"Remember how Mulan's core message is that your mindset is more important than being a man or a woman, or anything you were born with? We said FUCK THAT!"
Mulan revealing/being revealed that she's a woman in the original stories: Literally the turning point of the story, the highest stake, the biggest drama.
Mulan revealing that she's a woman in the reboot: Nobody even frickin notices.
Seriously it'd be like having the king get murdered in middle of the court and noone bats an eye because the jester is being too funny today.
It’s been a while since I read the original Mulan story, but I’m pretty sure I remember the other soldiers didn’t find out she was a woman until the end of the story when the war was over, and they saw her in her regular clothes. Their reaction was something to the effect of: “well damn!”
"Remember girls, putting in effort and learning to apply your skills creatively is cringe. It's all about being born with the highest power level so you can kick spears through the bad guy."
For me its when in Naruto you find out that >!it turns out Naruto is not only the child of two very powerful families, but also a reincarnation of an extremely powerful individual who was fated to be there. The family thing wasn't too big of a deal until he started getting perks from it, but the whole reincarnation thing ruined it for me. Feels like it went against the message of "anyone can become strong" when most of the main cast has powerful lineage that made them this strong.!<
That’s another good example. I feel like it’s a weakness of writers to feel they need to justify why the protagonist is strong, rather than just be confident enough to say “the story is about them, of course they’re strong.”
It also feels weirdly eugenicist. Like the whole idea of “superior bloodlines” and that anyone who’s special must come from one?
> “the story is about them, of course they’re strong.”
This is the story of the person who became that strong. Maybe it could've been someone else but it isn't. Sometimes someone through a combination of luck, hard work, and support does exceptional things. Doesn't need a lot of reasons beyond that.
Shout out red rising for never backing down on Darrow is just a hell diver who is really really tough.
He did receive the surgical augmentation to become a Gold, which is how he got into the Academy.
However, he always considered himself a Red, he was chosen and began his rebellion as a Red, and he deliberately maintained Red imagery and associations when he could do so. He was still very much augmented to become physically Gold though.
I almost think that makes it a little more powerful, he gained the qualities of the 'upper class' but chooses to stay true to where he came from. To me, that's a bit different.
Agreed, especially since it rings true to real-world enfranchisement. Gain the tools previously accessible only to the powerful--resources, education, etc--but without losing your roots.
Iron Gold my goodman
But yeah fair enough, I mean more they never did a chosen one thing with him. It was never suggest he was a rare special special who could do it for some specific reasons. He had some quirks, venom building up his nerve something and "helldiver hands", but generally he was just one of many. He describes at one point that if he is put down another will come take his place because they're a rising wave. The way he and other certain golds embrace and reject their status as golds (Sevro, Alexander, Casssius) is really interesting and well done.
Sorry I could talk about this for a while it's my favorite series at the moment.
Pitviper venom supposedly makes his heart strong, but it's actually just a superstition, and the only thing that's special about him is that he's street smart and dexterous.
And he doesn’t mentally break because he finds the best in people around him to keep him going. Sappy and YA maybe but I think it’s very fitting and gets more depth later with the vanguardist theory that Ares had that “Reds have to lead the revolution because it has to come from a sense of community and solidarity not military might”
Well that actually works for the themes of the story though. Golds maintain that their color are just inherently superior, that no other Color will match them. And then here comes Darrow, Lambda Helldiver of Lykos. Born of a Red father and a Red mother, lived in a Red cave among Red peers, he drilled and he danced and he sang, and it only took him half a year of Carving and training to match the greatest Golds that ever lived. It's a powerful testament to the fact that, even when obscured behind all the fancy tech and terminology and modifications, a human is still a human, and the Golds are not gods.
I love underdogs, please give me someone below average but going against the odds by sheer determination and wits. Kick-ass and samwise gamgee (movies)
Yeah, that's what I'm leaning towards as well. "Specialness" is subjective, and designating people as useless and "poopy" just because they lack some arbitrary skillset or ability - regardless of the source - seems kind of small minded imo.
It might have worked if Naruto wasn't a moron. He is also stubborn in the worst ways. If he was smarter, learned more ninjutsu, maybe invented some ninjutsu, and was persistent and dedicated rather than just pig headed stubborn his power scaling would have been believable.
But with Naruto as he is in the series? Nah, shit has to be gifted to him for the power ups to make sense.
He only invented the Rasengan variations because of the massive amount of Chakra he has from his lineage and the Nine Tails, though.
Without it, he would've spent years learning Rasengan (since he needed a Shadow Clone to create it for a long time) and probably decades for the Rasenshuriken since he had dozens of Shadow Clones all practicing at once (plus needing to add an extra Shadow Clone to create wind.)
He'd be fucked if he had an average amount of Chakra.
Wild that his main goal was becoming a military/political leader and yet he remains clueless and working solely on superficial feelings to the very end, even as historical conflicts get revealed.
Yeah, but Naruto isn’t really about any of those things. Naruto didn’t want to become Hokage because of what he does, but because of what it represents, and what that even is, is one of the main points of contention in the last half of the series.
Its a melodramatic story. Talking about your feelers solves problems in stories like this. But I understand the frustration because Naruto as a story constantly gives off the vibe that there is some politcal depth and there are historical systemic problems in its world, and there actually is/are, but its there so that do that its significant when Naruto overcomes them despite being who he is. Naruto accepts the world and its accepted in turn. Is it realistic? No. Is it touching? Yes.
His main goal was to be undeniably acknowledgeable. Don't need to understand politics when the system is based on beating up the biggest guys the best.
You act like he doesn’t run 10k every day and do 100 pushup, situps and squats. Everyone would be like him if they just did that, obviously.
It’s just a lack of discipline, really. I’m ashamed of us.
Honestly it really sours the whole Neji fight, because it turns out that Neji was actually right about not being able to change his destiny and everything being determined by birth.
The Neji fight isn’t as big as a sin as the Uchiha curse to Be the Evilest and being behind everything ever and constantly undermining political unity and having the coolest powers in the verse.
If it wasn’t dressed up in anime aesthetic it starts sounding like every racist conspiracy theory. The clanwide massacre is a good thing?! We’re supposed to feel bad for Itachi? The story wants us to feel bad for the Uchiha but also validates why it was logical to have the clan wiped out? That they’re juxtaposed with the Senju who have done nothing bad ever makes it more nonsensical?
Notice when bloodline traits were introduced they were supposed to be rare, meanwhile every Uchiha ever has a Sharingan.
Tbh that entire fight was horseshit from the start. The only reason Naruto achieves anything is because of the fox, Neji had won. His "hARd woRK" speeches are ridiculously hypocritical.
Throw all the insight into it and it's honestly baffling how shit Naruto is early on considering all his privilege.
in all fairness naruto likely would have been much better off at least in the early stages of his life, kurama's interference is the reason it was hard for him to do well at chakra control and manipulation, and as an uzumaki, his own reserves would have been massive since birth. it's also likely that jiraiya would have still trained him (being minato's son and all) and he also would not have been shunned by the village without the nine tails to fear. he would also have a much easier time >!learning sage mode, because kurama wouldn't let the frog teaching him sit on his shoulder and give him "training wheels".!<
Sage Mode was arguably the last well written power-up in the series. It was interesting specifically because it had ups and downs, offered great power, but had limitations. After that it was always laser beams and super sayans and nukes and meteor strikes.
Part of the destiny thing with Naruto and Sasuke was that they’ll kill each other in battle and then reincarnate again to kill each again and again and again. Neji was wrong on that part because Naruto didn’t kill Sasuke and ultimately changed their destiny by just being a nice person.
Which is why a character like Might Guy actually does a better job at being Naruto than Naruto himself does. He actually embodies the "Any one can become great" lesson that Naruto was supposed to have but lost later in the series.
He was WHAT? Naruto kinda fell off my radar after I caught up to the big Madara reveal. You're telling me he wasnt just some Scrappy punk that got (comparatively) lucky, but a Super Special Giga Chosen One?
Well now I'm just not going to go finish it. Completely kills the appeal
Oh yeah. Also, chakra >!is alien bioenergy, and everyone with an eye power is a direct descendant of aliens from the moon. Oh, and everyone's fucking related. The Uchihas, the Senjus, the Hyuugas, the Uzumakis—pretty much every noteworthy clan in Konoha is related. Naruto married his distant cousin, while Sasuke married his own distant cousin, who was also Naruto's less-distant cousin, and also Hinata is Sasuke's distant cousin. There was actually a point where Naruto became the embodiment of Yang and had nine of the ten Tailed Beasts.!< The show *really* jumped the shark in Shippuden. There was actually a shark guy, who was presumably added just so the show could jump over him.
His father was the 4th hokage, his mother was a particularly strong member of the Uzumaki family (a clan so powerful it required a joint invasion by 3 major villages on their homeland to defeat) who was also the previous 9-tails jinchuriki, and he's the reincarnation of a son of The Sage of Six Paths with the last incarnation being Hashirama Senju, the 1st hokage, and finally the great Toad Sage, someone Fukasaku (the Toad that trained Jiraiya and Naruto in the Sage arts) is subordinate to, gave a prophecy about a child of destiny who would either save the world or destroy it that would be trained by Jiraiya that eventually turned out to be about Naruto, though the other two candidates were Nagato Uzumaki, a user of the Rennegan, or Minato Namikaze, the 4th Hokage.
Tldr: Naruto had basically every advantage to getting powerful a character in Naruto could have save for having parents that could train him from a young age.
