The Isekai genre and the resurgence of the serial novel.

Serial novels have been a thing for a while to the point they have already been forgotten, it started on diaries aimed for certain demographics in Europe during the 19^th century, they resurged again during the first decades of the 20^th century as pulps in the USA and gave birth to the comic industry which eventually replaced them.

After that the serial novel was mostly a flickering existence in very specialized magazines, but the people’s attention was on the new technologies and the ways of enjoying entertainment and the new media they brought along.

Now the internet has paved the ground for everyone to make their voice heard, and read, this has led to a resurgence of the serial novel, now known as Web Novel.

As with several other instances of modern media this sparked in japan and spread to the world, first to Asia and eventually to the west.

Because they rely on the internet for creation and distribution web novels tend to deal with juvenile themes as of general, this means stuff like adventure, battles, personal importance and romances with extremely attractive people are a given and nothing coagulates this themes like the isekai genre.

Isekai means “Another world” and refers to people who for some reason are taken outside their native world and transferred into another, this almost always means they are taken from this world and receive some kind of special power during the transfer but there are exemptions.

Isekai novels are mostly produced to be a light read, this by itself is neither good nor bad as is more about the entertaining value. Just like a cheap car or a heavy duty machine can be better depending of the intended use.

Still, isekai is a genre meant for fun and this is a very important factor to consider when analyzing it, a fun work can receive some leeway in the (lack of) depth and care it was built with, as long as it’s fun. Therefore is no surprise to see most of the isekai novels being low cut products that rely on safe tropes to create generic adventures. This again is no problem as long as one is clear about the product being offered and what one expects to consume.

In more colloquial terms “Isekai is trash, and i am a raccoon feasting.”

A bored reader visiting the library

As long as one recognizes the genre is made for fun there is a vast amount of stories that can be enjoyed, is not a matter of lowering our standards but a matter of being honest about them.

And yes, there are some rare cases of really, really good works.

So, what are these stories about?

At this point we can divide them in two main branches: western and asian.

Asian novels can be further divided in japanese, chinese and korean.

Japanese works can be even further divided in male and female oriented.

A thing all this stories tend to have in common is magic and the Main Character (MC for short) receiving some kind of power so useful is directly called a “cheat power,” or simply a “cheat.”

Ye olde tradition of cheats dates back to the age of empires and further back

A cheat tends to be a good narrative device if it has clear limitations and needs extra elements to work, if not then it tends to clog the narrative flow until the story dies of staleness

Let’s say for example the cheat is the ability to influence people’s mind, a good cheat would limit how person can be influenced and would require the MC to convince the person of a certain point of view before the cheat can act and transform them into extremists of that point of view. A bad cheat would simply brainwash them the moment they meet each other.

The first example could evolve into the MC setting up the scenarios to convince the people to follow him while the second example would rapidly become boring as the MC can brainwash everyone he comes in contact with.

For males the cheats tend to be battle powers and the stories oriented towards battles and adventure, it’s to be expected that a lot of beautiful women will pop out from behind every rock, tree and grass to accompany him on his adventures... and he will never touch them because that’s how the japanese herbivore men rolls.

For women the cheats tend to be powers with a social weight, abilities like poisoning or healing which will put them in important positions without relying on brute force, instead of battles there is social intrigue and instead of beautiful women there are handsome men of high status orbiting the MC... who will do nothing and will still gain their full devotion because that’s how romance rolls.

It’s interesting to note that as the japanese society becomes more isolated by social customs and work pressure those stories have increasingly included more and more instances of MCs living a “slow life,” a lifestyle characterized by having no pressure, no worries and time to enjoy the small pleasures of life.

Japanese stories often become bothersome because they are big on following social customs and it can become annoying to see so many MCs enduring social pressure when they have received incredible magic powers.

The usual setting is an european medieval-esque fantasy world with institutions such as an adventurers’ guild that regulates the paid extermination of monsters and other guilds to give flavor like the mages’ guild, tamers’ guild and so on. There are monarchies with the standard european nobility ranks and the magic and monsters tend to be heavily influenced by the game Dragon Quest, which in turn is an adaptation of the western fantasy previously amalgamated in Dungeons & Dragons as seen from the japanese eye.

The most common theme is being summoned to fight a demon king who is threatening humanity and if there is no overarching plot the MC will most likely spend his lives as an adventurer, variations exist, of course, but this are the basic templates.

