More good thoughts! "NTR Theory" is fascinating to me, so I'm enjoying this dialogue. I'm getting a better understanding on a different perspective and I like that.
This is a good point. What the MC is thinking and feeling might be different from what the player is thinking/feeling. Do you suppose "author intent" is a factor here? By this, I mean what the author/artist/dev intends for the player to feel? To a certain extent, this is irrelevant--creators create, audiences consume, intent isn't necessarily a factor. That said, skilled storytellers are successful partly because they can deliberately cause audiences to feel a specific emotion. Wes Craven, for example, wanted his audiences to feel horror, and he was very successful.
Perhaps comments and interviews from NTR creators can give us a glimpse inside what they were intending, and which emotions they were hoping to elicit.
Well... I hate to brag, but I've logged countless hours inside Japanese NTR simulators and have studied uncountable volumes of NTR manga.
From my experience, the emotion of Jealousy is almost always present. Just to be sure, after reading your comment, I decided to peruse some J-NTR stuff (I found a "sister netorare" subreddit with a helpful "recommended content" post:
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). I read about 4-5 manga titles and watched a few JAVs. "Jealousy" seemed to seep in every time. Was I self-inserting? Perhaps, but in Manga the MC's inner thoughts are often directly articulated, and those basically scream "I'M SO FUCKING JEALOUS RIGHT NOW!" In JAV, the cuck actor often frowns comically while clutching his tenting trousers, actions I interpret as clear jealousy signaling.
If you'd like, I could cite some specific examples.
This is a good point. The "oblivious protagonist" is a common trope in J-NTR. What I've noticed with these plots is this: events slowly unfold, with the audience (us) being clued in on the LI's erotic shenanigans of which the protagonist is unaware. It's a delicious dramatic irony, and you're right in the sense that Jealousy isn't much of a factor for most of the rising action. The climax of the story is typically when the protagonist finally realizes that the LI is actually a hussy/corrupted/fucking the bully/etc. (Schrodinger's NTR box is opened, to use your metaphor.) During this climax, a swirl of different emotions typically afflicts the protagonist, paralyzing him. Is Jealousy the dominant emotion? Not always, I agree, but it very often is, and IMHO, Jealousy is always present among all the other emotions.
I tend to agree. The box is typically opened at the climax of the story in J-NTR, and I generally prefer it that way. Cucks tend not to be very compelling protagonists; the revelatory epiphanic moment of tragic enlightenment is kinda where Fonzie jumps the shark.
Hmmm... I kind of agree with this--Mom NTR MCs don't regularly cross the line into incestuous desire, and almost never do for most of the story. But I've seen it sometimes happen--generally at the climax when they're forced to confront the concept that their mother is a sexual being. I might have to do some focused viewing on Mom-NTR as homework.
Some good insights here! I tend to agree with you on these points.
I generally agree with you (one minor quibble: I think I said "component" and "feature," but not "requirement") but I took the liberty of marking your phrase in parentheses because I think it's important to my point: the ending sequence is typically when all the suppressed emotions erupt, and those emotions and the fact they've been suppressed are of crucial significance. I think an argument could be made that, for many J-NTRs, the entire story is
really about emotions/themes that haven't been mentioned or explored throughout 90% of the story. It's the literary equivalent of sketching an object by focusing solely on negative space.
Extrapolating further, if these stories could be said to have any moral, it would often be this: if your love causes you to view the object of your love only in terms of angelic asexual purity, and you fail to acknowledge her as a sexual being, you are setting yourself up for an emotional catastrophe.
To answer the questions, "What would be the natural response? Would you actually be
jealous?" Actually... yeah. I think it makes perfect sense for the MC to feel jealousy, particularly if the villain is experiencing something the MC has only ever dreamt of--or never allowed himself to dream of, as the case often is in J-NTR.
"Jealous that your girl betrayed you and are now some villain's cock slave?
Jealous?" Well, I wouldn't be jealous of the
betrayal (and bear in mind that not all NTR, Japanese or otherwise, feature betrayal), but I would be jealous that some other guy is slamming my LI, a well-drawn doe-eyed chick with big ole anime titties floppin around,
cuz I want to do that!
Anyway, really fun thoughts. I don't agree with all your viewpoints, but you express yourself well and it's fun considering your perspective.