EDIT: *they just claimed this video*. So, my week has been kind of crap. Sony just went through my channel and claimed every single Avatar video I have nearly. I don't know what this will do to my income, but if you'd like to support me and this kind of educational content, please consider heading over to patreon >>> www.patreon.com/hellofutureme
Oh no, that must sucks since so many of your writing videos heavily feature avatar :( Hope you’ll get them back up on your channel soon, I would hate to see them disappear forever. Love your content btw!
I was thinking about the flash show too, but most of the time, it's the "power of team/love" who is really make him winning, but not without consequences/lost
It really comes down to how literal the statement seems. The show is decent in this regard; Barry Allen gets told point-blank, "What, did you think we're the only two speedsters?" setting a tone that since he isn't even close to unique, there will always be someone better, or there will always be a problem he may not be fast enough to solve whereas another speedster could. When the character is treated as infallible due to Main Character powers, the statement comes off as a declaration of fact, and thus the tension runs headlong into a tree when it must invariably be proven incorrect for the sake of plot happening.
I think the Flash villains really show a recognition of power creep in the show. Season 1: the Reverse Flash is a speedster pulling strings, overall a good first villain Season 2: Zoom, the horror version of a speedster and an ok Villain but the "I'm not fast enough" started getting old Season 3: Salvitar, and now a god is fighting us and the must go faster has worn out its welcome, overall bad villain Season 4: The Thinker, finally someone who Barry doesn't need to out run, a good change of pace who made this season much better than the last one. Season 5: Cicada, a genuinely scary villain who turned off powers instead of competing directly. He caused some great character tension especially with Nora be present Season 6: I haven't watched yet I think the show writers realized after season 3 that if the only made Barry fight progressively faster speedsters as the main villain that the show would stagnant so they switched to incommperable villains. Note even if Barry had to outsmart the Thinker, their main powers were different enough for it to be much more enjoyable than 2 gci flashes racing as the speed of light and somehow not dieing.
This just gives me new appreciation for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. The power ceiling is firmly established in the first few episodes, with Izumi’s introduction and the Elrics’ backstory. The main antagonist attempts to break the power ceiling and outwit the fundamental laws of the magic system, but ultimately suffers the consequences for his actions. It’s a fantastic climax that delivers on spectacle without sacrificing logic.
I loved how in FMA: Brotherhood the power celling technically allows you to do godly things, you just have to be able to pay. And thats the catch since everything requires a payment of equal value some actions become impossible. Basically what is worth a human life, a lesson learned over the series. And if you are wrong god/truth/logic/karma whatever that thing was is coming for you. And in the end the villain tried to become a god but karma required that the Elric's defeat him and undo most of the damage as his price for his arrogance.
also, Ed and Al basically start as powerful in the beginning as they are in the end (with exception of Al gaining the clap transmute ability Ed has had all along), the difference is the knowledge of so much more in terms of styles of alchemy, and friends. I dont watch FMAB thinking "Ed is getting more powerful", i watching thinking "He's getting smarter"
This! This is going to be my gold standard for "magic worldbuilding." Because there are established rules for alchemy, and you can bend them... if you're creative enough. But Ed and Al literally spend a significant portion of the show looking for loopholes (the philosopher's stone) and then discover that while possible, those loopholes aren't loopholes after all (you're trading something far, far worse than a life for a life). I really, really liked the early establishment of power ceilings and the increasing capability of the protagnoists to counter great evil relying on other factors (teamwork, strategy, creativity, and technique) despite having more or less the same abilities throughout and featuring a host of "non-magic" characters very prominently and importantly despite their lack of all-powerful alchemy (Riza, Armstrong's sister, Winry).
i also got inspired by this thread to rewatch fmab and realized that Al gets clap transmutation really early (right after we meet Izumi for the first time)
Now I wanna see a story where the protagonist starts off at the height of their power and over the course of the arc gets gradually less powerful until by the climax they’re at an all time power low, perhaps powerless. Could be the story of a hero well past their prime, learning that there are other ways to be powerful.
There's hints of that in MHA with all might and there are hints that a lot of the current pro heroes are badly injured in one way or another. They aren't the main focus plot wise compared to the students but it does create some interesting ideas for a changing of the guard kind of thing
@@Darkstar1484A rising star magical prodigy gets diagnosed with a rare illness which causes their magical abilities to slowly wane. With their magic on the way out, they must come to terms with the fact that the bright future they had envisioned is now impossible. While initially disheartened, they determine that they'll leave their mark on history while they can still do so, and throw themselves into their life with renewed vigor. From there I dunno. But I could see it playing out like some sort of wizard Stephen Hawking.
Hxh did something like that with Gon. He grew more and more powerful throughout the series, peaked his power, then lost it all. He rose to top of power and fell to the bottom.
This is the plot of Noblesse. MC is the strongest character in the series but his power is finite and he weakens over the course of the series despite the antagonists getting stronger forcing him to use more of his decreasing power reserves.
>underrated >475k subs >consistently decent like ratio across his videos >multiple collaborations with other channels >lively discord and decent patreon funding >wrote a book that already sells quite some copies I think underrated isn't a very accurate word to describe him, he's fairly well known and liked.
How is it underated? Half a million people are subscribed and somehow I know people IRL who don't know each other who all found this channel on their own, and I'm not even from an english speaking county.
I always like in many reviews where ppl are like "so these are the 5 types of tension, 16 paths of growth, 12 subversive archetypes, how people learn through these 100 types of suffering, how a story changes with man vs man, monster, nature or himself, etc..... so let's take a look at Zuko over here..." Boy don't catch a break
@@johannageisel5390 oh my God that sounds cool actually. Like what if his powers only come from his cat like a mcguffin. Would he interesting to see how tension could be made from that
@@Unanimoustoo I guess another story arc is him getting a magic pen from his cat with which he can transform into a Sailor Senshi to fight in the name of the Moon and love.
@@johannageisel5390 another ark could be he has to fight the evil were-dog army to save the cat kingdom. Only to realize the alpha dog is none other than his childhood friend, Dave. Then there's a redemption ark for Dave.
i mean the villains are very weird for sure it is even in its name " bizarre" but they aren't really "incomparable" when it comes to quality , let's not even bring up seinens . Even with shonens there are other great and imo better villains than anything jojo has from part 1 to 5 (with kira being the best of jojos) . Hunter x hunter is one shonen that i think has better villains with meruem , hisoka , chrollo , pariston (manga included) and tserriednich that is shaping up to become a great villain too. One piece i heard had some good villains too ( didn't really get far into it yet) Yu Yu Hakusho has toguro and sensui are good too.
because jojo mostly dont use "he is more powerful, i have to overpowered him" but "how is his abilites works?, i have to find a way around his abilites and exploit the weakness of his abilites." i find it interesting, maybe araki's villains isnt the best in term of character, but araki's way of how to make his protagonist able to defeat the villain is good. part 3, the crusaders vs d'arby brothers, its a mentality fight part 6, jolyne and emporio vs miu miu, how to fight someone that makes you only remember 3 things part 8, josuke vs jobin, a stand involved beetle fight most of the protagonist ability is already overpowered and even some of the villains ability is rather weak, but since there really is no power escalation, its about who can oversmart the other
@@thepopgroup3366 The only part where it felt bullshit, was Part 5 with Giorno pretty much having a god stand and not having to understand his abilities.
The trick to a character who wins not because he's powerful, but because he's clever, is that the Author has to be clever. Consistently clever if he wants to keep his audience. Power Escalation is an end-run (Literally) around that. At some point, Dr. Manhattan wins, by snapping his fingers. He can't escalate any more, and therefore the only threats that can be posed to him are either Personal (He falls in love, so someone's tears can actually affect him) or Existential.
Good example in my opinion of a character winning through cleverness consistently is Kvothe in The King Killer Chronicles. The key for the author is that they have to be clever enough to figure out the clever things their character does, but they don't have to be as clever as the character. If an author comes up with a thing in half a year that takes a character an instant to realize, it makes that character all the more clever. One thing George R. R. Martin has said is that Tyrion's cleverness and wit are what he wishes he were able to be, but in reality it takes him days to write the lines that Tyrion says spontaneously. While Kvothe does have some power creep in that he gets more powerful as time goes on, he never becomes Doctor Manhattan, so he has to continue to solve his challenges with a combination of his cleverness and the skills he's picked up.
@@ceciliaellis662 I ran into this problem playing D&D (We got the 2nd edition Boxed Set for Christmas in 1983, and my mom was the DM) Anyone can play the dumb Barbarian with Intelligence as a dump stat, because you don't have to be strong to play someone with 18+ Strength, or tough with 18+ Constitution. However, to play a Wizard with high Intelligence, or a Cleric with high Wisdom. At some point, the DM just has to roll a D20 and explain her carefully laid out puzzle, because the Minmaxer that got massive damage out of his Fireballs couldn't figure it out. A writer can't just keep rolling a D-20, until they beat Sherlock Holmes' 18+ Intelligence. You have to write Moriarty as a Worthy Adversary. Or, just throw in a cliche scene over a chessboard, without showing the moves, and have one say "Checkmate."
@@PsiberzerkerJust because someone has high scores in either Intelligence or Wisdom doesn't mean that they're infallible when it comes to mental obstacles. There's a reason why the Absent-minded Professor is a trope after all.
I like this quote from the Hobbit movie series: "Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." It's counter intuitive, but to me it indicates that integrity and humility can undermine and topple the opposing dishonesty and pride. It's good vs. evil rather than power vs. power I suppose. More of a moral debate than a game of chess.
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Yeah Frodo is like the weakest of all the characters, and doesn't even "increase" in power or strength during the story, because the story isn't based on power or strength, but based on the arc and character development. That's why I really like the final boss of the Lord of the Rings Return of the King game for the PS2 (SPOILER alert for Lord of the Rings). In all the game when you play the Hobbit's part of the story you control Sam, protecting Frodo and gaining exp so upgrading the moves and stats, etc. Then at the final level, you face Gollum controlling Frodo, not Sam (that during the game you upgraded a lot), and Frodo is at level 1, facing a not so strong opponent, but it still have the most tension of the story, because of the arc, not because of power. The previous level was literally using one of the other powerful character defending the gates against thousands of orcs, and the final level is an hobbit fighting Gollum, while stil being more epic and creating more tension than the previous level
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Episode 1: Fighting Giant Robots with a Smaller Robot and Guns. Episode 27: Fighting a Multiverse-Sized Robot with a Multiverse-Sized Robot while throwing Galaxies as shurikens, also the enemy can slip through Time and Space creating multiple different Timelines.
I was thinking about this the entire video, because I still love it. I am still invested in the characters. But I also agree that obscene power escalation (*cough*dbz*cough*) is dumb and i stop caring about those types of stories. What i dont understand is why i feel differently about Gurren Lagann. Why do I adore GL, but hate DBZ?
@@william591 the original dragon ball had all the good character development and stories apparently. But in gurren lagann infinite power was necessary for survival and for my ainaki LoL. just a thought but who the hell do you think i am?
@@william591 I think it just works with GL cause it fits the tone (Manly and Over the top). I haven't watvhed DBZ for a long time but i think it just gets waaay too far (I liked kid goku saga better than adult goku, cause the power scaling was just right.)
@@william591 It works really well in GL and not in DBZ because the former is a short story. DBZ does this never endingly on a course of hundreds of episodes and several arcs. If DBZ was a 20-40 something episode series, it would not have become such a parody of itself.
One Punch Man is imo also a fun example illustrating this, not by Power Escalation, but that he is basically the most powerful being in existence, without any real power growth. This illustrates perfectly that personal development (like finding accrptance in society) is completely able to invest someone in the story, if no tension is derived from the power level of the individual
Completely agree. OPM is a unique case also in that part of its charm is the tongue-in-cheek way it makes fun of DBZ and other similar "cliche" anime power escalation (i.e. "consecutive normal punches!!!")
Not only that, but there's little-to-no power escalation for the villains and monsters either. Vaccine Man: the villain that get obliterated by Saitama at the started, is actually more powerful and more of a threat than The Deep Sea King. Despite that, there's far more tension in the Deep Sea King arc because Saitama is in another city during the Deep Sea King's rampage. The tension comes not from whether or not Saitama can win, but whether or not Saitama can make it in time. Boy; the show's good.
No, no, no. You guys got it all wrong. The real tension comes from if Saitama can get to the supermarket for groceries in time so that he still has discount.
The thing about One Punch Man isn't his philosophy or how he as a character grows, but WHEN he gets there... it's a series where everything is defined by everything around Saitama rather than Saitama himself... Saitama doesn't have a philosophy (at first, there seemed to be one where it seemed that being too good at something is bad, but that is later disproven when Saitama talks with King where you learn that Saitama is really just an adrenaline junkie. He doesn't want the challenge, but the adrenaline rush... But honestly, the stories where the MC is usually OP is often not focused on the battle challenges as much as it is other situations they are dealing with. Emotional or comic issues and challenges where being OP doesn't matter.
Hello Future Me, could you do a video about injuries and healing in stoytelling? The cost of being injured in the character's capacity to affect the plot and how long a character should remain injured and out of commission and what do you do with the plot in the meanwhile. I've found most authors sort of distract us from character injuries and have them magically heal broken bones in 2 in-universe days without being explicitly healed through magic (in fact, healing magic tends to be rare in books, that's another potential topic).
I love a good story where the hero suffers a serious injury and has to live with it. If done right, it develops the character dealing with consequences as well as adding a twist to how we see their progression. That's probably part of what made Full Metal Alchemist so unique.
One series I would have been interested to see here is Demon Slayer, because it does a lot of things well with these ideas of escalating power. Despite that, characters absolutely take a beating during their battles and while it doesn't dwell on injuries and recuperating it does do it a little better than some other literature where wounds heal overnight and never leave any lasting damage.
Eldest, the second book of the Inheritance cycle, does a remarkably good job of handling character injuries. Eragon spends the first half of the story being afflicted by an injury he gained at the end of the first book, and Roran gets wounded in a way that reduces his fighting ability all the way up until the beginning of book three. Both injuries are eventually dealt with, but the consequences of them are felt throughout the story and they aren't just hand-waved away like in most other stories.
@@TheMidnightillusion Sly Cooper 2 ending left 2 of the protags with 2 very different life changing injuries Bentley got his leg crushed and was crippled while Murry was left emotionally broken by the whole ordeal. You see how they come to terms with these injuries throughout Sly 3.
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Have you ever read Naruto? At the beginning of the comic, it was impressive is someone can make fog and use a sword really well. At the end, ninjas where throwing spells around that required the maps to be redrawn after the battle.
Yeah, I thought it would be a cool story about some ninjas doing cool ninja fights but then by the end of Shippuden everyone was flying while shooting giant energy blasts and blowing up planets and it was hard to care. Like where did the ninja part go??
Frankly things stopped being tense around pein's fight for me. All the kage level shinobi were roughly equal. Yeah pain was strong but he was kind of built up as a super big bad with the ultimate power and naruto was struggling to not blow up the continent. Then there's tobi and madara and kaguya who come out of nowhere with bigger powers and naruto is now literally jesus. It's gotten so frankly ridiculous in boruto that you literally have to be an alien god to even be taken seriously
@@TheBigE9999 To be fair, Tobi was not an inherently stronger threat; at least not until he stole one of Pain's rinnegan (and even then he couldn't use its full power and was amazed that Pain was able to do so much with it) and later became the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki. Before then, his power (kamui) was basically that he was the ultimate escape artist. It was unique and interesting without raising the ceiling.
@@matthewmuir8884 granted, kamui itself wasn't busted, but the way he spammed it was, mangekyo sharingan are supposed to make you go blind, but he was just doing it whenever for like 16 years. plus the fact that he can use the rinnegan at all is bs, considering that even with an uzumaki, who are supposed to have the best chakra, wound up a near corpse, meanwhile this guy can just use it. plus i just hate the whole "oh, you thought he was the bigger threat, but I was puling the strings the WHOLE TIME" it got pulled like 5 times in tat series and frankly i feel like invalidates all previous major antagonists
Ok but I just have to say it again, Katara's power and skills improvement over the three books (that mostly happened in the background except for like one episode) is *amazing* and that last episode where we see it in full strength is *amazing* .
Instructions unclear: Made the two main characters at their peak in power at the beginning and slowly weaken them until the other characters catch up to them to kill them
I think the problem with power escalation in anime (like DBZ, Naruto, Bleach) comes from the fact that normally, the source material is serialised. Manga chapters are released weekly or monthly and the stories aren't given endings unless the ratings for the manga drop. Even when authors did want to end their manga in service to the story, the story's ability to bring in money gets in the way. Kishimoto wanted Naruto over, and yet we have Boruto. Toriyama wanted DBZ's protagonist to switch to Gohan after Cell, but the fans and his editor demanded he bring Goku back and now we have Super. I believe that this is an inherent flaw in the way that these stories are distributed that the west has an advantage over. ATLA had a distinct beginning middle and end that the writers and producers were able to execute the way they thought would serve the story best. And we praise it to this day. Kishimoto didn't start Naruto with anything more than there's this ninja kid with a demon in him that is shunned but wants to be respected by his village so his goal is to be it's leader. Somewhere over the 15 years where weekly chapters for it were released, gods, crazy eye powers and monsters in the moon became a thing. Even if the story had taken 15 years to write anyway (like a Song of Ice and Fire and many other book series that have large gaps between instalments) the weekly nature of the serialization is a huge drawback because it doesn't allow for the refinement of distinct plot points and such. They raise the stakes and beef up the powers because unless they put years and years of preparatory work before the series debuts, they just can't find anywhere else to go with their stories. And even if they did, after they run out of ideas their editors and publishers basically force them to keep telling the story anyway.
Sorry, but you’ve got some of your info wrong. Kishimoto gave the green light for Boruto to be serialised, he also supervices it. Toriyama did want to replace Goku with Gohan, but he changed his mind because he didn’t think Gohan fit the “mold” of a protagonist and not because he gave in to peer pressure. It’s a dumb rumour that’s been circulating and shot down for years now.
