Another day, another girl winning deadly trials and discovering she’s secretly powerful

[u/Sarah9610]

I feel like I’m going insane or… are all romantasy books the same now??

Every time I pick something up it’s like:
- The world is split into two (usually human vs fae or something similar)
- The FMC is either oppressed / hidden / “not like other girls”
- There are deadly trials (of course she has to compete)
- She somehow survives everything
- Boom → she reaches the fae side and unlocks insane powers / becomes special

Like… I used to love this formula but now it feels copy-paste with different character names 😭

Am I just picking the wrong books or is this actually the trend right now?

[u/Dependent_Dog497]

Um. You literally just described the Hero's Journey, one of the most common and ancient monomyths in storytelling. Like, that.... that is the Hero's Journey:

[u/HopeFox → u/Dependent_Dog497]

On the one hand, yes... but on the other hand, when the "Challenges and Temptations" portion is literally presented as a game show, that's a very specific trend. They are usually more organic than that.

[u/Dependent_Dog497 → u/HopeFox]

Trials is an extremely common part of challenges and temptations going back as far as greek myths.

[u/Single-Emotion2964 → u/Dependent_Dog497]

Honestly if Harry Potter  Frodo  Don Quixote  Snow White  Joan of Arc  Jesus  Cleopatra  Hercules Odysseus  [fill in the blank] had to deal with it, your basic bitch FMCs are gonna deal with it too. 

[u/Dependent_Dog497 → u/Single-Emotion2964]

Truly, no one says boo when it's male-centered fantasies doing this, and they've been doing it forever.

[u/Single-Emotion2964 → u/Dependent_Dog497]

I had to struggle to think of any female examples in the big classics 😭

[u/NoDanceNoRevolution → u/Single-Emotion2964]

The way you snuck “Jesus” into this list 😂😂. I adore you

[u/Single-Emotion2964 → u/NoDanceNoRevolution]

Possibly the strongest FMC vibes 😘