OP is a tag for over-powered characters, but not all OP characters are created equal. How OP is too OP? Are there certain kinds of OP that you enjoy reading, and some kinds that have you rolling your eyes? I love watching a clever character manipulate the situation around them to defeat everyone with bad intentions. And I often enjoy a character with a "golden finger" or magic power making use of that character. But I found myself rolling my eyes at novels like After Transmigrating I Made the Antagonist Cry and Demon Wang's Golden Favorite Fei. Maybe because in ATIMAC the MC randomly becomes even more OP for no reason in the last 10 chapters, or the genre shift is too abrupt. And maybe because in DWGFF the cannon fodder is a little too stupid and the MC a little too violent. But I liked The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage which was equally bloody and The Long Awaited Mr. Han which has fairly doggedly annoying and stupid cannon fodders. What's the difference?
Even gods can be slain. The more cartoonish they are the more vulnerable they are to that ooze in The Who killed roger rabbit movie that destroys toons
Well, there is a lot of factors that can play into if an OP character works or not, and a character being overly smart is a different category from one being overly powerful, even if OP tend to refer to both and you can have both together. As far as my personal opinion goes usually I want it to actually make sense why they are overpowered and also for there to be enough setup for it to feel earned in some way, if for any reason the story makes me stop and think that it is just the author powering up the character then that usually means my immersion in the story has been broken. However I tend to be ok with a character starting out strong without all that much reason as long as it isn't completely stupid, as I find that easier to accept than seeing them gain power randomly during the story for no good reason. Of course under the condition that the character doesn't just keep getting even stronger all the time still. A character being smart is similar to that since you don't really need much of an explanation for it, even if you might want to explain their education in some way. Although "smart" characters depend on the author actually being able to convince the reader that the character is smart, instead of just another idiot that is "supposed to be smart". Aside for that there is also the question of what role the OPness serves for the plot, does it solve all problems or conflict in the story, or are there things that it is ineffective against? Does it have a positive or negative effect on the characters personality, add drama or inner conflict?, or maybe get used for humor? There isn't really an easy answer for if an OP character works or not unless you examine the particular story they belong to and see how it fits in. As for the mentioned novels, I can't really comment on those much as the only one I've read is DWGFF, and it has been a while since then so not sure how well I remember it. Pretty sure though that I dropped it roughly halfway through because I felt both the plot and pretty much every single character to be stupid, including the main characters.
I hate the 'I can create anything and do anything' power. Ie. "You want a legendary grade item?" *snaps* "Here's your legendary grade item." Also the same Mc: "You want wind magic, fire magic, water magic, earth magic, and light magic?" *Snaps* "Here's the ultimate magic that I just created."
IMHO there's no such thing as a character that's too OP -- there are just crappy authors. There are three ways to make good OP MC stories: make the "worthy" opponents they do face OP too (take Desolate Era -- being able to revive from a drop of blood sounds broken until you see what other cultivators can do), give them problems their powers can't fix, or shift the emphasis to the surrounding situation so that the MC's use of power never gets stale. For example, One Punch man is pretty good at shifting the perspective so that we look forward to Saitama's OPness instead of feeling like there's zero tension in the story. Overlord does something similar -- we see all these ongoing schemes and are interested in seeing what happens when they collide with the OP MC. Unfortunately most of these series are just written by people apeing more successful stories who don't seem to get that being able to do everything =/= a story or even satisfying wish fulfilment.
