Chosen one free genre stories?

[2D8HP]

A discussion in a thread prompted a thought:
Return of the Jedi left a bad taste.

"Oh the struggles of common people don't matter, what's important is the interpersonal relationships and psyches of a few with supernatural powers".

Fooey!

You know what I'd like, would be a "genre" story without chosen one's.

No Aragorn's, or Skywalker's with snowflake "destinies", just a common people "band of brothers" full of good Sam Gamgee's and Captain John H. Miller's defeating "Dark Lords".

Why isn't that story told?

The early Guards books by Pratchett seemed to almost be like that, but then Sam Vimes was Marty Stew'd and superpowered up making Snuff a book I just couldn't bare to finish.

Magic has it's place.

In the setting and at the end of a sword!

Any stories about regular people rising up together and defeating superpowered tyrants?

[Yora]

What genre?

There is of course Conan. He has no greater powers meddling in his afairs in any ways. The way he likes it.

Fafrd and Gray Mouser also aren't chosen by anything and have no long term ambitions whatsoeveer.

Then there's the first two Witcher books, all the Hyperborea stories. Desert of Souls has two pretty ordinary guys whom a seer has told they will become great heroes during their lives, but they can't really imagine how. The protagonist in The City of Dreaming Books doesn't really have any powers or abilities.

[comicshorse]

Harry Harrison felt the same way so wrote the short story 'An Honest Day's Work' about a sewer worker who saves the world

[BWR]

You'll find those sorts of stories hard to come by because the protagonists of a 'defeat the X' story will almost invariably be special in some way, else there wouldn't be a story about them. Even the aforementioned sewer worker is special because he is the one who actually does the saving of the world. A story about the faceless masses rising up is hard to do because you will need faceless masses and not characters.

[Velaryon]

A discussion in a thread prompted a thought:
Return of the Jedi left a bad taste.

"Oh the struggles of common people don't matter, what's important is the interpersonal relationships and psyches of a few with supernatural powers".

I'd argue that in this particular case, the personal story between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor was the focus of the film, but was actually the less important of the stories going on. After all, even if Luke had given in, killed Vader, fallen to the Dark Side, and joined the Emperor, the Death Star still would have been blown up by Lando and Wedge. At best, Luke and the Emperor might have been able to escape on a shuttle and live to fight another day.

But that's neither here nor there. We're looking for stories without a chosen one or prophecy angle.

I barely finished the first book because it was very much not my cup of tea, but as far as I know The Black Company and its sequels by Glen Cook doesn't have any of that going on. It follows the exploits of a mercenary company that has a knack for getting into trouble because of the power struggles between much more powerful individuals.

If you're into historical fantasy at all, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is set in an alternate 19th century Earth where dragons exist alongside humanity, but otherwise there's no magic (and therefore no prophecy).

Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall any prophecies in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. There's pretty much every other kind of magic under the sun, but I don't think Harry is any kind of a Chosen One.

[Legato Endless]

I barely finished the first book because it was very much not my cup of tea, but as far as I know The Black Company and its sequels by Glen Cook doesn't have any of that going on. It follows the exploits of a mercenary company that has a knack for getting into trouble because of the power struggles between much more powerful individuals.

If you're into historical fantasy at all, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is set in an alternate 19th century Earth where dragons exist alongside humanity, but otherwise there's no magic (and therefore no prophecy).

Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall any prophecies in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. There's pretty much every other kind of magic under the sun, but I don't think Harry is any kind of a Chosen One.

Harry being a Starborn might count. While it's not prophetic as far as we know, free will being paramount in The Dresden Files, it does mark him as someone unique with power over the Outsiders. The real problem is while there isn't really fate, divine powers like the White God do subtly intervene regularly, such as putting the Knights in the right place at the right time.

The Black Company doesn't really fit the ordinary masses requirement as an elite legendary military unit.

[lunaticfringe]

Caiphas Cain depending on the Novel. There is a bit of Sci-fi/Fanstasy repetition where the author re-explains concepts in every novel. It's also got humor & Pratchett style footnotes. No sure how you feel about 40k, but the books aren't all that Grimdark given the setting.

[Dr.Samurai]

Harry being a Starborn might count. While it's not prophetic as far as we know, free will being paramount in The Dresden Files, it does mark him as someone unique with power over the Outsiders. The real problem is while there isn't really fate, divine powers like the White God do subtly intervene regularly, such as putting the Knights in the right place at the right time.