One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, FMA, My Hero Academia, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, etc.. All of these series pretty much dismantle all of what you've said (in regards to long running shounen, your argument holds absolutely no ground in the realm of shorter series). Many mangaka DO have an ending and general direction in mind when it comes to their story. And, the idea that a mangaka has absolutely no choice in regards to their series' direction or ending is ludicrous. Many mangaka have CHOSEN to end very profitable series far sooner than editors or publishers would have liked. YuYu Hakusho and Tokyo Ghoul are both good examples of this. Also, many prominent mangaka have assistants or even entire teams that work under them to assist in the process (usually drawing several pages in the place of the mangaka). This is one reason that Eiichiro Oda has consistently provided quality in One Piece for over twenty years with almost no issues in regards to power scaling or story. He has entire folders and notebooks dedicated to story planning. This isn't, of course, the case for all manga (most even) but for Kishimoto, Kubo, and Toriyama, this would have been the case. Hell, Kishimoto's head assistant is the one who works on Boruto now. Lastly, I wanted to mention that Dragonball Super has absolutely nothing to do fan outcry or editors or even publishers. It's actually the U.S.'s fault. The American live-action movie, Dragonball Evolution, was so bad that Toriyama got angry about it. He didn't want his franchise to be remembered by that film, so he started working on some of the Dragonball anime films as a last hurrah and found that he still really enjoyed working on his world and characters. Then he started work on Super.
@@MonkeyDLuffy-xo6my Out of all those series you listed only One Piece really contradicts their argument. Very few chapters of Hunter x Hunter are released per year and its constantly on Hiatus giving Togashi far more time to plan out the story and character arcs, My Hero Academia is only up to Chapter 248 or something like that while Naruto lasted around 700 chapters and Bleach lasted around 685 chapters. I'm not sure how long the FMA Manga is but FMAB is only 65 episodes, so its only slightly longer than ATLA. And Jojo's Bizarre Adventures takes place in a completely new setting with very different characters and stories in each part, Part 7 and 8 even take place in a completely different universe.
That show was out of fucking control. It seemed like the creators were trying to one up themselves every other episode, so there's some new godlike ability or super ultra mega weapon all the time.
@Kevin If you're referring to Dragon Ball as a whole continuing past the Pilaf Saga, you are correct. If you're talking, as most often do, about the Z portion specifically, then that is incorrect. It is pure myth that he was actively forced to continue at any point in the series. At best, we know he probably continued farther than he originally planned, but absolutely no evidence points to him wanting to end at any point during Z other than the one where he actually ended it.
i quite like the cosmos from saint seiya. its not really magic, but more like true control over the universe and its laws. with each character able to tap into it, they truly feel like divine warriors. to the point that they are so overpowered, the gods have to literaly limit what they are allowed to do or else they could destroy the planet(maybe even the universe).
This is why I love mob psycho 100. Mob already IS the power limit, he's the strongest esper in the world from episode 1. However, most if not all of the conflict in this show stems from interpersonal relationships and mob growing as a person while his power outbursts simply serve as a tool to visualize his inner state and how far he's come on his journey to become a good, responsible and stable person. All this development eventually leads up to him preventing a huge fight with another powerful esper and instead simply sitting by the stairs and having a nice chat.
I'm pretty happy with my power escalation. Since my story has various characters with various powers, it was hard to figure out a universal ceiling for all of them. What I ended up doing was not making a ceiling at all. Basically, the characters get stronger the more they use their powers, but using the powers also cause a lot of physical pain which keeps the characters from overexerting themselves. At one point the MC who can see the future and past is forced to take a drug that removes all of the pain from his power. So suddenly he can see all the history of the world, all at once with no consequences... And so he immediately goes mad. He looses his mind and becomes basically catatonic until a surgery to the brain makes him unable to use his power at all. Idk, I feel quite happy with this. Theoretically the characters can get infinite power, but it would resolve in death from too much pain or madness. (if anyone has notes or criticism I'm all ears)
I haven't published anything yet. I'm still working on it. If I wrote down everything I have in my head it would probably be a trilogy, but I have currently written down only 2/3 of the first book. The stuff I talked about in my og comment would most likely be from the second half of book two. I don't want to post or publish anything until it's done because I often go back to change various details if not entire chapters. It is really flattering that it sounds interesting though
monika kavaliunaite would you mind me asking what this story is about? Or like the main idea of it? Because I kinda wanna know more about it, I’m writing some stories myself that I’m really excited about (planning on making it like graphic novel stuff, also I’m just putting together all of my ideas for it, haven’t really started on it) so it’s fun to discuss stories with another writer.
@@edwardteachbornonabeach9715 the protagonist is a man in his early 20s named Renat and he's part of a race of humans called the Wielders with superior brains which sometimes develop abilities. Renat lives a quiet life, pretending to be an avarage person until because of pure coincidence he runs into another wielder who saves him from a gang. The gang keeps for some reason persuing Renat and after learning that the leader is a wielder who can change memories, Renat begins to ponder about how many of his memories are actually his Sorry I'm bad at summarising descriptions without giving away too much
this is why i love the arc of the percy jackson books so much. the first books lead up to an ancient power being defeated, with the conflicts slowly getting bigger and bigger. however, the power system has such a clearly defined base (within the greek mythological world) that both the enemies and the powers the characters gain never feel unreasonable. in the second series, it makes perfect sense that they then face the even more ancient threat, forcing new and old characters into cooperation to defeat them, not just the original characters progressively powering up. it emphasizes the theme of found family, while still being under the believable base of greek mythology. furthermore, the series after heroes of olympus don’t still focus on percy & company, but instead explore other aspects of different culture’s mythologies, with the original characters not being the focus anymore. and it works so well! riordan keeps introducing characters that relate to each other in believable ways, under the same umbrella of mythology, and the enemies never feel outside the range of the original series. i will never not be amazed by what uncle rick has created. his books will always remain a golden standard to me.
@@cac_deadlyrang I love that response and the idea of Supreme Leader hanging out with some of my favorite characters in all of fiction. I'm always surprised to hear that there are other people out in the world that are fans of the Warriors saga because I don't know more than two people (excluding myself) in my area that like those books, so that has been a very important, but niche fandom in my life of geekiness. ;)
You would love Jojo's bizarre adventures. it has one of the most interesting power systems there is and has managed to avoid the issue of power escalation. in Jojo's a characters powers are usually set at the level they are introduced at, meaning conflicts are mainly about how you use your power. Information and creativity are the deciding factors in a Jojo's fight.
Yeah well there is usually the problem with Araki tending to experiment with some Stand abilities towards the beginning of each part (particularly with the corresponding JoJo) and ends up creating plot holes at times. But hey, i still fucking love once you get into the Vibe of jojo's
the mangaka ONE does the "incredibly powerful main character" thing suuuper well. he was the one who wrote/drew One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100. they both deal with an overpowered protagonist but they handle stuff very differently and its a lot about morals and emotions - especially the latter. both are incredible mangas, and have well-done anime adaptations, i cant recommend them enough!
Altered Carbon is FANTASTIC. Transferring human consciousness into these little insertable nodules in the nape of your neck means potential immortality (if you can afford it.) Futuristc sci-fi noir. Very cool. Three books in the series. Main char is a hardass with psychopathic tendencies but the author really humanizes him and makes him a dark grey in a world of black.
I love how Kung Fu Panda deals with its villains. Each villains tackles a different insecurity in Po, Tai Lung being Po's worthiness, Shen being Po's family, and Kai making Po embrace what makes people who they are. Also it's nice that each villian makes po more powerful because he has to learn a new skill to defeat them because learning those things involves personal growth for Po.
HFM seems to be unaware of the so-called Best Power-Syrtem in all of Fiction: Nen. Anyway, if you like this channel, try Reedsy, Krimson Rogue, Hbomberguy and Dominic Noble.
Another great thing Kung-Fu Panda did with its villains was that each villain was a different type of threat: Tai Lung was a strong and skilled fighter, Shen was cunning and inventive, and Kai had his chi abilities. The director of the third film outright said about Kai, _"You can't go brawler because Tai Lung was brawler. You can't go smarter because Shen was smarter. Where can you go? You have to go supernatural, bigger, and even more intimidating."_
@@matthewmuir8884 The thing is that to defeat about the first two villains, Po needed to grow inside to hone his abilities. Tai Lung required Po to believe in himself and turn his insecurities (his fat body and his childish antics) into an actual fighting style, Shen required Po to let go of his trauma and accept his problems in order to deflect the canonballs. But Kai literally couldn't be beaten without an entirely new power system.
@@M4x_P0w3r I agree. Honestly, overall, in terms of writing quality, Kai is definitely the worst out of them while Shen is the best. I'm just saying that I like that each film took a different approach with its villain and tried to have each one stand out on their own.
I've been meaning to write a story my whole life (I'm 30) and I've had one in my head for a long time (since I was a kid). I've recently started and I thank you for articulating points that I otherwise would miss. In short... you inspire.
This has given me a new appreciation for Sanderson, I've never really been able to put to words why his magic systems feel so good, I just know they always do. Something else in the stormlight series I appreciate is not only do they have to grow as people to grow in power, but that the power both motivates them to grow, and can hold them back. Shallan grows her power in order to hide from her issues, which then hinders her growth because she can just keep hiding and repressing instead of actually working through it. Kaladin grew his power to help those he cares about, but then ended up at a plateau because of the pressure that power placed on him to continue growing and to protect, made him feel more useless than before when he failed. Now he can protect, but failed, and he is unable to deal with the losses. Stormlight is my favorite series, just for how well power is linked to growth and health overall
I'm surprised JJBA wasn't in on this topic. I mean, the way Araki limits power, and rather escalates the power-user's understanding of how their and their enemies' powers work is how the story goes on. Not to mention after every story, all established escalation drops to zero as we encounter a new protagonist of a newer generation. Great video, learned a heck lot anyway. Stay safe and stay amazing~
Merry and Pippin do though, they're literally bigger people at the end of the story too! (Yay Ent Juice!). Also, Gandalf. He's got a tiiiiny bit of power escalation in the story.
Both were considerably stronger in the end though. Able to endure more for longer. Plus the enemies they faced became significantly stronger. The overall theme of Tolkien was decay though, the world was at it's peak at the start and only has gotten weaker since. The elves used to deploy entire armies of heroes that would make Legolas look like a child cosplaying.
I think you could argue his approach is closer to incomparables - Elf King, Gollum and Smaug (in Hobbit) or Nazguls, Sheloba, Barlog, Snaketongue and Sauron are very different antagonists from each other.
Yeah, most of his characters tend to stay at whatever power level they were first introduced at, changing and growing mentally instead of physically. There are several exceptions though, mainly Gandalf who has to nearly die in order to "level up" his wizard powers and become Gandalf the White. Not only does obtaining this power feel earned, but it also puts him at the pre-established power ceiling that the other wizard who Gandalf fought and lost to was at (I'm sorry I don't remember his name.)
I'd love to see an episode on how to do Power Decay well. As for my settings (GM not writer) my most traditionally fantastical established the power ceiling at nukes, but the chosen one type character were (quite literally) a quarter of that strength (by which I mean said pinnacle was garroted, drawn and quartered, and the power split between four kingdoms). Morality was far more of a limiting factor than power, and much tension was built not from if they could win, but how they could do minimizing collateral damage, and sometimes without opening their literal nuclear option up to assassination attempts. Another the players played Fairies trying to grant wishes, and while power was limited by collective mana, it was secondarily limited by it having to be unnoticed by humans, because humans don't particularly like it when they find out they didn't earn their happiness, and Fairies needed magic to live. Others tended to stick a lot more grounded, with historic, or more mundane settings, so escalation was never significant enough to worry about ceilings.
GM here. I have a running campaign with heavy monster, abberation And Devils invading campaign And i have a NPC named Aaravos who Is a chronomancer (time Wizard) who Is lovable character with family, children etc. He was sent on the party first mission to kill adult beasts And document them And if possible bring their younglings back....But....the Reason why He became a chronomancer Is not So good. He had a backstory....well, think Caleb from Critical Role or Bucky Barnes. He has been brainwashed And forced to do some really really horrible stuff. I do not know if i want him to pursue the power to revert time And let the power consume him And make him the BBEG or if IT would be too much
I realize without being subbed to it, your channel reassured me in my way of writing my stories and characters several times and I couldn't thank you (and your supporters) enough for the content you're putting out here. The way you're bringing these topics is very informative and soothing for me, who constantly worries about writing something bland, uninteresting, worried about world building, powercreep etc. You help me and I am grateful for that!
I use a mix of Character Struggle, and incomparables. I wrote my book about 8 years ago and as I head into writing my full series now this was really helpful to refocus me on what I did before and help me contextualize why it worked. Thank you!
My favorite form of dealing with power escalation is to just sidestep the problem entirely by having all characters equal, but in very different ways. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure does this amazingly by giving all characters a unique power. One character can put zippers in anything, giving them a whole range of options, but another has the ability to revert anything to a previous state. It's this kind of system that turns combat into a puzzle of who can use their abilities in the most creative way, making fights against even rats engaging and tense when compared to a vampire.
@Pasquale Libertino yes the im gonna go level 5 then wins strategy i do love one piece but jojo has better grasp on the power escalation since parts practically reset everything and stands are more mind games than punch harder contest
@Pasquale Libertino no i mean it has stakes as characters can actually die and with a assurance that they will stay in the grave and due to the generational timeskip each part is different yet still connected. foremost i respect that you prefer one piece if anything i agree that OP is quite superior in terms of world building and overall story than jojo but in terms of mediating the shounen power escalation jojo story power system is more fluid and due to how it is constructed is has more lenience in having varied fights to shoneun punching contest to high tension bodyhorror train chase since certain stand arent even for combat.
Yall forgetting about hxh which like jojo is about the strategy and how the user uses their power. The chimera ant arc really shows it. Even the tournament arcs show it as well.
You put Shadow of the Conqueror in the video!!!😁 +10 diplomacy Also i'm glad someone talked about blue Korra and the problem with just making the characters stronger because spectacle
Just gotta say thanks a ton for all of these videos! As an aspiring young author I’ve struggled with world building and story crafting for awhile now - like I have 8 or 9 series that I’ve bounced between due to an inability to keep them going. Your vids have really helped me learn how to better direct my thoughts and I’ve finally started putting together a genuine idea. Thanks again and keep making these please because they are outstanding!
In my universe, magic is separated into three groups called Realms; Celestial, Sylvan, and Infernal. Light, nature, and dark. Each realm carries their own unique philosophy and values. So, a magician's ability to advance in this realm typically involves how well they embrace these philosophies and values. Celestial magic believes that there is an inherent righteousness to the universe, that morality is concrete, and that all living things plays a part. So, it emphasizes ideas like good vs evil and the notions of fate and destiny. Celestial magicians see themselves as tools for a higher power or greater purpose. Infernal magic believes the opposite. There is no inherent righteousness. The universe is a chaotic and apathetic reality where hierarchies are more based on power and resources and distributed based on chance. While morality is a useful concept, it is purely an illusion, and the only real good that one can do is for themselves. Infernal magicians tend to be self centered, rebellious, and individualistic. Sylvan magic does not focus on existential matters, only concerning survival and finding ways to enjoy life. So, sylvan magicians are made to embrace their own nature. Some can be seen as enthusiastic, lively, and sociable. Others can be more aggressive, brutish, and volatile. Neither side is ultimately good or ultimately evil. They can fall into either category. Magicians aligned with different realms can feud quite often, or get along.
Your universe sounds really interesting! I like how no one is completely good and no one is completely evil. Because that's far more realistic and nuanced and leads to more interesting stories. Not to mention some of my favorite characters in all of literature are not the goody goody hero types. I have a background in journalistic writing and what they always told us was one death is a tragedy a thousand is a statistic. Humans just don't have the emotional capability to care about every single person who tragically dies in the world. We would emotionally break down and nothing would ever get done. So for our own mental health and safety our bodies only allow us to truly care about people we have emotional attachments to. That's why we care far more and it tugs on our emotions more if we hear the story of one little boy going through cancer then we do about a thousand people dying in a bombing. In writing fiction it's a lot harder and takes a lot more time and writing skill to develop comparatively small stakes and make them feel huge emotionally than it does to just make the threat huge to begin with. But that's why huge threats don't make good stories and isn't good writing. It just feels cheap.
@@WhitneyDahlin I hate hate to say it, but I did change up my system. I've kept the realms to represent the areas of the spirit world. My current magic system involves themes based on the seven planets from old astrology. They are the following. 1. Sol: Magic of light. 2. Luna: Magic that deals with spirits. 3. Mars: Magic for fighting. 4. Mercury: Magic of the mind. 5. Jupiter: Magic against magic. 6. Venus: Nature based magic. 7. Saturn: Necromancy. I'm still doing the no one magic is good or evil thing though.
I stole everything! It's now mine! Thanks! 🤣🤣🤣 Ok..... no. 😁 It has made me think though, so thanks. Good stuff. I hope you use it to make something great.
Look into DND spheres. You have order vs chaos + neutral. Then obviously there's is lawful good and lawful evil vs chaotic good and chaotic evil. It is funny to think someone who calls themselves "infernal embracer of chaos!" Is actually a swell fella though lol. Or someone who calls themselves "the righteous celestial enforcer of good" is actually a dick. Well actually the second one doesn't seem that far fetched lol.
I think there's also something to be said about power escalation and audience. Younger audiences may be more thrilled by bigger and crazier powers, whereas older audiences may be more engaged with complex characters and tensions.
I always love your On Writing series; so much care and detail goes into them. There're so many topics left that I'm excited for whatever you decide to put out next.
Great video! I always wondered what Legend of Korea would have been like if the writers weren’t put through hell by their network. I still adored the show growing up but I can’t help but wonder what if…
@@Ryukuro Yes, there's eight. The last two very much work as a two-parter, but there's eight overall. Personally, I found the time-travel one (first time travel one, to be honest, but the one with the demons is much better) the weakest one and only read my way throught the full series two years or so ago. Artemis later gets two younger brothers (twins) who now apparently have their own book series.