There is also the case of characters being thrown inside the world of a story they know, most typically a videogame as they have several endings and most typically a romance game for women, this are known as otome visual novels, although you will find the occasional male MC.

In china the social situation is different and they give A LOT of importance to social perception, which they call “to save face.” Take the corona virus for example, when it started the medical practitioners voiced their concerns but the government tried to cover up a case of an epidemic “to save face” in front of other countries, their measures can be investigated by the people interested, but saves to say they worsened the situation simply to avoid looking bad and now they look even worse.

This translates to the novel industry, in chinese stories is not rare to find arrogant characters who get extremely enraged because their public image was tainted by the actions of the MC... or MCs who do the killing when someone looks at them wrong.

In chinese stories is not rare to see a character saying:

“How you dare to resist while i'm trying to kill you! You are offending me!”

If done properly this scenario is perfect for high action stories filled with amazing battles, if done poorly is just a rinse of repeat cycle of finding the next arrogant bad guy and killing him.

The usual settings are two, one is Wuxia which can be translated as “Martial hero” and involves martial arts, fantasy martial arts. Just imagine a kung-fu movie with more muscle and more qi and you get the idea.

The other setting is called Xianxia or “Immortal hero” and involves super magical powers, in this setting powers are a mixture of martial arts and meditation known as “cultivation” and is a derivation of the religious idea of meditating to shed mortal desires and achieve a higher state of being.

Except that here “achieving a higher state of being” literally means it, as the characters sort of evolve into more super powered versions of themselves as they meditate and then they find another super powered dude and duke it out.

In even simpler terms Wuxia is Dragon Ball with heavy personal drama and Xianxia is Dragon Ball Z.with super magic and planet traveling

The settings are imperial China for both but i am particularly fond of xianxia as it often involves several worlds or levels of existence that the MCs can travel through, in some cases the magical worlds have interesting shapes like the giant petrified corpse of some incredibly powerful dude or the most common one of a continent floating in space.

In this settings there are few female examples but women are pretty much the same than in the japanese setting, poisoners and healers in a high society environment, there are exceptions and some novels do feature women cultivating to achieve immortality but are usually lighter in mood and very often they are comedies and romances.

Instead, china has developed a subgenre of romances set in current times that involve the super beautiful, rich and powerful... pretty much regular romance novels set in china, which is kind of boring.

I almost forgot to mention it, the chinese also have the "Infinity" subgenre which basically means making stories by stealing elements from whole genres, Infinity Horror means monsters from all franchises show up, now try the same with superhero movies, fantasy books, videogames and so on. only possible in a country where intellectual property means so little

Is mostly in chinese and korean works where we see the “Regressors,” MCs who lived their lives and by some occurrence went back in time and now have a second chance to redo their lives and fix what once went wrong, japanese web novels also have regressors but i think the chinesse pioneered the isekai version with the novel A Step Into The Past.

In any case a character being a regressor is a very common occurrence in xianxia and wuxia, genres where knowledge of powerful martial arts and magical techniques can greatly change the fate of someone who practices them from early life and provides a cheat that still requires the person to put up some effort, another element greatly valued on this two genres.

In Korea there is a heavy interest in videogames and it’s the place where electronic sports took off big time, because of this korean novels heavily include power tiers and tiered progression. From here there are three main models.

In one the modern world is invaded by magic in one form or another, usually by gates connecting Earth to another world or worlds where magic and monsters reside, this eventually leads to a world that is very much the same except that now people with magic power make a living by killing monsters and selling their parts to corporations and governments.

The second model is the modern world being destroyed in an apocalypse that in most cases is the first model going out of control and monsters destroying civilization, in this post-apocalyptic scenario the people have to survive and rebuild using their new magic powers and futuristic technology.

China and korea produce many post-apocalyptic novels but i see them mostly as koreans because those two models have very similar bases and mostly differ in how well the current world holds up when the magic arrives, interestingly the japanese don’t produce much post-apocalyptic stuff. I cannot pin point exactly why.

The third model is virtual reality, in this scenario the MC lives in the near future where full-dive Virtual Reality videogames exist and must earn money by playing the game and obtaining rare items to sell to other players in exchange for real money.

There are people who already do this in regular multiplayer computer games so it’s not far-fetched to think it will go that way if virtual reality is ever achieved, there are examples of VR novels in china but they are mostly korean and the japanesse produce VR novel variations but none about selling stuff to make a living, they do make novels about people trapped inside videogames or being transported to worlds based on videogames.