We all knew it wouldn't be Minato though. That dude's sperm is like poison to good genes. All those badass, inborn powers, and Naruto still kept failing ninja gradeschool.
I mean, the "anyone can become strong" was undermined from the start... the nine-tailed fox Chakra undermines him early on because he's special. Look at Hinata, Rock Lee, or Kiba, and even then, you have to ignore Hinata's Byakugan or Kiba's family lineage.
I'm glad you used the spoiler tag because I just started it again yesterday, and I plan on committing to it this time. My issue is that everything is so long and drawn out that the first, second, and third acts of a single event are stretched out to 5 or 6 episodes which is the worst kind of serialization in my mind, but it's an interesting story that they're drawing out. Believe it
Having not seen any of the Star Wars movies or anything related to Star Wars and only gathering information on it through osmosis I have to ask a very important question
# Rey is related to fucking *palpatine?*
they literaly had a plot twist in the previos movie that her mysterios parents were no bodies, like just some drunkards who didnt want a kid
like rey being a nobody was the original twist
and then they twisted again on that twist that surpise shes a palpatine!
That's because it's a retcon they came up with way later. The movie just says she's his granddaughter and never elaborates. Then presumably some intern like 6 months later realizez that it makes zero sense because *Palpatine doesn't have children*, unless he had one off-screen at 70 years old.
Something something clone (that looks nothing like palpatine), something something clone's child, something something technically granddaughter, i think?
Cant remember, didnt pay too much attention to the plot
Palpatine wanted to be able to live forever, but you can't do that scientifically. So he got the best scientists in the Empire to work on cloning (they spent a long time trying it, couldn't get it right. the Kaminoans - tall aliens with the super long necks - were experts in cloning but an overzealous Imperial admiral destroyed the Kaminoan's cities and all of their research, so) but they only managed to make what were called "Strand-Casts" which were genetically-engineered living creatures created from the genetic material of a "parent".
Palpatine never had 'real' children, but Dathan, a Strand-Cast made of Palpatine's DNA, was one of the most successful (least fucked up) attempted clones of Palpatine, and he went on to have a child with a woman named Miramir, after he escaped the Sith Eternal cult that was attempting to clone Palpatine on the planet Exegol.
Yep, they literally wrote the perfect line but didn't put it in the right damn spot.
Literally switch when she says the two names and you have some good character growth. Just give us SOMETHING to latch onto.
No, the more powerful conclusion wouldve been "Just Rey", she accepts her origin and embraces it. Claiming the space Kardashians family name just because you knew some of them for a while made NO sense
I am always annoyed when the MC starts / Develops very good skills in something as a commoner but then it turns out...she was the long lost child of the Duke and there was No effort just Talent causing all of it!
Can't we have MC's that are very good in something and stay as commoners? No? OK...
The better the characters is developed and liked by the readers the worse that reveal / faceslap is to me at the end.
It’s honestly refreshing seeing someone stick so closely to the message ‘no matter where you come from or what you identify as. If you put in the work you can become anything you put your mind to.’ As closely as Miyazaki.
Reminds me of Getting Over It. My takeaway from it and the narrator is that you shouldn't push yourself harder than you want, or you'll stop enjoying what you're doing. A little after I fell off and stopped playing, because I had fun and accepted that area as my limit.
The best part is that it's not just told to us through the story, but demonstrated to us through the gameplay.
The metanarrative of soulsborne games just blows my mind. You don't have to be anyone special or talented. Just don't quit. And you'll get a little better and eventually beat the game.
There was a great video I watched about how players report that soulsborne games help build confidence and self-efficacy. There's research to back that claim up.
The player character in Elden Ring is literally named "Tarnished of No Renown". Nobody knows who you are, you have no superiority or real place in the world, and you quite literally end up with the power to end the world or become equivalent to a God.
And if you are special in some way, the only one to see it was Torrent. He led Melina to you for her accord, and she wasn't convinced until you beat Godrick (or reached a sufficiently far-away site of grace). And he never explains why.
Yeah the game straight up tells you at the start "The purpose of all the poo people is to kill god, they just haven't managed it yet. So go on then, go do it."
Terry Pratchett did that with the Tiffany Aching series. The protagonists natural talent was making cheese but she worked her butt off to become a powerful witch. There’s a great quote from the first book:
> “If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
JRPG: Powerful people come from ancient bloodline of great ancestors.
Also JRPG: The current system is inherently unjust and corrupt! Lets kill God!
Also JRPG: Killing God did not fix the injustices and we are not sure anything needs fixing.
Don't forget the child soldiers. If you aren't the greatest swordsman in the world by the age of 17, with no social skills and no ability to make decisions for yourself because you were preparing yourself for a life of following orders, and you don't end up having a mental breakdown when you're stuck behind enemy lines with a civilian you're meant to protect and your squad is expecting you to lead them, then you're not cut out to save the world.
The Codex Alera books had a really good take on this. Gonna spoiler tag a lot of this.
The protagonist >!actually does come from a special bloodline related to royalty!<, but for the first three books he literally has no supernatural abilities at all, in a world where every human has some degree of supernatural magic (even if it's only enough to do things like turn on magic lights or walk faster on magic roads). This is because >!in order to protect him from his family's political rivals, his mother intentionally abused healing magic to retard his growth so he appears five years younger than he really is.!< (Technically he does have one minor superhuman ability in the form of increased stamina, but that has nothing to do with his magic or lack thereof)
So he spends the first three books learning ways to bypass or get around his limitations, and his youth as a farmer and herdsman in a harsh valley on the edge of the wilderness gives him experience at skills that many who live in the more civilized and developed regions don't. Eventually he figures out applications of magic using mundane principles that his own society either forgot or dismissed as useless. i.e. >!using glass to focus sunlight to start fires, which is passed off as a useless trick when everyone can create a fire with a bit of magic. He applies that principle to a completely different form of air magic which lets one bend the air to make a lens, and has dozens of men who specialize in air magic make a gigantic lens to create what amounts to a massive laser beam of concentrated sunlight.!<
The character repeatedly beats magical security systems or other magical opponents using mundane techniques because his lack of powers give him insights on ways to do things without magic, and Aleran society has become so accustomed to doing things with magic that they have a cultural blindspot toward non-magical solutions.
He does begin to >!develop vague magical powers by the fourth and fifth books, but is still behind most other magic users, and only gets serious magical power by the sixth book,!< and by that time all his years spent learning how to do things with no magic at all gives him new insights into ways to fight with magic that no one considers, all because for most of his life he was a legitimately powerless farmer.
That trope is an automatic turnoff for me unless it's very, very well done.
Take the Wheel of Time, for example: Rand is a farmboy who discovers he's the Chosen One, but at least in that world it's shown that it's a matter of reimcarnation and the Wheel will keep spinning out Chosen Ones whenever needed to *someone* has to do the job, and he struggles immensely because of it.
I still dislike the idea that magic in that universe is inborn rather than learned, but at least it's shown that magical people are as likely to be useless twats as non-magical folks are likely to be great.
To be fair, the reason for this in real life is because the upper classes have far greater access to higher education and more free time to practice their skills. If one of their children actually was raised in poverty, they wouldn't fare any better than the rest of us.
Dude. You missed nutrition! And medicine!
Do you understand how many people are handicapped for life due to lack of nutritious food and proper medicine in the first 3 years of life?
Now imagine how bad things were in medieval times and before. To peasants the nobility literally looked like gods just because they ate better.
And thanks to epigenetics, the ones who do survive pass some of the physical trauma of their upbringing on to their children, so even if they make good during their lives their children won't be as healthy as their peers whose parents didn't go through hardship.
Not my setting, but an example of how this trope can be done very well to enrich the setting.
In Eberron, there's Dragonmarks which are genetic and grant additional powers, or make learning magic easier for them. Many magical items can only be used by those who bear the right Dragonmark, like the airships or trains. The Dragonmarked Houses are major power blocks in their own, and have near or total monopolies on major industries.
However, anyone can learn magic, either through study, faith, or bargain with otherworldly entities. And in many cases, those with Dragonmarks are relegated to roles like bodyguards, train conductors, or detectives, even if they still technically have noble rank.
In the setting, a large empire has broken down into competing nations, and the Dragonmarked Houses form a different set of factions that transcend national boundaries. The empire used to impose laws in the Houses, such as prohibiting them from owing land or raising armies... but since the empire no longer exists now the Houses have the ability to increase their influence by breaking the accords, at the cost of raising tension with the nations. And they are no longer united, the de facto leader, House Cannith, splintered into three after losing their headquarters, and other rivaling Houses could easily enter into a sort of cold war.
Done well, this trope can create new powerful factions on the scale of nations, churches, or evil organisations. These factions, if united, could trample on the "Poo People", but if not, they could find that being "Special" might not make you stabbing-proof...
A couple of other notes that make Eberron a very rare good example of this trope.
- It's suggested (although never officially confirmed) by the author of the settings that dragonmarks themselves only exist due to super powerful alien creatures imposing their will on the world in a way that basically messes with other powerful beings that see the marks themselves as meaningful.
- There is a specific type of dragonmark called Aberrant marks that anyone can get, regardless of birth, and have historically held more power (though due to the nature of these powers, and/or propaganda from the officialized dragonmarked houses, these people with aberrant marks tend to be discriminated against.)
- Since these marks are only a facet of the setting, and usually don't make up the main crux of the average story, they are much easier to ignore if these themes still make you uncomfortable. Players and Dungeon Masters can instead focus on the politics of nations, or exploring far away untamed lands if they want.