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Also they resolved her emotional conflict too early. Korra was given a great deal of power but not the maturity or spirituality to use it correctly. But they had Korra learn humility by the end of the first season which meant that the tension was over. It's notable that the writers walked back her personality for season 2 and partly season 3 and then dumped PTSD on her for season 4.
This isn't me trying to make excuses for Korra, but there is actually an understandable reason Korra grew so much so fast. When they wrote season 1, It was supposed to be the only season. Nick only gave them permission to air a single season, and only green lit another season when season one got really good ratings. Season 1 was written to be a one off story, not the first part of a series, hence the problem you bring up. it's why they had to give plot reasons for her to struggle in pretty much every other season. (The season 2 villain having spirit shenanigans, the season 3 villain poisoning her before their fight, and her suffering from PTSD in season 4). that one bad situation with the first season pretty much had resounding effects through the whole rest of the show. Although I admit it lead to some interesting situations and helped humanize the avatar a bit by showing even a full power avatar can be challenged under the right circumstances.
@@firstnamelastname7034 and it should have been that way... season is good sequel to the world building of the OG storyline... but season 2 onwards was a clusterfuck, seem like the writer doesnt know where to go then sudden 2 Gozilla fight
@@wendycheang4477 I thought Korra's ptsd was handled quite well in season 4 personally. Makes total sense given what happened to her at the end of season 3 and given she had lived a sheltered life until she left her home at the start. (although I 100% agree with you on every other point)
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Have you read the web serial Worm? Definitely one of the best uses of Power Escalation (with some minor exceptions, fair given its massive length while still tying in thematically). It's also nice that people don't really get stronger (again, with a few exceptions) so much as they more creative and smarter with their powers while still suffering losses and learning from them! The power classification system and "rules of the game of cops and robbers" early definition is especially helpful.
@@angeldude101 yeah I feel like worm is actually a terrible example of this lol, the powers get a bit too convenient and the villains just get more and more ridiculous as it goes on. it doesn't really stick to the rules it establishes at all. Though I have to say I'm not quite sure why this video thinks that's necessary, or that it sticks to it much. Mistborn breaks its own set standards pretty frequently.
I don't know if the same will happen to others, but after reading the manga for a while, I just lost interest. After all, Saitama's boredom and character make up a tiny percentage of the story focus compared to pretty much every other single characters getting one-shot and gore spectacle in general. It is really entertaining for a good while, but I think very little has actually happened that has led Saitama (or Genos, or anyone else) on a journey since the start of the series, and since the stakes are always about a bunch of people getting killed, and you know that Saitama will always defeat them, after a certain point it gets really repetitive :-/ I did not especially like Garou's character, but his introduction did at least add some character development to the Monster Association arc.
@NullLex00 Yeah, just in Season 1 alone the scene at the end with Saitama hanging out with Mumen Rider feels like a major point in the character's growth from where it was in the beginning, with him starting out alone and unfulfilled and ending with him socializing and legitimately happy.
@@Mordalon yeah and in the current web series, drawn by one... (Not to overly spoil by not being too specific) but he gets a dog and a few more "friends". We first see Saitama alone, only seeing being a hero as a hobby. But later on he gets more and more companions where he slowly shows more character and life. I feel that the real goal is Saitama finding another reason to live after dedicating himself in gaining power.
It is interesting to set up a character at the beginning who was all ready so strong. I mean look at stuff like one punch or overlord. its sometimes just fun to see a character who doesn't need to train. Has anyone else played with this idea? Curious to see how you added conflict/plot in the story. I did one as well (fantasy war story) but had the issue being the character trying to retire while everyone wanted to fight them.
@@tibot4228 as others have said, opm isn't really about the fights. The fights cause growth and conflict between people who are considered heroes and the "good guys". It's more a personal growth story. Look at fubuki and how she changed since meeting saitama. Or king after the garou arc. It's a pretty interesting concept, where at face value the fights are the show and spectacle, but hardly is the plot. Saitama is simply the strongest there is. We know once he shows up he will win. One's stories, the main character is too strong, and must grow in another way. Look at mob psycho. He can do anything with his psychic powers, but chooses to focus on getting physically fit and stronger instead of relying on his power
Power escalation has to be stricktly connected to character growth for me. Kaladin is my favorite character in the Stormlight Archive because of that exactly.
But that is not always credible. Sometimes they don't go together. Training can be a way to get better at something without growing as a person at all. They can be separated.
JoJo’s is actually the perfect example of incomparable’s as stand abilities can be vastly different with many of them not playing well at all and having their own unique win conditions.
You saying the power ceiling in the first matrix movie was just dodging bullets? The end credit scene though has him Superman fly away into the camera. Pretty sure that meant that bullet dodging was just the beginning to much more
As it's in a simulation the power ceiling is how ever high you can go before the Computer crashes really. Also the second world in Matrix is still in the simulation as Neo can use his powers there.
@@redholm the "second world" wasn't in the Matrix. Whatever allowed Neo (possibly and actual implant) to be the One and manipulate the Matrix allowed him to also effect machines. It is important that there was a real/physical world.
@@mysticolin01 Nothing actually shows that the second world was the actual real world. As machines they would know that having a second world for people who know that the Matrix is fake to let them think it's real and not struggle anymore would be very much necessary. This also very much so explain why ONLY NEO could use his powers. Everyone has the same implants. But only Neo could use his powers.
You are missing the entire plot of the Matrix series. Neo has his powers because the machines wanted him to have his powers. The sentinels the he stopped very well may have stopped intentionally without any real effect from Mr. Anderson because the machines wanted to give him the illusion of power.
I really appreciated this, and makes me feel more on track with my work in progress (that might never see the light of day...) 19:10 Since you asked, I kinda wanted to start with an OP character with mental health issues that have really traumatized them (the basically watched a genocide).... Anyhow, later (much much later...) they are kinda woken up from a self induced coma, and are kinda asked by the spiritual / other dimensional realms to help out (OP character *shrugs*). The MC's challenge is mainly internal conflict, and they prefer to solve things most practically while maintaining good rapport with those being saved (read less magic than you might expect, but some fireworks once in a while). The issue for me has always been connecting the right amount of symbolism with beautiful detail, with a fitting ending / set up for book 2 in a completely different time period. In all my hope is really to bring awareness of perhaps the struggles a person with complex thoughts might feel (clearly based on personal and secondhand experiences). Most of my troubles are requisite life experiences that help with the authentic human feels I am trying to connect to my readers. Sure its fiction, but I feel like it deserves my due diligence, and perhaps an actual first person perspective from the author (which admittedly is completely impossible for the whole story, but the minutia the small details, gestures, emotions, and thoughts do matter -- which help (OR especially hurt my writing when I get them wrong).
I personally think hard limits, whether from hard magic systems or power ceilings, are the way to go. It forces characters to have to think, be clever, and adjust. It easily lends itself both to incomperables but also to character growth, as well. Characters grow through learning, making choices, taking risks, failing, dealing with consequences, having to work with others, etc. Doing it this way easily helps with character growth, plotting, tension, themes, stakes, and character interaction. When I'm writing fiction, I want to 1) throw problems at my characters and see what they do 2) see how my characters interact with each other. At their most basic, stories are about our connection with characters; everything else is window-dressing. Having hard limits on power is an essential tool for writing well.
Agreed, or at least have a hard limit for your protagonists. Having a villain that breaks that hard limit would actually make things interesting and add tension because the protagonist then has to think of a strategic way to win with their hard limit rather than just powering up
Brandon had a lecture on this and while his magic systems tend to be harder he also gave credit to soft magic systems. Highly recommend checking it out
One of my favorite magic systems was Bleach. It was horribly flawed, few characters even used spells, but their take on spiritual power was neat. Most post had a personality, it was a manifestation of your soul, and to get stronger is to know your power. The Shinigami have to communicate with their "zanpkauto" to even gain a grasp of their powers. The better you are at this, the higher your sword releases. I liked that introspective take.
even though it was probably like only once or twice, I still remember momo being creative with her use of spells. Even when she was outclassed in terms of strength with the opponents she fought, she was still able to come up with interesting combinations with the spells she knew to stay ahead of them. I always thought that was neat
I don't see as everyone not using kido ad a flaw as it showed diversity having some characters were more versed in it than pure warriors and you needed a prowess to use it effectively
I liked Kido well enough, I just wished we could have seen more of it and more applications of the different spells. That being said, I also greatly enjoy Kubo’s take on spiritual power and the concept of Zanpakuto and how personal it is for someone to gain power with their Zanpakuto
I loved that too. It had some really great potential, and the strength of spirit, calmness of mind, and acceptance of self were such cool ideas to play with. And then it went and added a Ying/yang aspect with the half-hollows (I forgot what theyre called), and the potential grew even more. But the author really didnt handle it well. It totally went the Naruto route.
I didn't fine Kido to be horribly flawed. I just took it as characters didn't often use it in combat because trying to do a spiritual chant while imminent threat is ahead would be a disadvantage. Therefore only characters that had high levels of mastery over that form of magic (Aizen, Kisuke and Byakuya) could properly use it in combat in effective ways that didn't leave them open.
Very instructive video. Certainly among the most definitive on the topic available here. It made me think of power escalation through the seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Buffy starts with all the power she’ll ever have, but it requires constant training for her to learn how to actually use it. She becomes more and more proficient as the series progresses, and as well moves from resenting her training to strongly advocating for it. She’s even offered more power at one point in I think the last season, when facing her most powerful enemies ever, but she rejects it because of the price she fears she’s have to face. Often, she has to face down much stronger enemies and loses initially, only to figure out ways of overcoming their advantages. It’s so often interesting because the solutions can come from so many sources - more or smarter training, external magical objects, , military-grade conventional weapons, knowledge gained from research, friends and allies, or even just clearly thinking things through. It wasn’t perfect, but it was seldom boring or predictable. And it very often left you wondering “how the hell is she going to beat X?” The weird thing about Korra, at least to me, was how her version of the Avatar State never seemed to have powers for each element much beyond any she displayed when not in the A.S. That’s in clear contrast to Ang’s Avatar State, which seemed to have 20 times or more power for each element. Whether or not one liked the giant mech in season four, it would have been awesome to see Ang’s A.S. vs. Mechakuvira. Anyway, excellent job. Being clear, complete and concise is no small accomplishment but you really pulled it off here.
One risk I wanna mention about power escalation: it is possible to make powers escalate so much that your reader can look back at the beginning of your story and find it impossible that it ever got this far. Graham the wizard who loves cats could never conceivably have become old enough to learn to pull cats out of his hat if the world is full of volatile and destructive experts itching to pick fights and kill innocents, each one conveniently more powerful than the last even though logically the weaker ones could never have conceivably survived this long either. I have seen web novels that fall into this problem.
Web novel and web comics suffer this alot. As well as bad power escalation in general. Web based writing is great for getting your voice and ideas out of your head but they typically do not have the experience or access to skilled editors to stop these pitfalls and/or figure out new solutions. Ex: the gamer gives the Mc a soft power system that gives him more power and abilities at very low cost to himself. This broke the story for me when it allowed such power growth with nothing to really showed that he earned it.
@@ruga-ventoj Yeah, I was thinking about Last Wish System in particular, or especially web novels with a numerical stat system. If a level 1 expert has 100 strength and cannot scratch a level 2 expert with 1,000 strength who himself cannot scratch a level 3 expert with 10,000 strength... there wouldn't be level 1's! Or normal people.
@@nickolas474 Yeah this format happens a lot in east asian web novels where characters of each level easily decimate dozens of characters one level lower (except for the super genius MC of course), and somehow the world can support a social heirarchy where people of level 100 exists out there. However, a lot of popular web novels still use this kind of power structure, so I guess there is always a large audience out there for quick and cheap power fantasies.
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Your extra work paid off, you broke a complex topic into a series of actionable & thought provoking points. The people you've helped & the ideas which will come to fruition thanks to your efforts are invaluable. Thanks.
My favourite power system is stands from JoJos bizarre adventure. It's so versatile you can do anything and you can't power creep out any of the main characters
I think my favorite part of that versatility is that none of the enemies don’t have stand built for close combat mainly just trickery while the protagonists stands can obliterate anyone within punching distance. It makes these chess matches where the two forces try to stay in they’re element. Like with the fight with jotaro vs ndoul.
@@houselightkell stands usually take the form of humanoid ghosts that appear beside the user. For example, star platinum, the stand of Jotaro Kujo is just a guy that punches really hard, really fast. Compare that to let's say Steely Dan's stand, the lovers, who's power allows him to enter into another person and reflect the pain Steely Dan feels onto the person the lovers is in. Jotaro needs to come up with a way to work around the lovers in that situation.
...or One Punch Man. My protagonist's power escalates when needed. No cap. Totally OP. No question. It is the interactions, enemies' growth, and the propagandist's pacifism which is the focus of the story.
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I would more argue that rather then escalating as needed Saitama's power is already at the power ceiling he just doesn't use all of it often. Or maybe not even at all so far, like when you look at how he punches most of the time, that's not a punch with your whole body behind it which is what you need to do your strongest punch. Often its basically a tap. When he does stronger hits he changes how he strikes the opponent, so to me at least its always clear he's not putting everything into it.
Saitamas power doesn’t escalate whenever needed it’s a constant thing, if you’ve just read the show I can understand the confusion but monsters have survived his punches before, they aren’t just infinitely strong.
All your writing videos really help me learn to be a better writer, I've watched the pacing video about seven times, but somehow this one totally passed me by! So happy I finally got to watch it, so much useful stuff in here!!! At this point my notebook is almost entirely filled with stuff from your videos. I love it. Thank you for your service.
@@seigeengine gotta agree especially the "gather points by doing x system" and "powerfull immortal returns from heaven back to his prevoous life in the city and get's revenge"
I'm working on a character with powerful psionic abilities. Shes going to start out only able to manipulate inanimate objects. Shes going to take to this portion of her abilities like a fish to water and use them for espionage and theft. Then when she gets a bodyguard/trainer and starts gaining one or two people related abilities (mind reading/control) shes going to develope a martial arts style where she uses telekinetic controlled weapons for offense and hand to hand combat techniques for defense. I jave figured out my power cieling or where her powers will peak but i don't want her to get too much more powerful then that; i much prefer a cunning character over a powerful one. Thanks again for a great video about something i don't think many story creators consider: especially noobs ike me.
I keep coming back to this video and I still love that your advice from both this and other videos can apply to any stories, whether novel series or movie/ television scripts.
I keep revisiting this and other videos too. It's good to have quick check in when I'm stuck on a point in my WIP. Also it's just a really good video to watch.
One of my characters is pretty much at full powers from the beginning of the story and doesn’t face any significant physical opposition from a single antagonistic force. His main problem, however, is that he always wants to solve every problem with the special abilities that only he possesses, even while he’s training to be a part of a team within a rebellion, and so his team eventually start training on their own. Later, the rebellion’s main hideout is attacked by the military and the character and his team are in a unique position to defeat the attack, but the character decides to act on his own and ends up nearly killing his leaders and his team and securing the victory of the military. So he has to eventually learn to play in a team, while still having the same powers. His powers don’t increase over the course of the story. They increase once, in his second scene, where he reaches the power ceiling pretty much at the beginning of the story and I use this as part of the inciting event.
Just make sure he is still enduring. From just reading this he sounds like a ball hogger. Make sure to convey that he's doing this to help, not for glory or because he feels he is the best
I have a writing project, where one character starts out in the prime of his power, but then makes a decision that will better his life, but also rob him of his greatest abilities, therefore making him vulnerable, therefor threatening his new life and physical existence. The stakes are rising because there is a power de-escalation.
@Vinicius Raposo That's fine but won't change what I said, the audience still needs to like the character. Imagine if Zuko from ATLA didn't get the screen time he got in the Earth saga and then just popped up wanting to change. I wouldn't be invested or want it to happen. To make that kind of character arc you have to give the reader something to like about the character
Learning so much from watching your videos. Definately helping when I'm probing my own work for flaws, missed opportunities or weakness. Thanks for this. Please continue the great work you're doing :)
"Tell me about your stories" In my story, the Magic system combines traits from Hard and Soft Systems in the sense that, while the rules behind what Magic can do and it's properties are strict, one's imagination and mental strength play a large part in their abilities as a Mage. There's this turquoise-coloured Aura called Flow that fills the air and is contained in every living being. It's colourless in the air Flow can be Transmuted into eight different Elements: Fire, Steam, Water, Ice, Sand, Earth, and Lava. People are either born with or develop markings on their bodies called Gates, which allow them to release the Flow within them and control, manipulate, and transmute it as if it were an extension of their own body. Kinda like a psychic, but they can only control Flow. Everyone's Gates look different and develop in different places. They get darker the more Flow a person is able to release out of their Gates, and the patterns get more complex the better they are at controlling Flow. This is more of a design choice, but characters do use it to gauge each other's power at a glance. You CAN transmute Flow in the air, but if you're not mentally strong enough to do so you'll get a headache at best and bleed from your eyes at worst. Everyone is born with an Affinity towards one Element; that's the one they can transmute Flow into the best. Individuals can only Transmute Flow into their Affinity and the four Elements closest to it, locking the remaining three from their use forever* There's a little chart to see what Elements a person can('t) use: -----------Fire---------- ------Lava-----Steam----- Earth-------------- Water ------Sand------Ice------ -----------Wind---------- (I have no idea how that looks on mobile I'm sorry) That's the "Hard" part of the Magic System. And since these aren't the ACTUAL Elements, but just Flow BEHAVING like the real thing, people are able to alter the properties of the Magic they use. So things like Cold Lava and super bright Fire you can stand in without burning are possible. "If you can say something about a Magic Element, you can change it" is a good way to sum it up. But some of the harder to comprehend stuff takes more of a mental strain. The possibilities are literally endless. And that's the "Soft" part of the Magic System. That's pretty much it, but there is a bit more stuff that I'll just leave out so this isn't long af edit: spelling
@@michaelanderson3672 You don't have many replies, So I'm gonna enter the discusion. first of all, I like it. It's a smart way of solving this and I had a similar idea. In My setting (Aurora) witch is...uhh... Sword and Sorcery taken into 2015. There are races, magic, but they also have cars, internet, hard political system, etc. So you can have a fat griffon riding a truck, gulping beer. Magic is used by the Djinn/genies, And it's very hard to explain how it works. basics: it's like "love" in a way, that it's not an actual thing, more like a concept. Like time or space. All around us, yet just teoreticly existing. It comes from my own spiritual belief that Outside of our world, witch is logical and dictated by phisics and science - there is the exact opposite. A spiritual realm, chaotic where logic is shifting, but words and symbols have great power. And My magic is not an element of the universe, it IS the universe in a way. Unlimited, infinite, streching and squashing to will. between atoms. growing from drops to oceans. it is nothing...But is can be anything if guided my a mind. that's where the Djinn come in. Using Sachium - metal organs in their fingertips, witch seem to attract magic flow the most. Since the Sachium is connected to the brain, they can literaly play with The clay of reality. focus on a sensation, BOOM! fire. feel sturdy, BOOM! gems. It can NOT however: - control minds - move non-magical objects (Golden bar made by a Djinn is diffrent than a non magical one. If the Djinn doesn't focus on it, it will return back to the sea of mana) - Make life, animate objects. for the last part - maybe it's too long, and I don't know If you want to hear how it's devided. CHEMISTRY!!! There are two elememtal tables - the material and the magical. The material one is all that we have - carbon, uranium, gold, xenon. You can take an object and find chemical elements inside. You know, like it is in our world. The magical table are the elements that are not found anywhere in nature. While you cannot Make a magical forcefield just like that, You can use Oraphium in it's energy form to form a sphere around yourself. they are more Abstract. And there's devision, I don't know if you want to hear, But you can tell me more. Are there any Races in your world? Gods perhaps? I like lore so... I'll wait.