Just wait until Nintendo makes a hybrid portable version of those big-ass capsules

Korean fantasy is overwhelmingly male and instead the korean females have developed a subgenre of romances set in current times that involve the super beautiful, rich and powerful... mostly regular romance novels set in korea, which is kind of boring.

These genres of novels exploded by feedback and have been producing more and more niche stuff with the occasional exceptional work. By the power of the internet many have been translated and can be found with ease, this eventually led to the westerners writing their own novels.

The average westerner goes by a process like this one.

-Seeing cartoons as a child, specially superheroes.

-Seeing cartoons leads to watch anime.

-The superhero cartoons lead to superhero comics, which leads to manga, the asian comics on which anime is often based on.

-Anime leads to manga.

-Whatever the path followed once a person discovers manga there are tons of fan-translated works ready for consumption, once one has read a lot one would find an isekai adaptation of a novel, which in turns leads to the novel.

-Japanese isekai are the most creative and the juvenile stories give a sense of liberation and are easy to read, but often the passiveness of the herbivore MCs leaves the readers with desire for something less socially constricted.

-This leads to chinese novels and their violent MCs.

-Once the novelty of the arrogance wears off korean novels are next and their world building and stratified elements are a breath of fresh air.

-Eventually korean novels become stale and we become aware of the western novels, both as readers and writers.

Western web novels are a curious bunch because the readers only become writers only when they are tired of reading, which means they have already sampled plenty of works and are compelled to make anything different out of pure tiredness.

Because of this western novels are very varied on themes and are way harder to categorize than asian novels, instead it’s easier to divide them on “Interesting concepts that were abandoned after a few chapters” and “Long running/Completed novels.”

I will eventually talk about western novels but let’s end it with the asian ones.

In general the japanese novels are the most varied and most of the novels i am currently reading are from japan, a good reason for this is the way formal publishers have taken these novels. Japan has sites where people can write and the readers can rate the works, and if a story gets popular enough some editorial may pick them up for physical publication which is called a Light Novel and includes around ten illustrations per volume.

The most interesting novels (or the ones average enough to be safe bets) can get a manga adaptation and even an anime, which would catapult them into global fame.

China is different and some of the sites where people write their stories on give money to their writers based directly on votes given by the readers by means of “tickets” of which inner workings i am not familiar with.

The point being that a story generates money as long as it’s popular and the chinese manga and anime market are too small to support several shows every season, this means the novel itself it’s the only source of income the writer will have... as long as the novel is still being written.

This leads to chinese novels becoming extremely long and overly repetitive in an attempt to extend their duration. There are great chinese novels but overall they are the weaker of the bunch.

The korean market on the other hand doesn’t have an anime market that can compete with japan, not even by far, but their manwha (korean manga) market is growing nicely and while many of their novels are so-so they gain a lot of intensity when converted to comic format. And while japan has a robust manga market the end goal of manga is to print the works and sell volumes but the korean have the digital market as their main consumer and their manwhas are on full color.

Then, japanese web novels are the most original and diverse, korean web novels tend to get repetitive but the manwha adaptation gives them so much style and personality its completely worth it and while china has some masterpieces the great market is mediocre repetition, not completely unexpected from the land of pirate products.

This is from Solo Leveling, a manwha where the MC kills and enemy and becomes stronger, then kills another and becomes stronger, then kills another and becomes even stronger, that's pretty much it but it does with so much style it never gets boring

I will eventually give some recommendations on asian novels but it will be another time because i like to talk about works in detail.

How to make a critique.

Come here my children, and let me instruct you on the lost art of criticizing with a secret method passed down to me from the ancient monks of the narrative order.

But of course you, my dear reader, you have no need for my obscure and outdated ways, after all; you were already born with the qualifications to assign the most realistic and objective value to everything, i mean you are so beautiful and special, OF COURSE you can do something as easy as giving an opinion... right?

Criticizing a work should be easy, right?

I mean, you are such a smart and capable person that pointing out the bad parts of a story should be a small task for your titanic brain matter, right? RIGHT? RIGHT???!

That’s the thing, people have this tendency to believe that a critique is a simple matter of “saying the stuff i think” but a good critique is a work of narrative into itself, a way to expose the nature of a work in an orderly way meant to increase people’s understanding of it and it’s no different from writing a good description of a character, environment or scene.

The ability to know a good critique is not only useful to make one but also to understand how much value should we give to the criticism a work receives and thus form a more educated idea of the work’s real value.