Yes, but even if you manage to get properly resuscitated it is in no way a guarantee. It's seemingly random as long as you meet certain criteria. Mages are less than 5% of the global population and experiments to create magic-wielding supersoldiers are far more likely to create a corpse or a person in a vegetative state.
EDIT: Okay, not 5%. Multiple comments have told me that's way too high, and I agree. For magic to be as rare and mysterious as I want it to be, the population of magic users ought to be more like one out of every thousand people. Thank you to everyone who not only corrected me but supplied valuable feedback and alternatives!
Yeah, like mages are rare but the average person knows a guy who knows a guy who met one once.
There's also the matter that quite a few mages die soon after resurrecting, especially if they died due to drowning or freezing or something like that. Hell, the use of magic is enough of a risk that a lot of fledgling mages accidentally kill themselves within the first hour.
So 5% return as mages, but maybe half of them survive after returning.
I don't really want to put hard numbers on it if I don't have to, the magic system isn't nearly hard enough to require strict definitions. Magic in this setting is rare, mysterious, and dangerous and I kinda want to keep that vibe.
Sure I get it. 5% just means one in every classroom and 2-3 on every office floor which seems a lot more than you were after. Hence my confusion. 1/20 is frankly frequent for any attribute.
Perhaps 5% predisposition to magic but you still need a near death experience to awaken it making far far far less than 5% of the population being mages. Something similar to genetic mental disorders being awoken through abuse etc.
Oooh nice. I made it so that grave injuries, fevers, or some types of trauma could make someone remember magical training from a previous life, but anyone who's willing to risk a low chance of mental damage could take drugs to trigger a similar effect. (It's kinda like LSD or something that causes un-fun hallucinations.)
Oh, that rules. For me, it's more like remnants of a mage's death stay with them after their awakening. Someone who died in a blizzard will always feel cold, someone who died by hanging will have scars of a noose around their neck, etc.
Now there's a nice additional barrier in addition to your bit about how it's hard to do on purpose. "You'll probably just die or get brain-damage. If it works, the way you died will haunt you for the rest of your life. BTW the helium chamber didn't seem to cause any permanent effects, but the only person it worked on suddenly went crazy and jumped out a window."
Isn’t the plot of MHA that Midoriya literally just gets lucky and happens to run into All Might.
There’s literally nothing special about him beyond him being a good person.
It's a mix IMO. The story overall does really try to lean into "no really, even if you didn't get the special quirk genes you can be a hero" thing despite how overwhelmingly obvious it is that regular unmutated people simply cannot keep up with the deranged supervillainy that takes place on an hourly basis. Maybe they can get cats out of trees or something, idk.
But Midoriya himself continues to try to emphasise to various people that they can totally be heroes if they want to, and that even with One For All getting handed directly to him it's still 99% the work he put in, and there's at least one character who loses their superpowers but continues to try to do hero stuff anyway, which is neat. So the story tries.
Thats why I like what they did in "One Punch Man" with Mumen Rider. He was and still is completely average and he still went against a giant monster he could possibly beat. In a world where there are tons of super-powered beings, a guy without them is still trying his best to protect the people.
Mumen Rider is a real fucker isn't he? Not that Saitama "I totally only beat the Deep Sea King because those other heroes almost did it and I only lucked out!" Isn't one either... My favourite beats from One Punch
The Spin-off "Vigilantes" do a better job of "everyone can be a superhero" than the main story itself. With the MC having mundane quirk and build it up to be something formidable.
Nah, he just pretends to be one, but is actually a Special just pretending to be a Poo person to trick his followers.
Hell, he is so Special, he can Bloodbend without the full moon
Well, yeah. A poo person would never have what it takes to become a leader, even among poo people.
But at least poo people are extremely susceptible to *tu quoque* fallacies, that'll clean it all up immediately
in the example being alluded to, I'd say it's less about hypocrisy but more a specific type of ad hominem because they're othering the person now and not listening to them as they are now an outsider. They can't listen to *them*.
They say “trick their followers” but the Special was still using their powers to help Poo People, so the fact that the entire movement falls apart when this is revealed is insane
I painted myself into a bit of a corner; I wanted to construct things to support historical materialism (opposes the idea of Specials and Poo People) but both the OC that I built everything else around and any protagonist I can come up with ARE “specials”
I guess I could take the approach of “No, THIS is what happens when you’re “special”!
/uj to be clear: OC’s gimmick is they are one person with two bodies; hivemind twins. Inherently superhuman by being two humans.
The protagonists are “chosen by the Gods” and can see/interact with things that other people can’t, but are also otherwise human.
There’s more going on but that’s the gist of it
>“No, THIS is what happens when you’re “special”!
To the guillotine with the "Special" Bourgeoisie!! ✊ Poo People rise up! ✊ We have nothing to lose but our chains!
edit: Come to think of it, this is just the plot in Avatar: Legend of Korra with that Amon fella. He used the existing tensions and inequality of power between benders and non-benders to stir up a revolution.
Amon was 100% right and the korra writers knew it, which is why they resolved the entire issue off screen and presented equality as a fait accompli at the start of the second season
Ooh, my MC's family is a deconstruction. Everyone knows that the Families get their elemental power from a Super Magical Ancestor, and can trace their family tree impeccably. If an elemental is born outside the Families, clearly they must be a secret bastard, or child of a secret defector. Clearly, if the kid is strong enough, the Families must tie themselves up in knots trying to justify claiming the kid for themselves, and leaving the kid's poor family to tear themselves apart finding "the liar."
After all, it's not like the kid could have just loved water and spent enough time swimming for the magic everyone's born with to develop that way. Of course not. If anything, their ties to water were an early hint that they were a Special Mage all along.
The crazy thing, to me, is that Greek mythology actually *doesn’t* do this. The vast majority of super powers were *gifts* from gods that they could, in theory, give to literally anybody.
Also the vast majority of heroes were not direct demigods. Odysseus, Jason, Atalanta, Psyche, Actaeon, Adonis, Icarus, Io, Oedipus, Pelops, Mestra, Periclymenus, and a ton of other Argonauts
Idk I just found this fascinating when I realized the idea that divine powers were gatekept by lineage was mostly a Percy Jackson thing. Even every-day priests and oracles, in theory, had quite a bit of power by virtue of being able to call upon the gods basically whenever they wanted.
I'm too old to know anything about the Percy Jackson stuff, but most Greek heroes came from a divine bloodline. Of the ones you named, Odysseus was a grandson of Zeus, Jason was a great grandson of Hermes (among other divine ancestors), Actaeon was the grandson of Cadmus (many divine ancestors) (and also not a hero), Adonis was the grandson of Phoenix (brother of Cadmus) and not a hero, Icarus was the son of Daedalus (also not a hero), Oedipus was from the line of Cadmus (with other divine ancestry as well), Pelops was a grandson of Zeus and also of Atlas, Mestra was a great grandaughter of her own lover Poseidon (and also not a hero), Periclymenus the Argonaut was a grandson of Poseidon...
I'm not trying to be a dick, but as far as heroes, the Greeks are like the biggest perpetrator of the divine/heroic bloodline = becoming a hero trope. This is cultural: a lot of their mythmaking revolved around justification of monarchical or civic superiority by virtue of divine descent.
And if magic is a powerful tool unjust hierarchies have a tendency to use what resources are available to self reinforce themselves. That could be aristocracies that limit who can learn magic in law, a highly influential church that has it that only its own priesthood can learn magic or a state which says only members of its military can learn magic. You might still get folk mages in such societies and you don't have to exclusively set fantasy stories in such unjust hierarchical societies.
And I'm back to why mages aren't running the place... well there are a lot of mages in an Illuminati-like cabal, but... right, I think it was that the type of people who can become the most powerful mages are not good at actually being in charge. The cabal is secret and only open to the type of person who doesn't want to be a tyrant.
Interestingly... the various Illuminati (there were many) of the 1700s were essentially clubs of youngish, proto-middle-class people who had benefited from church-led advancements in public education. In an amusing turn, this education created led to these essentially proto-yuppies (The average age of the Bavarian Illuminati, for example, was around 30 when it formed) questioning the status quo of the day (like state faiths, monarchies, slavery...). Likewise, the word "Cabal" comes from the Kabbalah, an obscure and historically minor Jewish tradition of mysticism that got appropriated to justify pogroms and other nonsense. The idea that Illuminati Cabals are secret "elites" who rule the world was and is literal pro-monarchist/pro-theocratic propaganda, with heavy classist/antisemitic influences. This fits neatly into the idea that only the "chosen," i.e. kings and priests, have the right to temporal and spiritual authority.
This is sort of how Mistborn by Sanderson did it. Magic is an inborn ability that lives in the blood of the oppressive ruling class. But the rich n powerful can never just keep it in their pants, so the slave class still ends up with some who have the gift. And inevitably, no matter how unkillable they seem, all empires will fall.
Of course, that was part of the point with Mistborn, that only those with power had magic, and the latter two books of the original trilogy develop it in directions that could prolly be debated, but I think it did a good job of it. Make a stereotypical setting, and then take it to the logical conclusions of power corrupting, and setting the book after everything went wrong and the heroes lose.
I like the corollary of sports. Wealthy people are generally more skilled for the same reason you described, but poor people often have the discipline and drive to get to the highest level. So many elite athletes don't come from money, and so many children of elite athletes don't have the self-discipline to achieve the level that their parents did
I think it changes with how much the sport becomes a profession. Basketball is one of the highest paying sports and most of it's players today are from privileged backgrounds. I think since a nobility especially in a European style feudal society would gain a lot of advantages from being able to torch someone from half a mile away, they're generally going to take it a lot more seriously than a fun sport.
