marycatelli (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marycatelli) wrote2023-03-28 11:14 pm
marycatelli) wrote2023-03-28 11:14 pm
Entry tags:
personality of power
It is a widely noticed trope that a super's powerset tends to match his personality. Fire powers for the fiery tempered. Solar powers for the bright cheerful Little Miss Sunshine. Lunar powers for the dark, moody soul.
Obviously some logic for gadgeteers who make their devices to be attracted, and a lot of logic for mystical powers that are attracted to those who suit them. Being given powers may also tailor them to fit.
It's the "random lab accident" (or the like) that produces appropriate powers by accident that gets it. Even if you retcon it. (The Hulk was a battered child of a battered mother whose father finally beat his mother to death before he died -- a lot of rage suppressed and unable to be handled in a healthy manner. Or so they decided after a time.)
I recommend an explanation of some kind, or at least, if there is anyone trying to investigate or catalogue powers, that they notice the relationship. And there are various explanations, down to the personality affecting how the power can manifest from the metaorigin, thus giving you the vital variety.
Then, again, powers influence personality. Does Batman sneak about and deduce things because he lacks powers for a frontal attack? Does Superman deal bluntly with things because of his strength making frontal attack the best route? It would be more creepy if, alchemically, solar powers make you optimistic, shape-shifting powers more mercurial, and so on. A more innocent one would be characters developing uses by personality.
There's also the opposite, where a person has the opposite powers from what you would expected. Air powers go to serious, stolid people; flighty ones get earth powers; fire powers to the placid go-along type; water powers to the fiery-tempered. Could be some kind of balancing effect if it's intentional. And it's very common from people who want to break the stereotype because it's very hard for people to randomize.
And then there's actually random powers. One great rule of this is use a randomizer -- at least for a lot. You can disguise that you carefully chose the main characters' powers as plot device provided you have a large number of characters who are random. I salute the writer who would take on the challenge of simply randomizing them and then writing, though I'm not up to it myself.
Obviously some logic for gadgeteers who make their devices to be attracted, and a lot of logic for mystical powers that are attracted to those who suit them. Being given powers may also tailor them to fit.
It's the "random lab accident" (or the like) that produces appropriate powers by accident that gets it. Even if you retcon it. (The Hulk was a battered child of a battered mother whose father finally beat his mother to death before he died -- a lot of rage suppressed and unable to be handled in a healthy manner. Or so they decided after a time.)
I recommend an explanation of some kind, or at least, if there is anyone trying to investigate or catalogue powers, that they notice the relationship. And there are various explanations, down to the personality affecting how the power can manifest from the metaorigin, thus giving you the vital variety.
Then, again, powers influence personality. Does Batman sneak about and deduce things because he lacks powers for a frontal attack? Does Superman deal bluntly with things because of his strength making frontal attack the best route? It would be more creepy if, alchemically, solar powers make you optimistic, shape-shifting powers more mercurial, and so on. A more innocent one would be characters developing uses by personality.
There's also the opposite, where a person has the opposite powers from what you would expected. Air powers go to serious, stolid people; flighty ones get earth powers; fire powers to the placid go-along type; water powers to the fiery-tempered. Could be some kind of balancing effect if it's intentional. And it's very common from people who want to break the stereotype because it's very hard for people to randomize.
And then there's actually random powers. One great rule of this is use a randomizer -- at least for a lot. You can disguise that you carefully chose the main characters' powers as plot device provided you have a large number of characters who are random. I salute the writer who would take on the challenge of simply randomizing them and then writing, though I'm not up to it myself.