Blue Eye Samurai - How to Properly Write an Overpowered Character (for the most part)

I would suggest that all aspiring screenwriters especially those with their sight set on the fantasy or superhero genres should be required to watch blueeye Samurai and take careful notes on how that show handles its titular character because on the surface Mizu Bears a close resemblance to the catastrophic failures of character writing that headline some of the most disliked films and shows in recent years she is absurdly skilled she repeatedly wins fights against insurmountable odds she rarely shows any emotion and of course her Target is a man so what sets Mizu apart from these so oft maligned heroins that have plagued modern Cinema and television why have audiences largely enjoyed her story despite her being so overpowered well if you ask me it comes down to Bluey Samurai adhering closely to these four principles first the character's power must have a reasonably interesting origin said origin need not be completely original but the source of a heroin's power needs to have some draw for the audience it should f out her character in some way most stories even the bad ones do this reasonably well you've got the odd exception like M Marvel who literally receives her superpowers in the mail but for the most part this is not where Modern stories fail their protagonists in blueeye Samurai mizu's power is derived from her training and that's pretty much all there is to it which is completely fine how else do you expect a samurai to become an expert swordsman now Mizu does appear to be largely self-taught which isn't the most compelling method of grow Growing Power Katara but we do see the struggle she goes through in that journey and there's a completely legitimate reason to actually why she couldn't be trained by a master also it's worth noting that Mizu expresses knowledge of several schools of swordsmanship indicating that she is trained with fought against or at least observed a wide variety of Warriors and fighting styles and to top it all off it's clear to the audience that this training of hers was an arduous and lengthy process we understand that she has earned this incredible level of skill through her Blood Sweat and Tears however the second principle of writing an overpowered character states that the character's power cannot be absolute that is to say our hero or heroine should not be able to solve all their problems and Triumph in every situation by skill or Talent alone they need to be shown to struggle to be challenged to rely on something other than their raw power to win the day the audience should feel some sense of tension when the protagonist gets into danger bluee samuray does tow the line in this rule more than any other sometimes eyeing that shark and thinking yeah I could jump that however in mizu's fight with the four fangs it adheres to the guideline quite well I was worried when that outnumbered duel was about to begin that she was going to Simply tear through all four of these supposedly expert assassins and make them out to be complete nothings and while she does triumph and it honestly doesn't even take that long I appreciate that the show has Mizu Ed her wits not only her swordsmanship to win the day her Leap down onto the cliff forcing her four attackers to to approach her one by one and thus negating their numeric Advantage not only tells the audience that mizu's skill is limited and that she acknowledges its limits but also that there is more to her character than simply swinging a sword around better than everybody else although Mizu definitely is better than everyone else and this is where the show falters on occasion when Mizu faces off with dozens or hundreds of trained opponents and slices through them like butter it can feel a bit too convenient like when she's trapped under a door and none of the Thousand claws just just rushes her and stabs her in the throat or when all of abijah Fowler's Samurai just lose to her even though she doesn't even have her sword because she's better the show doesn't always do the best job showing why Mizu wins yeah she's better trained faster and more desperate than the others but how does she actually get past their guard and cut them down while simultaneously warning off multiple attackers all too often we see her wouldbe opponents just standing there waiting not attacking for no apparent reason this is just a personal pet peeve I suppose but it really really bugs me when I see goons simply doing nothing instead of you know their job however that annoyance is counterbalanced by principles three and four which blueeyed Samurai clings to almost without exception the third principle is this displays of Power by our op protagonist must be creative two types of creativity are relevant here the design of the fight itself and the heroin's personal ability to innovate we already touched a bit on mizu's capacity to think on her feet when facing the four fangs and we see it again when she faces the Thousand claws as she whips out her ankle and wrist weights to make her naginata stuff like this ideas that make you go seriously thinks of that can greatly help make your overpowered character much more enjoyable to watch be inventive don't just have the titular characters smash through bad guys add some flare and coming with new ideas crazy stunts and impossible situations is one of the things that bluee