It looks pretty cool, I work on a power system too with elements, and it's funny to see how everyone has their own way of executing things, great job 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Most of this feels aimed at softer magic systems... I'd like to hear more on how to handle power growth in hard magic systems if possible. Great work as always, though!
true this is aimed at soft magic systems but i imagine in hard magic systems it depends a lot on the system with most systems having in built power ceilings e.g. mistborn where for most of the story there's no power creep. most of the variance in antagonist power in hard magic systems are: unique or immoral uses/strategies "black magician" 'Canavan', people with power from outside the system (e.g.political) e.g. "mistborn" 'Sanderson', or people with greater understanding of the origins of the power e.g. "the warded man" 'Brett'
true this is aimed at soft magic systems but i imagine in hard magic systems it depends a lot on the system with most systems having in built power ceilings e.g. mistborn where for most of the story there's no power creep. most of the variance in antagonist power in hard magic systems are: unique or immoral uses/strategies "black magician" 'Canavan', people with power from outside the system (e.g.political) e.g. "mistborn" 'Sanderson', or people with greater understanding of the origins of the power e.g. "the warded man" 'Brett'
@Cyber Simba 6 Its about defining the rules. Fullmetal Alchemist is an anime with a hard magic system in that there are rules set very early specifically defining what you can and cannot do. You cannot bring people back from the dead even if you have all of the physical pieces. The soul is an energy that is not infinite. It ends. The system allows you to change one object into another object of equal pieces as much and as often as you want, but not more or less than the original. A soft magic system is like Harry Potter. I say this word and this thing happens, but the writer doesn't want you to think about it too much or the story falls apart. The people in Harry Potter somehow can live in poverty when anyone can use magic to grow plants and fit entire houses inside of boots. A soft magic system does not have hard rules that must be followed i.e. a hard magic system.
@@h.stiner6467 People living in poverty despite being able to use magic to grow plants doesn't really have anything to do with it being a soft magic system. That's more of a plot hole. The magic is not given strict rules, but there's still consistency and we are still aware of the magic's limits when it's well written. A soft magic system does not necessarily create plot holes.
Just watched this and I have to say I love your treatment of writing techniques. My power system is a more boiled down version of “strength=ability” it has to do with energy flow throughout the world. Now the twist (if you can call it that) is that the energy required to do a spell does not always (actually almost never) come from the caster. Much like Eragon, you can weave your spells to include where you want the energy to be supplied from. The stakes though come in with battles. In a battle you very simply do not have the time to word a spell to say “cast a fireball and use that tree over there”. Sometimes al you can do is “fireball”. The catch is then, that you are leaving it up to the unbiased universe to decide where to pull that energy from. And when you call up a fireball, that means a person will likely drop dead somewhere in the world. Though mine is more on the hard magic side of the spectrum I think this creates good moral stakes for the protagonists who stand for protecting life and loved ones. It forces the “lone wolf wizard” to be very cleaver in how he does his spell craft when it comes to battles. In my world most magic users work in teams. One doing the actual fighting, One casting spells to pull energy from predetermined places and One supplying that energy from the one to the other. What do you think about power escalation in this context where youre often forced to gamble with where the energy supply for your magic will come from? I think it requires mages to be very cleaver with small spells using very little spells and underpowered magic to solve big big big problems.
Also I know it’s ultimately up to the writer to create the rules of how much energy=how much magic BUT taking a page from so many soft magic system, I LOVE the idea of magic, no matter how big or small (scale of lighting a candle vs erupting a volcano) has great consequences. I love the idea that if you’re gonna break the rules of nature and do magic, you gotta pay the price. How do you balance that?
Loved this episode. I know how you feel about Dragonball's constant increase in power and threat of villains. I've even called the problem of power escalation "The DBZ Effect" in the past.
Dark Knight actually directly hints at using the 'Incomparables' instrument. During interrogation Joker outright states "All your power is useless here, you have nothing to threaten me with".
I like to right short stories. I mostly write about protagonists who start out being weak see someone great at a similar skill set or even sometimes a different skill set and then try to get to there level. A recent one a did was about a world where the main power was speed. Once the protagonist got the level of his “icon” his worldly perception increased enough to see beings significantly faster than he could have possibly seen before. I did not think of this from the start but think it fits in remarkably well.
My go to example of power escalation is the Lensman series where pretty much every book introduces some new superweapon that's only measurable in terms of how much it overpowers the previous book's superweapon. One nitpick though: The Matrix breaks its own power ceiling well before the sequels get involved. When he's ready, Neo doesn't need to dodge bullets - plus he transcends the jump program by literally flying - and there's whatever he does to Agent Smith... Yes, his powers carrying over into the real world is further escalation, but it's not the first escalation beyond the established bar.
Yeah, I also didn't understand the agents as the "true" power ceiling. They were the perceived power ceiling for the protagonists, but Neo's power escalation still felt believable to me in the course of the story. I liked how the barrier between human and machine grew thinner and thinner on both sides. Agent Smith started to show human weaknesses and became more and more deranged; we meet programs like the oracle, who seem very human, and Neo becomes more inhuman with his new powers and connection to the machines. All in all, the Matrix power system seems to not be a "hard magic system", but rather soft. It has a mystical element and therefor, power ceilings are not as important, IMHO.
@@johannageisel5390 Yeah, a key element of the Matrix movies (particularly the sequels) is that the tension doesn't come from "can Neo beat X?", but rather from "will Neo choose X?" The first movie is all about Neo accepting himself as The One. Again and again, he's faced with choices, where he can choose to be the messiah, or to remain ordinary. Whether to follow the white rabbit; whether to climb the building or accept arrest; whether to help the Agents catch Morpheus; whether to get out of the car; which pill to take; how to answer the Oracle; whether to unplug Morpheus or try to rescue him; the decision to catch Trinity; whether to stand and fight; whether to die... The second movie has one blindingly obvious moment of choice at the climax, and the third revolves around Neo's final choice to sacrifice himself to destroy Smith. None of them are really about what Neo can do - they're all about what he chooses to do.
I have not thought much about power escalation and this helped a lot. Because of the type of world it is...there will be some magic and mechs in it. Soooooo...that is all i care to reveal about the nature of the story at the moment. Thanks for all the info!! Great job!
5:18 The whole "screaming louder to gain power" trope of Dragon Ball is less a writing topic as it is a visual one because it is an animated show as opposed to the manga. The "screaming" lets us, the viewer, understand that this character is now powering up in order to deal with the conflict before them. They are long and drawn out (in order to fill time due to trying to wait for the timing of manga releases) and are typically very bright, bold, and flashy. It's part of the reason why the series is so beloved because of how simultaneously ridiculous and awe-inspiring these scenes are.
Agreed. Dragon Ball also has very clear writing of character growth or power escalation, and growth of character that helps them beat the villain happens all the time. Goku beats Vegeta because he was raised to be humble, always grow and to know that there will always be someone better, while Vegeta was arrogant Goku beats Frieza because he embraces his nature and his nurture Gohan learns that it's okay to use violence to defend peace to defeat Cell Goku defeats Buu because he learns that he can use the best aspects of his Saiyan nature and Earthly nurture together, while recognizing their strengths and weaknesses (like Saiyans placing pride and fighting before everything else, and Earthlings becoming complacent and needing to be pushed to save themselves), and he makes peace and learns this lesson with Vegeta, where they finally become friends Sorry long post, but I don't like the stereotype of Dragon ball having no substance. It's not a masterpiece but there's a lot of writing and morals to it
It kind of amazed me that he is going in-depth with what makes power systems good and then he goes and undermines Dragon Ball in a way where he almost come off as ignorant. Not saying he has to like DB or that this video is bad (I've taken plenty of notes from it) but I feel like he should've seen that there was more to it than "screaming louder". This is the same show that inspired many people to do many things from writing the next great stories or become physically stronger and healthier.
@@M4x_P0w3r I'm iffy on that because its important to remember that Buu is a magical being as well (he can absorb, regenerate, turn objects into candy, change his own physical characteristics etc.), and as we expand into Super, we've seen other characters manipulate or overcome other elements like time as or they're magical beings as well. But given that Gotenks did the same I think and along with the fact that DBS wasn't a thing, I can see it being an asspull out of nowhere and it probably didn't need to happen. I still stand by my statement though. For most of Dragon Ball we don't see characters pull stuff like that out of nowhere. They stuck by their power system well up until the Buu Saga or DBS. Even if someone gets angry enough to power up, that doesn't mean an automatic win either.
So glad I found this channel. Video essays are my sh*t!!! Came over off a Jesse Tribble video(highly recommend his channel if you like these movie video essays, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mr. Tribble’s face, but his content is A-1 quality. As is Dominic Noble, for book-to-movie adaptation break downs!!!
There's one story that handled power escalation in a way I hadn't really seen before: it totally embraced it... and it worked (at least for me). In the korean web novel Everyone Else Is A Returnee, the main character grows in power at a phenomenal rate and to a phenomenal scale over the course of the story, but I never lost interest. I can identify a few reasons why it worked, but I'm not sure I truly understand it. Firstly, although the power levels escalate, the stakes don't really... the stakes are always pretty much whether the main character (and as he grows a bit, a few people he cares about) will survive (actually, the world is at stake too, but the reader is never lead to focus on that too much). Secondly, the world is rapidly changing, and a fair amount of the tension derives not from whether the main character can overcome the hurdle immediately in front of him, but whether he can stay ahead of the curve in the longer term. The rapidly changing world also serves to explain why greater and greater power is required to defend the same stakes. Thirdly, as the power levels become very high, the source of tension shifts from power-based issues to mystery and strategy-based issues... the main character is now the newcomer on a massive and ancient stage, and has to try to uncover the secrets and plans of the other major players on that stage, and how they involve him. Finally, the power escalation, though huge, never really breaks the paradigm that's been set up from the beginning, it only reveals more of it. That third point bears some similarity to how The Dresden Files handles things. The source of tension there doesn't have so much to do with whether Dresden can defeat the bad guy, but whether he can even figure out who the bad guy is and what he's doing, through the maze of various entities involved all with different angles in the situation, in time to end up with a result that he can at least live with.
![On Writing: hard magic systems in fantasy [ Avatar l Fullmetal Alchemist l Mistborn ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iMJQb5bGu_g/mqdefault.jpg)
EDIT: *they just claimed this video*. So, my week has been kind of crap. Sony just went through my channel and claimed every single Avatar video I have nearly. I don't know what this will do to my income, but if you'd like to support me and this kind of educational content, please consider heading over to patreon >>> www.patreon.com/hellofutureme
So cool! When will u work with the Templin Institute to make videos?
God damnit Sony.
Oh no, that must sucks since so many of your writing videos heavily feature avatar :( Hope you’ll get them back up on your channel soon, I would hate to see them disappear forever. Love your content btw!
That sucks. It's weird why is it Sony and not viacom?
Bro, that's rough
Power creep reminds me of what I hear about the Flash. He's the fastest man alive ... Who is somehow never fast enough
I was thinking about the flash show too, but most of the time, it's the "power of team/love" who is really make him winning, but not without consequences/lost
@@StefwI0u i feel like that is one way the flash show is better than the comics
It really comes down to how literal the statement seems. The show is decent in this regard; Barry Allen gets told point-blank, "What, did you think we're the only two speedsters?" setting a tone that since he isn't even close to unique, there will always be someone better, or there will always be a problem he may not be fast enough to solve whereas another speedster could. When the character is treated as infallible due to Main Character powers, the statement comes off as a declaration of fact, and thus the tension runs headlong into a tree when it must invariably be proven incorrect for the sake of plot happening.
The biggest problem with the Flash is that it forces smart characters to be dumb because otherwise they'd be too powerful
I think the Flash villains really show a recognition of power creep in the show.
Season 1: the Reverse Flash is a speedster pulling strings, overall a good first villain
Season 2: Zoom, the horror version of a speedster and an ok Villain but the "I'm not fast enough" started getting old
Season 3: Salvitar, and now a god is fighting us and the must go faster has worn out its welcome, overall bad villain
Season 4: The Thinker, finally someone who Barry doesn't need to out run, a good change of pace who made this season much better than the last one.
Season 5: Cicada, a genuinely scary villain who turned off powers instead of competing directly. He caused some great character tension especially with Nora be present
Season 6: I haven't watched yet
I think the show writers realized after season 3 that if the only made Barry fight progressively faster speedsters as the main villain that the show would stagnant so they switched to incommperable villains. Note even if Barry had to outsmart the Thinker, their main powers were different enough for it to be much more enjoyable than 2 gci flashes racing as the speed of light and somehow not dieing.
_When I take the High Ground, it is a power escalation of both literal _*_and_*_ figurative magnitude!_
General Kenobi!
Dude, you're everywhere.
Obi-Wan Kenobi Hello there!
You are a bold one
*Who would win?*
Anakin, one of the | A couple of
most powerful Force |meters in
users ever. |elevation.
This just gives me new appreciation for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. The power ceiling is firmly established in the first few episodes, with Izumi’s introduction and the Elrics’ backstory. The main antagonist attempts to break the power ceiling and outwit the fundamental laws of the magic system, but ultimately suffers the consequences for his actions. It’s a fantastic climax that delivers on spectacle without sacrificing logic.
I loved how in FMA: Brotherhood the power celling technically allows you to do godly things, you just have to be able to pay. And thats the catch since everything requires a payment of equal value some actions become impossible. Basically what is worth a human life, a lesson learned over the series. And if you are wrong god/truth/logic/karma whatever that thing was is coming for you. And in the end the villain tried to become a god but karma required that the Elric's defeat him and undo most of the damage as his price for his arrogance.
also, Ed and Al basically start as powerful in the beginning as they are in the end (with exception of Al gaining the clap transmute ability Ed has had all along), the difference is the knowledge of so much more in terms of styles of alchemy, and friends. I dont watch FMAB thinking "Ed is getting more powerful", i watching thinking "He's getting smarter"
@@quinnmarchese6313 and wiser, damn I love that series.
This! This is going to be my gold standard for "magic worldbuilding." Because there are established rules for alchemy, and you can bend them... if you're creative enough. But Ed and Al literally spend a significant portion of the show looking for loopholes (the philosopher's stone) and then discover that while possible, those loopholes aren't loopholes after all (you're trading something far, far worse than a life for a life). I really, really liked the early establishment of power ceilings and the increasing capability of the protagnoists to counter great evil relying on other factors (teamwork, strategy, creativity, and technique) despite having more or less the same abilities throughout and featuring a host of "non-magic" characters very prominently and importantly despite their lack of all-powerful alchemy (Riza, Armstrong's sister, Winry).
i also got inspired by this thread to rewatch fmab and realized that Al gets clap transmutation really early (right after we meet Izumi for the first time)
Now I wanna see a story where the protagonist starts off at the height of their power and over the course of the arc gets gradually less powerful until by the climax they’re at an all time power low, perhaps powerless.
Could be the story of a hero well past their prime, learning that there are other ways to be powerful.
That's an interesting. If someone were to write a good story with a theme like that, I'd like to check it out.
There's hints of that in MHA with all might and there are hints that a lot of the current pro heroes are badly injured in one way or another. They aren't the main focus plot wise compared to the students but it does create some interesting ideas for a changing of the guard kind of thing
@@Darkstar1484A rising star magical prodigy gets diagnosed with a rare illness which causes their magical abilities to slowly wane.
With their magic on the way out, they must come to terms with the fact that the bright future they had envisioned is now impossible.
While initially disheartened, they determine that they'll leave their mark on history while they can still do so, and throw themselves into their life with renewed vigor.
From there I dunno. But I could see it playing out like some sort of wizard Stephen Hawking.
Hxh did something like that with Gon. He grew more and more powerful throughout the series, peaked his power, then lost it all. He rose to top of power and fell to the bottom.
This is the plot of Noblesse. MC is the strongest character in the series but his power is finite and he weakens over the course of the series despite the antagonists getting stronger forcing him to use more of his decreasing power reserves.
Extremely underrated channel, you release impeccable content that needs more attention.
>underrated
>475k subs
>consistently decent like ratio across his videos
>multiple collaborations with other channels
>lively discord and decent patreon funding
>wrote a book that already sells quite some copies
I think underrated isn't a very accurate word to describe him, he's fairly well known and liked.
