How much awesome is too much awesome?

[Devor]

If I'm right, the key to this situation isn't about making your characters too awesome or not real enough. It's about making sure they struggle despite their awesomeness.

I think there's a lot of truth in that. But I would add one thing: The longer you're with the character, the more variety of struggles you're going to need. That's one of the issues I have with Superman. He's great for a movie or two, but eventually it's: What shape is the kryptonite going to come in today?

I think the conflicts have to be in some way appropriate for the character. I want to learn more about the character from the way he tackles conflict. The more Mary-Sue-awesome the character is, the bigger the conflicts have to escalate, and that creates new challenges in finding conflicts that are appropriate.

 

[GeekDavid]

I think there's a lot of truth in that. But I would add one thing: The longer you're with the character, the more variety of struggles you're going to need. That's one of the issues I have with Superman. He's great for a movie or two, but eventually it's: What shape is the kryptonite going to come in today?

I think the conflicts have to be in some way appropriate for the character. I want to learn more about the character from the way he tackles conflict. The more Mary-Sue-awesome the character is, the bigger the conflicts have to escalate, and that creates new challenges in finding conflicts that are appropriate.

I think that's part of the problem Raymond Feist had with Pug. He'd made Pug such an awesome wizard that coming up with things that were real threats to him became harder and harder.

 

[wordwalker]

Definitely true. I always say it's especially bad for comics because they come out with one issue (per title, plus extras) every month-- for 75 years now. (The only thing that's comparable is soap operas, 5 per week-- but nobody expects a given actor to stay around that long, and soaps are expected to repeat themselves.)

It's something for novelists to watch for. When you have any kind of powerful character, that power's usually part of his basic appeal so fans feel cheated if you depower him for too long. And if you get a few books out, that all have him going from strong to stronger, you run out of places to go. Maybe the lesson here is, if power is key to the character, keep him out of plotlines where he gets noticeably stronger.

 

[oyler44]

Honestly, instead of a conflict of "how awesome can I make my character, but still have the character be personable," I focus more on the hardships and lessons learned from the story to make the character personable. Look at Thor for instance. He is basically a god, but Marvel still found him to be within the category of a good character. They just focused on REALLY messing his days up. So focus on asking yourself.... "How can I make my character's day worse?"

 

[oyler44]

Another example of what happens when your character becomes too awesome. Dragonlance's Raistlin. Anyone familiar with the story knows how he became too awesome and the only way to end it before Raistlin became "too boring" they gave him a change of heart. PERFECT ending to an eternal struggle of morals and unending torment.