people or powers?

another sleepless night. i could read, as if i'd get anything out of it. so i'll write something instead. it'll be a little stream of thought.

i saw push the other day. i enjoyed it. it was entertaining and pretty. i have yet to see what's so great about dakota fanning, but that's beside the point.

it seems to me that there's a lot of stuff featuring super-powered people with real lives. ok not really a lot, but plenty enough. so i'm thinking about the different aspects of these different offerings, and what's important and what's not and whatever. i come to the conclusion that perhaps the central (assuredly subconscious) consideration for stories of this genre is whether the people or the powers are more important. the idea generalizes to other genres too; for example, with respect to sci-fi, are the people or the technology more important.

i don't think placing more importance on one necessarily takes away from the other. nor do i believe that a preference for either is necessarily better. perhaps some examples are in order.

• x men is definitely about the powers. there is the obligatory talking, "character development", but we just want to see wolverine kick someone's ass and storm fly through a big ol' thunderstorm, sending lightning bolts into the bad guys.
  
• batman (with bale) is more about the people. the powers (if they can be called that; mostly toys i guess) tend to be (spectacular) extensions of each person's character.

i couldn't really come up with a third example. i wanted something that balanced people and power that wasn't lord of the rings.

i suppose, ideally, a balance should be sought.when they're well done, powers are the shiny glitter that gets people interested in a story, and people are what keep people interested in it. it might be a cop-out to just shift gears between people parts and power parts. at least i think so.

i'm not saying to do away with strictly people parts or power parts. i'm suggesting that some effort should be made to tie the character development to the use of powers. for instance:

• the character learns a secret he could not have learned had he not used his power
• the mere fact of having a power changes the character's personality and/or how everyone sees him
• the nature/effectiveness of the character's power changes as he grows
• the character despises his power and/or refuses to use it

of course, these ideas could be handle in an unbalanced way. but to get any balance, it's necessary to make at least some link between the person and the power.

if we ever move again on the rule of three, i think i'll keep more of an eye out for this balance. i think so far we've done well, but it's been a while.