Killshot Caine
The Unstoppable Ledgernaut
You Just Mad Cuz i'm Stylin On you!
Posts: 5,732
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Post by Killshot Caine on Jan 3, 2011 1:09:45 GMT -5
So because nothing regarding a comic book character's capabilities can be mimicked in real life, you have to use what the writers lay out for you. An in universe perspective is the perspective the reader should have at all times. Cool, cool. I say that wraps things up quite nicely. Good discussion. Good Discussion, indeed.
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 15:41:15 GMT -5
But as the character changes, so does the definition of super powers. Super strength is no longer super strength. Super speed is no longer super speed. Super powers are no longer super powers, so how can you go by the view point of the character and still be sure to know exactly what a super power is? I am sorry but I am unsure about what point you are trying to make here. Flash has always had super speed. Hulk has always had super strength.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 15:51:23 GMT -5
But as the character changes, so does the definition of super powers. Super strength is no longer super strength. Super speed is no longer super speed. Super powers are no longer super powers, so how can you go by the view point of the character and still be sure to know exactly what a super power is? I am sorry but I am unsure about what point you are trying to make here. Flash has always had super speed. Hulk has always had super strength. The point was changing viewpoints. Hulk's super strength is only super strength to him because he wasn't born that way. He attained that power, but if an alien, a Vultrimite, a Saiyan, (hypothetically speaking of course, I'm not trying to imply a Vultrimite or a Saiyan being Hulk's equals in strength) or any being who has that same amount of strength naturally, it wouldn't be super strength to them, so doing the same exact thing would be called super and not super at the same time. By changing the viewpoint of the character, you lose the meaning of what super strength is. Same with super speed.
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 16:04:06 GMT -5
I am sorry but I am unsure about what point you are trying to make here. Flash has always had super speed. Hulk has always had super strength. The point was changing viewpoints. Hulk's super strength is only super strength to him because he wasn't born that way. He attained that power, but if an alien, a Vultrimite, a Saiyan, (hypothetically speaking of course, I'm not trying to imply a Vultrimite or a Saiyan being Hulk's equals in strength) or any being who has that same amount of strength naturally, it wouldn't be super strength to them, so doing the same exact thing would be called super and not super at the same time. By changing the viewpoint of the character, you lose the meaning of what super strength is. Same with super speed. I disagree. If we only take the viewpoint of the readers, not a single person in all of comics would be considered anything other than super. It is a skewed viewpoint. However, if we take the viewpoint of the characters, we have some that are super and some that are not.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 16:11:04 GMT -5
Yeah, but only with respect to certain characters. How do you know which character to take the viewpoint of? If you're reading a story about Invincible, do you take his viewpoint? If you do, then you'd have to say he doesn't have super strength or super speed, because to him, it's not. Instead, it's as you put it, "no more impressive than a human running at 10 miles per hour is to us or lifting 100lbs over their heads or holding their breath for up to 2 minutes."
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 16:13:12 GMT -5
@nexus:
I think you misunderstand me. I mean take the viewpoint of every character when considering their so-called 'powers'.
Invincible does not have powers. He has abilities that are inherent to his species. Atom Eve has powers. Rex has powers. Immortal has powers. Allen the Alien has powers.
Shapesmith does not have powers.
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Post by Power NeXus on Jan 3, 2011 16:24:57 GMT -5
@nexus: I think you misunderstand me. I mean take the viewpoint of every character when considering their so-called 'powers'. Invincible does not have powers. He has abilities that are inherent to his species. Atom Eve has powers. Rex has powers. Immortal has powers. Allen the Alien has powers. Shapesmith does not have powers. HEY. STOP THAT.The capitalized X in NeXus is MY trademark.
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 16:34:17 GMT -5
@nexus: I think you misunderstand me. I mean take the viewpoint of every character when considering their so-called 'powers'. Invincible does not have powers. He has abilities that are inherent to his species. Atom Eve has powers. Rex has powers. Immortal has powers. Allen the Alien has powers. Shapesmith does not have powers. HEY. STOP THAT.The capitalized X in NeXus is MY trademark. My mistake. When you all start using similar names, I get you all mixed up.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 16:36:45 GMT -5
Erik-ElI still don't quite follow on what you mean by "viewpoint of every character," when every character has a different viewpoint. Let's drop the term "powers" for now, because I think that's an issue of confusion since I still think we're using two different definitions for it, and instead use the term abilities. Invincible has the ability to lift 400 tons with ease. To him, and the people of his race, that's not a super ability at all. In fact, that's hardly worth being called anything noteworthy, but to Deborah Grayson, David Hines, Art, and all the other human civilians in Invincible's world, that ability would "super," because in that world, that would be something a civilian couldn't dream of doing. By changing the viewpoint from Mark to those others, you redefine what a super ability is. Oh, and yeah, the capital X is NeXus's thing. I'm not NeXus, I'm Nexus. Big difference.
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 16:42:02 GMT -5
@nexus:
But you cannot look at a human's point of view to determine powers for an alien. And yes, Mark is more alien than human. Nolan even told him as much.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 16:57:33 GMT -5
Yeah, that's what I was getting at. It's not a super ability for Mark but it is for the humans around him.