To relate to the OP though, this part of the series left a bad taste in my mouth. I love the Dresden Files, and I love the character of Dresden specifically because he didn't seem to be special in that kind of way. He was in these stories doing the things he was doing because he chose to, because that's his character and those are his principles. Like 2D8HP, I don't care for characters like Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker.

So when it was revealed that Harry is "Starborn" and may be the key to defeating the Outsiders, I was like... well, you had a good run lol. They haven't done anything with it, and maybe it won't turn out to be anything, but it stuck out to me when I read it because it just felt counter to the setup up right up to that point. This wasn't about a fated one. It was about a hard-working guy trying to do the right thing, no matter how tough it was, and usually pulling it off through his grit and determination (and power). Please don't reveal that he's actually a special snowflake of destiny .

[Lord Raziere]

So when it was revealed that Harry is "Starborn" and may be the key to defeating the Outsiders, I was like... well, you had a good run lol. They haven't done anything with it, and maybe it won't turn out to be anything, but it stuck out to me when I read it because it just felt counter to the setup up right up to that point. This wasn't about a fated one. It was about a hard-working guy trying to do the right thing, no matter how tough it was, and usually pulling it off through his grit and determination (and power). Please don't reveal that he's actually a special snowflake of destiny .

*is big Dresden Fan*

*goes to check*

huh, I never noticed that. Darn it. Hm. Starborn. well, Elaine is also a Starborn, so perhaps its not as special as one thinks? and keep in mind, Harry and Elaine were chosen by Justin DuMorne who was apart of the BLACK Council? and one of the Laws was "don't open the Outer Gates" so....that might be a bad thing, because remember Dresden File horror, they might've been chosen to take control of the outsiders for evil purposes. him and Elaine might just be weapons to use on everyone else because of their power. and the final three books are supposed to be an apocalyptic trilogy if I remember correctly, the books titles being the three cusses the supernatural community often uses: Hell's Bells, Stars and Stones and Empty Night. yeah, those don't sound too happy. I don't think being a Starborn is a good thing.

[Sapphire Guard]

I like this idea, but only if the story if the theme is standing on its own and not explicitly or implicitly calling out the concept of chosen ones. Just write a story about characters, don't make it 'screw you, chosen one'

[Tvtyrant]

Any stories about regular people rising up together and defeating superpowered tyrants?

Pretty much all of them? The nature of the chosen one is always that they are some nobody who rises up from the ranks of normal people, which appeals to our sense of individual importance.

Lots of them don't have prophecies, but the problem is if the main characters aren't special in some way and anyone could have done it, then it would have been done already. Take Steelheart, where the main characters special ability is memorizing everything about their opponents. This lets them find weaknesses and figure out how to assassinate their enemies, but the same thing could be done by a room full of normal nerds and a computer. It would take an unusual audience to be able to identify with one of 16 secretaries who never sees combat and spends their time debating minute details about bomb pressures in enclosed environments, but that is what reality would be here.

[Legato Endless]

I like this idea, but only if the story if the theme is standing on its own and not explicitly or implicitly calling out the concept of chosen ones. Just write a story about characters, don't make it 'screw you, chosen one'

Yeah, deconstructing the chosen one archetype and it's implications is as hackneyed as vanilla chosen one narratives themselves at this point.

Lots of them don't have prophecies, but the problem is if the main characters aren't special in some way and anyone could have done it, then it would have been done already.

This isn't true in real life, and I see no reason for it to be a rule of fiction. If anything, the erroneous idea if it were mundanely possible than someone would have already done it is one of the reasons chosen one narratives exist in the first place.

[Tvtyrant]

This isn't true in real life, and I see no reason for it to be a rule of fiction. If anything, the erroneous idea if it were mundanely possible than someone would have already done it is one of the reasons chosen one narratives exist in the first place.

In real life it tends to take tens of thousands, if not millions, of people to make changes. Try writing a million people as a protagonist.

You can write a "doing their part" story about taking one hill, or a committee working out the fin ratio on a space shuttle, but it is a very different genre.

[Lord Raziere]

I dunno, I don't think I agree with that thinking tvtyrant, it smacks too much of Great Man Theory of History- the idea that because THIS person did THAT means that no one else could've.

and here is the thing: nobility or being rich is already kind of a chosen one thing already- chosen by MONEY. not exactly the best chooser now isn't it?

I'm real tired of people saying that deconstructing a bad thing is just as hackneyed as the thing itself, just choose something to like already and stop criticizing everything, just be happy that we've made progress away from chosen ones!

