Fantastic Realms, Ordinary People

[ecosophia]

My epic fantasy with tentacles The Weird of Hali hasn't gotten a lot of reviews yet, but one of them -- a favorable review of Dreamlands on the Ashtar Command Book Blog -- has me thinking.  The reviewer liked the book, and managed to catch some of the less obvious bits such as the reference to JRR Tolkien. He commented in a bemused tone, though, on the fact that the characters in Weird of Hali aren't special. They're ordinary people -- in the case of Dreamlands, of course, the main character is an elderly college professor with terminal cancer, and the rest of the cast includes a gay Bostonian writer from the 1920s, an assortment of other professors and grad students, and a rat-sized prosimian (a primate related to lemurs and tarsiers) of a species unfamiliar to science but quite familiar to anyone who's read H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dreams in the Witch-House."  (Okay, I grant that an otherwise unknown species of primate is a bit exotic, but she's not noticeably more so than, say, a pet monkey.) 

Now of course that's part of the point of the series, but it got me thinking. 

The hero of the first fantasy novel that really had me staring in awe at nothing in particular for days afterwards is perhaps the most ordinary character in all of literature. Yes, that would be Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit of respectable family who spends most of The Hobbit in a state of confustication and bebotherment (his terms), having been flung into the middle of a madcap adventure involving dwarves, wizards, trolls, goblins, elves, and a bona fide dragon. He's far from the only relentlessly ordinary character in classic fantasy. Go all the way back to the first fantasy novel ever written -- William Morris' The Wood Beyond the World -- and you've got Walter, a guy who walks away from a disastrously failed marriage via the first available boat. Yes, he's as ordinary as that sounds, even though he rises to the challenge of a series of astonishing adventures and ends up becoming a king. 

That was pervasive in classic fantasy. Even Conan the Cimmerian started out as another dumb kid from the barbarian North before a taste for adventure and a lot of heavy challenges turned him into the iron-thewed thief, warrior, and (eventually) usurping king he became. Somehow, though, that got lost, and a large amount of fantasy got sucked into a single narrative -- the story of a special snowflake, uniquely talented at whatever, who's marked out for a Really Shiny Destiny because (s)he's, well, just so special. Or has super-powers, or super-duper-powers, or super-duper-pooper-powers, or what have you. 

That kind of thing bores the bejesus out of me. Back when I was into comic books -- he're we're talking a long, long time ago! -- I liked characters like Batman and Green Arrow because they didn't have super-powers -- just courage, motivation, some nice technogimmicks, and a really robust exercise routine. My favorite characters in fiction, from childhood faves right up to the present, are ordinary people; even if they have one unusual feature (say, a talent for music like Brecken Kendall, or tentacles for legs like Laura Marsh), that doesn't keep them from being ordinary in every other sense, and having to scramble to deal with fantastic challenges the way you and I would have to do. They rise to the occasion -- that's what makes them protagonists -- but it doesn't come naturally and they have to give it everything they've got -- that's what makes them interesting. 

Is this purely a quibble of mine, or is this something other people have noticed too? Inquiring prosimians want to know. ;-)

Comments

Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble-

[(Anonymous)]

Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't matter a hill of beans in this crazy world-

And that's when Rick is a hero. The rest of Casablanca he's just an adventurer: slick, strong, smart, but nobody you really care about. WP Kerr drew a strong distinction between the hero and the adventurer. Writers who think what the characters do in the setting is what characters do in the story keep sliding back from writing about heroism, which is hard and means something, to writing about adventures, which is easy and doesn't mean much.

Re: Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble-

[ecosophia]

That's an excellent example! One of the things that makes Casablanca one of the best movies ever filmed is precisely that its characters hit the perfect balance, being ordinary yet wholly distinctive people in a time of crisis. It also helps that Rick doesn't end the Third Reich single-handed -- he just does the right thing at the right time, and makes one part of the whole puzzle work out right.

[temporaryreality]

Nope, you're not the only one unimpressed with the "chosen-one" hidden among the rabble gimmick. I find it hard to relate to the special scar, skill, heritage, or destiny trope/troupe, being quite regular myself. I appreciate other muddlers-through who still somehow manage to do good and become better.

[ecosophia]

Me too.

Absolutely yes.