My question was how do you know which point of view to look from. I say you should look from the reader's viewpoint because as the reader, you have one common denominator, one base, one frame of reference, and as such, one definition of what's "super" and what's not, and that definition is according to the writers of the stories, and the various handbooks and tier lists that follow. If you look up Superman, Captain Marvel, Goku, and Invincible in handbooks, wikis, and writer comments, you see that their abilities include super strength. How do we know that's super? The writer laid it out for us as such, and whether or not their powers come naturally to them or not, it's still super. So from the viewpoint of the reader, we have a solid definition of what super strength is.
You on the other hand, say that you shouldn't look at it from the reader's point of view because technically speaking, everyone would be super, because everything done in a comic book is simply impossible to do in real life. So instead, you propose looking at things from the viewpoint of the actual characters. My follow up to that was "which one?" to which you responded all of them. What I'm trying to say now is that you can't look at everyone's point of view and determine which abilities are super and which ones are not because by simply changing viewpoints you change the definition of what's super as well. There's no common ground, no solid definition. What's super to one character is normal for another, so you essentially never get a definition for things like super strength and super speed and such.
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 17:03:05 GMT -5
@nexus:
Yeah I know all those characters are said to have "super-whatever" but that is just because it is easier to say it that way or no one has really taken the time to really look at it.
Would you say it is a super power to run 10 miles per hour? Of course not so when a Viltrumite runs as fast as expected of them, it is not a power relative to their species. To humans I am sure it seems like a power but that is lazy thinking in my opinion.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 17:11:17 GMT -5
Erik-ElI wouldn't call it lazy, just simpler and easier to reference. Saying, "it depends on who you're talking about" seems illogical to me. Imagine if every country in the world had their own units of measurements and never even thought of using the same one. No universal metric system to convert things to, just everyone going willy nilly. How would we be able to compare anything? By going into every single country and measuring it according to their rules? No, that'd be way too much trouble. Instead we have a common frame of reference with the metric system, so that way if the US wants to measure something in feet, but share that measurement with the world, all we have to do is a simple conversion, and the whole world knows how big that thing is.
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 17:21:06 GMT -5
Erik-ElI wouldn't call it lazy, just simpler and easier to reference. Saying, "it depends on who you're talking about" seems illogical to me. Imagine if every country in the world had their own units of measurements and never even thought of using the same one. No universal metric system to convert things to, just everyone going willy nilly. How would we be able to compare anything? By going into every single country and measuring it according to their rules? No, that'd be way too much trouble. Instead we have a common frame of reference with the metric system, so that way if the US wants to measure something in feet, but share that measurement with the world, all we have to do is a simple conversion, and the whole world knows how big that thing is. I have to be honest, that metaphor does not work for me. You cannot compare real life humans to anyone in comics. It is just not going to work. You compare humans in comics to humans in comics. You compare kryptonians to kryponians. You compare viltrumites to viltrumites.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 17:28:27 GMT -5
Alright, that's all well and good, but in doing those case by case comparisons, you're never going to have a solid definition of what super strength, speed, agility, etc is. Changing reference would mean changing definition.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 17:33:38 GMT -5
Oh, and to further clarify, I'm not trying to compare real life humans to humans in comics anymore. Vance taught me not to do that, but what I am comparing is what the writers and blogs and wikis are saying about those super abilities. That's the frame of reference I'm speaking of.
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 17:35:31 GMT -5
@nexus:
Yes I do. It is actually pretty easy to make those determinations for me. If a human lifts 10 tons due to say, venom, he has super strength. If he lifts 20 tons due to being bitten by an irradiated spider, he has super strength. If Superman lifts the planet while under the yellow sun, he has super strength. But if Superman lifts 100lbs over his head on Krpton, he does not have super strength.
Now a viltrumite lifting 400 tons is not a viltrumite with super strength. Only when a viltrumite does something that none should be ABLE to do are they considered super.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 17:50:55 GMT -5
Now a viltrumite lifting 400 tons is not a viltrumite with super strength. Only when a viltrumite does something that none should be ABLE to do are they considered super. See, that's what I'm talking about. The definition of super changes simply because you're talking about a different set of people. That in no way tells me what's actually super strength, it tells me what's not super strength for a certain set of people in a universe filled with billions of other sets of people. If the definition changes, it's not a really a definition. The purpose of having a definition of words to begin with is to make something definite, distinct, and clearly outlined. ( Dictionary.com) If it doesn't do that, then it's meaningless.
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Post by Erik-El on Jan 3, 2011 17:55:16 GMT -5
Now a viltrumite lifting 400 tons is not a viltrumite with super strength. Only when a viltrumite does something that none should be ABLE to do are they considered super. See, that's what I'm talking about. The definition of super changes simply because you're talking about a different set of people. That in no way tells me what's actually super strength, it tells me what's not super strength for a certain set of people in a universe filled with billions of other sets of people. If the definition changes, it's not a really a definition. The purpose of having a definition of words to begin with is to make something definite, distinct, and clearly outlined. ( Dictionary.com) If it doesn't do that, then it's meaningless. I actually said what is considered super in that post, you just did not include it in your quote.
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Post by NexusOfLight on Jan 3, 2011 17:56:56 GMT -5
You said what was super and you changed it. I was pointing out that change. That's what I'm arguing against.
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