Siriel
Power and Carelessness
by , October 26th, 2015 at 02:00 PM (6335 Views)
Something I wanted to write a bit about that bothers me a fair bit when I read fiction (mostly more fantasy-heavy stories, for reasons that's soon be obvious) is the absurdly powerful character who's wracked with insecurity or acts just as nervous as everyone else.
Before going into why it bothers me, let's clarify what type of character I'm talking about because someone could (rightly) point out "obviously there are cases where power doesn't equal confidence".
The character I'm talking about is the unrealistically powerful one; not just a strong swordsman, but a character who can legitimately take on entire groups of armed people without a scratch, who could take the setting equivalent of a missile and get back up. I'll add the criterias that this character is accustomed to his/her own power and doesn't require some sort of transformation sequence to use it.
These kind of characters are pretty common in fantasy fiction.
Yet almost every single one of them acts scared if someone points a sword at them. They tense up when they hear a sudden noise. They start making excuses when confronted by a guard. They freak out when someone finds a contradiction in what they're saying. In short, they react like normal people react.
Why? They can't be hurt by anything that could reasonably take them by surprise; in a fair number of cases they shouldn't have a flight instinct at all. There's no reason for them to feel as if they're not in control of the situation just because the other guy has his sword drawn.
And then the fighting starts and suddenly they're smirking confidently. That makes even less sense; if they're scared of a sword when at rest, deciding to fight shouldn't make that fear disappear.
A fair reason for that is because this kind of people can't exist in the real world, so writers try to have them react 'realistically', but that's ignoring that this kind of character is innately unrealistic. Power isn't something that only applies when actively fighting; it's something that they are. Someone who's functionally invincible isn't going to act like a regular person just because they're not actively using their invincibility.
Does that mean they should always be insufferably smug? Of course not. But there should be a sense of the confidence that comes from knowing that you can't be hurt by anything around. Have them leave their weapons around without paying too much attention; let them get taken by surprise by random people throwing rocks at them and then relax, or in more technologically advance settings have them cross the street without watching. They're invincible; they don't have a reason to look out for these things like normal people do.
Essentially there can be tells that someone is genuinely powerful beside demonstrating/saying that they are, and there should be because it's a fact of their life that they're powerful.
To give the obvious Nasuverse example, that's what Gilgamesh is talking about when he says his carelessness is part of him; he doesn't have to watch out like other people do because he's a demigod with superpowers. Same for Heracles, whose fighting MO in Stay Night is to just constantly attack and never defend because he requires no defense and has no reason to be on guard against surprise attacks.
Writers, use these things if you write something involving a very powerful character, because it adds to their presence immensely more than just having the narration rant about how amazing they are.
TL;DR: A superhuman can be a nice person, but having them be a normal person is insulting to their power and to how many of a normal person's habits are born out of knowing that almost anything can kill them.
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