, that would be 'quirky' to bring up to someone whose never experienced that sort of lifestyle before.
     
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  8. Xian Piete

    Xian Piete Author of many mediocre stories

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    I wrote one where the main character dies in his old life after being hit by a truck while sitting at his desk in a second-floor office building.
     
  9. strayCat0

    strayCat0 What are you doing right now?

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    Don't you just hate it that some guy's got reincarnated and somehow remembers how to make firearms and speedrunning argiculture and industrial revolution under one generation :( And here we are, can't remember what we just ate yesterday
     
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  10. ShadowAscetic

    ShadowAscetic Well-Known Member

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    Imagine a high schooler suddenly died and went to ancient world without system or any magical power BUT he suddenly can make gunpowder and hydraulic powered machine and designed the spinning jenny. Like, how?? During my high school days I barely remember how to calculate 3x4 with my fingers. Isn't that nonsense? Lmao.

    Although there are many weird reincarnation novels out there but you can also find some pretty good ones. As long as the background story behind the reincarnation make sense to the readers it's considered a pass for me.
     
  11. potato413

    potato413 Active Member

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    It's not that hard. The high schooler who gets transmigrated is usually someone who reads way too many historical time travel novels. In those novels 75-15-10 ratio is repeated over and over again.

    For reference u just need to remember 75-15-10.

    Saltpeter-charcoal-sulfur.

    From wikipedia article for gunpowder
    "The current standard composition for the gunpowder manufactured by pyrotechnicians was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur"

    I read that newton split his time up researching calculus, alchemy, theology, among other things.

    It's easy for us to know that calculus is the right direction now and that theology wont give you superpowers and alchemy wont let you turn lead into gold but people in past didnt know. In hindsight, we know now that no matter how genius the newton was, he could not have researched any superpower from theology or how to turn lead into gold.

    Once you know the right direction, your technology reseaech can progress 100 or even 1000 times faster.
     
    Last edited: Oct 21, 2021
  12. ShadowAscetic

    ShadowAscetic Well-Known Member

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    Yeah but everything needs multiple experiment to get the right composition. People can't make charcoal with random woods, and some people don't even know how saltpeter looks like. Most reincarnated person in novels can get the right composition in one go as if they're born geniuses. Even making soap isn't easy because you can burn your hands without using gloves, not to mention making gunpowder which can explode if you're not careful enough
     
  13. potato413

    potato413 Active Member

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    The explanation is that they got lucky. The author could write an entire chapter or 2 on MC trying multiple combinations of materials but readers will scream filler. Obviously the author wont have the gunpowder explode in mcs face or the story is over.

    Also, which stories do you read that MC personally goes to formulate the gunpowder? From the stories I have read, MC usually leaves the dangerous gunpowder to some subordinates and MC comes back every week to check on progress.
     
  14. Alvastar

    Alvastar Well-Known Member

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    A lot of that is hindered by manufacturing, however. Once you get a proper drill, press, etc. to make rivet machines you can do a lot and make more since there's only so many unique pieces a machine can have.

    Proper firearms require such a precise process now, and a standard blacksmith can only make something like a Colt that you'd see in Westerns. Even then, there's a lot of specialist tools that you'd take for granted a blacksmith having that'd make the boring for the barrels and such which took a bit to be developed.

    It's really unrealistic to see such development. Actually, the best fiction I've read where someone was trying to deliberately speed up societal and technological development is a fanfiction from Noodlehammer where Naruto had already become a God and went touring the multiverse, deciding to spend a few hundred years creating a Galactic empire in the Stargate SGU universe killing off evil snakes. After squishing Zeus and grabbing a few thousand starting population his Civilization sandbox began. Keeping cheating to a minimum it still took over 500 years to get to our current point, well they were better because their computers and a few other things took less detours. Still, it was only about 50 years ahead by the 90's. It sped up a lot by then, though.
     
  15. potato413

    potato413 Active Member

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    I mean if you look at the history China pretty much did speedrun agriculture and industrial revolution so authors are basing it off their own/grandparents experiences. Pretty much in one generation.

    It is kinda unrealistic in some webnovels though, like the MC brought 10000 libraries worth of technical information in his brain
     
  16. ShadowAscetic

    ShadowAscetic Well-Known Member

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    I don't remember the title (because too long) but some Japanese reincarnated MC does everything by themself, in most cases they were making concrete or glass, making gunpowder was rare though. Somehow I remember there's a shojo otome reincarnation novel which the MC designed a steam locomotive by herself eventho steam engine didn't exist yet lol
     
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  17. OoLockedGirloO

    OoLockedGirloO Member

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    *takes notes*
     
  18. Lois.

    Lois. ❲.❳ Wooosh.

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    I honestly don't hate the trope as long as it's decently played and keeps the story interesting, maybe my tolerance for bullshitting is just sky high by now due to all chinese Lns I've tolerated and read. Some rare cases though are when the reincarnated mc doesn't really bring on like crop of the top information from his/her past lives ex; some simple recipes or political concepts and rather excels more on the innovation of concepts they have in the new world ( the one they got reincarnated in) well one way or another almost all mcs of cn or jp novels are really op so eh I kinna just read the stuff and my brain goes "understandable, have a good day" because I know that the story I'm reading is fiction and rather than looking at the plot holes and letting it bother me I just continue reading unless the story just turns really annoying or intolerably unrealistic for me, along with the problem of having really bad character building or character dynamics.
     
  19. potato413

    potato413 Active Member

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    Hey your knowledge is more valuable in ancient times than you think.

    Worst comes to worst, even if you do nothing but watch dramas read novels and watch tv everyday and remember nothing from school, you can still make a great living for a lifetime selling novel stories, chess, soccer rules, football, etc.

    Maybe setup a performer troupe later, do plays, write down the popular tunes youve heard and play them.
     
  20. strayCat0

    strayCat0 What are you doing right now?

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    Yeah, you're kinda right. But even though China back then was overwhelmingly behind developed countries, they already have the highest manufacturing capability and manpower on earth. It's different with their webnovels, because irl it was catching up, while the fiction is outpacing. Even europe needed at least two centuries of colonalism so that they can get headstart and begin their industrial revolution before other.

    Not only that, modern knowledge imparting in webnovels is almost always in dark age era, that's like 1000 years of advancement crammed into a little before one century deadline. MC's country will become the most powerful country in the world? Sure, that's given because of MC's legacy. But still, even with magic, i don't believe you can do that in your lifetime.