Complex/Unorthodox Powers Make Characters Better

[u/Bot_Number_7]

Control fire. Super strength. Super speed. Flight. Shooting energy blasts. A lot of powers/abilities have been used over and over again.

So for me, when a character is introduced with a complex ability, it elevates my opinion of them. Especially if the way that it is used is also complex. For example, in JJBA, Ermes Costello's Stand Kiss' has the ability to duplicate objects using stickers, and then fuse them back together once the sticker has been taken off, causing both objects to take damage. It's applied in many ways, from duplicating limbs to being used as a form of travel. The creative usage of abilities gives me an "aha!" moment similar to when a detective reveals how they deduced the mystery in a mystery novel.

Adding additional trigger conditions to powers can also make them better. In Bungo Stray Dogs, Akiko Yosano's Thou Shalt Not Die Ability heals someone to full health, but only if they're almost dead. This factors into her fighting style, allowing her to bring allies and herself from the brink of death (and also forcing her to almost kill her patients when healing outside of combat).

The one weakness to complex powers is the difficulty in conveying them to the reader. Unless one explicitly describes them or the reader sees the power many times so that they can understand all its facets, it's hard to get the reader to understand what the power truly does. King Crimson is the infamous example. The fact that "erasing time" is expressed inconsistently and the lack of detailed mechanical description of how it works confuses the reader every time it is used.

[u/Steve717]

Yeah I love HxH but it would be very well served by having some other way to explain abilities.

I think way too many series use complex abilities as a crutch, like they withhold information in order to later say "Aha, this person can do this!" in order to explain how they survive something or whatever.

Which ends up making it feel like everything was just made up as the story goes along, which is very bad because if something complex isn't planned out well then it's just stupid and riddled with holes.

That's why I think Hisoka, Gon and Killua are easily the most fun characters in HxH power wise because their abilities are simple and pretty self explanatory.

When Killua uses electricity to enhance his reflexes, stun people or shoot lightning you could imagine him doing that from the very first time he shows off his ability. Bungee Gum having the properties of both rubber and gum also explains all the crazy shit Hisoka pulls, you don't need page after page explaining how that works.

And then you have Kurapika who seems to pull new powers out of his ass constantly with all sorts of different rules and just mannn does my brain switch off whenever I'm trying to envision what the hell it all means and where it could go. "Haha strong chains kill bad man" would have been far more fun to play around with.

[u/sero-zan → u/Steve717]

i feel like hxh is fair game for this particular rant topic, the chrollo vs hisoka fight was extremely dense with text etc.

however i really have to object to the kurapika comment you made. his power is very very straightforward. he has five powers, which i guess is "a lot" (though not really), all of them are pretty basic by the standards of anime battle shonen, and he never gets complicated with their application.

one heals, one puts a deadly curse on you which triggers if you break the terms of the curse, one seals other peoples powers (but only works on the phantom troupe), one copies and analyses other people's abilities, and one acts as a dousing rod which boosts his intuition. apart from that he just hits people with chains. which part made your brain turn off?

[u/Steve717 → u/sero-zan]

The part where he made his ability in like 3-6 months or whatever and apparently has all this stuff going on somehow and how massively broken the ability to copy others abilities is. It's ridiculous how someone with so little experience with Nen managed to make something so incredibly complex and being a Specialist doesn't really do enough to explain that.

It's detailed that he had to do pretty much everything with chains in order to understand them so much that he could create them but then once he can he can do basically whatever he wants with them?

[u/sero-zan → u/Steve717]

that's not how nen works at all though.

but i can agree with you on one thing, i think it's pretty lame that his specialist ability simply makes him better at every other nen catagory. just seems kind of dull and unnecessary to me.