Jellal! How do you get literally everywhere!
We meet again
How is it underated? Half a million people are subscribed and somehow I know people IRL who don't know each other who all found this channel on their own, and I'm not even from an english speaking county.
Not underrated at all. It's very well known. I think you're just new here.
The more I learn about writing, the more I appreciate just how incredible Avatar the Last Airbender was
If you like a show like Avatar the last Airbender, then you probably know nothing about writing anyway
@@kyleward7417 well... Okay but each episode besides the infamous ones have a good balance between serialization and event-of-the-week.
@@kyleward7417 I know everything about writing and I like a show like Avatar the last Airbender.
It's a sign of great writing when you don't notice all the ways it's great at first. You're too absorbed in the story to analyse it.
I always like in many reviews where ppl are like "so these are the 5 types of tension, 16 paths of growth, 12 subversive archetypes, how people learn through these 100 types of suffering, how a story changes with man vs man, monster, nature or himself, etc..... so let's take a look at Zuko over here..."
Boy don't catch a break
ATLA's creators: How much reference of our work do you want in your videos?
Hello Future Me: Yes
Sony: No
@@CarlTackett Shut up Sony. You are not vaicom and do not own avatar the last air bender.
All of it. All of the reference.
@Not Important I agree with u they should
Not Important and Aaron Ehaz
Jokes on you, Graham the Wizard. I shoot lightning bunnies from my hat.
I'm pretty certain, Graham the Wizard who likes cats' powers come from the sparks in the cat's fur.
@@johannageisel5390 oh my God that sounds cool actually. Like what if his powers only come from his cat like a mcguffin. Would he interesting to see how tension could be made from that
@@Dwaggy One immediately available story ark is Graham, the wizard, who likes cats learning to get used to solving problems without his cat.
@@Unanimoustoo I guess another story arc is him getting a magic pen from his cat with which he can transform into a Sailor Senshi to fight in the name of the Moon and love.
@@johannageisel5390 another ark could be he has to fight the evil were-dog army to save the cat kingdom. Only to realize the alpha dog is none other than his childhood friend, Dave.
Then there's a redemption ark for Dave.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has tons of incomparable villains. There isn't a power escalation, but a weirdness escalation.
i mean the villains are very weird for sure it is even in its name " bizarre" but they aren't really "incomparable" when it comes to quality , let's not even bring up seinens . Even with shonens there are other great and imo better villains than anything jojo has from part 1 to 5 (with kira being the best of jojos) .
Hunter x hunter is one shonen that i think has better villains with meruem , hisoka , chrollo , pariston (manga included) and tserriednich that is shaping up to become a great villain too.
One piece i heard had some good villains too ( didn't really get far into it yet)
Yu Yu Hakusho has toguro and sensui are good too.
@@idirbouchdoug1567 That being said, President Valentine is quite up there in terms of villains, about Toguro level imo
because jojo mostly dont use "he is more powerful, i have to overpowered him" but "how is his abilites works?, i have to find a way around his abilites and exploit the weakness of his abilites." i find it interesting, maybe araki's villains isnt the best in term of character, but araki's way of how to make his protagonist able to defeat the villain is good.
part 3, the crusaders vs d'arby brothers, its a mentality fight
part 6, jolyne and emporio vs miu miu, how to fight someone that makes you only remember 3 things
part 8, josuke vs jobin, a stand involved beetle fight
most of the protagonist ability is already overpowered and even some of the villains ability is rather weak, but since there really is no power escalation, its about who can oversmart the other
@@thepopgroup3366 The only part where it felt bullshit, was Part 5 with Giorno pretty much having a god stand and not having to understand his abilities.
@@doppelsotria4620 That is why Arabki never brought back requiem stands. I think he realized how much of an asspull GER was.
The trick to a character who wins not because he's powerful, but because he's clever, is that the Author has to be clever. Consistently clever if he wants to keep his audience. Power Escalation is an end-run (Literally) around that. At some point, Dr. Manhattan wins, by snapping his fingers. He can't escalate any more, and therefore the only threats that can be posed to him are either Personal (He falls in love, so someone's tears can actually affect him) or Existential.
That's true. Either the author has to be naturally clever or they have to do an insane amount of research.
Good example in my opinion of a character winning through cleverness consistently is Kvothe in The King Killer Chronicles. The key for the author is that they have to be clever enough to figure out the clever things their character does, but they don't have to be as clever as the character. If an author comes up with a thing in half a year that takes a character an instant to realize, it makes that character all the more clever.
One thing George R. R. Martin has said is that Tyrion's cleverness and wit are what he wishes he were able to be, but in reality it takes him days to write the lines that Tyrion says spontaneously.
While Kvothe does have some power creep in that he gets more powerful as time goes on, he never becomes Doctor Manhattan, so he has to continue to solve his challenges with a combination of his cleverness and the skills he's picked up.
Aaaaand oops I wrote this half way through the video before he brought up this exact example, lmao.
@@ceciliaellis662 I ran into this problem playing D&D (We got the 2nd edition Boxed Set for Christmas in 1983, and my mom was the DM) Anyone can play the dumb Barbarian with Intelligence as a dump stat, because you don't have to be strong to play someone with 18+ Strength, or tough with 18+ Constitution. However, to play a Wizard with high Intelligence, or a Cleric with high Wisdom. At some point, the DM just has to roll a D20 and explain her carefully laid out puzzle, because the Minmaxer that got massive damage out of his Fireballs couldn't figure it out. A writer can't just keep rolling a D-20, until they beat Sherlock Holmes' 18+ Intelligence. You have to write Moriarty as a Worthy Adversary. Or, just throw in a cliche scene over a chessboard, without showing the moves, and have one say "Checkmate."
@@PsiberzerkerJust because someone has high scores in either Intelligence or Wisdom doesn't mean that they're infallible when it comes to mental obstacles. There's a reason why the Absent-minded Professor is a trope after all.
I like this quote from the Hobbit movie series:
"Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love."
It's counter intuitive, but to me it indicates that integrity and humility can undermine and topple the opposing dishonesty and pride. It's good vs. evil rather than power vs. power I suppose. More of a moral debate than a game of chess.
The 💝👇 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle
th-cam.com/video/egU0pbmYq3w/w-d-xo.html
The 💝👆 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle!
💕💝💕💝💕💝💕💝
The Last Airbender 🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃!!!!!!!
Individual agency over top down enforced tyranny. Guess my political leaning? Lol
@@lskyrocker1 leftist?
I think the way it’s delivered in the film drives your point home too
Yeah Frodo is like the weakest of all the characters, and doesn't even "increase" in power or strength during the story, because the story isn't based on power or strength, but based on the arc and character development. That's why I really like the final boss of the Lord of the Rings Return of the King game for the PS2 (SPOILER alert for Lord of the Rings).
In all the game when you play the Hobbit's part of the story you control Sam, protecting Frodo and gaining exp so upgrading the moves and stats, etc. Then at the final level, you face Gollum controlling Frodo, not Sam (that during the game you upgraded a lot), and Frodo is at level 1, facing a not so strong opponent, but it still have the most tension of the story, because of the arc, not because of power. The previous level was literally using one of the other powerful character defending the gates against thousands of orcs, and the final level is an hobbit fighting Gollum, while stil being more epic and creating more tension than the previous level
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
Episode 1: Fighting Giant Robots with a Smaller Robot and Guns.
Episode 27: Fighting a Multiverse-Sized Robot with a Multiverse-Sized Robot while throwing Galaxies as shurikens, also the enemy can slip through Time and Space creating multiple different Timelines.
When you show an intro of the power ceiling, but drill a hole through it like the heavens you already bore through!
I was thinking about this the entire video, because I still love it. I am still invested in the characters. But I also agree that obscene power escalation (*cough*dbz*cough*) is dumb and i stop caring about those types of stories. What i dont understand is why i feel differently about Gurren Lagann. Why do I adore GL, but hate DBZ?
@@william591 the original dragon ball had all the good character development and stories apparently. But in gurren lagann infinite power was necessary for survival and for my ainaki LoL. just a thought but who the hell do you think i am?
@@william591 I think it just works with GL cause it fits the tone (Manly and Over the top). I haven't watvhed DBZ for a long time but i think it just gets waaay too far (I liked kid goku saga better than adult goku, cause the power scaling was just right.)
@@william591 It works really well in GL and not in DBZ because the former is a short story. DBZ does this never endingly on a course of hundreds of episodes and several arcs. If DBZ was a 20-40 something episode series, it would not have become such a parody of itself.
One Punch Man is imo also a fun example illustrating this, not by Power Escalation, but that he is basically the most powerful being in existence, without any real power growth. This illustrates perfectly that personal development (like finding accrptance in society) is completely able to invest someone in the story, if no tension is derived from the power level of the individual
Completely agree. OPM is a unique case also in that part of its charm is the tongue-in-cheek way it makes fun of DBZ and other similar "cliche" anime power escalation (i.e. "consecutive normal punches!!!")
Not only that, but there's little-to-no power escalation for the villains and monsters either. Vaccine Man: the villain that get obliterated by Saitama at the started, is actually more powerful and more of a threat than The Deep Sea King. Despite that, there's far more tension in the Deep Sea King arc because Saitama is in another city during the Deep Sea King's rampage. The tension comes not from whether or not Saitama can win, but whether or not Saitama can make it in time.
Boy; the show's good.
No, no, no. You guys got it all wrong. The real tension comes from if Saitama can get to the supermarket for groceries in time so that he still has discount.
The thing about One Punch Man isn't his philosophy or how he as a character grows, but WHEN he gets there... it's a series where everything is defined by everything around Saitama rather than Saitama himself...
Saitama doesn't have a philosophy (at first, there seemed to be one where it seemed that being too good at something is bad, but that is later disproven when Saitama talks with King where you learn that Saitama is really just an adrenaline junkie. He doesn't want the challenge, but the adrenaline rush...
But honestly, the stories where the MC is usually OP is often not focused on the battle challenges as much as it is other situations they are dealing with. Emotional or comic issues and challenges where being OP doesn't matter.
OPM is a comedy, it only looks more dramatic with the artwork of the manga and anime but the point isn't in the tension of defeating the enemy
Hello Future Me, could you do a video about injuries and healing in stoytelling? The cost of being injured in the character's capacity to affect the plot and how long a character should remain injured and out of commission and what do you do with the plot in the meanwhile. I've found most authors sort of distract us from character injuries and have them magically heal broken bones in 2 in-universe days without being explicitly healed through magic (in fact, healing magic tends to be rare in books, that's another potential topic).
Yes
I love a good story where the hero suffers a serious injury and has to live with it. If done right, it develops the character dealing with consequences as well as adding a twist to how we see their progression. That's probably part of what made Full Metal Alchemist so unique.
One series I would have been interested to see here is Demon Slayer, because it does a lot of things well with these ideas of escalating power. Despite that, characters absolutely take a beating during their battles and while it doesn't dwell on injuries and recuperating it does do it a little better than some other literature where wounds heal overnight and never leave any lasting damage.
Eldest, the second book of the Inheritance cycle, does a remarkably good job of handling character injuries. Eragon spends the first half of the story being afflicted by an injury he gained at the end of the first book, and Roran gets wounded in a way that reduces his fighting ability all the way up until the beginning of book three. Both injuries are eventually dealt with, but the consequences of them are felt throughout the story and they aren't just hand-waved away like in most other stories.
@@TheMidnightillusion Sly Cooper 2 ending left 2 of the protags with 2 very different life changing injuries Bentley got his leg crushed and was crippled while Murry was left emotionally broken by the whole ordeal. You see how they come to terms with these injuries throughout Sly 3.
Excuse me sir? SIR?
"Batman" is a superpower, so much so that "Trained by Batman" is also a superpower.
The 💝👇 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle
th-cam.com/video/egU0pbmYq3w/w-d-xo.html
The 💝👆 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle!
💕💝💕💝💕💝💕💝
The Last Airbender 🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃!!!!!!!!
@@princessstar6995 no
Batman's superpower is "rich"
Sir may I ask why the 213?
Have you ever read Naruto? At the beginning of the comic, it was impressive is someone can make fog and use a sword really well. At the end, ninjas where throwing spells around that required the maps to be redrawn after the battle.
Honestly lost interest in that as the story progressed
Yeah, I thought it would be a cool story about some ninjas doing cool ninja fights but then by the end of Shippuden everyone was flying while shooting giant energy blasts and blowing up planets and it was hard to care. Like where did the ninja part go??
Frankly things stopped being tense around pein's fight for me. All the kage level shinobi were roughly equal. Yeah pain was strong but he was kind of built up as a super big bad with the ultimate power and naruto was struggling to not blow up the continent. Then there's tobi and madara and kaguya who come out of nowhere with bigger powers and naruto is now literally jesus. It's gotten so frankly ridiculous in boruto that you literally have to be an alien god to even be taken seriously
@@TheBigE9999 To be fair, Tobi was not an inherently stronger threat; at least not until he stole one of Pain's rinnegan (and even then he couldn't use its full power and was amazed that Pain was able to do so much with it) and later became the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki. Before then, his power (kamui) was basically that he was the ultimate escape artist. It was unique and interesting without raising the ceiling.
@@matthewmuir8884 granted, kamui itself wasn't busted, but the way he spammed it was, mangekyo sharingan are supposed to make you go blind, but he was just doing it whenever for like 16 years. plus the fact that he can use the rinnegan at all is bs, considering that even with an uzumaki, who are supposed to have the best chakra, wound up a near corpse, meanwhile this guy can just use it. plus i just hate the whole "oh, you thought he was the bigger threat, but I was puling the strings the WHOLE TIME" it got pulled like 5 times in tat series and frankly i feel like invalidates all previous major antagonists
Ok but I just have to say it again, Katara's power and skills improvement over the three books (that mostly happened in the background except for like one episode) is *amazing* and that last episode where we see it in full strength is *amazing* .
Instructions unclear: Made the two main characters at their peak in power at the beginning and slowly weaken them until the other characters catch up to them to kill them
Thats a great idea
Thanks man, when its finished, I'll post the name here for people that want to read
@@creeperdudeguy 👍
We will be waiting
That sounds like a fun story about two super heroes, who are growing old and want to retire, but still need to do the job.
I think the problem with power escalation in anime (like DBZ, Naruto, Bleach) comes from the fact that normally, the source material is serialised. Manga chapters are released weekly or monthly and the stories aren't given endings unless the ratings for the manga drop. Even when authors did want to end their manga in service to the story, the story's ability to bring in money gets in the way.
Kishimoto wanted Naruto over, and yet we have Boruto. Toriyama wanted DBZ's protagonist to switch to Gohan after Cell, but the fans and his editor demanded he bring Goku back and now we have Super.
I believe that this is an inherent flaw in the way that these stories are distributed that the west has an advantage over. ATLA had a distinct beginning middle and end that the writers and producers were able to execute the way they thought would serve the story best. And we praise it to this day. Kishimoto didn't start Naruto with anything more than there's this ninja kid with a demon in him that is shunned but wants to be respected by his village so his goal is to be it's leader. Somewhere over the 15 years where weekly chapters for it were released, gods, crazy eye powers and monsters in the moon became a thing.
Even if the story had taken 15 years to write anyway (like a Song of Ice and Fire and many other book series that have large gaps between instalments) the weekly nature of the serialization is a huge drawback because it doesn't allow for the refinement of distinct plot points and such. They raise the stakes and beef up the powers because unless they put years and years of preparatory work before the series debuts, they just can't find anywhere else to go with their stories. And even if they did, after they run out of ideas their editors and publishers basically force them to keep telling the story anyway.
Sorry, but you’ve got some of your info wrong.
Kishimoto gave the green light for Boruto to be serialised, he also supervices it. Toriyama did want to replace Goku with Gohan, but he changed his mind because he didn’t think Gohan fit the “mold” of a protagonist and not because he gave in to peer pressure. It’s a dumb rumour that’s been circulating and shot down for years now.
One Piece alone destroys your entire argument.
One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, FMA, My Hero Academia, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, etc.. All of these series pretty much dismantle all of what you've said (in regards to long running shounen, your argument holds absolutely no ground in the realm of shorter series). Many mangaka DO have an ending and general direction in mind when it comes to their story. And, the idea that a mangaka has absolutely no choice in regards to their series' direction or ending is ludicrous. Many mangaka have CHOSEN to end very profitable series far sooner than editors or publishers would have liked. YuYu Hakusho and Tokyo Ghoul are both good examples of this. Also, many prominent mangaka have assistants or even entire teams that work under them to assist in the process (usually drawing several pages in the place of the mangaka). This is one reason that Eiichiro Oda has consistently provided quality in One Piece for over twenty years with almost no issues in regards to power scaling or story. He has entire folders and notebooks dedicated to story planning. This isn't, of course, the case for all manga (most even) but for Kishimoto, Kubo, and Toriyama, this would have been the case. Hell, Kishimoto's head assistant is the one who works on Boruto now.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that Dragonball Super has absolutely nothing to do fan outcry or editors or even publishers. It's actually the U.S.'s fault. The American live-action movie, Dragonball Evolution, was so bad that Toriyama got angry about it. He didn't want his franchise to be remembered by that film, so he started working on some of the Dragonball anime films as a last hurrah and found that he still really enjoyed working on his world and characters. Then he started work on Super.
@@JohnKasarinlan right?!
@@MonkeyDLuffy-xo6my Out of all those series you listed only One Piece really contradicts their argument. Very few chapters of Hunter x Hunter are released per year and its constantly on Hiatus giving Togashi far more time to plan out the story and character arcs, My Hero Academia is only up to Chapter 248 or something like that while Naruto lasted around 700 chapters and Bleach lasted around 685 chapters. I'm not sure how long the FMA Manga is but FMAB is only 65 episodes, so its only slightly longer than ATLA. And Jojo's Bizarre Adventures takes place in a completely new setting with very different characters and stories in each part, Part 7 and 8 even take place in a completely different universe.
Shonen manga writers: starts sweating uncontrollably
Especially the one with the monkey boy.
@@ahmadbassam2898 drankgon blall?
