Power Game my Life!

[Umbran]

Folks,

In case you need a reminder: please leave real-world political and religious figures out of the discussion. Thanks.

 

[El Mahdi]

He can't see through Chinese toothpaste.

I hear that stuff is great as sun-block...

 

[El Mahdi]

Special Forces/ Navy SEALs / USMC Force Recon

I'm not sure this actually is a good example of min-maxing. Special Forces constantly train to expand all of their abilities (including Charisma - just watch them in a bar sometime). They equally train to expand mental and knowledge skills/abilities, as well as the obvious physical ones.

Interestingly, there was a recent study about Special Forces personnel and their ability to handle stress. The conclusion was that success as Special Forces was less about physical ability (although it is important), as it is about a very real physiological difference in brain chemistry. The biggest difference with Special Forces personnel, compared to regular people, and even regular soldiers, is their ability to endure, and bounce back from, situations and conditions that would cripple regular people (whether adverse mental or physical situations and conditions). That difference in brain chemistry allows Special Forces personnel to do that in situations where a regular person would either be unable to function, or would be seriously/permanently disabled (or dead) due to the situation. Whether that difference is cultivated or naturally present (or both), wasn't determined or explored, but it's very interesting nonetheless.

Lessons_in_Survival_-_Ultimate_Stress_Test:_Special_Forces

 

[fireinthedust]

Mister Spock. The second ultimate Mary Sue next to Superman.

Whoa whoa whoa, hold on there. WOLVERINE is the biggest Mary Sue, alongside BATMAN, and possibly the Punisher.

Actually, I don't know if *biggest* is the right word, as being a Mary Sue is a state of invulnerability beyond the legitimate bounds of one's powers; and based upon popularity.


Superman is simply acting within the structure of his stated powers and concept. He has a wide array of powers, or rather a range of things his powers can accomplish: super speed + flying + super strength is a really awesome combination. Add to that the heat vision, X-ray vision, and microscopic vision and you've covered a lot of exposition points, sure.
I would counter, however, that he has so many specific and known weaknesses that get taken advantage of regularly; and that exposition principle "show how dangerous the bad guy is by taking out Superman" is enough that he's been defeated many times. Indeed, he needs to be defeated, weakened, etc. simply to show off other characters around him.

(other examples: Thor, the Sentinel, Galactus. None of them should lose *ever* but they do so people can see how amazing the new threat is, or how Mary Sue the protagonist in the story is)

On the other hand, Batman has no powers except his training and gadgets, and yet he *never loses*. The point is that he SHOULD lose, and so he NEVER loses. He shouldn't be able to take out Superwoman, or Superman, or survive against Darkseid AND YET HE DOES. The drama for him is that we've established his vulnerability by his very concept, and yet we never actualize that vulnerability.

Wolverine is similar, except that his powers compensate for things they shouldn't. He has undergone a massive power surge since I was a kid. In fact, he's gotten taller, too. He can regenerate anything, so no poison can harm him, nor disease, and even being reduced to a skeleton doesn't work.
This was not the case earlier, when he was a minor-if-popular member of the X-men, a minor team in Marvel. He was a short, surly alcoholic who smoked too much, and lusted after another man's girlfriend *unsuccessfully*. He was hairy, and mean, and had a low charisma to say the least.
Now he's this paragon, has two spin-off versions of himself, and a backstory. A Backstory?! Wolverine *should not* have an origin story beyond waking up in Weapon X!!!! No excuse, I say!
The only reason for all of this: he's popular, so he can't lose.

The Punisher: He's popular, and so he can break into the Baxter Building during Civil War? Um, no? He's a human with no powers, vs. the intellect of Mr. Fantastic. (another example of someone every new comer has to out-wit in order to be considered smart. He's supposed to be the smartest!!)

Deadpool: another example. Maybe the reason I find this hard to stomach is that he was made up by Rob Liefield... (cough, just kidding; good job on that one, just being sour here). Okay, the real reason is that he gets away with a lot due to the healing factor and enjoying killing stuff, and he's funny. He's great in Hulk vs. Wolverine (good cartoon), but now he's got the Deadpool Corps? They need to die in a fire.

Being Mary Sue means never losing, sure. However, the reason for never losing is because that's their trait: They don't lose. There's no back up reason for it, like being a Kryptonian powered by the yellow sun of Earth. They may have "mad skillz", but so do their opposition; and often more so. Rather, they win because, simply: I'm Wolverine/Batman/the Punisher/Deadpool.

Final example: Drizzt. Stats-wise, he's never as powerful as he should be. Yet in the books he never loses. Back in the 90s he had 13 Str, but could always one-hit-kill. That didn't really change even in 3e, where most PCs of his power level were multiples of damage output over him (twf vs. power attack at high levels?); and nowhere near enough magic gear to warrant survival against a marilith or other critters (ie: what's protecting him from saving throws, other than his raw ability score modifiers?)
Most of the adventures up to the Orcs books, he was fighting fairly low level critters (orcs, giants, etc.). Yet he took on several high level drow matrons/clerics in one book; and this was waaaay before 4e.
And why is he so much higher level than the rest of his party? Like Cattie Brie is 4th level and he's 15th? Even Wulfgar and Bruenor are only 10th. Well, they're all dead now, so that wraps that up.