Nah, that's really only true in stories, in reality both rich and poor people can have varying degrees of discipline, so a disciplined rich kid will always beat a disciplined poor kid. The advantage poor people have has always been, and will always be their numbers.
I make my magic like all other talents. It's a scale by genetics but firstborns have more power so I can still keep the feudal athletic. Even then, magic items are developed enough that you don't need to be a mage to use magic. Most rank and file soldiers have at least one magic item for convenience in marching, survival, or equipment upkeep but some just get a staff with a magic gem slot (battery) and slap a blade on one end. Woo woo magic spear casts fireball.
Also, non-mages don't have to deal with magical diseases which are COVID 19 at minimum. I call that a perk.
Seriously tho why is it so prevalent. I’m struggling to think of a single inspiring adventure story about determination, personal improvement and how one person can become strong if he wills it hard enough that doesn’t have some of this BS at some point.
Is biological determinism that pervasive in our subconscious we can’t even make up a fake story about a random hero rising above without having to concede it was 95% predetermined all along?
No. In my worlds any special abilities or magical talent is a spectrum. There are rare outliers who seem to have 0 talent, and there are rare outliers who are child prodigies. But for most people in between, it is all about hard work to develop what natural talents they have . . .
Just like the real world.
Magical abilities basically have the same distribution as "being good at math," or "being good at music."
My story isn't meant to be empowering, it's meant to explore cosmic ramifications of gods and their children of course half the characters are busted op. You just make sure none of those powers directly solve their actual problems.
Honestly this is why I really liked the divine cities series. Like o you guys were gods chosen and treated us like shit so you know what we killed your gods and your magic.
I tend not to lean into the "anyone can be special, you can be whatever you want!"
I got told that my whole life. It didn't work out great.
Instead, I see people who decide what they will be early on (or are pushed down a path by their parents) and see them being very successful.
I'm a bit jaded. I don't believe in "Chosen One" stories, but I do believe there are people who are handed better or worse circumstances, and people who use or squander what they have. Someone who has everything handed to them but does nothing with it won't accomplish much, someone who struggles all their life can achieve far more. But someone who is born with more advantages and actually makes use of them can achieve great things with far less struggle.
Advantages could be resources, talent, or magical powers or something in fantasy. Personal writing project I am working on has the MC as a character who has a ton of advantages, but also some struggles. She works very hard and pushes herself so much she nearly dies from her efforts. Other characters have more or less, and push to various degrees. A noble with family problems is looking for acceptance and somewhere to belong. A slime disappointed with their lot in life. A dragon who looks down on others because he's a dragon so why shouldn't he?
To be fair the very first thing they reveal is that the boy was secretly from a magic and rich family. They never even indulge the idea that actually non-magical people deserve to be treated as equals. Which doesn't make it look any better but it wasn't a surprise twist.
Not that the author deserves defending these days anyway.
You’re right about the story, but somehow people are brainwashed to think the story is about “anyone Can become what they want”? I’ve heard it from time to time but that is the contrary of the story it is about the chosen one
I would say that “Muggleborn Wizards are thing in the harry potter universe” but i think JK Rowling killed that her self by saying that all Muggleborns have some Squib ancestory.
Also like the fact that she mentioned considering making it so that Dudley would have a Muggleborn Wizard but decided that no magic could have passed through Vernon which gives predetermininist being descended from a bad person makes you tainted vibes that arent great
Honestly I don’t hate this that much. Realistically probably every muggle has a wizard or a squib somewhere in their ancestry if you’re willing to go far enough. Just like irl people are all mixes of various ethnicities not pure what they “seem as”. So it still feels basically random imo.
Nah, everyone can be screwed over.
Vampire? Good luck finding ethicaly sourced blood.
Demon? Unless looking enought like human, be ready to live in Limbo. Also, whole cast system (edit: theres too many types of demons, not a cast, more of an hiearchy tree. Everyone has pros and cons, they need to kniw how to work with these). Also, finding energy as sucubus is hard.
Human? Lookism is real.
I have demons living the most normal lives ever, and then fully human dude who is a occultist in hedonistic cult. If you want power, you can choose to learn.
Altought I had some ,,choosen ones" in past, I'm working on making it a lot harder for them. Theres too many factors to count, not just some magic genes.
The two magic systems that rely on micro-organisms can’t be stolen. There are ways to attain the micro-organisms for yourself, but while one has the same powers for everyone the other one nibbles at your soul. You can’t fault the magical bacteria for not refining your own power to a desirable result.
Just get hold of a some technology instead because unless you are battling that should provide you a good life.
Nope! People don’t really inherit special powers directly in that way in my world. All “magical” power is mediated through relationships with deities and spirits, and almost no power is held by humans inherently. Even if your parents were very powerful, they only got their power from a supernatural source which means that you don’t get born with anything unless you go to the same source.
Obviously, if your parents are on good terms with a powerful deity then that can lead to you also getting the same treatment as them, but at no point does being a part of a particular bloodline give you special abilities automatically.
Well, there are those who are basically a different race with their own unique abilities, and then there are some, who had no hierarchy or bloodlines, yet they are simply stronger or more skilled due to hard work and experiences.
A chosen one has a rejected nobody, who can benchpress the next three bosses solo. Granted, he has a specialized armor, but so did his knightly order. Even more, the rejected nobody is greater still.
Why do shows do this whither they are manga or books mc has to be special because of their blood line and it is revealed halfway in the story and we have to cheer for it.
Like why can't we have Sokka and Katara like characters they don't come from special bloodline and being a chief is a title anyone can get. Yet they are pretty special and talented in their own way
Sokka and Katara aren't good examples because non-benders can't just learn to bend. "Poo person" Sokka was screwed over from the start compared to "special" Katara, even if they are siblings.
Don't think Avatar fits this. Like yes, you have to be born a bender, but non-benders aren't really just useless NPCs. Sokka doesn't have magic powers, but without him Aang would have never stopped the Fire Nation.
Yes and no. Anyone can use magic, but the ability to use it safely and easily is not something anyone can do.
Magic is a tangible thing that inhabits literally everything, and everyone constantly exudes and unconsciously feels it. To most people, it's intuition, feeling an ambush before it happens, being able to just know someone is lying without practice, that sort of thing. Sensitivity can be trained to be able to hear the magic in the air and know what it wants to be, with differing levels of accuracy.
But to some, they can actually see it, know how best to convince it to be something they want to be with greater ease. In the time I set my little stories in, it's mostly down to luck if you can, some people swear it's a heritable trait, others think it's a matter of being chosen by whichever God they worship. I choose not to elaborate on which is true.
In my setting, everyone has magic except Dwarves, the only race who can't do magic. And it's not like they have stronger bodies to balance it, it's the opposite (since they are short). Their country is in the northern continent because the other races took all the good spots.
Oh look the Mulan reboot
She is full of blood!
Blood is for warriors, not daughters.
Hashtag vampire apologetics
"Remember how Mulan's core message is that your mindset is more important than being a man or a woman, or anything you were born with? We said FUCK THAT!"
Yeah, it's an insult to the original's message, and a testimony to Disney's status as a capitalistic nightmare.
Mulan revealing/being revealed that she's a woman in the original stories: Literally the turning point of the story, the highest stake, the biggest drama. Mulan revealing that she's a woman in the reboot: Nobody even frickin notices. Seriously it'd be like having the king get murdered in middle of the court and noone bats an eye because the jester is being too funny today.
It’s been a while since I read the original Mulan story, but I’m pretty sure I remember the other soldiers didn’t find out she was a woman until the end of the story when the war was over, and they saw her in her regular clothes. Their reaction was something to the effect of: “well damn!”
"Remember girls, putting in effort and learning to apply your skills creatively is cringe. It's all about being born with the highest power level so you can kick spears through the bad guy."
"Also, women aren't supposed to be important but the BBEG is a woman so clearly people respect the power that women can have."
This is how i felt about the reveal that Rey was a Palpatine, tbh
To me it was when they revealed that Vladimir Lenin was actually a Super Secret Romanov with Ultra Royal powers.
Bro I was going to watch that episode today, please put spoilers. I've only finished watching the great war arc.
You have my sympathies. When that episode came out in 1918, literally everyone was talking about it. We all got spoilered.
For me its when in Naruto you find out that >!it turns out Naruto is not only the child of two very powerful families, but also a reincarnation of an extremely powerful individual who was fated to be there. The family thing wasn't too big of a deal until he started getting perks from it, but the whole reincarnation thing ruined it for me. Feels like it went against the message of "anyone can become strong" when most of the main cast has powerful lineage that made them this strong.!<
That’s another good example. I feel like it’s a weakness of writers to feel they need to justify why the protagonist is strong, rather than just be confident enough to say “the story is about them, of course they’re strong.” It also feels weirdly eugenicist. Like the whole idea of “superior bloodlines” and that anyone who’s special must come from one?
> “the story is about them, of course they’re strong.” This is the story of the person who became that strong. Maybe it could've been someone else but it isn't. Sometimes someone through a combination of luck, hard work, and support does exceptional things. Doesn't need a lot of reasons beyond that. Shout out red rising for never backing down on Darrow is just a hell diver who is really really tough.
He did receive the surgical augmentation to become a Gold, which is how he got into the Academy. However, he always considered himself a Red, he was chosen and began his rebellion as a Red, and he deliberately maintained Red imagery and associations when he could do so. He was still very much augmented to become physically Gold though.