Samurai does best another such example of this creativity is her assault on fowers Castle while not perfect as it just described this scene is undoubtedly creative in a variety of ways when Mizu leaps over the first false floor and avoids the spikes I thought to myself well why did they just put two of those in a row that would have made this trap far more effective and then lo and behold on the next leap over a spike pit a second trap opens up and forces misu to use her naginata as a gymnast High bar to avoid death by impalement of course I suppose you could say well why not just make the next section of floor open up or the next NAD nauseum the thing is when your intent is to create entertaining stylistic action sequences that will Dazzle the audience with their flare their rapid pace and the skill and Ingenuity of the protagonist you do have to suspend your sense of logical order to some extent there's a reason the genre is called fantasy the purpose of the traps isn't really to prevent anyone from getting to Fowler if it was they'd be far more absolute entire floors that give way to Lava a thousand Boulders dropped down a narrow staircase you get the picture instead their purpose in the story was to demonst mizu's abilities in ways that are genuinely entertaining to watch if you're a nitpicker like me you notice the flaws and their design but if you also just want to enjoy yourself you can admire the creativity of both the scenes design and of Mizu herself it is possible to write scenes that are just meant to be fun without requiring the audience to flip the master off switch in their brains Bluey Samurai does that quite well in no small part because it keeps surprising you for example when Mizu finally reached Fowler's layer and he let loose with a bullet I was sure she would split the round in half with her Katana I mean come on why wouldn't she we've seen Mizu conquer all sorts of impossible odds and I have it on good authority that katanas are especially effective at deflecting bullets but to my shock mizu's blade loses the battle and she ends up with a ball of hot lead in her shoulder and I don't know about you but I enjoy being caught off guard like this one of the worst things a story can be is predictable because if you're predictable you're likely not nearly creative enough additionally this moment also adds on to the second principle mizu's power is not all conquering it is possible for her to lose that adds much needed tension and drama to the scene and to the narrative as a whole in doing so the story brilliantly sets up mizu's duel with Fowler in the season finale we saw her completely drained of energy and badly wounded get smacked around by a well-rested Fowler on his home turf but when they face off in the palace at Ado the battle should be on much more even terms and we should be in for quite the spectacle unfortunately it somehow completely missed the mark man that was a disappointing fight I'm not sure what happened with this Show's eighth episode I really enjoyed the story up until that point especially the fifth episode which we'll get to in a bit but the conclusion of this first seasion just felt off and the duel between Fowler and Mizu is no small part of that fower had been built up as this master swordsman possibly one to rival Mizu and as I just mentioned their earlier confrontation raised the stakes making this second encounter extra personal setting us up for a spectacular duel that simply never materialized I mean yeah they do in fact have a duel but the flow and the tone of it is so different from what I'd come to expect from this show I expected a master class of swordsmanship from two experts in their craft but instead what I saw was them punching each other stabbing each other with knives or sharp sticks and then just shrugging off those wounds like they're nothing and aijah fower inexplicably running away from Mizu even now after he had her and tigan down and out and then the end of this duel uh bowler stops choking Mizu for no reason at all starts crushing her against his chest and then she gets mad and decides to win the fight come on show you're better than that you've shown you're better than that this was just the least creative way to resolve this conflict and that is antithetical to pretty much every other fight throughout the season misu just does it by doing it and it's maddening how much that resembles other much crappier modern movies and shows what said stories so often get wrong more than anything else is that they violate the fourth and final principle they make the character's power the whole point of said character that is what we call Hollow self-actualization a character's entire Arc is simply them figuring out what they can do and not letting anyone hold them back anymore I don't know why I said them this is almost always a woman nowadays such arcs are innan and unappealing because they are so inward looking so focused on a heroin accepting that she's great that she can fix every problem if only she doesn't let Society hold her back if only she just accepts who she really is it doesn't teach us anything it doesn't reveal any truth about human nature it doesn't demonstrate any real personal growth it's not inspiring or admirable to say look at her she's powerful Bluey Samurai does a superb job of not making mizu's skill with a blade the entire focal point of her character it's very much there