@@LeanneL-y5n yeah gragon gall
Dragon ball, definitely, but I tought about Boruto also
Loll
The Legend of Korra was supposed to end after season one. That’s why it hit the power ceiling so early.
Same thing with dbz. It kept getting continued against the creators will.
That show was out of fucking control. It seemed like the creators were trying to one up themselves every other episode, so there's some new godlike ability or super ultra mega weapon all the time.
@bryan diaz varela Yes
@@slvrcobra1337 Yeah. Season 1 was alright, though nowhere near as good as AtlA. The rest was just lolz.
@Kevin If you're referring to Dragon Ball as a whole continuing past the Pilaf Saga, you are correct. If you're talking, as most often do, about the Z portion specifically, then that is incorrect. It is pure myth that he was actively forced to continue at any point in the series.
At best, we know he probably continued farther than he originally planned, but absolutely no evidence points to him wanting to end at any point during Z other than the one where he actually ended it.
I love the stromlight archive series, and Brandon Sandersons cosmere in general. he has a magic system system for his magic systems
Omg sameee
Nobody does magic systems better than Brando Sando. Pretty much my hero.
I loved Mistborn, I've been meaning to read more.
i quite like the cosmos from saint seiya. its not really magic, but more like true control over the universe and its laws. with each character able to tap into it, they truly feel like divine warriors. to the point that they are so overpowered, the gods have to literaly limit what they are allowed to do or else they could destroy the planet(maybe even the universe).
This is why I love mob psycho 100. Mob already IS the power limit, he's the strongest esper in the world from episode 1. However, most if not all of the conflict in this show stems from interpersonal relationships and mob growing as a person while his power outbursts simply serve as a tool to visualize his inner state and how far he's come on his journey to become a good, responsible and stable person. All this development eventually leads up to him preventing a huge fight with another powerful esper and instead simply sitting by the stairs and having a nice chat.
Bro really told the whole story so casually
Did I just see a Shadiversity book on a HFM video?
Best timeline ever.
I know! I was so happy when I saw that
I second that
I saw it and I was like:
Oh it's Shad's book.
Wait SHAD'S BOOK?!
Not yet... We have yet to see "On Writing: Worldbuilding" in a Shadiversity vid. Only then will we achieve nirvana.
Guess we should help Shad be aware, maybe get a collab video
I'm pretty happy with my power escalation.
Since my story has various characters with various powers, it was hard to figure out a universal ceiling for all of them. What I ended up doing was not making a ceiling at all.
Basically, the characters get stronger the more they use their powers, but using the powers also cause a lot of physical pain which keeps the characters from overexerting themselves. At one point the MC who can see the future and past is forced to take a drug that removes all of the pain from his power.
So suddenly he can see all the history of the world, all at once with no consequences... And so he immediately goes mad. He looses his mind and becomes basically catatonic until a surgery to the brain makes him unable to use his power at all.
Idk, I feel quite happy with this. Theoretically the characters can get infinite power, but it would resolve in death from too much pain or madness.
(if anyone has notes or criticism I'm all ears)
That seems interesting, have you published your story yet. Is it on a website or a published book.
I’d like to hear more about this story! Where can I read this if you’ve already published it, or where can I find out more about this?
I haven't published anything yet. I'm still working on it. If I wrote down everything I have in my head it would probably be a trilogy, but I have currently written down only 2/3 of the first book. The stuff I talked about in my og comment would most likely be from the second half of book two.
I don't want to post or publish anything until it's done because I often go back to change various details if not entire chapters.
It is really flattering that it sounds interesting though
monika kavaliunaite would you mind me asking what this story is about? Or like the main idea of it? Because I kinda wanna know more about it, I’m writing some stories myself that I’m really excited about (planning on making it like graphic novel stuff, also I’m just putting together all of my ideas for it, haven’t really started on it) so it’s fun to discuss stories with another writer.
@@edwardteachbornonabeach9715 the protagonist is a man in his early 20s named Renat and he's part of a race of humans called the Wielders with superior brains which sometimes develop abilities. Renat lives a quiet life, pretending to be an avarage person until because of pure coincidence he runs into another wielder who saves him from a gang. The gang keeps for some reason persuing Renat and after learning that the leader is a wielder who can change memories, Renat begins to ponder about how many of his memories are actually his
Sorry I'm bad at summarising descriptions without giving away too much
this is why i love the arc of the percy jackson books so much. the first books lead up to an ancient power being defeated, with the conflicts slowly getting bigger and bigger. however, the power system has such a clearly defined base (within the greek mythological world) that both the enemies and the powers the characters gain never feel unreasonable. in the second series, it makes perfect sense that they then face the even more ancient threat, forcing new and old characters into cooperation to defeat them, not just the original characters progressively powering up. it emphasizes the theme of found family, while still being under the believable base of greek mythology. furthermore, the series after heroes of olympus don’t still focus on percy & company, but instead explore other aspects of different culture’s mythologies, with the original characters not being the focus anymore. and it works so well! riordan keeps introducing characters that relate to each other in believable ways, under the same umbrella of mythology, and the enemies never feel outside the range of the original series. i will never not be amazed by what uncle rick has created. his books will always remain a golden standard to me.
Still waiting on that On Writing: Rivalries video. Love your content. Keep up the good work (:
Matthew Groves 👍🏾
TheJaredPunch i think then he’ll acc compliment dbz
All hail Supreme Leader Mishka. Forever missed, never forgotten.
Our Supreme Leader on Earth is now the Supreme Leader in Heaven (or wherever cats go)
Naurah Deatrisya Gitany StarClan?
@@cac_deadlyrang Damn a warrior's reference huh
@@cac_deadlyrang I love that response and the idea of Supreme Leader hanging out with some of my favorite characters in all of fiction. I'm always surprised to hear that there are other people out in the world that are fans of the Warriors saga because I don't know more than two people (excluding myself) in my area that like those books, so that has been a very important, but niche fandom in my life of geekiness. ;)
Mishka, Leader of Discussion-clan :D
"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million men is a statistic" - Joseph Stalin -
@@masterkalel06 that burn is soo hot it burned the amazon
Paris Geller: "Now, I'm not in the habit of quoting Joseph Stalin..."
He should know.
Didn’t actually say that
oop, ethical train theory
You would love Jojo's bizarre adventures. it has one of the most interesting power systems there is and has managed to avoid the issue of power escalation. in Jojo's a characters powers are usually set at the level they are introduced at, meaning conflicts are mainly about how you use your power. Information and creativity are the deciding factors in a Jojo's fight.
The argument I used for years trying to get people to watch JoJo
Yeah well there is usually the problem with Araki tending to experiment with some Stand abilities towards the beginning of each part (particularly with the corresponding JoJo) and ends up creating plot holes at times. But hey, i still fucking love once you get into the Vibe of jojo's
Do you ever get used to the super ugly faces in Jojo with time? That's the one thing holding me back.
@@theznayx808 what ugly faces?
@@theznayx808 the art style is improving constantly. eighties chapters are ugly indeed but by the 7th part its a masterpiece
Nice shoutout to Shadiversity's new book. Took a second look when I saw the cover.
I was glad to see it too, I love that man.
the mangaka ONE does the "incredibly powerful main character" thing suuuper well. he was the one who wrote/drew One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100. they both deal with an overpowered protagonist but they handle stuff very differently and its a lot about morals and emotions - especially the latter. both are incredible mangas, and have well-done anime adaptations, i cant recommend them enough!
As the legend of Arthur said: "Only a true noble man can pull out"
That's what she said
@@dragoninthewest1 Ah, I see you're a man of culture
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Love that you mentioned both steins;gate and shad's book there. Gonna be reading the other one since I never heard of it and you got me interested.
I love your dog avatar, it's cute :3
@@Dwaggy aw thanks, hope it brightens your day even a little bit.
@@mikanmaruyo It did, thank you :)
Altered Carbon is FANTASTIC. Transferring human consciousness into these little insertable nodules in the nape of your neck means potential immortality (if you can afford it.) Futuristc sci-fi noir. Very cool. Three books in the series. Main char is a hardass with psychopathic tendencies but the author really humanizes him and makes him a dark grey in a world of black.
I love how Kung Fu Panda deals with its villains. Each villains tackles a different insecurity in Po, Tai Lung being Po's worthiness, Shen being Po's family, and Kai making Po embrace what makes people who they are. Also it's nice that each villian makes po more powerful because he has to learn a new skill to defeat them because learning those things involves personal growth for Po.
HFM seems to be unaware of the so-called Best Power-Syrtem
in all of Fiction: Nen.
Anyway, if you like this channel, try Reedsy, Krimson Rogue, Hbomberguy and Dominic Noble.
Another great thing Kung-Fu Panda did with its villains was that each villain was a different type of threat: Tai Lung was a strong and skilled fighter, Shen was cunning and inventive, and Kai had his chi abilities. The director of the third film outright said about Kai, _"You can't go brawler because Tai Lung was brawler. You can't go smarter because Shen was smarter. Where can you go? You have to go supernatural, bigger, and even more intimidating."_
@@matthewmuir8884 The thing is that to defeat about the first two villains, Po needed to grow inside to hone his abilities. Tai Lung required Po to believe in himself and turn his insecurities (his fat body and his childish antics) into an actual fighting style, Shen required Po to let go of his trauma and accept his problems in order to deflect the canonballs. But Kai literally couldn't be beaten without an entirely new power system.
@@M4x_P0w3r I agree. Honestly, overall, in terms of writing quality, Kai is definitely the worst out of them while Shen is the best. I'm just saying that I like that each film took a different approach with its villain and tried to have each one stand out on their own.
@@matthewmuir8884 Oh, alright, then yeah, I agree with that.
I've been meaning to write a story my whole life (I'm 30) and I've had one in my head for a long time (since I was a kid). I've recently started and I thank you for articulating points that I otherwise would miss. In short... you inspire.
This has given me a new appreciation for Sanderson, I've never really been able to put to words why his magic systems feel so good, I just know they always do. Something else in the stormlight series I appreciate is not only do they have to grow as people to grow in power, but that the power both motivates them to grow, and can hold them back. Shallan grows her power in order to hide from her issues, which then hinders her growth because she can just keep hiding and repressing instead of actually working through it. Kaladin grew his power to help those he cares about, but then ended up at a plateau because of the pressure that power placed on him to continue growing and to protect, made him feel more useless than before when he failed. Now he can protect, but failed, and he is unable to deal with the losses. Stormlight is my favorite series, just for how well power is linked to growth and health overall
I'm surprised JJBA wasn't in on this topic. I mean, the way Araki limits power, and rather escalates the power-user's understanding of how their and their enemies' powers work is how the story goes on. Not to mention after every story, all established escalation drops to zero as we encounter a new protagonist of a newer generation.
Great video, learned a heck lot anyway. Stay safe and stay amazing~
Has anyone noticed how Tolkien never used power escalation? Neither Frodo nor Bilbo become warriors at the end of their respective stories.
Merry and Pippin do though, they're literally bigger people at the end of the story too! (Yay Ent Juice!).
Also, Gandalf. He's got a tiiiiny bit of power escalation in the story.
...yeah.. now that you mentioned it...
Both were considerably stronger in the end though. Able to endure more for longer. Plus the enemies they faced became significantly stronger. The overall theme of Tolkien was decay though, the world was at it's peak at the start and only has gotten weaker since. The elves used to deploy entire armies of heroes that would make Legolas look like a child cosplaying.
I think you could argue his approach is closer to incomparables - Elf King, Gollum and Smaug (in Hobbit) or Nazguls, Sheloba, Barlog, Snaketongue and Sauron are very different antagonists from each other.
Yeah, most of his characters tend to stay at whatever power level they were first introduced at, changing and growing mentally instead of physically. There are several exceptions though, mainly Gandalf who has to nearly die in order to "level up" his wizard powers and become Gandalf the White. Not only does obtaining this power feel earned, but it also puts him at the pre-established power ceiling that the other wizard who Gandalf fought and lost to was at (I'm sorry I don't remember his name.)
I'd love to see an episode on how to do Power Decay well.
As for my settings (GM not writer) my most traditionally fantastical established the power ceiling at nukes, but the chosen one type character were (quite literally) a quarter of that strength (by which I mean said pinnacle was garroted, drawn and quartered, and the power split between four kingdoms). Morality was far more of a limiting factor than power, and much tension was built not from if they could win, but how they could do minimizing collateral damage, and sometimes without opening their literal nuclear option up to assassination attempts.
Another the players played Fairies trying to grant wishes, and while power was limited by collective mana, it was secondarily limited by it having to be unnoticed by humans, because humans don't particularly like it when they find out they didn't earn their happiness, and Fairies needed magic to live.
Others tended to stick a lot more grounded, with historic, or more mundane settings, so escalation was never significant enough to worry about ceilings.
GM here. I have a running campaign with heavy monster, abberation And Devils invading campaign And i have a NPC named Aaravos who Is a chronomancer (time Wizard) who Is lovable character with family, children etc. He was sent on the party first mission to kill adult beasts And document them And if possible bring their younglings back....But....the Reason why He became a chronomancer Is not So good. He had a backstory....well, think Caleb from Critical Role or Bucky Barnes. He has been brainwashed And forced to do some really really horrible stuff. I do not know if i want him to pursue the power to revert time And let the power consume him And make him the BBEG or if IT would be too much
I realize without being subbed to it, your channel reassured me in my way of writing my stories and characters several times and I couldn't thank you (and your supporters) enough for the content you're putting out here. The way you're bringing these topics is very informative and soothing for me, who constantly worries about writing something bland, uninteresting, worried about world building, powercreep etc. You help me and I am grateful for that!
Dude, I've been looking for a vid like this to help me with my writing. Thanks a ton!
Son Agro you got this
Ay you referenced the shadiversity book!
I use a mix of Character Struggle, and incomparables. I wrote my book about 8 years ago and as I head into writing my full series now this was really helpful to refocus me on what I did before and help me contextualize why it worked. Thank you!
My favorite form of dealing with power escalation is to just sidestep the problem entirely by having all characters equal, but in very different ways.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure does this amazingly by giving all characters a unique power. One character can put zippers in anything, giving them a whole range of options, but another has the ability to revert anything to a previous state.
It's this kind of system that turns combat into a puzzle of who can use their abilities in the most creative way, making fights against even rats engaging and tense when compared to a vampire.
Also the generation timeskips helps
@Pasquale Libertino yes the im gonna go level 5 then wins strategy
i do love one piece but jojo has better grasp on the power escalation since parts practically reset everything and stands are more mind games than punch harder contest
@Pasquale Libertino no i mean it has stakes as characters can actually die and with a assurance that they will stay in the grave and due to the generational timeskip each part is different yet still connected.
foremost i respect that you prefer one piece if anything i agree that OP is quite superior in terms of world building and overall story than jojo but in terms of mediating the shounen power escalation jojo story power system is more fluid and due to how it is constructed is has more lenience in having varied fights to shoneun punching contest to high tension bodyhorror train chase since certain stand arent even for combat.
Ending of part 5 sadly deviated from that.
Yall forgetting about hxh which like jojo is about the strategy and how the user uses their power. The chimera ant arc really shows it. Even the tournament arcs show it as well.
You put Shadow of the Conqueror in the video!!!😁 +10 diplomacy
Also i'm glad someone talked about blue Korra and the problem with just making the characters stronger because spectacle
Just gotta say thanks a ton for all of these videos! As an aspiring young author I’ve struggled with world building and story crafting for awhile now - like I have 8 or 9 series that I’ve bounced between due to an inability to keep them going. Your vids have really helped me learn how to better direct my thoughts and I’ve finally started putting together a genuine idea. Thanks again and keep making these please because they are outstanding!
In my universe, magic is separated into three groups called Realms; Celestial, Sylvan, and Infernal. Light, nature, and dark. Each realm carries their own unique philosophy and values. So, a magician's ability to advance in this realm typically involves how well they embrace these philosophies and values.
Celestial magic believes that there is an inherent righteousness to the universe, that morality is concrete, and that all living things plays a part. So, it emphasizes ideas like good vs evil and the notions of fate and destiny. Celestial magicians see themselves as tools for a higher power or greater purpose.
Infernal magic believes the opposite. There is no inherent righteousness. The universe is a chaotic and apathetic reality where hierarchies are more based on power and resources and distributed based on chance. While morality is a useful concept, it is purely an illusion, and the only real good that one can do is for themselves. Infernal magicians tend to be self centered, rebellious, and individualistic.
Sylvan magic does not focus on existential matters, only concerning survival and finding ways to enjoy life. So, sylvan magicians are made to embrace their own nature. Some can be seen as enthusiastic, lively, and sociable. Others can be more aggressive, brutish, and volatile.
Neither side is ultimately good or ultimately evil. They can fall into either category. Magicians aligned with different realms can feud quite often, or get along.
Your universe sounds really interesting! I like how no one is completely good and no one is completely evil. Because that's far more realistic and nuanced and leads to more interesting stories. Not to mention some of my favorite characters in all of literature are not the goody goody hero types. I have a background in journalistic writing and what they always told us was one death is a tragedy a thousand is a statistic. Humans just don't have the emotional capability to care about every single person who tragically dies in the world. We would emotionally break down and nothing would ever get done. So for our own mental health and safety our bodies only allow us to truly care about people we have emotional attachments to. That's why we care far more and it tugs on our emotions more if we hear the story of one little boy going through cancer then we do about a thousand people dying in a bombing. In writing fiction it's a lot harder and takes a lot more time and writing skill to develop comparatively small stakes and make them feel huge emotionally than it does to just make the threat huge to begin with. But that's why huge threats don't make good stories and isn't good writing. It just feels cheap.
@@WhitneyDahlin I hate hate to say it, but I did change up my system. I've kept the realms to represent the areas of the spirit world. My current magic system involves themes based on the seven planets from old astrology. They are the following.
1. Sol: Magic of light.
2. Luna: Magic that deals with spirits.
3. Mars: Magic for fighting.
4. Mercury: Magic of the mind.
5. Jupiter: Magic against magic.
6. Venus: Nature based magic.
7. Saturn: Necromancy.
I'm still doing the no one magic is good or evil thing though.
