User blog comment:Blu3 Fir3 - V2.0/The Problem with RWBY Self-Inserts/@comment-25936766-20170831183504

I found your....eh, analysis? rather lacking. So let me add my 2 bucks. Bear with me, this is long:

Self-Inserts are 9.8/10 times, Power Fantasies loaded with Wish Fulfillment. The use of Self-Insert is a device for the author to turn themselves into the badass ace they know they never will be.

The result is that nearly every time Self-Inserts are used, the character, who is also the Author, becomes a Gary/Mary Sue. Their ego prevents them from not turning themselves into a perfect Harem King. If anything, all their ego decides is how far do they go.

And that's why it's a flawed idea. It requires a great amount of lack of Egotism (conscious or unconscious) to be written well, and very few writters, let alone fanfic writters, possess that.

Your first point refers to Aura. And true, someone from our world should not be able to use Aura because we don't have Aura in our world. Which leads to the second point you make, "Reincarnation in Another World".

Personally, the whole "Dude died and got reincarnated by God in Remnant" is not really as common as you say. Generally, the "How did this dude end up in Remnant" detail ends up a mistery, like in Grimgar; sometimes they don't even die first. The former idea is Cliché, but a Cliché more present in general Isekai works, than on Self-Insert fanfics.

However, like you say, both require an explanation. And "Reincarnated in Remnant" offers a reasonable explanation for why this Average Joe is capable of using Aura despite coming from Earth where it isn't a thing. So it's understandable that some, if not most Authors would pick it.

One may ask "But why would they need a way to use Aura?", and the answer is simple: Entertainment + Information.

1) RWBY's main draw, is fights. Logically, some dude who has no combat experience and can't even use Aura would die in seconds against a Beowulf pup. While believable, that would not be entertaining, and makes the premise pointless. Now, if the dude could reasonably fight back, and logically uses whatever they know about the show, then it becomes more entertaining.

2) Even 4-5 years after it's begun, we know very, very little of the Kingdoms on a more mundane level. We know Vacuo is full of nomads, we know Mistral has a black-white social division, we know Atlas is run by the military. We know some bits about their culture and aesthetic. But we know little else.

On the other hand, it's easier to write a Huntsman-in-Training. Beacon gives us an idea of how Academies work, and monster-hunting does not require much knowledge of the Kingdoms themselves. We also know they go on missions even before graduation, and those have their own uses.

Overall, the idea allows the Self-Insert to use Aura, and that allows for a more directly-entertaining and less difficult story, and that's at least part of the reason why it's done so often. The other reasons being the Power Fantasy idea mentioned previously, and the lack of creativity present in nearly every fanfic.

This also provides a way for the Self-Insert to then Self-Insert themselves into the main cast's lives. Which leads to your 3rd point: Harems.

Now, this is not a problem in Self-Inserts so much as a problem in Fanfiction in general that involves OCs interacting with the main cast. Which is also related to the Power Fantasy/Wish Fulfillment part of the deal.

As everybody who bothers to even skim some RWBY fanfics could tell, even the least Gary Sueish of OCs often ends up with a canon girl in love with him. Almost every single time this happens, that girl is Yang. Another popular option is Velvet.

The reasons behind this is understandable for both of them:

1-Yang has a likeable personality and good looks. She's the kind of person that would make friends easily. She also has big boobs and ass, and most fanfic writers are teenagers, who put more value on a girl's assets than on her personality or skills.

2-Velvet, admittedly, while her appearance is more "plain" than Yang's, it's still good, and there's people who like people with animal ears. While I don't find her personality too interesting, I do see why people, mostly men, would be attracted to her after her first appearance, where she was basically a timid girl being bullied.

What would be so attractive about that? Well, ladies and gentlemen, Shy and Timid, or in my opinion, "Seemingly Weak" girls, hit many men's "MUST PROTECT" instincts, it pushes them to esentially want to be those girls "Knight in Shining Armor" whether those girls want to or not.

Now, men throwing themselves to help, go easy on, and "save" a woman, especially one that looks good (even if she doesn't want or need the "help"), is, sadly, very common already and in some cases frusfrating, but when the lady ignites those aforementioned-instincts, it sky-rockets.

Another factor for why Velvet and Yang are pretty popular options for OCs and Self-Inserts to romance, is that most other options either are not as popular (at least in a "Waifu" sense), or are "Evil". While there are stories with OCs/SIs romancing, say, Ruby, Blake, Coco, those are more rare.

However, this is for when OCs are paired with a canon character, but don't have an Harem. The explanation behind "Harem King" OCs is much simpler: Just read the first part of this post. It's a result of ego, wish fulfillment, power fantasizing.

Now, would it affect the plot so drastically? Maybe. If the OC only romances and sticks with 1 character, then how much the plot could/should change depends on which character. In some cases, it wouldn't change much, particularly in cases like Coco and Neon who aren't plot-important. In other cases, like Blake and Emerald, major rewrites would be required.

If the Author instead gives the OC/themself an Harem, while theorically they could do it in a way that wouldn't drastically change the plot, that requires a level of writing skill that fanfic writers just don't have.

However, all this is not a requirement, as anyone could tell. There are other ideas available that can work for a Self-Insert that don't need Aura, don't need Romance, don't need God reincarnating Random Joe Nº 2901840. But those ideas are pretty much never used because fanfiction lacks creativity.

For example, one could make a story about themselves ending up in Remnant, and simply becoming a baker in Vale. Aura becomes a non-issue since the SI won't be fighting, meaning one only has to explain how they got there. At the same time, it allows a way to make the SI interact with different members of the cast in a way that wouldn't necesarily affect the plot much.

Overall: Self-Inserts are inherently flawed not because the premise is bad, but because nearly all writers lack the creativity or writing skills to make a good or original SI story, and due to the idea behind the premise, it easily allows Power Fantasies, leading to Gary Sues.

The problem is not the idea, it's the writers.