McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Writing godlike characters (without making everything Kryptonite)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: o_O on September 07, 2012, 04:23:52 PM ---That seems an easy strong motivator for the laissez faire entity; I'm having trouble seeing it as a limitation on the highly active controlling one.
--- End quote ---
I can see a highly active controlling one being nervous of reach exceeding grasp, or, depending on the precise value of godlike entailed, of consequences exceeding power to predict/manage. Particularly if you want to give your humans theologically-significant free will that it can't predict.
--- Quote ---Do you mean in a "dares not put it to the touch, to gain or lose it all" way? That seems a bad fit.
--- End quote ---
No, I'd not been thinking of that as fitting here.
--- Quote ---Or perhaps you mean fear of success as in "Once I'm done, whatever will I do?"
--- End quote ---
Something existentially like that I can see working, yes, If I can do anything. how is any choice I make meaningful ? If I can be anything, who am I ?
--- Quote ---Or perhaps as an entity so used to control that it's utterly unable to self-edit?
--- End quote ---
I'm not clearly envisioning what you are suggesting here.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: FishStampede on September 06, 2012, 11:19:43 PM ---Anyway, my two main characters have nearly godlike power and a major theme I wish to explore is how sometimes their power can't solve every problem. In fact, aggressively using such power can make situations much worse. On the flip side, not using such power can make people resent you and think they could have done better. To this end I have one who tends towards inaction and letting situations handle themselves, while the other tends towards action. It's the latter one that is problematic.
--- End quote ---
I'm presuming from "using such power can make situations much worse" that their powers are in some way limited so that they can't just... rewrite reality, or change history or whatever, as many times as needed until the situation comes out better. (I'm not actually seeing a plausible way that using omnipotence and omniscience couldn't make any given situation better, kind of by definition.)
How exactly are you defining "godlike" here ? How do their power, their intelligence, and their access to information compare ? Are they at a scale where they still plausibly have human motivations, or are they the sort of beings that can, when they get bored on Sunday afternoon. make exact copies of a large number of different alternate-history versions of the Earth and everyone on it and stick them all together on a megastructure in the Magellanic Clouds to see what happens ?
o_O:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on September 07, 2012, 05:04:35 PM ---I'm not clearly envisioning what you are suggesting here.
--- End quote ---
Something along the lines of defining "better" as 'includes this extra direct tweak' so that "success" becomes 'reaching the untweakable', which might conceptually be quite frightening to a "godlike" critter.
FishStampede:
Interesting replies. I'll try to address the bulk of the points while explaining the particular situation here.
They do essentially have human motivations (although there are no true humans in this world, more on that later). Their power is great, but it is limited and they do tire if they overextend themselves. Because of their essentially human natures, they are more prone to mental fatigue than physical. They can fall in love, they can nurse grudges, they can get angry, and they can simply be wrong as well. They can also die and get injured, though killing them is hard especially if they see it coming.
They're not omniscient, though they do have some abilities of clairvoyance within their element that can let them fake omniscience to those who don't know their limitations: One can see through the rays of the sun, the other can see in areas of darkness, but both can only look at one thing at a time through either magical or normal sight. Beyond that, they have powerful magic within their domains. The active one has powers related to the moon: darkness, cold, dreams, nocturnal beasts, and, interestingly, hope. They don't have any power outside their domains, but within their domains they are mainly limited by their endurance and creativity. In fact, a good deal of their perceived power comes from the fact that not everyone knows of their limitations.
The active one is just really coming into her power. She's been around for many, many years but has been following her inactive sister's orders for that long. Now she's trying to make her own way in the world and fix some of the problems that her sister's laissez-faire approach has caused. Most pressing at this moment is an invasion by a corsair armada.
The corsairs are from a different species with their own magic. They're extremely tall and slim with extra joints on their limbs, and move something like spiders. They also have a unique form of magic using spirits and alchemy that is as much a paradigm shift to deal with as the Canim blood magic in Codex Alera. I haven't entirely pegged down what they can do, but she has only the barest knowledge of what they are capable of as well. It's quite likely she might try something that makes perfect sense but turns out not to work as well as she thought.
My goal is to make this a difficult triumph for her. She manages to succeed by rallying the townsfolk and by defeating some great personal challenge, thus solidifying her position as a good leader and rival to her sister, whether she likes it or not (long term: not).
PS: To answer the elephant in the room: Yes, this is loosely based on My Little Pony, as hinted in the original post. Very, very loosely. They're not ponies, they're humanoids, and it diverges significantly to the point where it's basically its own thing. Hey, we're on the forums of a guy who put a Pokemon vs. Zerg fanfic on the best seller list. ;)
Aminar:
--- Quote from: FishStampede on September 07, 2012, 08:18:24 PM ---Interesting replies. I'll try to address the bulk of the points while explaining the particular situation here.
They do essentially have human motivations (although there are no true humans in this world, more on that later). Their power is great, but it is limited and they do tire if they overextend themselves. Because of their essentially human natures, they are more prone to mental fatigue than physical. They can fall in love, they can nurse grudges, they can get angry, and they can simply be wrong as well. They can also die and get injured, though killing them is hard especially if they see it coming.
They're not omniscient, though they do have some abilities of clairvoyance within their element that can let them fake omniscience to those who don't know their limitations: One can see through the rays of the sun, the other can see in areas of darkness, but both can only look at one thing at a time through either magical or normal sight. Beyond that, they have powerful magic within their domains. The active one has powers related to the moon: darkness, cold, dreams, nocturnal beasts, and, interestingly, hope. They don't have any power outside their domains, but within their domains they are mainly limited by their endurance and creativity. In fact, a good deal of their perceived power comes from the fact that not everyone knows of their limitations.
The active one is just really coming into her power. She's been around for many, many years but has been following her inactive sister's orders for that long. Now she's trying to make her own way in the world and fix some of the problems that her sister's laissez-faire approach has caused. Most pressing at this moment is an invasion by a corsair armada.
The corsairs are from a different species with their own magic. They're extremely tall and slim with extra joints on their limbs, and move something like spiders. They also have a unique form of magic using spirits and alchemy that is as much a paradigm shift to deal with as the Canim blood magic in Codex Alera. I haven't entirely pegged down what they can do, but she has only the barest knowledge of what they are capable of as well. It's quite likely she might try something that makes perfect sense but turns out not to work as well as she thought.
My goal is to make this a difficult triumph for her. She manages to succeed by rallying the townsfolk and by defeating some great personal challenge, thus solidifying her position as a good leader and rival to her sister, whether she likes it or not (long term: not).
PS: To answer the elephant in the room: Yes, this is loosely based on My Little Pony, as hinted in the original post. Very, very loosely. They're not ponies, they're humanoids, and it diverges significantly to the point where it's basically its own thing. Hey, we're on the forums of a guy who put a Pokemon vs. Zerg fanfic on the best seller list. ;)
--- End quote ---
Not Pokemon enough... Not nearly.
Nobodies been worried about you using Ponies as an influence. Wouldn't be my choice, but my writing has Pokemon, Avatar(airbender and according to my girlfriend blue space people too(but really that's the zelda bit)), Zelda, X-men, Jurassic Park, The Dresden Files, Bartimaeus and a variety of other things on its list of inspiration material. Most of those were subconscious references I figured out later, but hey.
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