we can all see how powerful Mizu is but that's not the point of her character she is so much more than just a weapon who happens to have peaches her internal conflicts the Brokenness of her soul and her unyielding desire for Revenge at all costs are all far more relevant to meu's place in the story than is her swordsmanship you want proof look no further than bluee Samurai's best episode The Tale of the Ronin and the bride if the whole show had been as good as this one episode it likely would have broken into my all-time top 10 list I'm a sucker for storytelling parallels and so the tale of the Ronin and the bride captivated me at once as you can see Mizu playing the ronin's part in the story watching the events displayed by the puppeteers reflected by her own history but then you realize that Mizu is not just the Ronin she's the bride too and the two characters are the halves Waring within her until one finally killed the other and transformed into the Eno it's brilliant storytelling absolutely dripping with meaning at every turn it probably deserves a video all its own but I don't want to get dragged into the weeds the point here is that mizu's character is deep and complex she is not a one-dimensional machine designed by the writers to show how powerful she is Mizu like all of us is seeking happiness or at least she was in the flashback scenes we witness her early failed attempts to obtain information that would lead to the men she hunts and how the wound she receives results in her finding her mother or the woman she believes to be her mother anyway she then allows her mother to convince her to get married and over a period of time actually finds happiness it's not a quick process we can tell that the loss of her purpose that is Revenge for her mother's murder causes Mizu to be lost and even desponded at first but eventually she adapts learning to take joy in life itself after years spent as a slave to her own desire for vengeance she finally finds herself free in taming and riding horses knifing and eating fruit and coming to love and Trust in her husband mikio Mizu discovers a blissful innocent life that is far happier than any future she could have imagined for herself but of course bluee Samurai is a tragedy as it turns out mizu's skill her Raw untapped potential turns out to be not her Savior and the solution to all her problems but rather it is the very thing that causes her downfall mizu's unchecked aggression in her duel with mikio creates a rift between them one that may or may not have pushed him to turn her in it's not really clear whether her husband or her mother portrayed her and it doesn't really matter either way Mizu once again believes the truth that she had allow herself to forget in the past years no one truly loves her she is an Abomination and everyone will turn on her when push comes to shove whether that's actually true or not isn't entirely sure but Mizu believed it to be true once and after being betrayed that idea cements itself immovably in her head love loyalty honor all are meaningless to her there is no hope for happiness joy and peace there is only Vengeance mizu's power or overwhelming skill then is not the point of her character it is only relevant because of all the other character work done it enables her story to progress rather than being the end goal of her narrative while Mizu could be described with passible accuracy as merely a weapon pointed toward a goal and killing everyone in her path that is only because she has through years of torment and loss been stripped of all other hopes goals and dreams where other modern heroins smash through bad guys and the story expects you to find that uplifting and empowering mizu's March through the corpses of her Fallen foes only serves to show just how depraved she truly is talk about subverting expectations let's recap in case you for some reason skipped to the end of the video and just want the cliff notes the principles of writing and overpowered character properly principle one bring your overpower character to that state through some interesting means mizu's arduous and lengthy training fulfills that requirement principle two do not let your overpowered character's power be absolute we see Mizu have to use her wits and creativity in addition to her raw skill in order to win and she even gets her life saved by someone else on more than one occasion Mizu would be 6 feet under several times without Ringo principle three be creative in your displays of the character's incredible power make it fun to watch flashing and glowing CGI lights are not a substitute for actual creativity and Ingenuity blue eye Samurai has flare oozing out of every orifice aside from the unfortunate Final Duel it absolutely Nails this requirement principle 4 the power cannot be the point mizu's skill is important and necessary but far more interesting and compelling are her intern character traits her lust for vengeance her self-hatred and the dully glowing Ember of humanity still within her I am confident aspiring screenwriter that if you stick to these four precepts no matter how powerful of a character you create you will manage to steer clear of the all to Common strong women Trope that continues to haunt modern Hollywood trust me I'm a YouTuber oh

Channel: Master Samwise

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Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2024