To approach the subject is a good idea to get a clear image of what is NOT a good critique, there are some basic types:

-The emotional response.

-The "constructive criticism."

-The generalization.

The first one is obvious, a critique should be a methodical display of a work and the inclusion of emotional points is fine as long as one makes it clear it’s a declaration based on personal likes or dislikes, but the emotional response should never be offered or taken as a real measure.

The second type is more troublesome as plenty of people “just want to help,” and will give praise just to be good, but pointless praise is as bad as pointless insults as it can steer a work outside its intended development simply to please the crowds that liked or –even worse- pretended to like a certain aspect of it.

"Lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clenched fist"

As a reader a “positive critique” takes the risk of overvaluing a part of a work that has not much real value and sells a weak point as a strong point, paving the way for the disappointment of new consumers.

And finally the generalization, this sums up the problem with "bad" criticism as it can truly be separated in Precise and Imprecise.

Only precise criticism can be considered real, and it can further be separated in two categories: technical and narrative.

Technical is pretty self explanatory, the grammar of a story, the proportions of a comic, the wardrobe of a TV series, when giving technical advice the only true requisites are an understanding of the aspect one is talking about, and precision, precision is king and good criticism is defined by its level of precision.

Let’s say for example that your car stops working and a friend offers to give it a revision, he pokes the engine and comes up with a verdict: the engine is not running properly.

That’s how non-precise criticism sounds like, the most important aspect of criticism is that because of its precision it can also be criticized, and technical advice must touch precise points.

Don’t simply say the grammar “is bad,” point at the words or sentences badly written.

Don’t simply say the wardrobe of a period show “is wrong,” point at the real wardrobe used in the period.

Don’t simply say the flow of a comic “is clunky,” point at how certain panels delay or speed up a narrative flow.

Don’t simply say “something is off,“ tell us what is off and why or how much.

The most precise a critique is the most weight we should give it, but to have precision one should 

have knowledge of the topic at hand and this is timely to obtain, no wonder so many people simply give their two cents and go away.

Speaking of “two cents.”

When one gives a criticism we are also exposing ourselves to have our criticism criticized, this is absolutely normal and a reaction to expect, and because of this one should not dismiss our given criticism by saying “is just an opinion.”

If you are willing to take the time to criticize something you must be ready to stand up for it, if you are going to give an opinion and dismiss it later as “just my humble opinion” then you are devaluing your own word and eliminating the whole purpose of giving it in the first place.

Personally i like it when an author makes it clear they don’t want to receive negative criticism because it means they are not taking their work with that much weight and the same applies with criticism, as long as its honest then personal preferences, generalizations and other quirks are fine, but to give an opinion and then dismiss it as a triviality is an admission of the pointlessness of the whole thing.

The proper answer is, of course, to give a good criticism, and this doesn’t mean a “positive” criticism or a “constructive” one, but one that is properly made with precision and understanding of the work and the media.

Understanding.

This is another key aspect of a critique, if we are going to poke our noses into a work then we must have a decent understanding of what kind of work it is and what is trying to achieve, then give a critique based on how the work compares to the ideal it’s trying to reach.

Let’s say for example we are reading a romance and the two lead characters almost never interact, then it would be reasonable to claim it’s a failure because the ending by force of the genre would heavily involve their relationship.

But let’s say we are reading a mystery or adventure and the two main characters never interact, this can or cannot be a problem depending if the story requires them to meet, but for most cases it would be a mistake to claim it as a failed work because the two main characters don’t interact more.

Precision and understanding, those are the two pillars of a critique.

The average critic'c mental image of themselves

To be frank most “critics” are a little snobbish and tend to criticize stuff based on their “ideals” of what a work should be, but there are so many variants of works that it if we see a work being judged by not reaching certain standards then we are very likely in front of a snobbish critique.

A work can be dismissed as “not serious” even if it’s a comedy, or dismissed as “juvenile” even if it’s aimed towards young people, imagine a fairy tale being dismissed as “childish” and you get the idea.

This is snobbery.

This of course, can only be overlooked if the author is not pretending to reach those high standards because they do exist people who claim to produce stuff above the tier they make, snobbishness not always comes from critics but they certainly are more prone to it because they rarely have to back up their claims.

The speed of a story, the pacing, the environment, those and more are elements really easy to understand if we just stop giving Our Mighty Opinion and focus on the stuff we have in front of us instead of focusing on the stuff we wish we were consuming.