@@azazelgrigori9244 ok well im stealing ur old idea thx
I stole everything! It's now mine! Thanks!
🤣🤣🤣
Ok..... no. 😁
It has made me think though, so thanks. Good stuff. I hope you use it to make something great.
Look into DND spheres. You have order vs chaos + neutral.
Then obviously there's is lawful good and lawful evil vs chaotic good and chaotic evil.
It is funny to think someone who calls themselves "infernal embracer of chaos!" Is actually a swell fella though lol. Or someone who calls themselves "the righteous celestial enforcer of good" is actually a dick.
Well actually the second one doesn't seem that far fetched lol.
I think there's also something to be said about power escalation and audience. Younger audiences may be more thrilled by bigger and crazier powers, whereas older audiences may be more engaged with complex characters and tensions.
0:15 Damn, I’m already invested. Graham Saga when?
I'm so happy shad's book is already being mentioned in these kinds of videos
I always love your On Writing series; so much care and detail goes into them. There're so many topics left that I'm excited for whatever you decide to put out next.
Great video! I always wondered what Legend of Korea would have been like if the writers weren’t put through hell by their network. I still adored the show growing up but I can’t help but wonder what if…
Wait the world could have ended in Artemis fowl?
I only noticed butler . . .
Last novel - # 8.
@@cayreet5992 THERE'S EIGHT BOOKS?
@@Ryukuro Yes, there's eight. The last two very much work as a two-parter, but there's eight overall. Personally, I found the time-travel one (first time travel one, to be honest, but the one with the demons is much better) the weakest one and only read my way throught the full series two years or so ago. Artemis later gets two younger brothers (twins) who now apparently have their own book series.
The 💝👇 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle
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The 💝👆 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle!
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The Last Airbender 🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃!iii
Butler IS Artemis Fowl's world, bro.
An issue with Korra is that they gave her too much too early, making it more unbelievable to justify her losing later on.
Also they resolved her emotional conflict too early. Korra was given a great deal of power but not the maturity or spirituality to use it correctly. But they had Korra learn humility by the end of the first season which meant that the tension was over. It's notable that the writers walked back her personality for season 2 and partly season 3 and then dumped PTSD on her for season 4.
This isn't me trying to make excuses for Korra, but there is actually an understandable reason Korra grew so much so fast. When they wrote season 1, It was supposed to be the only season. Nick only gave them permission to air a single season, and only green lit another season when season one got really good ratings. Season 1 was written to be a one off story, not the first part of a series, hence the problem you bring up. it's why they had to give plot reasons for her to struggle in pretty much every other season. (The season 2 villain having spirit shenanigans, the season 3 villain poisoning her before their fight, and her suffering from PTSD in season 4). that one bad situation with the first season pretty much had resounding effects through the whole rest of the show. Although I admit it lead to some interesting situations and helped humanize the avatar a bit by showing even a full power avatar can be challenged under the right circumstances.
@@firstnamelastname7034 and it should have been that way... season is good sequel to the world building of the OG storyline... but season 2 onwards was a clusterfuck, seem like the writer doesnt know where to go then sudden 2 Gozilla fight
@@wendycheang4477 I thought Korra's ptsd was handled quite well in season 4 personally. Makes total sense given what happened to her at the end of season 3 and given she had lived a sheltered life until she left her home at the start. (although I 100% agree with you on every other point)
The 💝👇 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle
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enjoying your 'writing help' videos -light hearted, with a bit of humour.
not bad to look at either. bought your book too. cheers, nursie.
Have you read the web serial Worm? Definitely one of the best uses of Power Escalation (with some minor exceptions, fair given its massive length while still tying in thematically). It's also nice that people don't really get stronger (again, with a few exceptions) so much as they more creative and smarter with their powers while still suffering losses and learning from them! The power classification system and "rules of the game of cops and robbers" early definition is especially helpful.
I felt it lost my attention near the end because the stakes were becoming too large and the situation seemed too hopeless.
Always good to see fans of Worm in the wild, honestly.
@@angeldude101 yeah I feel like worm is actually a terrible example of this lol, the powers get a bit too convenient and the villains just get more and more ridiculous as it goes on. it doesn't really stick to the rules it establishes at all.
Though I have to say I'm not quite sure why this video thinks that's necessary, or that it sticks to it much. Mistborn breaks its own set standards pretty frequently.
One Punch Man (Season 1 and end of Season 2) is also a great example of a set power level in a story that ups it's scales
I don't know if the same will happen to others, but after reading the manga for a while, I just lost interest. After all, Saitama's boredom and character make up a tiny percentage of the story focus compared to pretty much every other single characters getting one-shot and gore spectacle in general. It is really entertaining for a good while, but I think very little has actually happened that has led Saitama (or Genos, or anyone else) on a journey since the start of the series, and since the stakes are always about a bunch of people getting killed, and you know that Saitama will always defeat them, after a certain point it gets really repetitive :-/ I did not especially like Garou's character, but his introduction did at least add some character development to the Monster Association arc.
@NullLex00 Yeah, just in Season 1 alone the scene at the end with Saitama hanging out with Mumen Rider feels like a major point in the character's growth from where it was in the beginning, with him starting out alone and unfulfilled and ending with him socializing and legitimately happy.
@@Mordalon yeah and in the current web series, drawn by one... (Not to overly spoil by not being too specific) but he gets a dog and a few more "friends".
We first see Saitama alone, only seeing being a hero as a hobby. But later on he gets more and more companions where he slowly shows more character and life.
I feel that the real goal is Saitama finding another reason to live after dedicating himself in gaining power.
It is interesting to set up a character at the beginning who was all ready so strong. I mean look at stuff like one punch or overlord. its sometimes just fun to see a character who doesn't need to train.
Has anyone else played with this idea? Curious to see how you added conflict/plot in the story.
I did one as well (fantasy war story) but had the issue being the character trying to retire while everyone wanted to fight them.
@@tibot4228 as others have said, opm isn't really about the fights. The fights cause growth and conflict between people who are considered heroes and the "good guys".
It's more a personal growth story. Look at fubuki and how she changed since meeting saitama. Or king after the garou arc. It's a pretty interesting concept, where at face value the fights are the show and spectacle, but hardly is the plot. Saitama is simply the strongest there is. We know once he shows up he will win.
One's stories, the main character is too strong, and must grow in another way. Look at mob psycho. He can do anything with his psychic powers, but chooses to focus on getting physically fit and stronger instead of relying on his power
rhis one was really interesting. I started watching you more to understand films but the more i watch the more i get motivated to start writing again.
So... what you are saying is Wynx Club is awesome and the best writing possible then? That is a take away from this, correct?
*we are the winx club*
Winx Club had interesting power scaling from what I remember
Power escalation has to be stricktly connected to character growth for me. Kaladin is my favorite character in the Stormlight Archive because of that exactly.
But that is not always credible. Sometimes they don't go together. Training can be a way to get better at something without growing as a person at all. They can be separated.
JoJo’s is actually the perfect example of incomparable’s as stand abilities can be vastly different with many of them not playing well at all and having their own unique win conditions.
You saying the power ceiling in the first matrix movie was just dodging bullets?
The end credit scene though has him Superman fly away into the camera. Pretty sure that meant that bullet dodging was just the beginning to much more
As it's in a simulation the power ceiling is how ever high you can go before the Computer crashes really. Also the second world in Matrix is still in the simulation as Neo can use his powers there.
It's been 20 years and I'm figuring this out lol
@@redholm the "second world" wasn't in the Matrix. Whatever allowed Neo (possibly and actual implant) to be the One and manipulate the Matrix allowed him to also effect machines. It is important that there was a real/physical world.
@@mysticolin01 Nothing actually shows that the second world was the actual real world. As machines they would know that having a second world for people who know that the Matrix is fake to let them think it's real and not struggle anymore would be very much necessary. This also very much so explain why ONLY NEO could use his powers. Everyone has the same implants. But only Neo could use his powers.
You are missing the entire plot of the Matrix series.
Neo has his powers because the machines wanted him to have his powers. The sentinels the he stopped very well may have stopped intentionally without any real effect from Mr. Anderson because the machines wanted to give him the illusion of power.
I love Graham the Wizard, the likes cats, and I support him on his journey to shooting lightning out of his finger tips 😎👍🏼
@The Bandog forgive me, you're right
I really appreciated this, and makes me feel more on track with my work in progress (that might never see the light of day...) 19:10 Since you asked, I kinda wanted to start with an OP character with mental health issues that have really traumatized them (the basically watched a genocide).... Anyhow, later (much much later...) they are kinda woken up from a self induced coma, and are kinda asked by the spiritual / other dimensional realms to help out (OP character *shrugs*). The MC's challenge is mainly internal conflict, and they prefer to solve things most practically while maintaining good rapport with those being saved (read less magic than you might expect, but some fireworks once in a while). The issue for me has always been connecting the right amount of symbolism with beautiful detail, with a fitting ending / set up for book 2 in a completely different time period. In all my hope is really to bring awareness of perhaps the struggles a person with complex thoughts might feel (clearly based on personal and secondhand experiences). Most of my troubles are requisite life experiences that help with the authentic human feels I am trying to connect to my readers. Sure its fiction, but I feel like it deserves my due diligence, and perhaps an actual first person perspective from the author (which admittedly is completely impossible for the whole story, but the minutia the small details, gestures, emotions, and thoughts do matter -- which help (OR especially hurt my writing when I get them wrong).
I personally think hard limits, whether from hard magic systems or power ceilings, are the way to go. It forces characters to have to think, be clever, and adjust. It easily lends itself both to incomperables but also to character growth, as well. Characters grow through learning, making choices, taking risks, failing, dealing with consequences, having to work with others, etc. Doing it this way easily helps with character growth, plotting, tension, themes, stakes, and character interaction. When I'm writing fiction, I want to 1) throw problems at my characters and see what they do 2) see how my characters interact with each other. At their most basic, stories are about our connection with characters; everything else is window-dressing. Having hard limits on power is an essential tool for writing well.
Agreed, or at least have a hard limit for your protagonists. Having a villain that breaks that hard limit would actually make things interesting and add tension because the protagonist then has to think of a strategic way to win with their hard limit rather than just powering up
Brandon had a lecture on this and while his magic systems tend to be harder he also gave credit to soft magic systems.
Highly recommend checking it out
Hunter x hunter nen and jojo golden wind
One of my favorite magic systems was Bleach. It was horribly flawed, few characters even used spells, but their take on spiritual power was neat. Most post had a personality, it was a manifestation of your soul, and to get stronger is to know your power. The Shinigami have to communicate with their "zanpkauto" to even gain a grasp of their powers. The better you are at this, the higher your sword releases.
I liked that introspective take.
even though it was probably like only once or twice, I still remember momo being creative with her use of spells. Even when she was outclassed in terms of strength with the opponents she fought, she was still able to come up with interesting combinations with the spells she knew to stay ahead of them. I always thought that was neat
I don't see as everyone not using kido ad a flaw as it showed diversity having some characters were more versed in it than pure warriors and you needed a prowess to use it effectively
I liked Kido well enough, I just wished we could have seen more of it and more applications of the different spells. That being said, I also greatly enjoy Kubo’s take on spiritual power and the concept of Zanpakuto and how personal it is for someone to gain power with their Zanpakuto
I loved that too. It had some really great potential, and the strength of spirit, calmness of mind, and acceptance of self were such cool ideas to play with. And then it went and added a Ying/yang aspect with the half-hollows (I forgot what theyre called), and the potential grew even more. But the author really didnt handle it well. It totally went the Naruto route.
I didn't fine Kido to be horribly flawed. I just took it as characters didn't often use it in combat because trying to do a spiritual chant while imminent threat is ahead would be a disadvantage. Therefore only characters that had high levels of mastery over that form of magic (Aizen, Kisuke and Byakuya) could properly use it in combat in effective ways that didn't leave them open.
Very instructive video. Certainly among the most definitive on the topic available here.
It made me think of power escalation through the seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Buffy starts with all the power she’ll ever have, but it requires constant training for her to learn how to actually use it. She becomes more and more proficient as the series progresses, and as well moves from resenting her training to strongly advocating for it. She’s even offered more power at one point in I think the last season, when facing her most powerful enemies ever, but she rejects it because of the price she fears she’s have to face. Often, she has to face down much stronger enemies and loses initially, only to figure out ways of overcoming their advantages. It’s so often interesting because the solutions can come from so many sources - more or smarter training, external magical objects, , military-grade conventional weapons, knowledge gained from research, friends and allies, or even just clearly thinking things through. It wasn’t perfect, but it was seldom boring or predictable. And it very often left you wondering “how the hell is she going to beat X?”
The weird thing about Korra, at least to me, was how her version of the Avatar State never seemed to have powers for each element much beyond any she displayed when not in the A.S. That’s in clear contrast to Ang’s Avatar State, which seemed to have 20 times or more power for each element. Whether or not one liked the giant mech in season four, it would have been awesome to see Ang’s A.S. vs. Mechakuvira.
Anyway, excellent job. Being clear, complete and concise is no small accomplishment but you really pulled it off here.
One risk I wanna mention about power escalation: it is possible to make powers escalate so much that your reader can look back at the beginning of your story and find it impossible that it ever got this far.
Graham the wizard who loves cats could never conceivably have become old enough to learn to pull cats out of his hat if the world is full of volatile and destructive experts itching to pick fights and kill innocents, each one conveniently more powerful than the last even though logically the weaker ones could never have conceivably survived this long either.
I have seen web novels that fall into this problem.
nickolas474
The Eragon series suffered from this. The magic in book three was completely different than the magic in book one.
Web novel and web comics suffer this alot. As well as bad power escalation in general. Web based writing is great for getting your voice and ideas out of your head but they typically do not have the experience or access to skilled editors to stop these pitfalls and/or figure out new solutions. Ex: the gamer gives the Mc a soft power system that gives him more power and abilities at very low cost to himself. This broke the story for me when it allowed such power growth with nothing to really showed that he earned it.
@@ruga-ventoj Yeah, I was thinking about Last Wish System in particular, or especially web novels with a numerical stat system.
If a level 1 expert has 100 strength and cannot scratch a level 2 expert with 1,000 strength who himself cannot scratch a level 3 expert with 10,000 strength... there wouldn't be level 1's! Or normal people.
>look back at the beginning of your story and find it impossible that it ever got this far.
Ahh yes. The Naruto-problem.
@@nickolas474 Yeah this format happens a lot in east asian web novels where characters of each level easily decimate dozens of characters one level lower (except for the super genius MC of course), and somehow the world can support a social heirarchy where people of level 100 exists out there. However, a lot of popular web novels still use this kind of power structure, so I guess there is always a large audience out there for quick and cheap power fantasies.
Then you have something like One punch man, when the protagonist never escalates, he is god from de beginning
Power escalation is unnecessary in a comedy.
He did explain those characters. The character from seven deadly sins and how it ties hand in hand with humanity vs Diety. Do you lose it and give in?
The 💝👇 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle
th-cam.com/video/egU0pbmYq3w/w-d-xo.html
The 💝👆 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle!
💕💝💕💝💕💝💕💝
The Last Airbender 🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃!iiii
His mentality is what escalates.
You forgot he did 100 Pushups, 100 Sit Ups, 100 Squats and a 10KM Run everyday.
Your extra work paid off, you broke a complex topic into a series of actionable & thought provoking points. The people you've helped & the ideas which will come to fruition thanks to your efforts are invaluable. Thanks.
My favourite power system is stands from JoJos bizarre adventure. It's so versatile you can do anything and you can't power creep out any of the main characters
I think my favorite part of that versatility is that none of the enemies don’t have stand built for close combat mainly just trickery while the protagonists stands can obliterate anyone within punching distance. It makes these chess matches where the two forces try to stay in they’re element. Like with the fight with jotaro vs ndoul.
I'm not familiar with JoJo. Would you mind explaining that?
@@houselightkell stands usually take the form of humanoid ghosts that appear beside the user. For example, star platinum, the stand of Jotaro Kujo is just a guy that punches really hard, really fast. Compare that to let's say Steely Dan's stand, the lovers, who's power allows him to enter into another person and reflect the pain Steely Dan feels onto the person the lovers is in. Jotaro needs to come up with a way to work around the lovers in that situation.
Conor Hynes1 HXH has that too
@@sweetmyth2537togashi the creator of hxh was inspired by araki the guy who made JoJo
...or One Punch Man.
My protagonist's power escalates when needed. No cap. Totally OP. No question.
It is the interactions, enemies' growth, and the propagandist's pacifism which is the focus of the story.
The 💝👇 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle
th-cam.com/video/egU0pbmYq3w/w-d-xo.html
The 💝👆 Secret to Katara's Hairstyle!
💕💝💕💝💕💝💕💝
The Last Airbender 🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃🍃!!!i!
I would more argue that rather then escalating as needed Saitama's power is already at the power ceiling he just doesn't use all of it often. Or maybe not even at all so far, like when you look at how he punches most of the time, that's not a punch with your whole body behind it which is what you need to do your strongest punch. Often its basically a tap. When he does stronger hits he changes how he strikes the opponent, so to me at least its always clear he's not putting everything into it.
Saitamas power doesn’t escalate whenever needed it’s a constant thing, if you’ve just read the show I can understand the confusion but monsters have survived his punches before, they aren’t just infinitely strong.
All your writing videos really help me learn to be a better writer, I've watched the pacing video about seven times, but somehow this one totally passed me by! So happy I finally got to watch it, so much useful stuff in here!!! At this point my notebook is almost entirely filled with stuff from your videos. I love it. Thank you for your service.
"you shouldn't break power ceelings created at the stard"
cultivation manhwa : I'm gonna pretend i didnt hear that
Honestly, the entirety of cultivation content is some of the most garbage shit I've ever seen.
