Wasn’t sure if I ever wrote about characters who alter reality, but something triggered the idea again.  Wish I remembered what I was watching at the time since this came to me as I was falling asleep.  The combination made me think of characters like Haruhi Suzumiya up there.  Basically, those who alter reality without realizing it.

To explain this, I will simply describe Suzumiya.  She is a teenage girl with the power of a god to alter reality.  She can even erase reality and rebuild it if she wishes.  The thing is that she doesn’t realize she has this power.  Instead, she is interested in living an exciting life with aliens, time travelers, and espers being real.  She has inadvertently conjured/attracted these things with her power, but they all agree that she can’t know about her own abilities.  So, the story involves her having adventures while her friends make sure she never learns the truth about herself.

This differs from what people are into now where a character knows what they can do and directly use their power.  For example, Scarlet Witch and her magic or whatever it is they’re calling it these days.  This type of character can create a problem in that they are too powerful.  Threats can be erased with a thought, so they are never seen to be in any danger.  Many stories result in them being removed either by their own power or an actual God showing up to do the job.  All other characters are unable to do anything about them, especially if they turn evil.  I’ll get more into that on Wednesday though.

With a dreamer altering reality, you can be more subtle.  They don’t really want to change the world, so not all of their desires will be met.  It’s more of a ‘it would be nice if’ situation that they don’t think can really come to pass.  This only happens when they develop a strong hope that such dreams can become reality.  It still isn’t a conscious change, but comes off as a happy coincidence if they even notice what’s going on.  Think of it like when you hope you hit green lights on the way to work or your favorite food is on sale at the supermarket.  You’ll notice, be happy, and not think it had anything to do with you beyond some luck.

I think a key to a character with this power is subtlety.  Being fully aware and in control is a mess for the story, but a dreamer with no conscious control can be useful.  It still runs afoul of plot armor, deus ex machina, or whatever you want to call it.  The reality altering can always be done at a crucial moment to help the heroes, which is what our instincts would tell us to do.  For the power to make a mess, it would have to either go out of control or the author would need to give an explanation as to why it did something to harm the heroes.  For example, a dreamer accidentally conjures a ramp during a car chase because they think it would be cool and they get launched into a river.  Oops, but at least you can establish this through previous actions and thoughts.

Personally, I’m always nervous about writing a character with these powers.  They carry far too much temptation to mess around and fix my mistakes without giving a good reason beyond ‘they changed it’.  I also have trouble thinking up ways other characters can challenge those who can alter reality.  Limitations can work, but then I start wondering why I gave them this power in the first place.  So, I’d have to be really careful when using one of these outside of them being a God or go with this dreamer concept.  Definitely having it be a power that is used occasionally and by accident feels like a safer way to go in terms of story and power scaling.

So, what do you think of reality altering characters?