I was just "doodling" with my Super Goddess and was trying to figure out her powers... this is what I came up with: "She can become the universe in order to save a person: can make a hole in a building, can change time, can make air solid, can make molecules separate or unite, can cause things to explode or implode, can stop fire, flood, earthquake and control the forces of nature (though she cannot predict them), can become invisible and fly, make objects have no weight or force... her powers grow as she does and are infinite as the universe is. However, she is not invincible. She is a goddess of the earth's universe and the universe is only part of a greater and expanded multi-verse of parallel times, infinite and intersecting spaces... How can the universe be infinite if there is only one? The villains that threaten earth no longer come from only earth. They now come from the entire multi-verse and she has only her universal powers to fight them. Hidden in the shadows of their beliefs that everything must coexist by universal laws, humans are blind to the fact that earth will be bent and twisted from its former self by villains that see it as unimportant and it is her job to save it." The universe thing will be described in more detail when the story comes out and it is based on what I have long believed: that there is more than just the universe; but this is just a little bit about her and I wanted to know what you think and how she compares to other super heroes. ~Natalie
It still seems to me that she is too powerful. How can anyone relate to her? Most good superheroes are better defined by their limitations than their strengths. Spiderman's guilt and angst, and struggle to meet day to day schedules, make him someone many people can relate to. Superman became so powerful that kryptonite had to be invented to put limits on him. The Flash can be caught off guard, and is just as vulnerable as anyone else to bullets, poisons, you name it if he isn't prepared. Batman has no superpowers, and his greatest strength, as well as his defining character disorder, is his obsession against crime. Without limits, a superhero becomes boring very quickly. Plot requires conflict and obstacles.
That's what I figured. She starts out as a human and gets told that she's a goddess. She was adopted when she was a child and finds out that she was originally born from a goddess. She does have too much power though, doesn't she... I do want for the story to have something the do with the universe and not just earth, though, how should I incorporate that?
To add to her vulnerability... I wrote this to add to her vulnerability. Since she is an idealized version of me, I figured I would give her Bipolar Disorder: "To contradict her infinite powers, her father was human. From his side of the family, she inherited Bipolar Disorder. While fighting monstrous villains to save the world, she must take medications every morning and every night to stop her from hitting manic highs and extreme depressive lows. With all of her ability to change the universe, she is not able to change herself except through hard work and is only able to save other people with the forces of nature, she is never able to change a person's opinions or their personality."
I tell you what though is missing here, the observers still get a drift she's invented. You're starting to build the tower of the castle, without laying the foundation......... My advice would be, to sketch her as a human first and then get her stronger bit in the rear end, that'll make her much more related to us mortals......and yah, a woman her capability, does def. deserve a better title...hope it helped ~Neha~
Ok... Well, she could be told by, let's say, her superiors that a villain is coming or a villain could already be there and she has a depressive episode where she doesn't want to do anything, not even sit around. She doesn't even want to be alive. Someone tells her that it doesn't matter how she feels right now, she just has to do her job and get rid of this villain. (Add in character: best friend or fellow hero) they have to physically get her up and walk her out of her house and make her change her mood by showing her a kitten (or something)... She goes and does her job but an depressive episode happens again and her "powers" won't work if she is depressed. She has to want them to work. Her friend somehow makes her so angry by saying that it doesn't matter how she feels that she kills the bad guy with an invincible fury and goes back home in tears. Later, she realizes that she forgot her medication and a few hours after she takes it, she says how sorry she is and asks her friend to forgive her. Her friend says that as long as they got the bad guy, everything is okay and they hug and "the end". That's a lame example... okay... Her medication is her kryptonite. For example: If she is called away to another universe where her medication doesn't work, she will become manic and obsessive. She could even have an evil self. I don't think that her medication should be her only vulnerability, though, it's too repetitive. She's a highly sensitive person and cries easily. She has always had low self-esteem. She has to learn to fight against villains who use her weakness as a tool to try and throw her off and make her stop fighting, to make her think that she can't win. Whenever she fights, she has to constantly tell herself that she will win and that she is better than these villainous monsters that she is fighting, that come from other places in the multi-verse, that are things she has never heard of or seen; all while she is told that before she was adopted, she was actually born from a goddess mother and is a prophecy, meant to save the earth from its ruin. She has spent twenty years living a normal life up until she is told that she is a Super Goddess. What do you think? :redface:
You could make her an alcoholic or something. A bi-polar goddess is already an interesting idea, but a bi-polar goddess with substance abuse issues would definitely keep me reading.
Or perhaps she doesn't always see the side effects of her actions beforehand - either unforeseen ramifications, or spillover due to a lack of fine control. She could carry a lot of regret over mistakes she has made, making her sometimes afraid to take any action at all.
She's not going to be an alcoholic. I don't want to put any of my characters in that position right now. I was thinking that before she found out she was a goddess, she was a recluse and didn't go out much. She didn't know a lot about the world and was afraid of people because of what they would think of her. Her gut instinct of other people was that they were "bad" because they don't like her. When she is told that she is meant to save the world, she is conflicted because she has this new obligation to save people, but they are people that she never really wanted to know. After she gets out into the real world, she is at first very frightened and that compromises her ability to fight. She feels isolated and like she is doing this for no reason because she cannot connect with anyone else. Then something happens that changes her mind... something that shows her that people are just like she is. (I'm not sure what that is yet, but it will probably be something along the lines of saving a child or finding out that someone else does like her.) Does that help her relate to other people? ~Natalie
She's a goddess? Who tells a goddess what to do? Is there anyone more powerful than that? Additionally, why would the supreme being, king of everything, pick a socially inept girl that has bi-polar disorder to save the universe?
There are also the options of her feeling suicidal, attempting suicide, being obsessive and dominating in her manic state, feeling homicidal or violent, wanting to take over the world... the list goes on. I think that Bipolar is enough. You aren't supposed to drink alcohol with Bipolar medications. They can conflict with each other and could even kill you depending on what you're taking, not even including drugs. Bipolar drugs with non-perscription drugs WILL kill you... I could say that they haven't found the right medications for her yet... then she is in for a rough ride.
Plus, Goddesses still have tasks. Hera, Aphrodite and Athene were told by Zeus to have Paris judge which one was the most beautiful. For this girl, her task is to save the world. The only difference is that she didn't know she was a goddess beforehand.
I don't think you need to give her bi-polar disorder to make her relate to other people. Writing down her thoughts and feelings well enough that other people can relate to them will do that just fine. Making someone appear real is what makes them easy to relate to. Some of the characters who I think are the best, Holden Caulfield, Nick Carraway, Frederic Henry, they jump off the page at you. You can feel exactly what they're feeling. That's what I think you should be focusing on, not weighing down someone by giving them bi-polar disorder.
Yeah, weighing someone down, because Bipolar Disorder makes people horrible. Plus, you know, because I give her Bipolar Disorder, my writing isn't good enough to stand on its own.
Did I say it makes someone horrible to have bi-polar disorder? No. I didn't. I said that I think you should try and make the character appear real instead of worrying about an Achilles heel. I think you'll have a lot more luck making someone easy to relate to if you do that than if you give them bi-polar disorder. Nowhere did I say you're a bad writer either.
That was originally what I wanted to do, actually. Then people on here said that superheroes are defined as much by their limitation as they are by their powers so I decided to change it.
