1. WrestlingFan101

    WrestlingFan101 New Member

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    Can I Get Away With This?

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by WrestlingFan101, Feb 25, 2017.

    Ok the characters in my book are like superheroes and the fight scenes they have against the supervillains be as extreme as they are in the movies (Iron Man, Captain America, Spiderman etc) where they messing up the whole city, destroying things, messing up roads etc...

    But in my story world they have a special task force who they call "Fixers" to fix everything that gets damaged throughout the battles, afterwards using magic.

    So like in one scene my character would come in contact with a villain who tries to kill him and they have this big battle, setting cars on fire, trees on fire and damaging roads.

    Then later in another scene, everything is back to normal thanks to the "fixers" for fixing everything.....

    Is that cheating?

    FYI: in my story world, everyone is pretty much superhuman and the elite superhumans are tasked with protecting everyone else from villains so the other superhumans dont have to. So normally dont no superhuman civilian die when buildings get destroyed etc.
     
  2. making tracks

    making tracks Active Member

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    I just like that the damage is actually acknowledged. As long as the fixers are consistent with your universe and it is seen as an inherent part of the way things work from the start I think it's OK. The alternative would have to include all the repercussions of leaving massive cities destroyed, the years of work and money it would take and how this could turn people against the heroes (and villains!). Are people who are killed or injured by this destruction going to be 'fixed' as well or do they stay as casualties?
     
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  3. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    You say no civillians die but I don't see how that's plausible unless everybody's invincible?.



    If you described something like that and turned around and said nobody died, sir, I would call you a liar.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2017
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  4. rktho

    rktho Contributor Contributor

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    Is it magic or superpowers the fixers use? That's slightly important. All superheroes' abilities are technically superpowers, but the "tone" of those powers is slightly different depending on the use of the word. Dr. Strange, for example, has magic for superpowers When you mention Superman's powers, though, you wouldn't think of magic.
    Another good example: The Sith vs the Nightsisters. Both use the Force, but the Nightsisters are witches who use Force magic.
     
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  5. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Well, if that's the case, and fixers make everything spiffy soon afterwards, then who cares about the destruction? Why would fire and mayhem be interesting?
     
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  6. S A Lee

    S A Lee Contributor Contributor

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    I'd have to agree, I don't mind the notion of there being some kind of means to fix the damage in terms of buildings and whatnot. However, if there's no cost, what reason do people have to fight for a city that is 99% strangers, especially if no one dies and everything gets fixed?

    In Arrow, Oliver Queen starts his crusade with a narrow focus, righting the wrongs of his father with only his last words and a list of names as clues, a far cry from the Green Arrow he grows to become.

    Spider-Man fights crime because he ignored someone being robbed and the robber went on to shoot his uncle, so he takes his uncle's greatest lesson of great power bringing great responsibility and uses his abilities to prevent crime spilling more blood.

    The Batman had a good episode on this notion involving a computer AI that Hugo Strange unleashes into the city, the AI builds himself a body, steals all the money from the city banks electronically, and cracks who Batman is by using data such as calculating age, build, wealth required for his tech via tax returns, and most of all, a motive. Batman prompts it to crash by asking what motivates him to be a villain and, being a computer program, it doesn't really have one.

    EDIT: In regards to the last paragraph, the episode in question, for anyone who wants to find/watch it, is 'Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind'
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2017
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  7. Thundair

    Thundair Contributor Contributor

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    Superman without Kryptonite would get boring after a while. The same is true with a villain, if he is invincible why bother.
     
  8. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I don't see the value in this. Mass destruction is dramatic in large part because of the value and significance of what's being destroyed. By making it easy to fix it all, you drain the drama. Also, those big dramatic scenes generally require visuals anyway; they're unlikely to be as dramatic when described in words. And if it's guaranteed that nobody gets hurt and nothing gets permanently destroyed, why fight at all?

    This strategy pretty much reduces the fights to fake wrestling matches.
     
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  9. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    @Thundair - it's why I found Man of Steel so boring. And it has exactly the same problem your story does - I knew neither Superman nor the villain was honestly gonna die and they're equally matched. Then it's just about a bunch of buildings being gratuitously smashed up. There weren't really any stakes.
     
  10. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    I would read an entire story about how hard it is for Fixers to clean up after an especially nasty battle and how hard it is to keep civilians from dying in the crossfire ;)

    I actually thought it was pretty clear that they weren't trying to kill each other: Zod was trying to inflict as much indiscriminate damage as possible, Superman was trying to force him away from the populated area but Zod kept forcing them back... The fact that they were fighting at all was a win for Zod no matter how beat up he was (or wasn't) getting at the time.
     
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  11. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    It wasn't clear at all. They both went up to space and then came back down to metropolis. Which would be a dot from that far away. So they followed the exact same path down as they did to fly up there. The slightest trajectory change would take them somewhere else. The only reason they came back was to shoehorn Lois in again.
     
  12. Thundair

    Thundair Contributor Contributor

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    I wrote a short story when I was young, about a man with special powers that fixed all the problems on earth.
    In the end the doctors, police and military decided he must be killed.
    That was my first main character (protagonist) to kill off in a story. It was ok, because I had him change into a dove and fly away.
    Did I mention I was really young
    So forget the main character and make the fixers vulnerable.
     
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