Power and threats

I feel like a lot of these real talk posts are me repeating the same message under different banners, but the fact is that that's kind of what writing is all about. So, spoiler alert: the end result of this all is that balance is important.

One of the things that you have to think about in a series of stories is where things are going to end up. With one story it's not quite as much of an issue, though of course the ending is important, but what I mean is: how powerful are your characters going to be by the end, and how powerful is the threat that they have to overcome?

With a lot of stories, this isn't necessarily an actual physical presence. Many stories are about internal struggles, and learning, rather than full on fighting. But I'm the kind of person who really enjoys a good fantasy setting, with swords clashing and arrows flying, and perhaps some fireballs falling from the skies. So when physical combat (or magical, whatever) is one of the main driving points of your story, you have to consider just how strong your characters are. They have to grow throughout the story, of course, or find tricky ways around their problems that aren't immediately obvious, because otherwise there's no tension. So, in someway, the enemy is going to at least start off as even stronger than the main character.

But when one story goes into the next, this can become problematic. If, at the end of the first story, your character saves the world from an all-encompassing danger, what is there left for them to do in the next one? After all, anything less than what was there in the first story can now be easily defeated. Therefore, what comes next must logically be stronger and more dangerous yet. But this quickly becomes problematic.

A lot of movies and tv shows face this problem, and some games, though perhaps to a lesser extent. How often have you walked away from a sequel to something you really enjoyed and said to yourself, "Man, they really jumped the shark on that one"? If you're anything like me, probably a lot. If you start at saving the world, you have to move onto the galaxy, and then to the universe, and then what is there left?

And aside from that, if your character is so powerful that they can stop someone with the power to destroy the universe, what is stopping them from doing the same? Their morals and beliefs are there, sure, but those can be corrupted, not to mention that if action pictures have taught us anything, it's that there's going to be some massive collateral damage in the big fight. Not to mention what they might do on accident.

Hell, what kind of place would someone that strong even have in society? They would be a danger to everyone around them. Everyone would know exactly who they were, and everyone in their right mind would be afraid of them. That's why superheroes hide their identities. Well, that's one reason anyway, but I digress. Someone who can benchpress a planet hardly has many places that they can fit in.

Actually, you know what? That could be an interesting story. Someone is so powerful after having saved the universe that they themselves could destroy it easily, and the next story is entirely about them just trying to figure out what the hell to do with themselves now that they're the only reasonable threat there is. No threats, no massive fights. Just trying to fit in. I like that.