Yes, I'm aware lose is the verb form of loss, but I wanted to get this off my chest. We're all here for the sweet wish fulfillment novels and there's nothing wrong with that. But I feel like people are being disingenuous when they try to say protagonist of the novel they like is different because he loses fights. Yeah, I'm aware that there are novels where protagonist absolutely does not lose even a single time, but just saying your protagonist losing a fight makes him unique feels kind of irritating. Nothing is lost most of the times due losing this fights, as in, they're nothing but a minor setback. Of course. It makes sense. In a wish fulfillment novel you can't kill off the protagonist due to losing a fight. But most of the time they don't even lose anything whose effect would even remotely last in the long run. They're always setbacks protagonist gets out of stronger from, or walks around easily. A loved one died? Revive em! And while you're at it, bag the goddess of death/breakthrough xxx level/get xxxtier item too! Blindness? Buddy, you just unlocked mana sense/third eye! Crippled? Duh, you obtained the ability to walk with your third leg! Losing a fight!=loss of something tangible(or intangible), something that matters, something that would actually make us feel sorry for protagonist instead of feeling apathetic knowing he'll get around it within next 50 chapters. Most of the times protagonist losing a fight is just there to create fake tension, which doesn't even work considering how we know none these means anything. .... ... .. . Welp, that's enough ranting for today. Time for me to turn off my brain and go through some more of those mindless slops.
Someone speaks logic here!? Get him out! You reminded me how in Chinese cultivation novels if someone gets crippled, that's the end for them usually. If MC gets crippled, it means he will get to sleep with some virgin, recover his power and even gain some extra ability due to taking some extra special virginity. Or how Er Gen got his MC to lose all his cultivation, his meridians or whatever stripped from him and it turned out that there is actually a real true way to cultivate to the next level immediately, not some cultivation crutch like everyone uses. And that true way is to lose all your cultivation! Wouldn't you be so lucky someone did you a favor?! This line was actually in the novel. But yea, you are right, in most novels MC doesn't really lose anything. Those would often be shounen novels, so if that's what you read - try switching the genre to something else. There are many novels where MC lost something or someone important, at least at the start of the novel.