Oh well. You get what I'm saying. Can't lose!

 

[Jeff Wilder]

In case you need a reminder: please leave real-world political and religious figures out of the discussion. Thanks.

Please clarify. According to the film Stand By Me:

Vern: Do you think Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman?
Teddy: What are you, cracked?
Vern: Why not? I saw the other day. He was carrying five elephants in one hand!
Teddy: Boy, you don't know nothing! Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman's a real guy. There's no way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.
Vern: Yeah, maybe you're right. It'd be a good fight, though.

May we continue to discuss Superman?

 

[wingsandsword]

That raises a good question. Why doesn't Superman have telepathy. He can do every damn other thing.

If I recall correctly, while Kryptonite will weaken and kill him, and a Red Star will slowly deprive him of his powers, he is vulnerable to magic and psionics.

His powers, generally speaking are physical and perceptive: Super-speed, flight, superhuman strength, physical invincibility, super-breath, X-ray vision (and heat vision), super hearing.

I remember once they tried to ret-con that his glasses-and-business-suit disguise as Clark Kent only worked through a subtle mind-control "super hypnosis" he radiated that made people believe the disguise, but I don't think that explanation was used by other writers or other than that one time.

By "vulnerable" I mean he has no special immunity or resistance to them, he's as weak against telepathic effects and magic spells as any normal human. In almost every version of him this is a consistent (relative) weakness, albeit one that isn't as flashy and dramatic as a tiny shard of kryptonite bringing him to his knees, that and magic-using foes aren't quite as common in DC as Marvel (where several major supervillains such as Dr. Doom and the Mandarin are major magic users, but off the top of my head I can't think of any major magic-using supervillains in DC).

 

[Jeff Wilder]

off the top of my head I can't think of any major magic-using supervillains in DC.

Black Adam is the biggie. (Remember, it's not just magical spells he's vulnerable to ... it's anything with a magical power source.) Most of the big magical bad-asses in the DCU are anti-heroes or otherwise ambiguous: Black Alice, Etrigan, Spectre, and so on.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

In short: is it possible to min-max yourself in RL?

Not for me, at least not until "Loser" becomes a workable PC class.

What would that look like?

Not pretty. Not pretty at all...

 

[Diamond Cross]

Whoa whoa whoa, hold on there. WOLVERINE is the biggest Mary Sue, alongside BATMAN, and possibly the Punisher.

Well...

You might want to consider this page, and you'd see that while those heros have SOME qualities of a Mary Sue, they don't really fit. I'd like to direct your attention to this page for how Mary Sues are:


Common Mary Sue Traits - Television Tropes & Idioms

An excerp:

While Mary Sue is too nebulous to be judged by any hard and fast standard, certain traits have become surprisingly popular. In an effort to make their characters more attractive without having to do the leg work of natural character development, the authors just add some of these superficial traits to their character. Below are the ones that the collective unconscious (so to speak) find especially attractive and end up incorporating into their characters with regularity. With the way the word has mutated over time, a great many people just end up labeling any character overdosed with these traits as a Mary Sue regardless of her importance within the story.

That's not necessarily true.

Even if a character has quite a number of the traits described below, Mary-Sueness can still be averted by a good enough explanation for why they're there. It's when a trait exists more to make somebody stand out than to develop them as a character that it starts going into Mary Sue territory (unless it's Played For Laughs). Alternatively you may feel as if the writer is frantically trying to justify a trait to themselves and the reader. Also, a lack of these traits does not necessarily excuse Mary Sue status: see Anti Sue and Suetiful All Along. This article will concern itself with gender neutral and female traits. For (the few) male-exclusive variants, see Marty Stu. For a couple of litmus tests that draw on much the same source material, see here and here. ... and for those who want to build their own without any effort, go here and refresh until you find something you like!

Edit:

EXCEPT for WOLVERINE.

When he started he wasn't a Mary Sue though. He has simply become one because of his Popularity.

For an example of what makes him a Mary Sue (Actually called a Marty Suje on the site) you can watch the four Wolverine movies.

 

[fireinthedust]

I see where you're going with this.

However, that's clearly the anime version of Mary Sue; I'm thinking the origin of the term comes from this. Only Drizzt of the above characters meets most of the requirements (long white hair, kaleidescope eyes, really good at everything, redefined FR drow so they're all like Drizzt, etc.).

When discussing comic characters, Batman and Wolverine have been called Mary Sue a lot around my town. I'd say enough that there's a shift in meaning, or at least an expansion. Language being organic.

Good link, tho.