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[pengwern]

 ruritanian romance as early precursor to transmigration-into-royal-shenaniganry fics?
(also apparently transmigration novels was a thing in china in the eighties, even, before the internet.)

Comments

[sovay]

ruritanian romance as early precursor to transmigration-into-royal-shenaniganry fics?

I don't know much about royal transmigration novels, but if there's a through-line of doppelgänging into another country and culture's politics, sounds legit to me.

[pengwern]

doppelgänging is the perfect term o-o given most transmigrators do effectively replace an original person in the setting (when their transmigration just involves their mind/soul).

I haven't read that many ruritanian romances either (just Zenda, Sherwood Smith's modern Coronets and Steel series, and The Prince Commands by Andre Norton). The key similarity for me is going from a more developed society into the romantic past with kings and coups! drama! swords!! But Ruritanian romance has the benefit of not dragging in time travel ethics (nobody in cnovels has ever heard about the prime directive or temporal paradoxes, I swear) as well as giving the Ruritanians access to the society that the foreigner came from, allowing for the modernization vs traditions themes and gives them greater.....agency? than the transmigration setup, where some jerk gets to rampage across a mishmash historical world with modern tech and concepts.

I've only seen a few "transmigration from one historical period to another" novels, which is one logical alternative. (but it was crack written seriously and had a major figure Cao Cao from Romance of the Three Kingdoms reincarnated as the only woman emperor of china, wu ze tian >U>)