On the other side admitting the tier of the stuff we make is a crucial part of understanding criticisms, if we make a soft work and someone claims we are not hard enough we can understand we are right or wrong.

If i make soft sci-fi and someone claims its soft then i shall naturally agree. 

But if i make soft sci-fi and claim its hard sci-fi then i am in the wrong.

To recognize a work for what its trying to be, that is the first ability required to make a criticism.

For a creator, to admit we are creating pop stuff is a valuable skill, for a critic the equivalent is to recognize not everyone is aiming to create the Most Epic Serious Drama Of All Times.

"Just another small project, like usual"

Ok, after observing the bads of criticism lets go for the goods.

A good critique is hard to make because it requires us to consume as much of the product as we can stomach, this means works “on the works” can often only be criticized by people very willing to put up the work, by those who are used to the flaws of amateur products or by people who don’t mind the flaws of a genre they are comfortable with, but it takes effort.

To make a critique we must first be clear on how much of the work we have consumed and display the interactions that we find reasonable or not, and explain why it is that way.

Think of a story as a series of causes and effects under the weight of the type of story we are consuming.

In a hard sci-fi the technology will have a big narrative weight, but in a drama or comedy there will be acceptable breaks on how much machinery is understood by the author and explained to the audience.

In a romance the weight of feelings will be big, but in an adventure novel the ability to act despite the weight of feelings would be more important.

We must identify which elements have more weight for the type of story we are consuming.

The heavy part is to understand how the elements of the story interact, and where do those interactions become too heavy or too light on the progression of the story.

We have to understand the elements, and convey their interactions with precision.

This is the essence of a critique, to separate the elements of a story and analyze them in contrast with the whole.

Yes, the fractured becomes the whole, that's the point... yes, it is...

For this we must understand the whole and the separate elements, i guess we could call it “Reverse Storytelling,” an activity of taking a story and un-process it until we can see the bare bones of the structure and the way it develops.

I said “Analyze them in contrast to the whole,” this is a very important point because plenty of people analyzes elements of stories based on personal likes and dislikes that often clash with the narrative of a story simply because is not the real world.

Yeah, sure, slavery is wrong, but it’s legal in this story so we stick to that as base morality.

Yeah, sure, this character is a total dick and other people enable him to be, the struggle comes from facing those circumstances so it’s pointless to criticize the character that is a product of an environment that was made to produce it.

Yeah, sure, cheating is bad but the point is how this affects the characters around it.

Do not criticize an element for being there, criticize it for not matching with the causes and effects of the story.

But of course, if the element does conform to the inner logic of the story then there is nothing to criticize.

We can stick to the idea that a criticism should aim to properly measure the elements of a story, and the relationship of causes and effects those elements generate.

If the cause and effect don’t line up we say it, and we try to specify how much those causes and effects deviate from the logic used on the rest of the work, just with this we can make a top tier critique.

Yeah, sure, a bunch of grenades may not be able to explode the door of a bunker but it’s an action story and looking for a realistic way to open an armored door would take too much time and we are in the middle of the action.

Yeah, sure, if a random person approaches you and tells you how beautiful you are you will scream for help because a creep is stalking you, but this is a romance novel and we assume the stalker is a really pretty person...

Yeah, sure, it’s the tenth dissertation about the nature of existence but this is a very convoluted novel of psychological drama for people who really like their existential shenanigans overly explained.

Yeah sure, the main character is again generating overly complicated math to understand the system of the world he lives in, but it’s a LitRPG story and the guy is a total nerd, what were you expecting?

I could go on but from here it would simply be an exercise of circular logic, now that you know what a critique should be you should be able to gauge how close or how far they are to a proper critique and that is something only improved with practice, but i guess a final tidbit of advice can be given.

There is another way of making a criticism and is based on comparing a story with what it could be, this is trickier to do because it’s easier to lose ourselves in arguments based not on a story, but in other similar ones.

I mean, comparisons are infinite, therefore, where should we start or stop?

For this i can only say: add or take as little as possible.

When using comparisons or suggestions on how to improve a story we must limit ourselves to the same building blocks of the work we are analyzing, otherwise it loses any meaning because again, comparisons are infinite.

The below average critic adding unrelated building blocks

We do not criticize a story for not using the same elements as another, we criticize it for not using its own elements effectively.

We don't say:

“Harry Potter would be improved greatly if one of the horcruxes had the same powers as the One Ring.”

Instead we can say:

“Voldemort should have left his horcruxes among muggles who had no way of defending themselves against their possession.”

