Nadia Moran, Powerful Characters, and Cultivation Fantasy

Ben writes to say:

“I just love the Nadia moran books. I don’t know what it is about them but this series is in my top three and I read ALOT. This is one of those series that is so cool because you can go back and reread them later on and their just as good. Also the books just have a great “flow” to them. One of the things I love about these books is the lore consistency. Nadia’s power level for example doesn’t wildly change for no reason in order to add tension. It’s amazing how many authors do that in books.”

Thanks, Ben! Glad you are enjoying the books!

I get emails about Nadia and the “power level” thing quite a lot. Apparently the power scale problem happens rather frequently in contemporary fantasy.

I suspect that has something to do with the way Chinese fantasy has been strongly influencing Western fantasy over the last few years, especially with the new “LitRPG” and “webnovel” genres that are becoming more popular.

In particular, I think this is the influence of “cultivation” fantasy showing.

If you’re not familiar with it, “cultivation” fantasy is a subset of a Chinese fantasy genre called xianxia. Xianxia centers around the efforts of protagonists to become immortal beings called “xian”, and along the way they develop supernatural powers and super strength and super speed. The protagonists attain these remarkable abilities through a process called “cultivation”, which from what I understand is a form of meditation that lets them attune themselves to the universe, though evil cultivators can steal energy from others rather than gaining their powers through virtuous meditation. (I am probably oversimplifying here.) You can see how this would map well into a LitRPG structure, where the genre convention is that the characters advance in power and increase their stats. Of course, genres hardly exist in a vacuum, and ideas from one frequently cross-pollinate into others. So I suspect we will see xianxia conventions – powerful characters seeking to become more power – appearing more and more in Western fantasy. (If you doubt that this style of storytelling is becoming more popular in the US, then look at Kindle Vella, which Amazon is clearly starting to compete in that space.)

But let us return to the original point! Nadia’s power level doesn’t “wildly change for no reason in order to add tension.” There is a simple secret to creating dramatic tension for a powerful character, and I will share it with you now.

Not every kind of power is useful in every situation.

Simple examples will demonstrate the point. A man who can bench press 350 lbs is powerful, but that won’t be helpful when he’s calculating his quarterly taxes. A man who can figure out his quarterly taxes in his head is intellectually powerful, but that won’t be helpful when he needs to get a couch up a narrow apartment stairwell. An extroverted woman with a lot of friends is socially powerful, but that won’t do her any good if she’s in a plane crash and finds herself alone in the wilderness. A lot of dramatic tension can be generated from these situations, where the characters will have to apply lateral thinking to solve the conflict. Like, maybe the smart man offers to do the strong man’s taxes in exchange for help getting the couch up the stairs.

You can see how this can apply in a fantasy story. A powerful wizard might find himself in trouble because he is so tactless that he offends people easily. (Morvilind had this problem.) A mighty swordsman could hew his way through any number of goblins and orcs, but find himself tongue-tied and outmaneuvered by a beautiful queen who befriends all his enemies. An elderly king might be too decrepit to lift a sword, but that wouldn’t matter if he snaps his fingers and a dozen knights rush to cut down someone who annoys him.

For that matter, one of the general tropes of xianxia is that the protagonists wish to acquire more power. In the Western imagination, that generally equates to someone like Sauron or Thanos. But what if a powerful character isn’t interested in political power or the trappings of authority? Delaxsicoria in CLOAK OF DRAGONS is powerful enough to conquer a small nation on her own, but she doesn’t want to do that. She wants to make music, collect pretty things, and generally be admired by humans. Ruling a nation would take time away from her songwriting! The quest for additional power doesn’t interest her, which makes her a more interesting character.

Nadia can turn invisible, shoot fireballs, read minds, and impersonate almost anyone. But she frequently finds herself in situations where those things would not be helpful, or actively counterproductive to achieving her goals.

That, in the end, is the key to creating dramatic tension for powerful characters without randomly changing their power level – put them in situations where their power will not be particularly useful and maybe even counterproductive, forcing them to work harder to resolve their conflicts.

-JM