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Alex Warlorn


Just your average Brony who happened upon an idea that might actually turn out to be clever enough for guys to love.

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Dec
31st
2017

It's shortcomings that make characters interesting · 2:10am Dec 31st, 2017

It's the short-comings that make characters interesting!!!!

People like to say Superman is boring due to his lack of limits, which superficial is correct. If you're exploiting his weakness to Krytonite, magic, or red sunlight, what have you? But Sups is still just one man, and he can't be everywhere at once, and Superman openly fears what would happen if he became like the dictator Supermans we see thrown around what-if stories as if they're candy. This terrifies him. Flash is still faster than him though. (Sups even remarks once that he thinks Flash has been GOING EASY ON HIM, every time they race).

Now look at the frustration people have at Batman, it feels like there's no bad guy Bats can't defeat, at all, while this is true of Superman, often Sups will go up against Super villains whose power are tailor made to give Sups a hard time. He needs others to help him. Batman has a network of helpers as well, but every time he ends up going up against a super-powered enemy, he pulls out a bat gadget and reveals he was never in any danger to begin with. Basically, super power enemies are treated as static OBSTACLES to overcome, rather than thinking opponents who know their own weaknesses and strength.

It's short comings in the end that makes character BOND! It's short comings that make characters NEED EACH OTHER!

If Twilight Sparkle was able to use all six Elements like her mentor could... why would she have needed to have the interesting character interactions with them and form friends?

This is a weakness of my own writing.

Trixie is infamous for being a weak unicorn compared to other magic users, her abilities always falling short of her boasts. However, once STARLIGHT GLIMMER, begins to teach Trixie, Trixie finally advances in her abilities (turning full scale transmutation (ironic considering what she did to Rarity's mane) and teleportation! This is part of Starlight's OWN GROWTH by showing that she can be caring and a nurturing to others without being controlling!

But... in the pony pov verse... Trixie has already advanced significantly where such things are already known to her. And Trixie is already fully accepted by the town and ponies in general, and by Twilight completely. (Where before Twilight clearly suffered from bad blood from the experience with the Aliorn Amulet). So the two can't bond over being repentant but rejected. Nor can they bond over Starlight teaching Trixie magic that she never was able to learn correctly (likely due to Starlight being the first to actually teach her the right way). Nor can their newborn bond be tested over Trixie lying to Twilight about befriending a mare she knew nothing about at first to get one over on Twilight, since Trixie HAS effectively gotten over her spite towards Twilight at this point.

So that bond can't happen, that growth can't happen. Strength, actually LESSENED the characters. More power WEAKENED the characters. The more power you stack onto an existing character, the more the pressure can crush them into a 2-D version of themselves.

(This is one of the many reasons I despise the endless loops setting with the burning passion of a thousand suns and every time the topic is brought up my blood pressure skyrockets and I nearly go into fits).

Do not look towards power to make your characters interesting. Do not expect badassatitude to make your character more endearing. Such characters are empty sock-puppets.

Comments ( 13 )

Thats the thing I don't understand the hate people have for Starlight.

4762842
Because she came to her senses without another villain to blame for her wrong doing, or another villain for her to turn on.

4762855

Ah makes sense makes sense. But of course at least she is slowly becoming a good charecter

This is one mistake I'm secretly afraid I'm doing in my Minty story... (Especially with the villains...)

I would argue that Batman and the gadget thing, that can beat the enemy. Is really dependant on the particular author. A fight where Batman is outmatched by his opponent, and has to out-think them, is generally more entertaining, than Superman punching a dude, through the sky. The Arkham games, do this well. Especially with the Mister Freeze fight, but also against other bosses, like Penguin, who you have to sneak up on, or Zsasz, who you track down, via phone calls. And then have to use your gadgets to navigate around and bop him.

Superman as you rightly pointed out, can't be everywhere at once, he can't save everyone, and he's got to exercise excessive restraint, so he doesn't go around, ripping doors off, when he opens them. Or cause a crook's body to explode, when knocking them unconscious. Essentially he needs to make sure, he isn't going to harm or kill the people, he's trying to protect and live with. A better example of the Superman archetype, would be All Might, from My Hero Academia. He's the strongest hero in the world, the symbol of peace and Justice, his presence alone, deters villains from showing up, like Batman's presence in Gotham, discourages criminal activity. I wanna go into more detail, but I also don't want to spoil, one of my favourite anime, so I'll put more detail in a spoiler. All Might's drive, is to be the hero who always smiles, in the face of adversity. He has to be the symbol of peace and justice, that inspires every other hero. As long as he's around, everything will be okay. But due to a severe injury, in a fight, with his old arch-nemesis, several years prior to the series. He can't maintain his fully powered up form, indefinitely. And so he's been looking for a successor, to fill his role, when he no longer can.

I actually had this problem, about making characters strong in my own stories, back when I was still writing. Only it was usually giving characters new gear, and nothing to do with new powers etc. So that's something else that should be avoided, when trying to make a compelling character. If you want to give them cool gear, then it's best to consider how that gear is going to change your character, or to make it fit them. For instance, someone who prefers solitude, might use weapons, designed to be used at a distance, like bows, crossbows, guns or a spear. A blunt and straightforward individual, would use something big and effective, if not necessarily elegant, like a hammer, or a really big and boxy automatic weapon.

Just remember the lesson you taught me, that fanfics are all parallel universes and they are all valid (barring truly horrible ones like My Immortal or My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic). Trixie and Twilight in your setting could still possibly bond with Starlight.

In my story, The Lost Hero, I potentially made every character more powerful than canon, but I still gave a message that only by working together and helping make others stronger can we be truly strong.

Very true. You have different character growth arcs, but on different timetables and in different directions than the Show took them.

A good example is that your Trixie becomes Twilight Sparkle's friend. If you watch the Show, vanilla canon Trixe never actually does. Oh, Twilight comes to tolerate Trixie (there's no decent way for her not to do so, after Trixie helps save her and her friends and family and sovereigns from Queen Chrysalis), but you can tell that Twilight still finds Trixie really annoying, and isn't totally comfortable with the reality that some people she likes also like Trixie.

This in turn is because in the Pony POVerse Discord successfully unbalances Trixie and so Twilight has to go save her, meaning that Trixie trusts Twilight and is grateful to her for savng her from madness. Which in turn means that "Magic Duel" never happens, but instead Trixie plays a part in some other major events involving Twilight Sparkle. And so on.

The Pony POVerse keeps significant character development, as does the SWSV. Not all fanfic unverses realize the importance of this to story.

4763104 Said it better, but it's not that your stories are flawed because your characters have matured before their equivalents did in the show, they are just in parallel to canon. There are only so many weaknesses characters can realistically have, and thus character-building moments where they overcome them. You're stories might be clustered around the first 2 or 3 episodes, but in such depth that they explore nuances of the characters at a level that takes the show 7 seasons to replicate.

4763824
I'll take that as a compliment.

4763949 Please do, it was meant as one, if poorly worded.

4764025

4763949
Yeah, I'm with Howard on this one. Trixie DID have issues to overcome in the POV series. They just weren't the same issues. I remember her trust issues in book 1 and 2. And honestly, I have big issues with Twilight, Trixie and ESPECIALLY Starlight in the later seasons.

Also, what is the looping verse?

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