Things I Like
Jul. 23rd, 2018 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflydreamingThere's a new anime that has caught my interest, Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi, translated as "Bed and Breakfast for Spirits." (Who wouldn't be intrigued by that?) Watching it has highlighted again for me that there are certain things I really like. It has monsters, folklore, and a plot that presents a conflict at first that is not what's really going on.
But the real gold star is this particular trope: ingenue protagonist inherits the problems of a whimsical, trouble making ancestor. In this case, Aoi has to pay off a debt left by her grandfather, a kind of person who had a large turnout at his funeral because some people missed him and others wanted to satisfy themselves that he was dead. In Natsume Yuujincho (Natsume's Book of Friends), the troublemaker is the main character's grandmother, a social outcast who made the only kind of "friends" that she could -- monsters -- by beating them at games to win their names. In Cardcaptor Sakura, the troublemaker is an overly powerful magician that is pretty much the reason for everything that happens, as well as the antagonist for an entire arc of the story.
So now I'm wondering, where does this trope appear in Western works? We tend not to like addressing death, which is a big part of the appeal of this trope, especially in the way the inhuman characters react when they find out that the troublemaker, being mortal, has died. It's inspiring, and has given me some plot carrots for the second book of the magic girl duology. (And that thing is pretty much, me writing the story I want to read, for the purpose of it existing for me to read.)
But the real gold star is this particular trope: ingenue protagonist inherits the problems of a whimsical, trouble making ancestor. In this case, Aoi has to pay off a debt left by her grandfather, a kind of person who had a large turnout at his funeral because some people missed him and others wanted to satisfy themselves that he was dead. In Natsume Yuujincho (Natsume's Book of Friends), the troublemaker is the main character's grandmother, a social outcast who made the only kind of "friends" that she could -- monsters -- by beating them at games to win their names. In Cardcaptor Sakura, the troublemaker is an overly powerful magician that is pretty much the reason for everything that happens, as well as the antagonist for an entire arc of the story.
So now I'm wondering, where does this trope appear in Western works? We tend not to like addressing death, which is a big part of the appeal of this trope, especially in the way the inhuman characters react when they find out that the troublemaker, being mortal, has died. It's inspiring, and has given me some plot carrots for the second book of the magic girl duology. (And that thing is pretty much, me writing the story I want to read, for the purpose of it existing for me to read.)
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Date: 2018-07-23 09:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2018-07-24 12:11 am (UTC)Most of the stories I'm thinking of have the relatives still alive (some are trapped somewhere, some are just grown up and want their children/next generation to have some unnatural adventures too)-- now I'll have to look around my bookroom and see if anything jumps out at me.