@@seigeengine gotta agree especially the "gather points by doing x system" and "powerfull immortal returns from heaven back to his prevoous life in the city and get's revenge"
I'm working on a character with powerful psionic abilities. Shes going to start out only able to manipulate inanimate objects. Shes going to take to this portion of her abilities like a fish to water and use them for espionage and theft. Then when she gets a bodyguard/trainer and starts gaining one or two people related abilities (mind reading/control) shes going to develope a martial arts style where she uses telekinetic controlled weapons for offense and hand to hand combat techniques for defense. I jave figured out my power cieling or where her powers will peak but i don't want her to get too much more powerful then that; i much prefer a cunning character over a powerful one.
Thanks again for a great video about something i don't think many story creators consider: especially noobs ike me.
I keep coming back to this video and I still love that your advice from both this and other videos can apply to any stories, whether novel series or movie/ television scripts.
I keep revisiting this and other videos too. It's good to have quick check in when I'm stuck on a point in my WIP. Also it's just a really good video to watch.
*When you sit down with On Writing and Worldbuilding but another video of Tim's uploads*
Me: Gosh darn it Tim! You evil genius! How did you know?
I'm gonna need to keep this in mind.
One of the more helpful videos I've seen on TH-cam in a while.
This is really great! Especially the examples of how to not do the continuous power escalation. Thank you for it! I loved it.
The lowkey My Little Pony reference during the "soft magic systems" shoutout at 5:30 takes this video edit to the next level 👍🏻
One of my characters is pretty much at full powers from the beginning of the story and doesn’t face any significant physical opposition from a single antagonistic force. His main problem, however, is that he always wants to solve every problem with the special abilities that only he possesses, even while he’s training to be a part of a team within a rebellion, and so his team eventually start training on their own. Later, the rebellion’s main hideout is attacked by the military and the character and his team are in a unique position to defeat the attack, but the character decides to act on his own and ends up nearly killing his leaders and his team and securing the victory of the military. So he has to eventually learn to play in a team, while still having the same powers. His powers don’t increase over the course of the story. They increase once, in his second scene, where he reaches the power ceiling pretty much at the beginning of the story and I use this as part of the inciting event.
for my story power comes from being creative or making deals with otherworldly creatures which requires a lot of time and research
Just make sure he is still enduring. From just reading this he sounds like a ball hogger. Make sure to convey that he's doing this to help, not for glory or because he feels he is the best
I have a writing project, where one character starts out in the prime of his power, but then makes a decision that will better his life, but also rob him of his greatest abilities, therefore making him vulnerable, therefor threatening his new life and physical existence.
The stakes are rising because there is a power de-escalation.
@Vinicius Raposo That's fine but won't change what I said, the audience still needs to like the character. Imagine if Zuko from ATLA didn't get the screen time he got in the Earth saga and then just popped up wanting to change. I wouldn't be invested or want it to happen. To make that kind of character arc you have to give the reader something to like about the character
@@SiddarthaTB so Wizards and Warlocks.
Learning so much from watching your videos. Definately helping when I'm probing my own work for flaws, missed opportunities or weakness. Thanks for this. Please continue the great work you're doing :)
Brandon Sanderson is an amazing writer! I was drawn to this by the Mistborn referral. I'll be scoping out more videos. Thanks YT
"Tell me about your stories"
In my story, the Magic system combines traits from Hard and Soft Systems in the sense that, while the rules behind what Magic can do and it's properties are strict, one's imagination and mental strength play a large part in their abilities as a Mage.
There's this turquoise-coloured Aura called Flow that fills the air and is contained in every living being. It's colourless in the air
Flow can be Transmuted into eight different Elements: Fire, Steam, Water, Ice, Sand, Earth, and Lava.
People are either born with or develop markings on their bodies called Gates, which allow them to release the Flow within them and control, manipulate, and transmute it as if it were an extension of their own body. Kinda like a psychic, but they can only control Flow.
Everyone's Gates look different and develop in different places.
They get darker the more Flow a person is able to release out of their Gates, and the patterns get more complex the better they are at controlling Flow.
This is more of a design choice, but characters do use it to gauge each other's power at a glance.
You CAN transmute Flow in the air, but if you're not mentally strong enough to do so you'll get a headache at best and bleed from your eyes at worst.
Everyone is born with an Affinity towards one Element; that's the one they can transmute Flow into the best. Individuals can only Transmute Flow into their Affinity and the four Elements closest to it, locking the remaining three from their use forever*
There's a little chart to see what Elements a person can('t) use:
-----------Fire----------
------Lava-----Steam-----
Earth-------------- Water
------Sand------Ice------
-----------Wind----------
(I have no idea how that looks on mobile I'm sorry)
That's the "Hard" part of the Magic System.
And since these aren't the ACTUAL Elements, but just Flow BEHAVING like the real thing, people are able to alter the properties of the Magic they use. So things like Cold Lava and super bright Fire you can stand in without burning are possible. "If you can say something about a Magic Element, you can change it" is a good way to sum it up. But some of the harder to comprehend stuff takes more of a mental strain. The possibilities are literally endless.
And that's the "Soft" part of the Magic System.
That's pretty much it, but there is a bit more stuff that I'll just leave out so this isn't long af
edit: spelling
I call this the Al Dente System btw
@@michaelanderson3672 You don't have many replies, So I'm gonna enter the discusion.
first of all, I like it. It's a smart way of solving this and I had a similar idea.
In My setting (Aurora) witch is...uhh... Sword and Sorcery taken into 2015. There are races, magic, but they also have cars, internet, hard political system, etc. So you can have a fat griffon riding a truck, gulping beer.
Magic is used by the Djinn/genies, And it's very hard to explain how it works. basics: it's like "love" in a way, that it's not an actual thing, more like a concept. Like time or space. All around us, yet just teoreticly existing. It comes from my own spiritual belief that Outside of our world, witch is logical and dictated by phisics and science - there is the exact opposite. A spiritual realm, chaotic where logic is shifting, but words and symbols have great power.
And My magic is not an element of the universe, it IS the universe in a way. Unlimited, infinite, streching and squashing to will. between atoms. growing from drops to oceans. it is nothing...But is can be anything if guided my a mind. that's where the Djinn come in. Using Sachium - metal organs in their fingertips, witch seem to attract magic flow the most. Since the Sachium is connected to the brain, they can literaly play with The clay of reality. focus on a sensation, BOOM! fire. feel sturdy, BOOM! gems.
It can NOT however:
- control minds
- move non-magical objects (Golden bar made by a Djinn is diffrent than a non magical one. If the Djinn doesn't focus on it, it will return back to the sea of mana)
- Make life, animate objects.
for the last part - maybe it's too long, and I don't know If you want to hear how it's devided. CHEMISTRY!!! There are two elememtal tables - the material and the magical. The material one is all that we have - carbon, uranium, gold, xenon. You can take an object and find chemical elements inside. You know, like it is in our world. The magical table are the elements that are not found anywhere in nature. While you cannot Make a magical forcefield just like that, You can use Oraphium in it's energy form to form a sphere around yourself. they are more Abstract.
And there's devision, I don't know if you want to hear, But you can tell me more. Are there any Races in your world? Gods perhaps? I like lore so... I'll wait.
It looks pretty cool, I work on a power system too with elements, and it's funny to see how everyone has their own way of executing things, great job 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
@SpinazFou Why thank you. DOn't really know what you mean by that (maybe you can explain?). I'll be happy to lend any more information.
This looks cool! It actually reminds me a bit of Re:Zero and it's Gate system.
Thank you so much for explaining the way incomparables work!
Most of this feels aimed at softer magic systems... I'd like to hear more on how to handle power growth in hard magic systems if possible.
Great work as always, though!
true this is aimed at soft magic systems but i imagine in hard magic systems it depends a lot on the system with most systems having in built power ceilings e.g. mistborn where for most of the story there's no power creep.
most of the variance in antagonist power in hard magic systems are: unique or immoral uses/strategies "black magician" 'Canavan', people with power from outside the system (e.g.political) e.g. "mistborn" 'Sanderson', or people with greater understanding of the origins of the power e.g. "the warded man" 'Brett'
true this is aimed at soft magic systems but i imagine in hard magic systems it depends a lot on the system with most systems having in built power ceilings e.g. mistborn where for most of the story there's no power creep.
most of the variance in antagonist power in hard magic systems are: unique or immoral uses/strategies "black magician" 'Canavan', people with power from outside the system (e.g.political) e.g. "mistborn" 'Sanderson', or people with greater understanding of the origins of the power e.g. "the warded man" 'Brett'
@Cyber Simba 6 Its about defining the rules. Fullmetal Alchemist is an anime with a hard magic system in that there are rules set very early specifically defining what you can and cannot do. You cannot bring people back from the dead even if you have all of the physical pieces. The soul is an energy that is not infinite. It ends. The system allows you to change one object into another object of equal pieces as much and as often as you want, but not more or less than the original.
A soft magic system is like Harry Potter. I say this word and this thing happens, but the writer doesn't want you to think about it too much or the story falls apart. The people in Harry Potter somehow can live in poverty when anyone can use magic to grow plants and fit entire houses inside of boots.
A soft magic system does not have hard rules that must be followed i.e. a hard magic system.
Did you watch the part about incomparables and character challenges? Or one character outwitting the other?
@@h.stiner6467 People living in poverty despite being able to use magic to grow plants doesn't really have anything to do with it being a soft magic system. That's more of a plot hole. The magic is not given strict rules, but there's still consistency and we are still aware of the magic's limits when it's well written. A soft magic system does not necessarily create plot holes.
The only thing I understood from this video: Graham is a wizard and likes cats.
Anders the mage from Dragon Age also loves cats. He had a cat name Ser Pounce A lot.
Just watched this and I have to say I love your treatment of writing techniques. My power system is a more boiled down version of “strength=ability” it has to do with energy flow throughout the world. Now the twist (if you can call it that) is that the energy required to do a spell does not always (actually almost never) come from the caster. Much like Eragon, you can weave your spells to include where you want the energy to be supplied from. The stakes though come in with battles. In a battle you very simply do not have the time to word a spell to say “cast a fireball and use that tree over there”. Sometimes al you can do is “fireball”. The catch is then, that you are leaving it up to the unbiased universe to decide where to pull that energy from. And when you call up a fireball, that means a person will likely drop dead somewhere in the world. Though mine is more on the hard magic side of the spectrum I think this creates good moral stakes for the protagonists who stand for protecting life and loved ones. It forces the “lone wolf wizard” to be very cleaver in how he does his spell craft when it comes to battles. In my world most magic users work in teams. One doing the actual fighting, One casting spells to pull energy from predetermined places and One supplying that energy from the one to the other. What do you think about power escalation in this context where youre often forced to gamble with where the energy supply for your magic will come from? I think it requires mages to be very cleaver with small spells using very little spells and underpowered magic to solve big big big problems.
Also I know it’s ultimately up to the writer to create the rules of how much energy=how much magic BUT taking a page from so many soft magic system, I LOVE the idea of magic, no matter how big or small (scale of lighting a candle vs erupting a volcano) has great consequences. I love the idea that if you’re gonna break the rules of nature and do magic, you gotta pay the price. How do you balance that?
Loved this episode.
I know how you feel about Dragonball's constant increase in power and threat of villains. I've even called the problem of power escalation "The DBZ Effect" in the past.
Dark Knight actually directly hints at using the 'Incomparables' instrument. During interrogation Joker outright states "All your power is useless here, you have nothing to threaten me with".
I like to right short stories. I mostly write about protagonists who start out being weak see someone great at a similar skill set or even sometimes a different skill set and then try to get to there level. A recent one a did was about a world where the main power was speed. Once the protagonist got the level of his “icon” his worldly perception increased enough to see beings significantly faster than he could have possibly seen before. I did not think of this from the start but think it fits in remarkably well.
My go to example of power escalation is the Lensman series where pretty much every book introduces some new superweapon that's only measurable in terms of how much it overpowers the previous book's superweapon.
One nitpick though: The Matrix breaks its own power ceiling well before the sequels get involved. When he's ready, Neo doesn't need to dodge bullets - plus he transcends the jump program by literally flying - and there's whatever he does to Agent Smith... Yes, his powers carrying over into the real world is further escalation, but it's not the first escalation beyond the established bar.
Yeah, I also didn't understand the agents as the "true" power ceiling.
They were the perceived power ceiling for the protagonists, but Neo's power escalation still felt believable to me in the course of the story. I liked how the barrier between human and machine grew thinner and thinner on both sides.
Agent Smith started to show human weaknesses and became more and more deranged; we meet programs like the oracle, who seem very human, and Neo becomes more inhuman with his new powers and connection to the machines.
All in all, the Matrix power system seems to not be a "hard magic system", but rather soft. It has a mystical element and therefor, power ceilings are not as important, IMHO.
@@johannageisel5390 Yeah, a key element of the Matrix movies (particularly the sequels) is that the tension doesn't come from "can Neo beat X?", but rather from "will Neo choose X?"
The first movie is all about Neo accepting himself as The One. Again and again, he's faced with choices, where he can choose to be the messiah, or to remain ordinary. Whether to follow the white rabbit; whether to climb the building or accept arrest; whether to help the Agents catch Morpheus; whether to get out of the car; which pill to take; how to answer the Oracle; whether to unplug Morpheus or try to rescue him; the decision to catch Trinity; whether to stand and fight; whether to die...
The second movie has one blindingly obvious moment of choice at the climax, and the third revolves around Neo's final choice to sacrifice himself to destroy Smith.
None of them are really about what Neo can do - they're all about what he chooses to do.
@@rmsgrey Well said.
12:00 ‘I wonder what would be said about Kvothe from The Name Of The Wind’
14:00 “In Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name Of The Wind”
I have not thought much about power escalation and this helped a lot. Because of the type of world it is...there will be some magic and mechs in it. Soooooo...that is all i care to reveal about the nature of the story at the moment. Thanks for all the info!! Great job!
5:18 The whole "screaming louder to gain power" trope of Dragon Ball is less a writing topic as it is a visual one because it is an animated show as opposed to the manga. The "screaming" lets us, the viewer, understand that this character is now powering up in order to deal with the conflict before them. They are long and drawn out (in order to fill time due to trying to wait for the timing of manga releases) and are typically very bright, bold, and flashy. It's part of the reason why the series is so beloved because of how simultaneously ridiculous and awe-inspiring these scenes are.
Agreed. Dragon Ball also has very clear writing of character growth or power escalation, and growth of character that helps them beat the villain happens all the time.
Goku beats Vegeta because he was raised to be humble, always grow and to know that there will always be someone better, while Vegeta was arrogant
Goku beats Frieza because he embraces his nature and his nurture
Gohan learns that it's okay to use violence to defend peace to defeat Cell
Goku defeats Buu because he learns that he can use the best aspects of his Saiyan nature and Earthly nurture together, while recognizing their strengths and weaknesses (like Saiyans placing pride and fighting before everything else, and Earthlings becoming complacent and needing to be pushed to save themselves), and he makes peace and learns this lesson with Vegeta, where they finally become friends
Sorry long post, but I don't like the stereotype of Dragon ball having no substance. It's not a masterpiece but there's a lot of writing and morals to it
It kind of amazed me that he is going in-depth with what makes power systems good and then he goes and undermines Dragon Ball in a way where he almost come off as ignorant. Not saying he has to like DB or that this video is bad (I've taken plenty of notes from it) but I feel like he should've seen that there was more to it than "screaming louder". This is the same show that inspired many people to do many things from writing the next great stories or become physically stronger and healthier.
@@tang484 At one point, Super Buu escapes the Hyperbolic Time Chamber by literally screaming so loud he creates a fucking space time hole in it.
@@M4x_P0w3r I'm iffy on that because its important to remember that Buu is a magical being as well (he can absorb, regenerate, turn objects into candy, change his own physical characteristics etc.), and as we expand into Super, we've seen other characters manipulate or overcome other elements like time as or they're magical beings as well. But given that Gotenks did the same I think and along with the fact that DBS wasn't a thing, I can see it being an asspull out of nowhere and it probably didn't need to happen. I still stand by my statement though. For most of Dragon Ball we don't see characters pull stuff like that out of nowhere. They stuck by their power system well up until the Buu Saga or DBS. Even if someone gets angry enough to power up, that doesn't mean an automatic win either.
@@tang484 its not just buu, gotenks is able to do it as well. its how they and piccolo escape.
5:00 SHADIVERSITY SHOUTOUT FTW! I need to get that book!
Yeah same, I was like AAAAAAA FANDOM lol. From what I've heard the book is epic, so I really REALLY need to buy it!
So glad I found this channel. Video essays are my sh*t!!!
Came over off a Jesse Tribble video(highly recommend his channel if you like these movie video essays, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mr. Tribble’s face, but his content is A-1 quality.
As is Dominic Noble, for book-to-movie adaptation break downs!!!
There's one story that handled power escalation in a way I hadn't really seen before: it totally embraced it... and it worked (at least for me). In the korean web novel Everyone Else Is A Returnee, the main character grows in power at a phenomenal rate and to a phenomenal scale over the course of the story, but I never lost interest. I can identify a few reasons why it worked, but I'm not sure I truly understand it. Firstly, although the power levels escalate, the stakes don't really... the stakes are always pretty much whether the main character (and as he grows a bit, a few people he cares about) will survive (actually, the world is at stake too, but the reader is never lead to focus on that too much). Secondly, the world is rapidly changing, and a fair amount of the tension derives not from whether the main character can overcome the hurdle immediately in front of him, but whether he can stay ahead of the curve in the longer term. The rapidly changing world also serves to explain why greater and greater power is required to defend the same stakes. Thirdly, as the power levels become very high, the source of tension shifts from power-based issues to mystery and strategy-based issues... the main character is now the newcomer on a massive and ancient stage, and has to try to uncover the secrets and plans of the other major players on that stage, and how they involve him. Finally, the power escalation, though huge, never really breaks the paradigm that's been set up from the beginning, it only reveals more of it.
That third point bears some similarity to how The Dresden Files handles things. The source of tension there doesn't have so much to do with whether Dresden can defeat the bad guy, but whether he can even figure out who the bad guy is and what he's doing, through the maze of various entities involved all with different angles in the situation, in time to end up with a result that he can at least live with.