We don’t say:

“The new Star Wars sequels would have been better if the main character could develop the ability to duplicate herself like an X-Men.”

Instead we say:

“The new Star Wars sequels would have been better if the main character required as much training as any of the previous two main characters, because it allows for smaller stuff to become challenging and gives it scale when a big challenge is overcome.”

That sums it up, i will eventually make criticisms of certain works, but for the time being you will

have to take my word for this.

A little recap:

-Identify what kind of story its trying to be.
-Measure how close or far it is to that desired goal.
-Measure which inner elements get the story closer or away from that desired goal.
-If you are comparing it to another story then add as little foreign elements as possible

Sayonara.

What truly were the aliens from Signs?

This is a question that most people don’t question when watching the movie but many revisited with that “Demon hypothesis” that popped out some years ago.

Long story short that hypothesis postulates the aliens fear water because they are actually demons and the water is blessed because the lead character is a priest.

Yep.

But i found the explanation quite lacking, why would some demons pop out in small quantities around the world?

What if you are from another religion?

Are they also hurt by water blessed by other religions?

Can you bless a regular object and give it +10 against demons?

Frankly, the explanation is too unnecessary when the behavior of the aliens can be explained by alien reasons.

My explanation is simple: they are a slave species on the run.

Googling "Alien slave" brings back several erotic novels...

Let us revisit the strange alien behaviors:

1- They cannot open doors.

Let’s say you are an evil space overlord and want to make a servant race, you, being the evil bastard you are will not make the servants too skilled or too smart beyond their intended use and would instead give them plenty of ability to perform their task. This is called Crippling Overspecialization,” a countermeasure made to prevent the slaves from revolting as they cannot operate outside their intended function.

This way you can restrain your servants by simply using a doorknob because they were made unable to open them by design.

Speaking of de sign...

2- The signs.

The movie-in explanation is that the signs are used to navigate, but why would a group of space faring vehicles use landmarks instead of their navigation instruments?

Because they cannot operate them.

Let’s say our group of slave aliens escaped their masters and sailed for another world.

Going back to the crippling overspecialization it stands to reason that a group of slave aliens would not be able to fully operate the functions of a stolen spaceship, they would have to resort to go down and mark the terrain in order to navigate while they fulfill their obscure alien objectives.

3- They are vulnerable to water.

Is not because they are aliens, but because they are green
#GreenLivesMatter

This is one of the most strange weakness ever, why would a group of aliens land on a world filled with the stuff that can melt their bodies?

Because they had no choice.

If a group of slaves escape their masters on a stolen spaceship and cannot fully operate it then it’s not so far-fetched to think they had to go to a previous destination loaded on the ship.

My assumption is they were forced to deploy and look for any supplies they required in order to continue their voyage, maybe the ships were damaged, maybe they required extra devices to unlock the navigation system...

Maybe their masters caught them and took them back.

In any case they landed on Earth without protective suits because they didn’t have them, a group of alien invaders would certainly be prepared but a bunch of escapees would not.

4- Their behavior during the movie.

So yeah, a bunch of aliens shop up all sneaky around the isolated neighborhoods and decide to spook the humans before attempting to attack them?

Totally makes sense, i mean, it DOES makes sense from a narrative standpoint but we are looking for an explanation that operates outside movie logic.

Let’s say they had no choice but to land and they scouted the populated areas looking for the stuff they required.

Let’s say you are stuck on an alien planet and are trying to obtain certain materials.

Would you simply show up and say hi?

Of course not, not gonna risk the aliens capturing you and locking you up in Area 15. The first step is to scout the area, and zones with low population are the obvious choice as they work as a sample of the planet’s resources but there is more space to hide and run if things go awry.

So, land in a rural place and observe the locals until you can determine if they have the materials you need, the go for whatever you need.

This is my angle, the aliens wanted something and were scouting. What was their objective?

Who knows, maybe as a slave race they had mental blockages preventing them from moving before realizing some strange ritual.

Let’s say their servant function is to gather stuff for their masters, therefore they are compelled to catch stuff before they can move on.

Or we could settle for the idea of the need for technology/materials.

Whatever the reason they do not resemble an invader force or a kidnapping team, they are clearly a group of scouts trying to find something and maybe they found it and went their way. This makes it more likely the movie only showed the events related to that family because they were interesting, but maybe the aliens found their objective in some other area, seized it and went their merry way back to space.

Anyway, it certainly makes more sense that demons walking the earth and then returning to hell just because.