The difference between the "degrees", in my mind, actually relates to the quality of the writing. One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100, both of which are/were written by the same person, are two radically different great examples of how an absolutely Over Powered Main Character can still be interesting. Saitama is, for all intents and purposes, invincible, impossibly strong, and all round physically overpowered to an insane degree. He's still interesting because he's actually bored the ease his overwhelming power makes his fights, and how he interacts with the world around himself. The story's tension is built around the supporting cast, with Saitama being the "deus ex machina" that finishes the fight at the end, and a lot of the interesting parts of his fights are where he's holding back in the hopes that his enemy is strong enough to interest him. Mob has insane psychic abilities, sufficient to effectively do whatever he wants, particularly in a world where psychics are either incredibly rare, or mostly don't use their powers to any significant degree. But he has basically chosen to ignore them, only really using the full extent of his powers when sufficiently emotionally charged in some manner. Instead of using said powers regularly, he chooses to join the Body Improvement Club in order to improve his lacking physique. The interesting parts of his fights is the build up to Mob becoming too emotionally charged, and how the results of that build up is displayed. Compare those to the majority of "OP MC" Power Fantasy stories, where everything's handed to the MC on a silver platter, they journey around the world "fixing problems they just happen to stumble across" in a carefree manner, and building up followers and a harem with a lackadaisical attitude. The build up in those, if there is any, is in discovering what the issue will be, or how the MC DOESN'T use their overwhelming powers. This can be done in an interesting manner, like with "To Be A Power In The Shadows", where the story is based around a gag where the MC is hiding their power because they like the thought of ruling a powerful shadowy organisation, without realising that their playing actually built a powerful shadowy organisation by accident. Where all the tension is built through the humour of the MC hiding their strength in serious situations "because it's cool". Or it can be done in a boring manner, like (throws stone to pick one) "The Strongest Sage of Disqualified Crest~ The World's Strongest Sage Reincarnated Himself to Become Even Stronger~", where the MC knows more than anyone else on the planet, can pretty much do whatever they want, and strengthens others who are developing as the MC's harem members simply because it's a good enough way to pass the time, and they have "potential". There ARE worse contenders out there, far worse (like World Teacher), but Strongest Sage is the one that I can stomach reading every now and again, while World Teacher I dropped shortly after MC left home due to the absolute lack of any ideas. And I heard it only became worse from there, so...
All interesting thoughts! I like your ideas about where the tension in the story comes from. I like rebirth stories, where the character has gained immense skills, knowledge, and foresight due to having lived an extra X years. The tension comes from knowing they failed before, and just what that cost them. Seeing how they make different choices this time and the contrast between the two lives makes it interesting. There's also a tension between the emotions the character would have felt (did feel) if this were the first time around, and how they feel this time given everything that happened in the alternative timeline. I guess in The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage the tension comes from the fact that despite knowing what's going to happen next, the MC is otherwise a very powerless character - an unmarried girl in a home where the family around her and the royal family all have evil intentions towards her, and how she uses her gained skill and knowledge as well as foresight to protect herself and her loved ones despite her lack of power otherwise. The way she leverages the advantage she does have, and the 0 margin for error in her schemes making watching her succeed feel satisfying. Demon Wang's Golden Favorite Fei on the other hand is just violently maiming and killing anyone who gives her side eye for no particular reason. It doesn't feel earned or interesting (and I also didn't finish it).
Too OP in my oppinion is when the MC has a skill that makes all tension obselete in battles. For example the ability of SSS suicide hunter where the MC can revive in infinite amount of time and regress even when hes killed. Or when The MC just buldoze everything without even trying. MC's that are too OP is very boring to read in my oppinion. All the enemies becomes paper tiger thats just exist for the MC to beat. Theres no tension no risk no nothing. Every conflict can just be solved through violance. MC can be as careless as stupid as imature as he wants and nothing can stop him anyways. Their "face slapping" moments is also becomes something akin to just bullying a child and rubbing salt to their wound..
I know what you mean. I think a good author can make it work by changing the challenge (maybe the character can beat everyone up, but the real tension in the story is that they're never good enough for their parents). And for the face-slapping, part of the thrill has to come from making the cannon fodders hate-able enough that the reader is invested in the face-slap. The face-slap also has to fit the crime. People losing limbs because they were annoying is unpleasant to read, but someone who bullies a lowly assistant only to discover that she's actually the president, and thus loses out on the business deal they wanted is very satisfying to watch. Likewise, say you someone who has been taking advantage of a no-rules competition to permanently cripple opponents instead of just defeating them; this could still be a boring fight if the OP protagonist just comes in and beats him up/kills him/whatever. But if you build the emotional tension first, the pain of those who have been harmed, their hopelessness knowing they'll never get justice, their compassion and concern for the protagonist becoming the next victim, the smugness and sadistic glee of the bad guy, the arrogance and confidence with which he approaches the fight with the protagonist, all leading up to that moment when he throws a punch, his fist connects with the protagonist's jaw --- and bounces off him. Even if the fight itself isn't that interesting, because you know who will win, the scene is interesting because you're looking forward to everyone's emotional response to the MC winning.
