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RE: Tired Tropes: The Superpowered Loser
The rise of this trope is probably due to the rise of the "herbivore " man in Japan and to a lesser extent Korea. To be honest, I can't recall any literature on this trope outside of manga/manhwa. I wonder if this trope has always been around.....
It's certainly prominent in manga and manhwa targeted at young boys or losers. The passive loser protagonist archetype tends to be an Asian thing. Western culture seems generally contemptuous of such people, so much so no one bothers to make them protagonists. Especially since losers, in the real world, wouldn't bother to get off the couch and Do Stuff, much less drive a story.
This seems to be the Western equivalent: https://alphagameplan.blogspot.sg/2016/09/gamma-fantasy-novel-one.html
Not a total loser, insofar as the protagonist Gets Stuff Done, but it's still a highly self-centred story that is all about wish fulfilment instead of higher and finer goals.