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I question the premise given that I'm quite familiar with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Star Wars — and passingly familiar with The Hunger Games.
Hobbits continually get caught up in world events in Tolkien's books. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings both prominently feature brave hobbits, so why wouldn't The Rings of Power? They want to stick to their corner of the world, but they keep falling victim to The Call Knows Where You Live and classic David Versus Goliath stories.
I don't think Tatooine is meant to be unexciting. It's a hotbed of lawlessness and organized crime. So while Luke's life as a rural moisture farmer (distanced from the crime centers) might have been personally unexciting, the planet is established as a busy hub for criminals.
As for The Hunger Games, it sounds again like they're underestimated for a David Versus Goliath setup. Meek little District 12 taking on the giant — no-one thinks they'll win. Everyone may think they're unimportant and uninteresting, but that doesn't mean it's true.
I'm not saying there are no tropes involved, but it's challenging to answer the question and examples posed.
Yeah, the Hunger Games one is definitely more because they're just the underdogs of Panem, the joke district if you will. So when they actually win it's plot relevant and impactful on Panem and the other characters, moreso than with the other districts who have better odds and aren't as mocked in-universe.
Edited by WarJay77 Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
With the Lord of the Rings one, it's still treated like it's unprecedented for hobbits to be involved in these events and it's a very special unusual thing, so seeing they are being regularly involved thousands of years ago seems dissonant. Like most of the characters in the third age hadn't even heard of hobbits, which implies they don't have a history of playing a major role in previous big events. And the Hunger Games one yes they are going for an underdog district, but all of the districts besides the first few career tribute ones are considered underdogs, why did they go for the exact same district twice besides to invoke nostalgic/familiar setting from the originals? I can't speak to the Star Wars example since I don't watch Star Wars, it's just that I have seen lots of other people criticize that aspect so it wasn't something I just made up.
In general, it's the idea of having a big world, having the protagonist come from an underestimated and seemingly irrelevant part of it, and then when it comes time for a prequel, instead of using a completely new part of the large world you've created to reproduce the feeling of underestimated and irrelevant, using the exact same place the original protagonist came from, so it no longer feels like that part of the world is a backwater anymore and like it's the center of the fictional universe. Presumably this is done because people like calling back to the original installments, but it feels dissonant.
To me this seems like a notable pattern, but if everyone else disagrees maybe I'm just being a total idiot, and I'm sorry about that.
Edited by molokai198
I mean, "Backwater Protagonist" was discussed a while back and still seems good to me. I just am not sure if the way you're framing it makes sense. The reason this happens is because writers like their underdogs and want their characters to come from the lowest of the lowest point in society — or at least from somewhere with much less excitement and tech and all that.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Basically, just because a setting is important to the narrative (even if it's backwater), doesn't mean the world at large treats said setting as important
The protagonist coming from the unimportant place isn't the trope, it's specifically when the place is established as unimportant and THEN the prequel shows it was important all along and had been central to the narrative many times before the "unprecedented" appearance of a hero from there.
Then that's Continuity Snarl or even Retcon
I'm sure we have a more specific trope for "prequels changing things"
It's not really either of those things, though. It's not like the works say nobody important ever came from those areas; they're just less important to the world at large, likely because the heroes we see come from there are the only ones who do.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
A work introduces the protagonist or other important character as coming from a place or faction that is a complete obscure backwater, so that it's a surprise someone from there would have such an influence on global events. However, when a prequel comes around, due to trying to reproduce the nostalgia of the original, major characters and plot points continue to originate from that place/faction as if it's the center of the fictional universe rather than just picking new places in the setting to give characters an obscure origin from.
I.e how in Lord of the Rings it's noted to be very unusual that humble hobbits, who mostly stick to their corner of the world, are playing a role in global events, but then in Rings Of Power hobbits are still playing important role even in the second age. Or in The Hunger Games where it's unusual that the protagonist is from District 12 which is mostly forgotten and doesn't produce winners of the games, but then the the prequel centers around district 12 again rather than another of the districts (this doesn't contradict previous canon since it was established there were 2 winners from there, but they still made a choice to use the same district as the focus twice despite it being said to be rarely focused on). Or, I'm not that familiar with Star Wars, but as I understand it was a complaint that the original movies introduced the protagonist as coming from Tatooine which was established to be the middle of nowhere where Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here, but then in the prequels everything important seemed to happen there.