[(Anonymous)]

Absolutely yes. I love stories with characters who are not Special, who have problems that can be solved with human capabilities. One of the biggest turn-offs for me in the comic genre is stories solved with the use of time travel or multiple dimensions or having a bigger technogimmick than the others - what's a story like that supposed to teach me?

Re: Absolutely yes.

[ecosophia]

How to wait for the self-proclaimed Good People to save you, I think.

Agreed.

[(Anonymous)]

I too find "special" characters more difficult to relate to. I prefer protagonists that had to work hard to gain whatever skills they now have. Growing up I sought out characters who had learned how to focus and do their best to succeed. I was always the A-/B+ student struggling to hang on in the AP classes and bewildered when my classmates somehow weren't stressed out and made it all look easy.

Though I'm not the greatest HP fan out there, as a young woman, I appreciated that Hermione was a muggle, with no inherited magical talent, and yet she sat at the top of the class because she read all the books and then some.

Re: Agreed.

[ecosophia]

Me too! The harder characters has to work to deal with the situations that get thrown at them, the more interesting they are, and the more lively the story is.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

Special snowflake stories tend to bore me to death as well these days. As a child born in the 70s, Star Wars was the first story that I really identified with as you did with Lord of the Rings. I'm sure that there were special snowflake stories before Star Wars. As I read your post it occurred to me that perhaps a story where the special snowflake power ends up being a stumbling block, curse, not useful, etc.; and the main character has to deal with that and learn the hard way a new skill or whatever it is as most of us do to get through might be interesting. To turn the special snowflake narrative on it's head as you did with the Haliverse.

[ecosophia]

I liked the first Star Wars movie quite a bit, to the extent of seeing it eight times in its original theater run -- and it was precisely the way that Mark Hamill played Luke as a completely ordinary kid that made it work. The later movies, not so much!

There have actually been some decent stories about a special power that turns out to be as much hindrance as help; as one of the other commenters noted below. Peter Parker aka Spiderman is a good example! Still, there's plenty of room for more stories like that. Have you considered writing one?

[(Anonymous)]

I totally agree. Funny you mention this now! In Magic Monday, I mentioned that I enjoyed hearing about your learning curve as a writer, and that I'm put off by the attitude of some writers that talent is gifted at birth rather than earned/learned. I think that's the same premise.

On some level, I think we all want to identify with the protagonist. The duality you're describing here displays two very different worldviews -- the first is "I'm valuable and I hope someone recognizes that," and the second is "If I scramble hard enough, maybe I can become valuable/do something valuable."

That's a no-brainer for me. I'm always going to want to read about the scrappy nobody pushing themselves to do something amazing.

- Dudley Dawson

[ecosophia]

That's a good point. It's precisely the sense of overblown entitlement in today's culture, I think, that feeds the fantasy of being the Special Snowflake To End All Snowflakes, and having everyone kowtow to your special powers.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree.
And even when they have powers, the real heroes have to rise to the occasion to be the just wielders of such powers.

Even in comics.

If you look at Marvel Comics we have Spiderman that gained his powers by a fluke of chance, and that looses his uncle because he wasn't using his powers with responsibility. All the others stories of Spiderman are of him using his powers because he has too. He'd rather stay home and cuddle with Mary Jane, living a pretty ordinary life, but the fact that he has power while other people don't forces him to be their champion. He's just an ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances.

On the other extreme (and also with powers)we have Doctor Strange that perfectly and unwillingly exemplifies the hero path.
He starts his quest as an arrogant Son of a Barbarian. He's vane, shallow, arrogant, mean... a putrid excuse for a person.
And like so many before him he's forcibly humbled. He's hurt in his flesh and in his mind, and for a long time he travels to the bottom, to the pits of despair, to his personal hell. When he has lost almost everything he hears someone talk about the Ancient One, and in his desperation clings to that shadow of hope.
Puts all his faith, all his hope in somethings that for all he knows does not exist, CAN NOT exist. A reverie, a rumor, a myth, a SORCERER.
And when he finally reaches he Ancient One whatever is left of his hope is crushed. His hands can not be healed. He will never be a surgeon again.
And now that he's reduced to nothing starts his journey to greatness. He can't leave the Sanctuary because there's a storm that would certainly kill him and is forced to accept the hospitality of the Ancient One. And then by "chance"/Karma/destiny/fate he finds out that the disciple of the Ancient one, Baron Mordo is making magic to kill his teacher... and Baron Mordo finds out that he knows...
Mordo's reaction as we all know is to put a spell on him to gag him, prevent him to warn the Ancient One, while being able to talk about everything else.
That is the TSW moment for Stephen Strange.
And now he has a purpose and what Don Juan called a worthy opponent.
Eager to free himself from Mordo's spell and willing to help the Ancient One he asks the Ancient One to be accepted as a student. He willingly starts on the path of knowledge and after many years he takes upon his shoulders the duties of the Ancient One, the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme.