But at the end of the day its still an elephant versus a pig fighting.. No metter how smug how annoyong how frustrated the pig becomes ... at the end of the day we know the MC can just stomp it and get on with their lives and instead just playing with its food. Never will the pig get a chance to scratch or kill the elephant no metter what.. especially if the pig is an arrogant fool and cant see mt tai. Not to mention all the 3rd 4th 5th party that exist just to bootlick the MC's greatness.. smh Even superman have a clear weakness that is cryptonite, his relations and moral compass that the enemies can take advantage of and actually have decent chance to threat and kill him. These web novel MC have none of that
Are there stories you've enjoyed where the MC is arguably "OP"? I've noticed people disagree on whether certain characters can be described as OP, so are there characters other people call OP that you think were interesting? What made the difference?
For me, it's all about tension. How does the story build this up, how does it challenge the protagonist. The easiest kind of story to craft is one where the protagonist has to overcome the villain; often in some sort of physical encounter. And when you give the protagonist in this kind of story OP powers, then it sucks the tension away because the outcome is a forgone conclusion. This is exactly why most stories that do this are so disappointing: it can be amusing to see OP powers in bite sized chunks, but do it too much and it wears out its welcome very quickly. This is pretty well illustrated by all of the examples given in this thread. All of the positive examples with OP characters are in stories that are designed to not be about direct conflict.
aka if they can beat Goku , How bad can they beat Goku I feel that its more about how OP they are in their own environment , comparing can be very laborious as the question Can they beat Goku
Well, there is OP within your own rank, and OP in the entire world. Then of course OPness varies from just being the strongest at something specific, to being so OP the char can sleep while everyone attacks them and nothing happens. Overall, how good something is with an OP character is how it is handled. A big no-no for OP characters is power fantasy. Cause that gets boring quick. The way to make OP work is focus on other things then just raw power, then have the OP character sweep things up. Cause the real thing that makes OP feel great is the satisfaction of delivery. If the MC just does OP stuff non-stop, it would become bland as there are no highs and lows anymore, the high would become the new low.
Spoiler: SSS blather SSS class suicide hunter eventually starts working with plots that are interesting without the MC using the regression / where regression isn't needed in the first place. It pretty much does this after exhausting the "win against overwhelming odds w/regression" concept and quite a few arcs are NOT about direct MC vs enemy conflicts. The few later arcs that do involve that are pretty weak compared to the others, imo. I'd say most of the arcs for which I'd recommenced the series are among the non-regression-centric arcs (with some exceptions like the great HD arc). It also does more with the side cast than the usual LN. I think the early arcs of SSSsh are also weaker than the later arcs. Hrm... I was going to add something more directly on-topic, but honestly I think the point was covered by ToastedRossi. I imagine OP power fantasies wherein all problems/goals are trivially solved/achieved via OPness are enjoyed by the people that self-insert into them, but for anyone looking for a story that is interesting to read without any degree of self-inserting such tales are about as exciting as watching someone mow a helpless lawn. Edit: Eh, I recalled posting a bit about OP characters in a similar thread recently that could be applied here, I'll just add that: Spoiler: Generalists vs Specialists "An MC that is too powerful or too helpless can still result in an interesting story, but it's harder to pull off. How competent an MC can be without being too powerful generally depends on how specialized their skillset is - an MC can be extremely powerful within their specialty without trivializing issues that can't be directly solved with that specialty. On the other hand, generalist MCs (like most isekai MCs) are very difficult to make *just* strong enough that they're competent without being OP."
Your thoughts on Generalists vs Specialists really resonate. I'm reading a story (not on NU) right now about an OP character who is probably on the autism spectrum. He's super OP in terms of study and work, but is extremely challenged by social relationships. Because his teachers, classmates, and family all scolded him for being a know-it-all and showing off, he never valued his own talents and felt bad about himself. The driving force of the story is him accepting that his parents will never love him the way they love his neurotypical brother, but that he can make meaningful connections with other people and has value and a sense of self-worth. Likewise with many rebirth stories and transmigration into a book stories, they have a leg up from knowing the future/plot, but still have to contend with the vulnerabilities of their position. They are undeniably "OP", since no one else knows the future in the detailed way that they do, but they are still just humans with limited wealth, power, and resources.