Do we have a counterpart amongst 'normal' literature that captures the same involuntary hero / claustrophobic runaway atmosphere?
Chaos;Head probably sits somewhere between criticism of mass media manipulation, involuntary hero themes mixed with denpa horror and murder mystery aspects. It's written from the perspective of an hikimori that never really learns to see 'beyond' his 2D live and consequently also fails to care about taking on the actual 'antagonist' of the plot, despite him learning more and more about their actual intentions throughout the story (and even being cornered by the antagonist).
Effectively the main character has to be 'pushed on' by several people completely foreign to him (that he neither knows nor completely trusts), to pursue the goal of "someone else" (without spoiling lets just call him 'ally') who set up the plan to fight the antagonist in the first place, and put the main character in the place of the 'main hero' without seeking consent.
As such the main character learns to hate the 'gaze' behind him throughout the plot, and never gains actual traction / motivation to contest the antagonist. Even as he's being cornered, he still prefers to quite literally "die" before so much as trying to stand up to the antagonist.
It's only because A LOT of people push him (and technically him falling him love with a girl / the obligatory love story) that he very reluctantly takes on the antagonist in the end.
Now, as stated before: Do we have anything similar like that in the 'normal' books hemisphere?
I even saw this concept picked up in the sort of spiritual successor Robotics;Notes, which has a similar 'involuntary / unwilling hero' main character, that I found very unusual, but ultimately it just gave the plot a sort of realism that is foreign to visual novels / stories in general imo.
Like, as reader you obviously don't REALLY care as you're not the main character and the plot doesn't affect you directly. And Robotics;Notes as well as Chaos;Head managed to bring across that feeling through the screen, while still telling a serious story at their core, that isn't solely "fourth wall breaking meta-humor" like Dead Pool lol.
Hopefully there is someone who knows Chaos;Head / Robotics;Notes from first hand experience. Just reading the blurb isn't remotely enough to understand what makes those titles so special imo, let alone watching the horrible anime adaptation they did (at least Chaos;Head is, Robotics;Notes received a somewhat acceptable anime even imo)
Thanks
by Objective-Process-84