What's Up with All the Magic Superpowers? (Part 2 - A Risky Shortcut)
Happy New Year, all!
Today’s post will be a bit of a short one, and it will serve as Part 2 of my analysis of magic superpowers, focusing on how the trope can potentially be mishandled. Please see Part 1 for a positive outlook on how magic superpowers can be an effective tool. If you’re interested in seeing an analysis of the examples that prompted me to write this point, those are coming on January 4th and January 6th.
Let’s unleash the power.
WHERE THINGS GET SHAKY
I’ve been pretty positive about magical superpowers thus far. This positivity has a caveat. See, the advantages of magic superpowers hinge on two key factors:
The magic superpowers either the entirety of the magic system or operate within a clearly defined niche within the broader system.
Characters can’t acquire wholly new magical superpowers.
Loss of Compartmentalization
Magic superpowers can work great if the entire magic system is limited to every character having a limited range of abilities. Once one introduces other forms of magic, things start to get messy. Suddenly, instead of telling a story where the means to solve problems are compartmentalized, we now have a toolbox full of solutions. Any attempt to insist that powers are locked to specific people feels less like a natural extension of the system and more like an arbitrary ruling to avoid explaining why a tool isn’t widely available.
That’s not to say that this can’t be done well. It’s just that things need to be handled with care. To name three successful examples:
In Fullmetal Alchemist, the broader magic system of alchemy is what drives the story, and it's where the limitations that dictate the flow of the story exist. The various powers wielded by the Homunculi (effectively magical superpowers unique to each Homunculi) are all things that make them unique threats. Critically, these unique powers are technically not impossible for alchemists to replicate. They’re just highly powerful and specialized manifestations of the alchemy magic system. An alchemist armed with a Philosopher’s Stone (as each Homunculi is) and who has the necessary knowledge of transmutation could replicate the feats of the Homunculi in some form.
Within Harry Potter, there are rare individuals who have an innate ability to utilize complex magic, like the shapeshifting Metamorphmagi or the mind-reading Legilimens. The key point about these powers is that they are not truly unique. Anyone can pull off the same transforming feats as a Metamorphmagus with the right combination of spells and potions, and Legilimency is something any skilled wizard can train in. Introducing characters with these powers is used for interesting character work, rather than to solve problems that would otherwise be impossible to solve.
The magic of Fairy Tail is a system where every specialization in magic is effectively a set of magical superpowers. The reason this doesn’t get out of hand is that it’s implied (via the fact that nearly every wizard is identified by his or her specialization) that mastering more than one type of magic is incredibly difficult. The few characters who accomplish this are either master wizards, have been bestowed with magical powers by others (such as was the case when Gray acquired Devil Slayer magic), or wield a specific form of magic that relies on copying the powers of others.
What all these examples show is that magical superpowers can’t simply be slapped onto a story with other forms of magic. If they aren’t going to be the entirety of the magic system, they need to have a clearly defined role within the system, one that preferably won’t overshadow the broader magic system.
Loss of Limitations
This one is pretty straightforward: once it’s established that people can just be given new powers, the limitations of characters only being able to do specific things can no longer be trusted.
I’ve complained about energybending thus far, but in fairness to Avatar, they did at least explain why Aang couldn’t just go around giving other people the power to control all four elements. The Legend of Korra made it very clear that the human body can’t hold the power of one than more element at a time without the aid of a spirit, and even then, that’s a significant risk of the human dying within minutes. This still leaves open the issue of energybending being used to change the nature of a person’s bending, but given the amount of training to master even one element, it would be extremely difficult for anyone other than the Avatar to master all four elements even if they could flip a switch and change which element is being bent.
However, what happens when new powers are not locked behind such rigid barriers? What happens when a person who was previously limited to doing very specific things suddenly unlocks exactly the tools needed to overcome a new narrative obstacle? It makes any obstacles that previously existed or may yet exist due to not having the right powers feel artificial and arbitrary. The expectation is now there that the writer will simply hand out whatever new powers are needed to overcome these new challenges with minimal effort on the characters’ part and minimal creativity on the writers’.
For an example that I feel teeters on the line of breaking this rule, consider Fairy Tail’s Slayer Magics (mainly the Dragon Slayers, but there’s no reason to think this issue doesn’t apply to the God Slayers or Devil Slayers, too). Very early in the series, it is established that Natsu can consume fire - only fire - to recharge his magic. He’d tried to consume other elements (Laxus’s lightning magic) in the past and failed. When he ate crystallized Ethernano during the Tower of Heaven arc and got empowered by it, this was handwaved on the grounds that (A) Ethernano is raw magical energy, rather than magic is a specific form that he can’t consume and (B) doing so made him very sick. However, during the Tenrou Island arc, he assimilates Laxus’s lightning without any trouble, and from that moment onwards, he’s able to weave lightning into his fire magic during high-intensity battles. Gajeel would later replicate this feat when he absorbed shadow magic. Sure, this assimilation of other types of Dragon Slayer magic was later retconned into being a standard trait, but then that begs the question as to why Natsu and Gajeel couldn’t absorb magic from every Dragon Slayer they fought throughout the series (including each other) and become masters of multiple elements, instead of only using one extra element as a power form. Further complicating this is that there is a character whose whole gimmick is being a Dragon Slayer with multiple elements. (No, the fact lacrima implants were involved don’t justify this, as in the original series, no one even discusses implanting lacrima into Natsu and Gajeel to let them use multiple elements.)
My point is, when the balance of your magic system relies on each character only being able to a couple of very specific things, the ability to change what characters can do throws the stakes into question. Is an obstacle truly an obstacle once a precedent is set for a solution just manifesting the solution?
NOT A FORKLIFT
My main issue with magic superpowers is not the concept. It is that authors are abusing the concept.
A trend that I have noticed among modern Fantasy is that authors are using them as a crutch. They want to take advantage of the shortcut to make certain characters special without having to explain why a magical tool isn't used more often. In some cases, the use of magic superpowers seems to be a halfhearted attempt to avoid the responsibility that comes with developing a magic system - after all, if everyone can do only one thing, why bother explaining why and how these things work? And that would be fine, except these same authors won’t respect the limits that need to come with such a system. They’ll expand upon the system in a manner that rips open the very plot holes that superpowers should have allowed them to avoid and/or violate the limits inherent to magical superpowers. This produces a system that is so bloated and contradictory as to negate the benefits of using magical superpowers in the first place.
Next week, we’ll get deeper into this by looking at the examples that have solidified my concerns about the trope.
Part 3 (January 4th): The Empyrean
Part 4 (January 6th)
The Lightlark Saga
In concept, the magical powers could have worked in all of these settings. In practice, their executions very from half-baked to self-devouringly lazy.
Thank you all for joining me today. Please subscribe and share if you enjoyed what you read here. Take care, everyone, and have a good week.