[2D8HP]

Thanks guys for all the suggestions!

What genre?

Not set in actual living memory reality (there's innumerable squad level war movies that have the themes I'm looking for, but they make me cry, I"m looking for Fantasy/Science Fiction).

If it's historical fiction something like Cornwell's Agincourt may work, but even a tale set in the 19th century American Civil war is too close to modernity, I want more of a distance than that, and some Fantastic elements are good, I like tales set in "Faerie", I just want the protagonists to be normal humans.

There is of course Conan. He has no greater powers meddling in his afairs in any ways. The way he likes it.

I've really liked some Conan stories. I think Tower of the Elephant is a standout really good one, but Conan is a little too strong, tough, and quick for what I'm asking for in this thread.

Fafrd and Gray Mouser also aren't chosen by anything and have no long term ambitions whatsoeveer.

I love Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser! Especially the early stories, but they do have Sorcerer patrons and the are "The best swordsmen in the world of Nehwon", plus they're more rogues than heroes so not quite what I'm asking for, but I love those stories so much that I'll go for more like them!

...This wasn't about a fated one. It was about a hard-working guy trying to do the right thing, no matter how tough it was, and usually pulling it off through his grit and determination (and power). Please don't reveal that he's actually a special snowflake of destiny .

Yes! Normal humans triumph through "grit and determination" (and a little luck, but not just by finding Stormbringer/Aladdin's lamp etc.).

From another thread:

I didn't mean they don't accomplish anything, I meant that they lack superpowers and triumph by collective effort against superpowered foes.

Frodo has his last name and his ring (which he at the last minute ultimately decides not to destroy), but humble Sam is steadfast and is the ring-bearer that rejects power for himself.

Tolkien wrote:
“My ‘Sam Gamgee’ is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself.”


A batman, in military parlance, was "A soldier who (as well as being required to fight) was tasked with looking after an officer’s kit, cooking, and cleaning".

A servant in other words.

At the end of Rings Sam doesn't win a throne, he simply says

“Well, I’m back,”

(Yes he's later elected Mayor of Hobbiton, but in my head-canon that's about his fellow Hobbits recognizing and utilizing his willingness to do his duty, rather than a royal reward).

Okay, I already cited Sam Gamgee (from Lord of the Rings) and Captain Miller (from Saving Private Ryan) but I'll cite another:

Noah Ackerman from The Young Lions fits the bill almost exactly 'cept it's a tale set during my fathers lifetime which brings me to tears.

Same thing with Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, those are the kind of heroes I want to read about or see (if a film or comic book), but in a Fantastic setting.

In real life it tends to take tens of thousands, if not millions, of people to make changes. Try writing a million people as a protagonist.

That's not what I'm looking for, I'm looking for P.O.V. squad level stories, but a short story in which the people of Gondor grab their pitchforks go full Battleship Potemkin/Son of Frankenstein and drop Sauron's moldering behind into Mount Doom would be AWESOME!

You can write a "doing their part" story about taking one hill, or a committee working out the fin ratio on a space shuttle, but it is a very different genre.

That would also be be cool.

[Friv]

Quick note: While the main characters of the Black Company aren't Chosen Ones, there is definitely a Chosen One story that they get super-ensnared in (the White Rose). Won't say more about it than that, in case of spoilers.

So, a few not Chosen Ones.

Ghostbusters springs to mind. It's sort of the ultimate anti-Chosen One story - working stiffs save the world.

How specific are we going to get? The protagonist of Ancillary Justice isn't a Chosen One in any literal sense - what happened to her could have happened to anyone - but because of the events shortly before the first book, what she is capable of understanding-wise are not what anyone else in the setting can now do. Does that count?

Spoiler: Ancillary Justice

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Specifically, the fact that she was a Ship Mind with dozens of bodies, and those bodies were killed, but she was able to download her knowledge into one of them which then escaped as a human. In theory, any Ship could do that. In practice, she was pretty much the only one that did, which left her in a position to understand both human and Ship behaviours and outlooks.

[Lord Raziere]

yea at some point people are over-generalizing what a "chosen one" is. if your only definition of "not chosen one" is writing a story about many people making small changes, then your just basically defining "protagonist" as the chosen one simply because they are the protagonist. which is an absurd argument to make.

people really overgeneralize tropes like this. a chosen one is a narrowly defined hero chosen by prophecy and destiny, any hero that doesn't have that is not a chosen one.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Honestly Vimes is the only really bad offender in Pratchett other than maybe Granny Weatherwax, but both of them are as important as they are because of ridiculous hypercompetence as opposed to destiny or prophecy. It's funny, really, since the entire concept of the Watch books started as "chosen true king gets hilariously sidetracked into mundane but fulfilling public service because, honestly, no one needs a king."