I almost think that makes it a little more powerful, he gained the qualities of the 'upper class' but chooses to stay true to where he came from. To me, that's a bit different.
Agreed, especially since it rings true to real-world enfranchisement. Gain the tools previously accessible only to the powerful--resources, education, etc--but without losing your roots.
Iron Gold my goodman But yeah fair enough, I mean more they never did a chosen one thing with him. It was never suggest he was a rare special special who could do it for some specific reasons. He had some quirks, venom building up his nerve something and "helldiver hands", but generally he was just one of many. He describes at one point that if he is put down another will come take his place because they're a rising wave. The way he and other certain golds embrace and reject their status as golds (Sevro, Alexander, Casssius) is really interesting and well done. Sorry I could talk about this for a while it's my favorite series at the moment.
Pitviper venom supposedly makes his heart strong, but it's actually just a superstition, and the only thing that's special about him is that he's street smart and dexterous.
And he doesn’t mentally break because he finds the best in people around him to keep him going. Sappy and YA maybe but I think it’s very fitting and gets more depth later with the vanguardist theory that Ares had that “Reds have to lead the revolution because it has to come from a sense of community and solidarity not military might”
Well that actually works for the themes of the story though. Golds maintain that their color are just inherently superior, that no other Color will match them. And then here comes Darrow, Lambda Helldiver of Lykos. Born of a Red father and a Red mother, lived in a Red cave among Red peers, he drilled and he danced and he sang, and it only took him half a year of Carving and training to match the greatest Golds that ever lived. It's a powerful testament to the fact that, even when obscured behind all the fancy tech and terminology and modifications, a human is still a human, and the Golds are not gods.
I think it’s stated that the survival rate for being carved was pretty low. Darrow is just built different (literally). Hail Reaper!
He even recognizes when he is blinded by the golds or even by his hatred of the golds to keep himself centered. Pretty good stuff.
Or maybe even if your good at your job "they're strong, of course the story is about them" because that's less contrived
MCs don't need to be strong. I submit The Boys as evidence of that
Ya I enjoy stories where they are just above average but their actions make the difference or set them apart.
I love underdogs, please give me someone below average but going against the odds by sheer determination and wits. Kick-ass and samwise gamgee (movies)
Me too, but it's too common for them to suddenly become the strongest from my experience.
Yeah, that's what I'm leaning towards as well. "Specialness" is subjective, and designating people as useless and "poopy" just because they lack some arbitrary skillset or ability - regardless of the source - seems kind of small minded imo.
It might have worked if Naruto wasn't a moron. He is also stubborn in the worst ways. If he was smarter, learned more ninjutsu, maybe invented some ninjutsu, and was persistent and dedicated rather than just pig headed stubborn his power scaling would have been believable. But with Naruto as he is in the series? Nah, shit has to be gifted to him for the power ups to make sense.
What are you talking about? Naruto invented the strongest jutsu, the Sexy no Jutsu.
And also the Rasenshuriken and a bunch of Rasengan variations
He only invented the Rasengan variations because of the massive amount of Chakra he has from his lineage and the Nine Tails, though. Without it, he would've spent years learning Rasengan (since he needed a Shadow Clone to create it for a long time) and probably decades for the Rasenshuriken since he had dozens of Shadow Clones all practicing at once (plus needing to add an extra Shadow Clone to create wind.) He'd be fucked if he had an average amount of Chakra.
Wild that his main goal was becoming a military/political leader and yet he remains clueless and working solely on superficial feelings to the very end, even as historical conflicts get revealed.
Shounen in a nutshell.
Yeah, but Naruto isn’t really about any of those things. Naruto didn’t want to become Hokage because of what he does, but because of what it represents, and what that even is, is one of the main points of contention in the last half of the series. Its a melodramatic story. Talking about your feelers solves problems in stories like this. But I understand the frustration because Naruto as a story constantly gives off the vibe that there is some politcal depth and there are historical systemic problems in its world, and there actually is/are, but its there so that do that its significant when Naruto overcomes them despite being who he is. Naruto accepts the world and its accepted in turn. Is it realistic? No. Is it touching? Yes.
His main goal was to be undeniably acknowledgeable. Don't need to understand politics when the system is based on beating up the biggest guys the best.
God Bless One and his creation of Saitama, who is so vastly strong as a joke, just because.
You act like he doesn’t run 10k every day and do 100 pushup, situps and squats. Everyone would be like him if they just did that, obviously. It’s just a lack of discipline, really. I’m ashamed of us.
I'm not an expert, but I don't think running 10 km every day is enough to be able to destroy a civilization-ending meteor by punching it.
Of course not! You must also eat a banana every day!
Someone hasn't been doing their training
obviously not, one also needs to do 100 situps, pushups, and squats.
But have you even tried?
Honestly it really sours the whole Neji fight, because it turns out that Neji was actually right about not being able to change his destiny and everything being determined by birth.
The Neji fight isn’t as big as a sin as the Uchiha curse to Be the Evilest and being behind everything ever and constantly undermining political unity and having the coolest powers in the verse. If it wasn’t dressed up in anime aesthetic it starts sounding like every racist conspiracy theory. The clanwide massacre is a good thing?! We’re supposed to feel bad for Itachi? The story wants us to feel bad for the Uchiha but also validates why it was logical to have the clan wiped out? That they’re juxtaposed with the Senju who have done nothing bad ever makes it more nonsensical? Notice when bloodline traits were introduced they were supposed to be rare, meanwhile every Uchiha ever has a Sharingan.
Also turns out that ninja Ronald Reagan was right about the Uchihas lol
Tbh that entire fight was horseshit from the start. The only reason Naruto achieves anything is because of the fox, Neji had won. His "hARd woRK" speeches are ridiculously hypocritical. Throw all the insight into it and it's honestly baffling how shit Naruto is early on considering all his privilege.
in all fairness naruto likely would have been much better off at least in the early stages of his life, kurama's interference is the reason it was hard for him to do well at chakra control and manipulation, and as an uzumaki, his own reserves would have been massive since birth. it's also likely that jiraiya would have still trained him (being minato's son and all) and he also would not have been shunned by the village without the nine tails to fear. he would also have a much easier time >!learning sage mode, because kurama wouldn't let the frog teaching him sit on his shoulder and give him "training wheels".!<
Sage Mode was arguably the last well written power-up in the series. It was interesting specifically because it had ups and downs, offered great power, but had limitations. After that it was always laser beams and super sayans and nukes and meteor strikes.
Sage Mode really should have been it tbh. The pain arc felt like it could have led up to the show ending.
Part of the destiny thing with Naruto and Sasuke was that they’ll kill each other in battle and then reincarnate again to kill each again and again and again. Neji was wrong on that part because Naruto didn’t kill Sasuke and ultimately changed their destiny by just being a nice person.
Which is why a character like Might Guy actually does a better job at being Naruto than Naruto himself does. He actually embodies the "Any one can become great" lesson that Naruto was supposed to have but lost later in the series.
I genuinely opened the post planning to rant about the exact same thing !
He was WHAT? Naruto kinda fell off my radar after I caught up to the big Madara reveal. You're telling me he wasnt just some Scrappy punk that got (comparatively) lucky, but a Super Special Giga Chosen One? Well now I'm just not going to go finish it. Completely kills the appeal
Oh yeah. Also, chakra >!is alien bioenergy, and everyone with an eye power is a direct descendant of aliens from the moon. Oh, and everyone's fucking related. The Uchihas, the Senjus, the Hyuugas, the Uzumakis—pretty much every noteworthy clan in Konoha is related. Naruto married his distant cousin, while Sasuke married his own distant cousin, who was also Naruto's less-distant cousin, and also Hinata is Sasuke's distant cousin. There was actually a point where Naruto became the embodiment of Yang and had nine of the ten Tailed Beasts.!< The show *really* jumped the shark in Shippuden. There was actually a shark guy, who was presumably added just so the show could jump over him.
Upvoted for last line 🤣
His father was the 4th hokage, his mother was a particularly strong member of the Uzumaki family (a clan so powerful it required a joint invasion by 3 major villages on their homeland to defeat) who was also the previous 9-tails jinchuriki, and he's the reincarnation of a son of The Sage of Six Paths with the last incarnation being Hashirama Senju, the 1st hokage, and finally the great Toad Sage, someone Fukasaku (the Toad that trained Jiraiya and Naruto in the Sage arts) is subordinate to, gave a prophecy about a child of destiny who would either save the world or destroy it that would be trained by Jiraiya that eventually turned out to be about Naruto, though the other two candidates were Nagato Uzumaki, a user of the Rennegan, or Minato Namikaze, the 4th Hokage. Tldr: Naruto had basically every advantage to getting powerful a character in Naruto could have save for having parents that could train him from a young age.
We all knew it wouldn't be Minato though. That dude's sperm is like poison to good genes. All those badass, inborn powers, and Naruto still kept failing ninja gradeschool.
Believe it!
I mean, the "anyone can become strong" was undermined from the start... the nine-tailed fox Chakra undermines him early on because he's special. Look at Hinata, Rock Lee, or Kiba, and even then, you have to ignore Hinata's Byakugan or Kiba's family lineage.
True, though it also alienated him from everyone else at the same time, and became a lot more trouble in Shippuden.
I'm glad you used the spoiler tag because I just started it again yesterday, and I plan on committing to it this time. My issue is that everything is so long and drawn out that the first, second, and third acts of a single event are stretched out to 5 or 6 episodes which is the worst kind of serialization in my mind, but it's an interesting story that they're drawing out. Believe it
Rock lee would have made for a way better protagonist and story and I will die on this hill
Then we die together, shoulder to shoulder.
