Generic swept-away-to-a-magical-realm stories are as old as stories. It’s just another form of the Campbellian underworld.
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court is blatantly an audience-insert into another known genre so the rando protagonist can be a world-shaping force just by having common knowledge. He even gets there by getting smacked so hard he could die.
Who the frig is this responding to? America invented the Isekai. The first unambiguous example was written by no less than Mark Twain.
The only thing we don’t have is a recent clusterfuck of stories treating that niche genre as the starting point for all stories.
That’s what superheroes are for.
Nonsense, there’s loads of European stories with that kind of plot from the 17th century onwards.
Generic swept-away-to-a-magical-realm stories are as old as stories. It’s just another form of the Campbellian underworld.
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court is blatantly an audience-insert into another known genre so the rando protagonist can be a world-shaping force just by having common knowledge. He even gets there by getting smacked so hard he could die.