[ecosophia]

I was never much of a Marvel reader, but I'm sorry I missed Doctor Strange -- that sounds like a good proper origin story. I may just want to scare up a reprint or two.

[(Anonymous)]

And it's not just in comics. On the Prydain Chronicles, Taran starts as an assistant hog handler, and after many adventures, sacrifices and most important after earning the trust and friendship of a lot of people, ends up becoming a king.
That is what bugs me in Harry Potter, and on Star Wars. Just by being born the Wizards and Jedi already have gifts, are already destined for greatness. They're a master race. What a strip mining concept.
Whispers

[ecosophia]

Oh my -- the Chronicles of Prydain! I adored that series when I was a kid, and I'd recommend it heartily to any parents of imaginative kids. Yes, Taran's a great example; he spends the whole series hopelessly over his head, scrambling to deal with things way out of his league, with nothing but a good heart and a capacity to learn.

It's all ordinary

[jpc2]

John

To me your worlds are ordinary. WOH and Retrotopia are both worlds that could be this one. The "gods" are ordinary. Even the baddies are ordinary.

The few "special snowflakes" aren't really they are just typical "flakes".

And I've really enjoyed the "decline" in WOH. It's ordinary also.

Re: It's all ordinary

[ecosophia]

I'm delighted to hear that, because that's exactly what I was trying to do. The nearest thing to a special snowflake in WoH is Jenny Chaudronnier, and even though she's got a serious talent for sorcery and has a whipsmart mind, she still makes mistakes, has emotional problems, etc. That's all deliberate, because I want to tell the kind of fantasy story I enjoy reading.

"Special" characters

[(Anonymous)]

I hadn't really given it much thought, but like you, I also was more intrigued by Batman and other characters who were more realistic, someone who I could more easily put myself into their shoes. Giving it some thought, it is definitely huge reason I haven't enjoyed a lot of modern sci-fi, and in general, modern stories, is the very reason that the characters do have a tendency to be "special."

Prizm

Re: "Special" characters

[ecosophia]

Many thanks for the data point. I really was wondering if it was just me.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm also baffled by the huge interest in the Marvel and DC movies lately, for the same reasons. Everyone is so overpowered it's hard to care. Then they have to do gymnastics with the plot to give their heroes any actual challenges, usually involving some diabolus ex machina that has the special McGuffin that is the only thing that makes the hero vulnerable, e.g. kryptonite. At the end of the day, I need at least one good relatable character to invest in a book, a movie, or what-have-you, and superpowers have mever been relatable. Howard Suber, who basically llaunched film studies as an academic discipline, once said that superheroes appeal to fourteen year old boys, and adults with the mind of one.

Then again, I'm the wrong person to ask because I'm currently enjoying Red Hook.

-Kyle

[ecosophia]

I figured that all those comic book movies are just another marker of the descent of the Boomer generation into senility.

Spot On

[sothismedias]

I think you are spot on as usual JMG!

I'm in the same mind as you in regards to comic books: I used to like those same two characters: Green Lantern & Batman for the same reasons you listed. I also liked Reid Fleming: The Worlds Toughest Milkman and Tank Girl. Neither of them had any special powers. Tank Girl just liked to hang out with mutant kangaroos and drink malt liquor and that appealed to me as a teen!

I'm working on some writings about punk rock and how its mindset might be applied to green wizardry now and your little piece here struck me with an interesting parallel. Part of why punk was so well liked because it stripped away the status of the mighty rock star. The music wasn't that hard to play. Anyone could do it. Nothing against musical virtuosity or skill on my end, but the fact that it made it accessible, and you didn't have to be this god on a stage, brought music back to ordinary young folks.