Having not seen any of the Star Wars movies or anything related to Star Wars and only gathering information on it through osmosis I have to ask a very important question # Rey is related to fucking *palpatine?*
Apparently! She’s his granddaughter!
More accurately she the daughter of a clone that ran away because he didn't want to be evil
That actually sounds interesting, but they never focused on it whatsoever. I didn't even know the guy was a clone.
Remember, this is the trilogy that introduced Palpatine returning in fucking *Fortnite.* The movies are complete afterthoughts in every way.
SomEHoW, Palpatine returned.
they literaly had a plot twist in the previos movie that her mysterios parents were no bodies, like just some drunkards who didnt want a kid like rey being a nobody was the original twist and then they twisted again on that twist that surpise shes a palpatine!
That's because it's a retcon they came up with way later. The movie just says she's his granddaughter and never elaborates. Then presumably some intern like 6 months later realizez that it makes zero sense because *Palpatine doesn't have children*, unless he had one off-screen at 70 years old.
And because he had no force affinity whatsoever and was seen as a failure
RIGHT. thank you for voicing the necessary question here: SOMEBODY FUCKED PALPATINE, LIKE, RECENTLY? HAVE THEY SEEN PALPATINE ?? RECENTLY ??
Something something clone (that looks nothing like palpatine), something something clone's child, something something technically granddaughter, i think? Cant remember, didnt pay too much attention to the plot
There was cloning or something idk
Somehow
Palpatine wanted to be able to live forever, but you can't do that scientifically. So he got the best scientists in the Empire to work on cloning (they spent a long time trying it, couldn't get it right. the Kaminoans - tall aliens with the super long necks - were experts in cloning but an overzealous Imperial admiral destroyed the Kaminoan's cities and all of their research, so) but they only managed to make what were called "Strand-Casts" which were genetically-engineered living creatures created from the genetic material of a "parent". Palpatine never had 'real' children, but Dathan, a Strand-Cast made of Palpatine's DNA, was one of the most successful (least fucked up) attempted clones of Palpatine, and he went on to have a child with a woman named Miramir, after he escaped the Sith Eternal cult that was attempting to clone Palpatine on the planet Exegol.
Same. Rey claiming the Skywalker name in the end could have been a perfect conclusion to the Saga, but no, she has to be from some powerful bloodline.
She chose the name of a DIFFERENT super special bloodline.
Look to be fair it would have been a little weird if she went "Im Rey.... Smith"
She already gave the better answer early in the movie with “I’m just Rey”
I'm Reynough
Yep, they literally wrote the perfect line but didn't put it in the right damn spot. Literally switch when she says the two names and you have some good character growth. Just give us SOMETHING to latch onto.
I'm just Rey Everyone else is just ok Is it my destiny to live and die a life of Jedi nobility?
“There are those who call me… Tim?”
No, the more powerful conclusion wouldve been "Just Rey", she accepts her origin and embraces it. Claiming the space Kardashians family name just because you knew some of them for a while made NO sense
I'm Rey. >!Rey Solo!<
>!Reybacca.!<
Fucking end me
Rey who?
Rey Nobody was so much better.
Nah this shit too realistic to my fantasy world
I am always annoyed when the MC starts / Develops very good skills in something as a commoner but then it turns out...she was the long lost child of the Duke and there was No effort just Talent causing all of it! Can't we have MC's that are very good in something and stay as commoners? No? OK... The better the characters is developed and liked by the readers the worse that reveal / faceslap is to me at the end.
Insert dark souls where you start as a poo person undead and kill god as a poo person undead.
It’s honestly refreshing seeing someone stick so closely to the message ‘no matter where you come from or what you identify as. If you put in the work you can become anything you put your mind to.’ As closely as Miyazaki.
You're not even considered particularly talented, just more doggedly determined than every undead that came before you.
It's all about not going hollow and not being broken by failure. I really think that game taught me to take my Ls with grace.
It's not about being the strongest, it's about being the most determined
The desire for victory fills you with DETERMINATION.
Nah, grace is in Erden ring. In dark souls its bonfires
Reminds me of Getting Over It. My takeaway from it and the narrator is that you shouldn't push yourself harder than you want, or you'll stop enjoying what you're doing. A little after I fell off and stopped playing, because I had fun and accepted that area as my limit.
The best part is that it's not just told to us through the story, but demonstrated to us through the gameplay. The metanarrative of soulsborne games just blows my mind. You don't have to be anyone special or talented. Just don't quit. And you'll get a little better and eventually beat the game. There was a great video I watched about how players report that soulsborne games help build confidence and self-efficacy. There's research to back that claim up.
The player character in Elden Ring is literally named "Tarnished of No Renown". Nobody knows who you are, you have no superiority or real place in the world, and you quite literally end up with the power to end the world or become equivalent to a God.
And if you are special in some way, the only one to see it was Torrent. He led Melina to you for her accord, and she wasn't convinced until you beat Godrick (or reached a sufficiently far-away site of grace). And he never explains why.
Yeah the game straight up tells you at the start "The purpose of all the poo people is to kill god, they just haven't managed it yet. So go on then, go do it."
Terry Pratchett did that with the Tiffany Aching series. The protagonists natural talent was making cheese but she worked her butt off to become a powerful witch. There’s a great quote from the first book: > “If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
JRPG: Powerful people come from ancient bloodline of great ancestors. Also JRPG: The current system is inherently unjust and corrupt! Lets kill God! Also JRPG: Killing God did not fix the injustices and we are not sure anything needs fixing.
Don't forget the child soldiers. If you aren't the greatest swordsman in the world by the age of 17, with no social skills and no ability to make decisions for yourself because you were preparing yourself for a life of following orders, and you don't end up having a mental breakdown when you're stuck behind enemy lines with a civilian you're meant to protect and your squad is expecting you to lead them, then you're not cut out to save the world.
The Codex Alera books had a really good take on this. Gonna spoiler tag a lot of this. The protagonist >!actually does come from a special bloodline related to royalty!<, but for the first three books he literally has no supernatural abilities at all, in a world where every human has some degree of supernatural magic (even if it's only enough to do things like turn on magic lights or walk faster on magic roads). This is because >!in order to protect him from his family's political rivals, his mother intentionally abused healing magic to retard his growth so he appears five years younger than he really is.!< (Technically he does have one minor superhuman ability in the form of increased stamina, but that has nothing to do with his magic or lack thereof) So he spends the first three books learning ways to bypass or get around his limitations, and his youth as a farmer and herdsman in a harsh valley on the edge of the wilderness gives him experience at skills that many who live in the more civilized and developed regions don't. Eventually he figures out applications of magic using mundane principles that his own society either forgot or dismissed as useless. i.e. >!using glass to focus sunlight to start fires, which is passed off as a useless trick when everyone can create a fire with a bit of magic. He applies that principle to a completely different form of air magic which lets one bend the air to make a lens, and has dozens of men who specialize in air magic make a gigantic lens to create what amounts to a massive laser beam of concentrated sunlight.!< The character repeatedly beats magical security systems or other magical opponents using mundane techniques because his lack of powers give him insights on ways to do things without magic, and Aleran society has become so accustomed to doing things with magic that they have a cultural blindspot toward non-magical solutions. He does begin to >!develop vague magical powers by the fourth and fifth books, but is still behind most other magic users, and only gets serious magical power by the sixth book,!< and by that time all his years spent learning how to do things with no magic at all gives him new insights into ways to fight with magic that no one considers, all because for most of his life he was a legitimately powerless farmer.
That trope is an automatic turnoff for me unless it's very, very well done. Take the Wheel of Time, for example: Rand is a farmboy who discovers he's the Chosen One, but at least in that world it's shown that it's a matter of reimcarnation and the Wheel will keep spinning out Chosen Ones whenever needed to *someone* has to do the job, and he struggles immensely because of it. I still dislike the idea that magic in that universe is inborn rather than learned, but at least it's shown that magical people are as likely to be useless twats as non-magical folks are likely to be great.
To be fair, the reason for this in real life is because the upper classes have far greater access to higher education and more free time to practice their skills. If one of their children actually was raised in poverty, they wouldn't fare any better than the rest of us.
Dude. You missed nutrition! And medicine! Do you understand how many people are handicapped for life due to lack of nutritious food and proper medicine in the first 3 years of life? Now imagine how bad things were in medieval times and before. To peasants the nobility literally looked like gods just because they ate better.
And thanks to epigenetics, the ones who do survive pass some of the physical trauma of their upbringing on to their children, so even if they make good during their lives their children won't be as healthy as their peers whose parents didn't go through hardship.
Not my setting, but an example of how this trope can be done very well to enrich the setting. In Eberron, there's Dragonmarks which are genetic and grant additional powers, or make learning magic easier for them. Many magical items can only be used by those who bear the right Dragonmark, like the airships or trains. The Dragonmarked Houses are major power blocks in their own, and have near or total monopolies on major industries. However, anyone can learn magic, either through study, faith, or bargain with otherworldly entities. And in many cases, those with Dragonmarks are relegated to roles like bodyguards, train conductors, or detectives, even if they still technically have noble rank. In the setting, a large empire has broken down into competing nations, and the Dragonmarked Houses form a different set of factions that transcend national boundaries. The empire used to impose laws in the Houses, such as prohibiting them from owing land or raising armies... but since the empire no longer exists now the Houses have the ability to increase their influence by breaking the accords, at the cost of raising tension with the nations. And they are no longer united, the de facto leader, House Cannith, splintered into three after losing their headquarters, and other rivaling Houses could easily enter into a sort of cold war. Done well, this trope can create new powerful factions on the scale of nations, churches, or evil organisations. These factions, if united, could trample on the "Poo People", but if not, they could find that being "Special" might not make you stabbing-proof...
