rdfs:comment
| - The story is its own little world: It's not merely secluded from the context, there is no context. It is not merely the morality that is centered on the protagonists, the world itself revolves around them. Usually simply "unaverted" by limited storytelling, but can also be actively invoked as some kind of absurdity or postmodern deconstruction. In either case, when a show or webcomic or other work starts this way, it usually melts away at the same pace as Cerebus Syndrome takes a hold on the plotline. In shorter storylines, it can instead be a existential twist to some Ontological Mystery.
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abstract
| - The story is its own little world: It's not merely secluded from the context, there is no context. It is not merely the morality that is centered on the protagonists, the world itself revolves around them. Usually simply "unaverted" by limited storytelling, but can also be actively invoked as some kind of absurdity or postmodern deconstruction. In either case, when a show or webcomic or other work starts this way, it usually melts away at the same pace as Cerebus Syndrome takes a hold on the plotline. In shorter storylines, it can instead be a existential twist to some Ontological Mystery. The stories where the world is limited to the plot are instead the stories where the characters have no backstory, no anchors outside the plot, and whatever they do, there will be no outside forces of any kind reacting to it. Characters irrelevant to the plot are highly unlikely to exist at all, and if they do then they won't have names. The story does not have to take place in a pocket dimension or even a secluded town: Rather than being shown to not exist, the outside world is simply unmentioned and discarded as irrelevant. Commonly, these stories feature a failed escape sequence, and none of the outside world will be seen during the escape. The characters are inevitably led right back to the plot's world. This is not when a story takes place in a Small Secluded World such as an island or a box: In those cases there is still a universe outside the place where the characters are trapped. The characters are still connected to the outside world by their memories, and there are people in the outside world who could miss them. Defying this trope is a common way to Deconstructed Trope or avert other tropes: It's easy to be The Omniscient when there is so little to know in the first place, just add more information and the character turns out to be Not So Omniscient After All. On the flipside of this coin, philosophical thought-experiments often ask us to accept a World Limited to the Plot, making the most outrageous oversimplifications look like valid Aesops. Examples of World Limited to the Plot include:
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