 Drama: August 03, 2016 Issue [#7784] |
  Drama
This week: The Dramatic Journey of the Superhero Edited by: NaNoKit  
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The Superhero genre is not merely about big battles - the characters' internal journeys are just as important.
This week's Drama Newsletter is all about the difficulties surrounding special powers.
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Superheroes are the in thing, it seems. As someone who collected comic books when I was younger I quite welcome this, because it means that I am no longer seen as a complete and utter geek. The downside is that superhero movies risk focusing too much on the physical battles rather than the mental ones.
Drama is at the root of the superhero genre. A superhero can be born with special powers, or those powers can reveal themselves later in life, or the powers can be obtained either accidentally or on purpose. Mostly, the superhero never asked for them, and they can be a hindrance as well as a benefit. The onset of the powers can be a great shock. It can be frightening. The person may not know how to control their powers. They can be destructive. And all of a sudden, the person no longer fits in with general society. They are different, and this tends to have consequences.
Take, for example, the character of Rogue, from the X-Men comics. For Rogue, her powers feel like a curse. For most of her life she felt unable to touch others, because if she did, she would drain them. Imagine being Rogue. What it would feel like to live a life without intimacy. To care about people, but you can't get too close. To fall in love, but to always have to keep your distance.
Many people imagine, at some point in their lives, what it would be like to have special powers. I admit to being one of them – I would love the power to heal others, both physically and mentally. If I think this through, though, there would probably be a lot of problems with an ability of this kind. People would be suspicious of me. Some people might take too keen an interest in me. If I proved myself, how would I ever be able to heal all the people who are in need of healing, from all around the world? That would likely be impossible, so I'd end up feeling as though I was always letting people down. And my life would never be my own again.
With great power comes great responsibility. It can be used for good as well as bad. That the temptation to abuse one's powers is there can be seen even in a world without superpowers. An interesting experiment that demonstrates this is the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which volunteers were divided into guards and prisoners. Very quickly, some guards gave in to the temptation to test and abuse their powers. The experiment had to be terminated before its scheduled end date, because it rapidly got out of control.
The line between hero and villain, then, may well be a thin one. Let's say that someone did have the power to heal. They would also have the power to deny healing to those they didn't like. If they were a racist, they might only heal people of their preferred ethnic background. If they were misogynistic or misandrist they might only heal people of their preferred gender. And so on. If this happened on a large scale, this would create a division in society. And there would probably be people cheering them on.
If you write in the superhero genre, then, there is plenty of room to explore the dramatic implications of having special powers. There are many avenues open to you, from the character's psychological journey, to the societal impact of there being people with superpowers that can be used for both good and bad, to politics – would a government try to use these powers for their own ends, or would people with certain powers find themselves persecuted?
What if a character obtained special powers that were pretty much useless? What if that happened and they were surrounded by others with far more useful powers? How would that feel?
The opportunities in this genre are endless. The abilities to trigger the emotions of your readers are endless. Have fun with it.  Good luck!
NaNoKit
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Wishing you a week filled with inspiration,
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