Punk gave permission to just get on with it, take action and do things. That's one of the attitudes necessary for green wizardry and for the predicament of this time: just get on with it! Don't wait for some authority figure or whoever to give you permission. Just do the thing. You can be an ordinary dude, suburban, urban or rural in your background, and through your own volition, can take some action in regards to your circumstances whatever they may be. As Steve Ignorant of Crass said in an interview, “There has to be an alternative to the dole, do something creative.” Don't wait for the corporations or the government to change. Make those changes in your own life yourself.

Of course maybe Bilbo didn't want to take action or do anything except eat some cheese, have a pint, and smoke some pipeweed before fiddling about in his garden. Yet circumstances outside his control stepped into his life and made themselves known, as they did to Frodo, and they became heroes even if they didn't start out as such. Even more so for good Samwise Gamgee. He was just swept up into the events (even if eavesdropping).

Part of the turn off of the superhero hype is they never seem to struggle against anything. (And the plots are boring and predictable -what's the point of reading/watching the next installment of the same-old-shale?)

I like characters I can relate to, people with problems & struggles. I'm not sure where/when fantasy went the way it did, or all the reasons why. That would be an interesting article or research project. (It might have something to do with Baby Boomers.)

I don't even mind characters with abilities, or talents. They are preferably ones they've worked on through the usual means, i.e, practice. Yet maybe the zeitgeist of our special snowflake times wants to reinforce the attitude that things can be got and accomplished for nothing, just by being oh so unique you; no efforts required beyond having radioactive nuclear waste dumped on you, or being born this way with a special mark on the forehead.

As the great internet catalog in the sky fades away, as the benefits from industrial cultures propped up lifestyle dwindle, I think we may see a return to a preference for characters who have to work to see their goals made manifest. With the usual obstacles reality likes to throw in the way. Perhaps, even, the climax of these tales won't be convenient explosions.

Justin Patrick Moore

Re: Spot On

[ecosophia]

Nah, Green Arrow, not Green Lantern! The Golden Age Green Lantern was okay, but once the Green Lantern Corps got invented, the whole thing went spinning off into super-duper-pooper-land. It took them a lot longer to ruin Green Arrow, and even in some of the later over-the-top dumpster-fire series, cough, cough, Quiver, cough, cough, some of the old Oliver Queen came through. (Batman to Green Arrow: "The Arrowcave, the Arrowcar, the Arrowplane. Did you have a single original idea in those days?")

Yes, my not very well concealed inner geek is showing. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

It's become quite a common trope, the Chosen One, and as a parent of reading youngsters it drives me nuts. There are plenty of good authors who don't do it, but they don't get the publishing contracts from the big houses, and they're harder to find. I almost don't read big house fiction anymore: it's not very often fun. Small houses and Indie are where the good books are.

I can recommend some, if you like, in science fiction and fantasy that my kids and I enjoy.

BoysMom

[ecosophia]

Please do! Other readers might like to hear about them.

[(Anonymous)]

I have been writing a script for a graphic novel called the Moon Lotus. And I have taken a similar approach to its protagonists. (a young disillusioned environmental consultant, a coffee shop owner and a store clerk)

I have been working on a quick descriptive teaser

THE MOON LOTUS

They discovered the not so mythical monster behind the destruction of the living world. They want to stop the monster and defend the living world …..
But they have
No super powers
No amazing new technology
No mad ninja fighting skills
No vast fortune
And No chance if they act alone


(The script is coming along nicely, but the artist who I was hoping to work with has decided to do other projects at this time. Ugg, but what is an adventure without setbacks.)

[(Anonymous)]

As a young disillusioned environmental consultant with no fortune or super powers, I relate pretty hard to your teaser. Good luck getting it published! I'll keep an eye out.

Something else may be going on here too...

[sothismedias]

Has the rise of the superhero or superpowered special character coincided with a rise of the "me" focused generation / society?

When I think of Frodo especially... he didn't go on the quest because he wanted fame or glory, but because he was compelled to do so for ethical and moral reasons to help a world outside of his own concerns and self. That held a weight over him and on him that made all of what he had to go through imperative.

In much contemporary & pop fantasy it seems that the focus is on the identity of the character more than how they act in the world they live in. And the conflict is usually a vendetta or villain who is, as you've oft pointed out, super-evilly evil (just because mwha ha ha). The gravitas has been lost in favor of prolonged belly button gazing.