Other Pratchett heroes tend to either avoid ths tropes or invert them in some way. Rincewind is important because he's The Lady's favorite plaything, a fact that causes him personally nothing but suffering, even if it does pit hin in positions to save various days. Susan Sto Helit is important because of Who She Is, but she's a protagonist because of what she does and how she acts.

Although as for Pratchett bookd that are really whay you're looking for, I'd rec specifically The Truth - a story of a man whose only power or advantage is literacy doing extraordinary things just because he's decent - and Monstrous Regiment - a war story about (technically) ordinary soldiers trying to survive a big stupid fantasy war. There's some Chosen One stuff in there but it's rather tangential to the main character, not unlike Lord of the Rings might have been if Tolkien wasn't an insane paleomonarchist who couldn't help himself. Coincidentally, both of these books feature cameos from Commander Duke Sir Samuel Vimes in a semi-antagonistic role (same goals, conflicting methods, that sort of thing).

Of course you might have already tried these, I just like recommending The Truth at every opportunity.

[Knaight]

There's no shortage of these. A quick list, based on what I like and what I think you'll like*:

• Guy Gavriel Kay: Kay writes a lot of historical fantasy, and most of his work fits this description (with a couple notable exceptions early on). I particularly recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan, Under Heaven, River of Stars, and The Last Light of the Sun.
• Octavia Butler: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talent in particular fit this, although it's less about overthrowing a tyrant and more about a community rising from the ashes.
• Alan Dean Foster: I would be very surprised if you didn't like Kingdoms of Light, a slightly gonzo fantasy involving a powerful archmage with a contingent spell to turn all his pets into people to go finish his business if he dies. They then travel into a rainbow, because that's the sort of story this is. There's also The Damned trilogy, and The Taken trilogy.
• China Mielville: Pick a book, any book.

*Although it's a little unrefined, absent information one way or the other on The Buried Giant. Which definitely didn't have chosen ones.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Oh wait a second, Fallout. Other than Fallout 2's protagonist literally being referred to as The Chosen One (and that's just because of their descent from the PC of the original game), every single one of them is just some schmuck who got really unlucky somehow and has to run around the Wasteland solving other peoples' problems because no one else is gonna.

[tiornys]

Otherland by Tad Williams does a pretty good job of avoiding the typical Chosen One motifs.

[Kitten Champion]

David Gemmell's works would be worth looking at, I think. Gemmell is more interested in looking at heroism as a product of one's agency and with the awareness of one's own mortality. His works tend to have heroes who rely on combat experience and grit against supremely difficult odds, rather than divine or magical influences -- there's some mysticism and such, but that's not really the focus.

Capturing the struggle is the essence of Gemmell's works, it takes the foreground to complex world-building or constructing a mythic arc.

[dps]

Quick note: While the main characters of the Black Company aren't Chosen Ones, there is definitely a Chosen One story that they get super-ensnared in (the White Rose). Won't say more about it than that, in case of spoilers.

So, a few not Chosen Ones.

Well, yes, but large parts of the narrative really don't have anything to do with

Spoiler

Show

The White Rose

. And in the sequel books, to the extent that there is a Chosen One, the Chosen one is the antagonist to the Company. And while, yes, they are an elite mercenary unit, the individual members aren't super-soldiers or anything special as fighters; they tend to win through unit discipline and cohesiveness, and most importantly, guile. And the Company's wizards aren't anything special; until they get an new young wizard in the books of the South, their wizards are pretty much the weakest magic users around.

Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. stories also feature a protagonist in a fantasy setting who isn't the Chosen one or anything like that, though he isn't generally involved in save-the-world scenarios, either.

[Unoriginal]

A discussion in a thread prompted a thought:
Return of the Jedi left a bad taste.

"Oh the struggles of common people don't matter, what's important is the interpersonal relationships and psyches of a few with supernatural powers".

That's not what happened in Return of the Jedi, though.

Star Wars is all about the Chosen One ****ing up, becoming a monster, and having others fix the mess.

No Aragorn's, or Skywalker's with snowflake "destinies", just a common people "band of brothers" full of good Sam Gamgee's and Captain John H. Miller's defeating "Dark Lords".