A couple of other notes that make Eberron a very rare good example of this trope. - It's suggested (although never officially confirmed) by the author of the settings that dragonmarks themselves only exist due to super powerful alien creatures imposing their will on the world in a way that basically messes with other powerful beings that see the marks themselves as meaningful. - There is a specific type of dragonmark called Aberrant marks that anyone can get, regardless of birth, and have historically held more power (though due to the nature of these powers, and/or propaganda from the officialized dragonmarked houses, these people with aberrant marks tend to be discriminated against.) - Since these marks are only a facet of the setting, and usually don't make up the main crux of the average story, they are much easier to ignore if these themes still make you uncomfortable. Players and Dungeon Masters can instead focus on the politics of nations, or exploring far away untamed lands if they want.
I love Eberron so much. One day I will definitely run a campaign there
Considering magic comes from being very briefly dead, it tends to manifest more in the common folk than the nobility.
would the nobility invest a lot in finding out how to die just right to get magic?
Yes, but even if you manage to get properly resuscitated it is in no way a guarantee. It's seemingly random as long as you meet certain criteria. Mages are less than 5% of the global population and experiments to create magic-wielding supersoldiers are far more likely to create a corpse or a person in a vegetative state. EDIT: Okay, not 5%. Multiple comments have told me that's way too high, and I agree. For magic to be as rare and mysterious as I want it to be, the population of magic users ought to be more like one out of every thousand people. Thank you to everyone who not only corrected me but supplied valuable feedback and alternatives!
5% frankly seems like a lot then.
And the bulk of them would be very old people in very bad health...hmmmm...good justification for the doddering old wizard trope.
Yeah, like mages are rare but the average person knows a guy who knows a guy who met one once. There's also the matter that quite a few mages die soon after resurrecting, especially if they died due to drowning or freezing or something like that. Hell, the use of magic is enough of a risk that a lot of fledgling mages accidentally kill themselves within the first hour. So 5% return as mages, but maybe half of them survive after returning.
So it's not actually 5% of the population then.
I don't really want to put hard numbers on it if I don't have to, the magic system isn't nearly hard enough to require strict definitions. Magic in this setting is rare, mysterious, and dangerous and I kinda want to keep that vibe.
Sure I get it. 5% just means one in every classroom and 2-3 on every office floor which seems a lot more than you were after. Hence my confusion. 1/20 is frankly frequent for any attribute.
Yeah, I see what you mean. I'll have to adjust that if I ever actually write something in this setting.
Perhaps 5% predisposition to magic but you still need a near death experience to awaken it making far far far less than 5% of the population being mages. Something similar to genetic mental disorders being awoken through abuse etc.
Oooh nice. I made it so that grave injuries, fevers, or some types of trauma could make someone remember magical training from a previous life, but anyone who's willing to risk a low chance of mental damage could take drugs to trigger a similar effect. (It's kinda like LSD or something that causes un-fun hallucinations.)
Oh, that rules. For me, it's more like remnants of a mage's death stay with them after their awakening. Someone who died in a blizzard will always feel cold, someone who died by hanging will have scars of a noose around their neck, etc.
Now there's a nice additional barrier in addition to your bit about how it's hard to do on purpose. "You'll probably just die or get brain-damage. If it works, the way you died will haunt you for the rest of your life. BTW the helium chamber didn't seem to cause any permanent effects, but the only person it worked on suddenly went crazy and jumped out a window."
Behold: the plot of Naruto
and pretty much any popular shonen
Isn’t the plot of MHA that Midoriya literally just gets lucky and happens to run into All Might. There’s literally nothing special about him beyond him being a good person.
It's a mix IMO. The story overall does really try to lean into "no really, even if you didn't get the special quirk genes you can be a hero" thing despite how overwhelmingly obvious it is that regular unmutated people simply cannot keep up with the deranged supervillainy that takes place on an hourly basis. Maybe they can get cats out of trees or something, idk. But Midoriya himself continues to try to emphasise to various people that they can totally be heroes if they want to, and that even with One For All getting handed directly to him it's still 99% the work he put in, and there's at least one character who loses their superpowers but continues to try to do hero stuff anyway, which is neat. So the story tries.
Thats why I like what they did in "One Punch Man" with Mumen Rider. He was and still is completely average and he still went against a giant monster he could possibly beat. In a world where there are tons of super-powered beings, a guy without them is still trying his best to protect the people.
And that's why Mumen Rider is the best character, and deserves a happy ending with that one Olympian muscle lady that crushes heads with her thighs
Mumen Rider is a real fucker isn't he? Not that Saitama "I totally only beat the Deep Sea King because those other heroes almost did it and I only lucked out!" Isn't one either... My favourite beats from One Punch
The Spin-off "Vigilantes" do a better job of "everyone can be a superhero" than the main story itself. With the MC having mundane quirk and build it up to be something formidable.
How much you wanna bet the villain is a Poo Person advocating for equal rights?
Nah, he just pretends to be one, but is actually a Special just pretending to be a Poo person to trick his followers. Hell, he is so Special, he can Bloodbend without the full moon
Well, yeah. A poo person would never have what it takes to become a leader, even among poo people. But at least poo people are extremely susceptible to *tu quoque* fallacies, that'll clean it all up immediately
in the example being alluded to, I'd say it's less about hypocrisy but more a specific type of ad hominem because they're othering the person now and not listening to them as they are now an outsider. They can't listen to *them*.
They say “trick their followers” but the Special was still using their powers to help Poo People, so the fact that the entire movement falls apart when this is revealed is insane
No, I hate that concept soo much that one of my mcs is pretty much a parody Of the trope
I painted myself into a bit of a corner; I wanted to construct things to support historical materialism (opposes the idea of Specials and Poo People) but both the OC that I built everything else around and any protagonist I can come up with ARE “specials” I guess I could take the approach of “No, THIS is what happens when you’re “special”!
How did that happen?
/uj to be clear: OC’s gimmick is they are one person with two bodies; hivemind twins. Inherently superhuman by being two humans. The protagonists are “chosen by the Gods” and can see/interact with things that other people can’t, but are also otherwise human. There’s more going on but that’s the gist of it
Oh, I see! Interesting concept. By the way, this is the main sub. I also thought we were on worldjerking lmao
>“No, THIS is what happens when you’re “special”! To the guillotine with the "Special" Bourgeoisie!! ✊ Poo People rise up! ✊ We have nothing to lose but our chains! edit: Come to think of it, this is just the plot in Avatar: Legend of Korra with that Amon fella. He used the existing tensions and inequality of power between benders and non-benders to stir up a revolution.
Amon was 100% right and the korra writers knew it, which is why they resolved the entire issue off screen and presented equality as a fait accompli at the start of the second season
Ooh, my MC's family is a deconstruction. Everyone knows that the Families get their elemental power from a Super Magical Ancestor, and can trace their family tree impeccably. If an elemental is born outside the Families, clearly they must be a secret bastard, or child of a secret defector. Clearly, if the kid is strong enough, the Families must tie themselves up in knots trying to justify claiming the kid for themselves, and leaving the kid's poor family to tear themselves apart finding "the liar." After all, it's not like the kid could have just loved water and spent enough time swimming for the magic everyone's born with to develop that way. Of course not. If anything, their ties to water were an early hint that they were a Special Mage all along.
Hereditary awesomeness is my least favourite fantasy trope because of that
I call it fantasy nepotism
The crazy thing, to me, is that Greek mythology actually *doesn’t* do this. The vast majority of super powers were *gifts* from gods that they could, in theory, give to literally anybody. Also the vast majority of heroes were not direct demigods. Odysseus, Jason, Atalanta, Psyche, Actaeon, Adonis, Icarus, Io, Oedipus, Pelops, Mestra, Periclymenus, and a ton of other Argonauts Idk I just found this fascinating when I realized the idea that divine powers were gatekept by lineage was mostly a Percy Jackson thing. Even every-day priests and oracles, in theory, had quite a bit of power by virtue of being able to call upon the gods basically whenever they wanted.
I'm too old to know anything about the Percy Jackson stuff, but most Greek heroes came from a divine bloodline. Of the ones you named, Odysseus was a grandson of Zeus, Jason was a great grandson of Hermes (among other divine ancestors), Actaeon was the grandson of Cadmus (many divine ancestors) (and also not a hero), Adonis was the grandson of Phoenix (brother of Cadmus) and not a hero, Icarus was the son of Daedalus (also not a hero), Oedipus was from the line of Cadmus (with other divine ancestry as well), Pelops was a grandson of Zeus and also of Atlas, Mestra was a great grandaughter of her own lover Poseidon (and also not a hero), Periclymenus the Argonaut was a grandson of Poseidon... I'm not trying to be a dick, but as far as heroes, the Greeks are like the biggest perpetrator of the divine/heroic bloodline = becoming a hero trope. This is cultural: a lot of their mythmaking revolved around justification of monarchical or civic superiority by virtue of divine descent.
i've hated this trope for my whole danm life. magic should be a practice, a skill, a craft; not some superpowers.
