Scarlet Witch
Say you really want to use a character who alters reality. Yet, you don’t want to lose all tension of the story. Hard to do when this character can change everything around them if they wish. What can you do besides jettisoning the character?
- Keep it a passive power that the character is not fully aware of. This means they won’t always get an easy out of a situation. Come up with a specific trigger like them being stressed to a certain point or nearly dying. The point of this method is to have a way to prevent them from altering reality all the time and eliminating all tension.
- Create a cost for using their power. It could be that they lose sanity or begin fading from the world they are changing. Maybe a sacrifice is needed for each use. The size of the sacrifice depends on what they wish to change. For example, giving up a favorite pen would allow them to win a raffle for a new washer/dryer, but they would have to give up the memories of their parents to rebuild the entire world.
- Limited the scope of what they can change. Lesser forms of reality alteration exists such as luck manipulation. Even magic that allows one to transform one object into another can be used here. The full, unchecked power to change reality should be prevented as much as possible to protect the story.
- If you really want to go full God power, you can temper this by giving the character a mild personality. A hero or villain that doesn’t really want to use the power because they’re okay with most things will restrain the usage. You can’t have them do whatever they want because they’re simply not that type of person. This runs the risk of them getting stale and people seeing no point in them, but it could work for a time.
- Put the power on a supporting character who isn’t around all the time. This means the main character can’t depend on the power and will have to bargain for its use. The one who has it can simply say no if the requested change would cause too much trouble for the story. It can also be on a neutral character, so even the villains may have the opportunity to utilize it.
- Prepare yourself for juggling a multiverse, which is a concept you’ll be accused of stealing from Marvel, but DC really did it first in comics and a pro-Socratic philosopher named Anaximander made the first multiverse theory without using the actual term.
- Give everyone the power to alter reality, so it means absolutely nothing. If everyone can do it then there will always be someone to counter the changes. It would mean that the power is pointless, but it’ll be there.
Legends of Windemere 
Wonderful ♥️
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Thanks.
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Good tips! They make me realize how much work is inherent in having control over reality. Tip number 5 makes me think of Q, who occasionally pops up.
How do you see Thanos in all of this?
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I don’t know if I’d really count Thanos since reality altering isn’t one of his core powers. It’s from the gauntlet, so anyone can use that power if they get the item. It wasn’t damaging to the user in the comics too, which is why I have a harder time throwing him into this category. No consequences or limits.
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That makes sense. I wondered if he would count due to the Infinity stones.
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I never liked the stones when together. They were simply ‘author can do whatever they want’ and it made no sense for someone wielding it to lose.
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It really is an interesting concept, but it seems to need a lot of thought.
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Agreed.
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A difficult thing to write. I don’t really think I’ll be using it.
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It’s definitely a niche that shouldn’t be used without a second thought.
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As you indirectly point out, the main reason writers do this with characters is to make them destructible. Which seems counter-intuitive, but once the character is able to alter reality, they are so powerful there is nothing to do but make them villains. Their abilities are so threatening that everyone comes after them. Or, they go mad and then everyone comes after them.
So they’re great and terrifying as villains, but basically the story has to end with them dying. (See: Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix.)
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True. Though I’ve noticed that’s more common in western stories. I’ve found a bunch of anime and manga with characters like this who don’t go villain. Typically, they aren’t aware of their power or there’s a consequence or limit to using it.
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