Neither Aragorn nor most of the Skywalkers have special destinies (the one who did turned bad). They're just more powerful than the average person.

Why isn't that story told?

Any stories about regular people rising up together and defeating superpowered tyrants?

Some of the Star Trek stories.

[Tvtyrant]

Another interesting point: Why isn't the bad guy a normal person?

Take Marvel, which until ZeMO all of their bad guys were super powered or mad scientist types, even going so far as to have the Mandarin (who is a normal person running a terrorist cell) be backed by a super powered mad scientisy.

[Bastian Weaver]

Lord of the Rings is not about Aragorn. It's about a little guy who has to do what needs to be done while the world is ending all around him, despite the attempts of powerful guys like Gandalf and Aragorn and Galadriel and others to stop the Enemy.
Seriously, guys, I'm quite disappointed.
Oh, and about Gemmell - there's a Chosen One in his books. He's a lewd, alcoholic, ignorant young man with a stolen sword, just that. And he's the real hero.

[Knaight]

Neither Aragorn nor most of the Skywalkers have special destinies (the one who did turned bad). They're just more powerful than the average person.

Being the last true king of Gondor and the last descendant of Numenor isn't exactly a destiny, but it's within spitting distance.

[Sapphire Guard]

LOTR gets blamed a lot for stuff that isn't in it. Aragorn the chosen one is ultimately a distraction from what actually matters (on purpose, that's what the march to the black gate is, a diversionary tactic, he's not the keystone of anything.)

[Bastian Weaver]

Exactly, Sapphire.

[Mechalich]

It's pretty much inherent to any storytelling operating in the epic mode - as in a story in which major societal changes occur and there are significant historical inflection points - that the characters are going to be a cut above the general population for some reason. They have to be, in order to have the power, or the ability to acquire the power, to actually effect change and also, in most cases simply to survive the generally rather hostile conditions into which they find themselves thrust. Heck, even in a brutal deconstruction of fantasy tropes like The First Law trilogy (and that's Brutal with a capital B) many of the major characters have to have extraordinary skills or nearly superhuman durability just to avoid dying from all the horrors Abercrombie puts them through - seriously Logen must have one unbelievable immune system given all the injuries he survives.

Epic storytelling is dependent upon societal stratification - good luck trying to tell an epic about hunter-gatherer tribes. In fact, the earliest epic we have - Gilgamesh - is traced to an early, highly stratified society. That stratification is necessary to allow individuals more power and influence than they would have in an egalitarian system and therefore the ability to do more. In historical fiction the stratification mechanism is generally wealth and the attendant benefits that come with it like health, high-value equipment, and training - a point made very effectively in Game of Thrones when Jon Snow is initially sent to the Night's Watch and he discovers how much all of the various criminal conscripts suck at fighting compared to his life of training to be a knight. Conan is also a useful example here, since he's a character who's in both non-epic fantasy adventures - all the stories where he's just running around the Hyborean Age getting up to mischief - and epic stories - anything that happens while he's the King of Aquilonia. He's pretty much the same guy with the same skills all the time, the difference is whether or not he's a king.

In genre fiction, the stratification might be based on something else. If there's magic, then being the best at magic makes a character legitimately better than other people at certain important traits (and the more powerful and versatile magic is, at some point people without magic are rendered almost totally irrelevant. The same thing is true of superpowers - Zemo in Civil War was able to emotionally destabilize Iron Man, but he couldn't possibly have actually fought him directly, and it gets way worse if you're talking about Thor or the Hulk. Against superpowered tyrants of this nature, regular people who rise up get slaughtered mercilessly - the people of Latervia can't overthrow Dr. Doom and the people of Zhentil Keep can't overthrow Manshoon. Even when physical might or magical power aren't the mode, stories tend to fall back on variance in intelligence, ambition, and ruthlessness. These are the key traits that empower the principles in series like Walter John William's Dread Empire's Fall or Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty.

So, as long as you're dealing with epics you're going to have major characters, protagonists and antagonists alike, who are elevated in some way above the masses, it's inevitable. Even if the viewpoint characters are merely witnesses to epic events - like most non-Mind characters in the Culture universe - you're still going to be aware that the people with real power are separated from the masses. The epic mode can get annoying at times, and at the moment it is the dominant fantasy and science fiction storytelling mode, followed by romance, so character driven adventures are more difficult to find (though the first three Harry Potter books actually qualify, and the series nosedives when it tries to become an epic midway through). Precisely why this is the case is undoubtedly complex, but that's the current situation.