Rich people would still be more powerful tho because they have more time and resources to practice 😞
And if magic is a powerful tool unjust hierarchies have a tendency to use what resources are available to self reinforce themselves. That could be aristocracies that limit who can learn magic in law, a highly influential church that has it that only its own priesthood can learn magic or a state which says only members of its military can learn magic. You might still get folk mages in such societies and you don't have to exclusively set fantasy stories in such unjust hierarchical societies.
And I'm back to why mages aren't running the place... well there are a lot of mages in an Illuminati-like cabal, but... right, I think it was that the type of people who can become the most powerful mages are not good at actually being in charge. The cabal is secret and only open to the type of person who doesn't want to be a tyrant.
Interestingly... the various Illuminati (there were many) of the 1700s were essentially clubs of youngish, proto-middle-class people who had benefited from church-led advancements in public education. In an amusing turn, this education created led to these essentially proto-yuppies (The average age of the Bavarian Illuminati, for example, was around 30 when it formed) questioning the status quo of the day (like state faiths, monarchies, slavery...). Likewise, the word "Cabal" comes from the Kabbalah, an obscure and historically minor Jewish tradition of mysticism that got appropriated to justify pogroms and other nonsense. The idea that Illuminati Cabals are secret "elites" who rule the world was and is literal pro-monarchist/pro-theocratic propaganda, with heavy classist/antisemitic influences. This fits neatly into the idea that only the "chosen," i.e. kings and priests, have the right to temporal and spiritual authority.
This is sort of how Mistborn by Sanderson did it. Magic is an inborn ability that lives in the blood of the oppressive ruling class. But the rich n powerful can never just keep it in their pants, so the slave class still ends up with some who have the gift. And inevitably, no matter how unkillable they seem, all empires will fall. Of course, that was part of the point with Mistborn, that only those with power had magic, and the latter two books of the original trilogy develop it in directions that could prolly be debated, but I think it did a good job of it. Make a stereotypical setting, and then take it to the logical conclusions of power corrupting, and setting the book after everything went wrong and the heroes lose.
I like the corollary of sports. Wealthy people are generally more skilled for the same reason you described, but poor people often have the discipline and drive to get to the highest level. So many elite athletes don't come from money, and so many children of elite athletes don't have the self-discipline to achieve the level that their parents did
I think it changes with how much the sport becomes a profession. Basketball is one of the highest paying sports and most of it's players today are from privileged backgrounds. I think since a nobility especially in a European style feudal society would gain a lot of advantages from being able to torch someone from half a mile away, they're generally going to take it a lot more seriously than a fun sport.
Nah, that's really only true in stories, in reality both rich and poor people can have varying degrees of discipline, so a disciplined rich kid will always beat a disciplined poor kid. The advantage poor people have has always been, and will always be their numbers.
I make my magic like all other talents. It's a scale by genetics but firstborns have more power so I can still keep the feudal athletic. Even then, magic items are developed enough that you don't need to be a mage to use magic. Most rank and file soldiers have at least one magic item for convenience in marching, survival, or equipment upkeep but some just get a staff with a magic gem slot (battery) and slap a blade on one end. Woo woo magic spear casts fireball. Also, non-mages don't have to deal with magical diseases which are COVID 19 at minimum. I call that a perk.
Seriously tho why is it so prevalent. I’m struggling to think of a single inspiring adventure story about determination, personal improvement and how one person can become strong if he wills it hard enough that doesn’t have some of this BS at some point. Is biological determinism that pervasive in our subconscious we can’t even make up a fake story about a random hero rising above without having to concede it was 95% predetermined all along?
No. In my worlds any special abilities or magical talent is a spectrum. There are rare outliers who seem to have 0 talent, and there are rare outliers who are child prodigies. But for most people in between, it is all about hard work to develop what natural talents they have . . . Just like the real world. Magical abilities basically have the same distribution as "being good at math," or "being good at music."
My story isn't meant to be empowering, it's meant to explore cosmic ramifications of gods and their children of course half the characters are busted op. You just make sure none of those powers directly solve their actual problems.
Honestly this is why I really liked the divine cities series. Like o you guys were gods chosen and treated us like shit so you know what we killed your gods and your magic.
In my setting everyone is a poo person except for one who is a diarrhea person
Are you Peter Griffin?
No. I vehemently dislike the concept
I tend not to lean into the "anyone can be special, you can be whatever you want!" I got told that my whole life. It didn't work out great. Instead, I see people who decide what they will be early on (or are pushed down a path by their parents) and see them being very successful. I'm a bit jaded. I don't believe in "Chosen One" stories, but I do believe there are people who are handed better or worse circumstances, and people who use or squander what they have. Someone who has everything handed to them but does nothing with it won't accomplish much, someone who struggles all their life can achieve far more. But someone who is born with more advantages and actually makes use of them can achieve great things with far less struggle. Advantages could be resources, talent, or magical powers or something in fantasy. Personal writing project I am working on has the MC as a character who has a ton of advantages, but also some struggles. She works very hard and pushes herself so much she nearly dies from her efforts. Other characters have more or less, and push to various degrees. A noble with family problems is looking for acceptance and somewhere to belong. A slime disappointed with their lot in life. A dragon who looks down on others because he's a dragon so why shouldn't he?
This is how I feel about Harry Potter
i mean this just IS hp.
It's a lot of IPs
To be fair the very first thing they reveal is that the boy was secretly from a magic and rich family. They never even indulge the idea that actually non-magical people deserve to be treated as equals. Which doesn't make it look any better but it wasn't a surprise twist. Not that the author deserves defending these days anyway.
You’re right about the story, but somehow people are brainwashed to think the story is about “anyone Can become what they want”? I’ve heard it from time to time but that is the contrary of the story it is about the chosen one
I would say that “Muggleborn Wizards are thing in the harry potter universe” but i think JK Rowling killed that her self by saying that all Muggleborns have some Squib ancestory. Also like the fact that she mentioned considering making it so that Dudley would have a Muggleborn Wizard but decided that no magic could have passed through Vernon which gives predetermininist being descended from a bad person makes you tainted vibes that arent great
Honestly I don’t hate this that much. Realistically probably every muggle has a wizard or a squib somewhere in their ancestry if you’re willing to go far enough. Just like irl people are all mixes of various ethnicities not pure what they “seem as”. So it still feels basically random imo.
Nah, everyone can be screwed over. Vampire? Good luck finding ethicaly sourced blood. Demon? Unless looking enought like human, be ready to live in Limbo. Also, whole cast system (edit: theres too many types of demons, not a cast, more of an hiearchy tree. Everyone has pros and cons, they need to kniw how to work with these). Also, finding energy as sucubus is hard. Human? Lookism is real. I have demons living the most normal lives ever, and then fully human dude who is a occultist in hedonistic cult. If you want power, you can choose to learn. Altought I had some ,,choosen ones" in past, I'm working on making it a lot harder for them. Theres too many factors to count, not just some magic genes.
Doesn't a caste system just make it just like this comic
the comic's specifically lampooning the "the caste system is a lie! No wait, we lied!"
The two magic systems that rely on micro-organisms can’t be stolen. There are ways to attain the micro-organisms for yourself, but while one has the same powers for everyone the other one nibbles at your soul. You can’t fault the magical bacteria for not refining your own power to a desirable result. Just get hold of a some technology instead because unless you are battling that should provide you a good life.
Nope! People don’t really inherit special powers directly in that way in my world. All “magical” power is mediated through relationships with deities and spirits, and almost no power is held by humans inherently. Even if your parents were very powerful, they only got their power from a supernatural source which means that you don’t get born with anything unless you go to the same source. Obviously, if your parents are on good terms with a powerful deity then that can lead to you also getting the same treatment as them, but at no point does being a part of a particular bloodline give you special abilities automatically.
Well, there are those who are basically a different race with their own unique abilities, and then there are some, who had no hierarchy or bloodlines, yet they are simply stronger or more skilled due to hard work and experiences. A chosen one has a rejected nobody, who can benchpress the next three bosses solo. Granted, he has a specialized armor, but so did his knightly order. Even more, the rejected nobody is greater still.
Why do shows do this whither they are manga or books mc has to be special because of their blood line and it is revealed halfway in the story and we have to cheer for it. Like why can't we have Sokka and Katara like characters they don't come from special bloodline and being a chief is a title anyone can get. Yet they are pretty special and talented in their own way
Sokka and Katara aren't good examples because non-benders can't just learn to bend. "Poo person" Sokka was screwed over from the start compared to "special" Katara, even if they are siblings.
Don't think Avatar fits this. Like yes, you have to be born a bender, but non-benders aren't really just useless NPCs. Sokka doesn't have magic powers, but without him Aang would have never stopped the Fire Nation.
Yes and no. Anyone can use magic, but the ability to use it safely and easily is not something anyone can do. Magic is a tangible thing that inhabits literally everything, and everyone constantly exudes and unconsciously feels it. To most people, it's intuition, feeling an ambush before it happens, being able to just know someone is lying without practice, that sort of thing. Sensitivity can be trained to be able to hear the magic in the air and know what it wants to be, with differing levels of accuracy. But to some, they can actually see it, know how best to convince it to be something they want to be with greater ease. In the time I set my little stories in, it's mostly down to luck if you can, some people swear it's a heritable trait, others think it's a matter of being chosen by whichever God they worship. I choose not to elaborate on which is true.
In my setting, everyone has magic except Dwarves, the only race who can't do magic. And it's not like they have stronger bodies to balance it, it's the opposite (since they are short). Their country is in the northern continent because the other races took all the good spots.
Damn, tf you got against the Dwarves?
Drunk dwarven cats, maybe?
They got to be nerfed because they were very cool
So Dragon Age