Ordinary characters in ordinary conflicts with ordinary oppositional forces is something I'd like to read (and write)!

You seem to have struck a chord... thanks for hosting this conversation.

JPM

Re: Something else may be going on here too...

[(Anonymous)]

"In much contemporary & pop fantasy it seems that the focus is on the identity of the character more than how they act in the world they live in."

I think this is the key. Ultimately, the kinds of stories JMG is criticizing here are a subclass of those that are less about the world through which the protagonist goes and more about the world inside the protagonist. These kinds of stories get more and more "air time" for the same reason that memoirs are crowding the best seller lists; as a culture, we now find it so hard to deal with the world (which, as JMG never tires of pointing out, doesn't always do what we would like it to do) that we retreat into the "safe space" of self-obsessed fantasy at any opportunity.

[syonyk]

It's certainly something I've noticed.

Related, the rise of characters who literally can't fail at anything they try (I play enough D&D I call it "Can't roll less than a natural 20") just make for boring movies.

I'm thinking in particular of one of the halfway recent Star Wars movies in which a particular character was unable to fail at anything she tried, and which led to both an awful movie and the elimination of the very limited remaining interest I had in paying any attention at all to that franchise.

This is part of why I like long form D&D games as well - you start out with impressive but not utterly insane characters, and then build them over time into something epic that becomes something very unique. A good novel should do the same. Cardboard cutout characters are just boring to read.

[(Anonymous)]

One variant I gave my party was this: all rolls over 10 were rounded to 20, all rolls less than that rounded to 1. The session was short, but fantastic. My point being: fantastic abilities need to be tempered somehow.

[(Anonymous)]

At the end of the first book, Nyarlathotep advises Laura to become cross-trained in the Starry Wisdom Church, as well as continuing as a Priestess of Dagon. Did she do that? It hasn't been mentioned since.

[ecosophia]

It's mentioned briefly in the last book. I don't think she pursued it very far, as her duties in the Esoteric Order of Dagon are pretty extensive.

Oh, yes! And don't get me started on "powers creep"

[(Anonymous)]

There was a series I used to like for the first few books, concerning one Anita Blake, whose sole talent was necromancy - which at the start kept her firmly in the working class, with a job and a boss. Then she "{beat one Big Bad and discovered new powers}...repeat N to the Nth times" and she's starting to look like a major goddess. Not to mention once she gets over some perfectly ordinary sexual conflicts, she ends up sleeping with everything in sight until the action is lost in the porn.

Then check out other well-read series of urban fantasy. Same deal. Or as with Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood, it turns out she's part Faerie. Even Kitty, the talk show werewolf, got a taste of that in the later books. Gaaaah.

Pat, who really liked those characters back when they were human beings: Anita and Sookie each with a talent more troublesome than otherwise; Kitty, the victim of a virus transmitted by being bitten, and an abusive pack.

I used to think the cartoon character Underdog satirized the special snowflake quite nicely.

Pat, whose guilty-pleasure reading you all now know about.

Re: Oh, yes! And don't get me started on "powers creep"

[isabelcooper]

Ha, yeah. I like Hamilton's Merry Gentry stuff okay (it never pretends to be anything other than erotica, which makes the interesting non-erotic meditations on rulership that slip in around the edges a nice bonus, plus technicolor elves are hot) but Anita...I couldn't identify with her before the books went to All New Powers, All The Time, because chastity-till-marriage, feh, and I hear things go downhill rapidly after she gets past that, so...nah.

(Also, and it's weird that *I'm* saying this: LKH really needs to learn that you can write/read more than one sex scene with the same partner. The MG stuff's gotten to the point where I think I need an HR chart to keep track of all the guys, because the way to move the plot along is either Introduce New Brooding Sulky Guy or Have Previously Reasonable Dude Become Brooding and Sulky. Sigh. Distinct lack of quality technicolor elf erotica out there, alas.)

I hear you

[(Anonymous)]

Ordinary people rising to meet extraordinary challenges make for the best reading. It's funny this has come up now because my 11 year old stepdaughter, who is an aspiring writer, has fallen into the "special snowflake" syndrome in her latest fantasy story. Any recommendations to gently suggest trying to make the protagonist even a little bit more ordinary?

Thank you!
Tim

Re: I hear you

[ecosophia]

You may want to let her get it out of her system. Then when she writes another one, you can say, "But you already wrote a story about someone special. Why don't you try something different?" While you're at it, introduce her to fantasy stories where the character's aren't special -- BoysMom has said she'll be posting a list -- and let her learn by example.

[(Anonymous)]

I always thought that the best kind of fantasy stories are the stories about ordinary people in unusual circumstances. So I agree with you on that.

The narrative of the chosen one has become so popular because it corresponds to the inflated sense of entitlement in the modern society. You are destined for greatness! I think this trope relates to a "Mary Sue" type of character. Or perhaps it is a plot device (over)used by lazy authors to get the story going?

Batman is an insufferable Mary Sue though, I think, or at least has grown to be one over the years. Also he is a billionaire which makes it hard for me to relate. :)

https://i0.wp.com/www.zoom-comics.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2016/09/Insufferable-Mary-Sue-by-Nebezial.jpg

The forties Batman was better

[(Anonymous)]

The early Batman was rich enough that he didn't have to work, so he left work to fools and horses, partied like a playboy, hung with his buddy and fought crime. He wasn't all that rich, he wasn't all that tough, and he wasn't the World's Greatest Detective. He was more fun.

[(Anonymous)]

I’m with you, JMG. Superheroes, except for TV Batman and the first 2 Superman movies, are boring. Power has to be piled on power and there’s never any cost to using the special powers, except for the villain.

I hope you will like the story I’m typing up now, about a bunch of thoroughly average folks. One guy’s attractive enough to earn money modeling, but that don’t help him foil the fooftawoos! ( I hope everyone else likes it too. If I can’t interest a book publisher I’ll put it out on Amazon.)

There’s an indignant 14-part fisking of the Star Wars movie with the invincible grrrl. I’ll find the link & submit it. It’s pretty funny even if, like me, you haven’t seen that movie. (I gave up on Star Wars long, long ago.

[ecosophia]

Your story sounds promising, and so does the fisking!

Epic Star Wars Indignation

[(Anonymous)]

Enjoy!

http://www.scifiwright.com/2018/07/the-last-straw-01-star-wars-anonymous/

Re: Epic Star Wars Indignation

[ecosophia]

Epic indeed. Thank you for this -- now Lovecraft has a rival for appropriately lurid use of adjectives!

[(Anonymous)]

I could live with a story about super-dooper-pooper powers, it’d be something different!

[ecosophia]

No, not at all. If you've seen any bad Hollywood movie about magic (cough, cough, Barry Trotter, cough, cough) you've been splattered by the pooper end of those powers.

[inamellowmood]

I actually stopped reading most newly written fantasy decades ago, when the "special snowflake with super special powers" trope took it over --- and was rapidly followed by the "super special abused and anguished snowflake with super special powers" trope. Those tropes really ruined the genre for decades, even more so than the Heroic Quest Ripped Off From Tolkien trope. I hope we're seeing the onset of a fantasy genre global warming in which all of the snowflakes melt away to nothing...

[(Anonymous)]

That would make an interesting story. “I’m melting! I’m melting! All my beautiful snowflakeness!” 😄

[isabelcooper]

I tend to agree. I like *worlds* with weird powers and stuff, but if heroes have them, I prefer that they be the result of study or rising to the occasion or whatnot rather than the whole Innately Talented Chosen One thing. There are Chosen One arcs I don't dislike, but it's more tolerance than not--and the ones I enjoy, like Buffy, have the CO thing in very vague and non-unique terms. (Since Buffy is TV, a quick summary: yes, she's chosen/destined to fight vampires, but she's also one in a long line of girls who are, so it's more rising to a particularly weird situation than special snowflake per se.)

One of my favorite novels as a kid was Robin McKinley's "Hero and the Crown," which features a heroine who learns to kill dragons because it's something for her to do, discovers an anti-dragonfire ointment through sheer stubbornness and research, and eventually ends up saving her country basically by being too cranky to die slash get controlled. That always struck me as a good model for life.

[ecosophia]

Oh, granted! Weirdness in the world is good, but spread it around. If lots of people have strange powers, and the protagonist has to struggle to deal with that, you get stories that actually have some interest, some suspense, and some (dramatic) powers of their own.