Well, I suppose it depends.

Speshul by ThArcanist on 2012-07-07 04:34:00 UTC Reply

I know the most obvious things that make Sue's "Speshul", but is it bad form to have an agent that's a Magician, in, say, a LotR mission?

Speshulness is in the how, not the what. by Neshomeh on 2012-07-07 14:29:00 UTC Reply

You've got some good responses already, but I wanna clarify what "speshul" actually means.

The thing is, you can have any kind of character whatsoever and make it not speshul, it just depends on how you write it. Let's take the ever-popular Sue trait of beauty.

Beauty + speshulness gives you a character whose beauty causes others to instantly love them, regardless of any other circumstances that would normally lead them to react otherwise, such as the fact that she's written as a spoiled teenager, or perhaps she's just wandered into someplace she has no business being and started demanding attention. But that's okay, because her surreal loveliness means others can instantly tell she's a good person! Speshul beauty means all the men want her, all the women want to be her, and anyone who doesn't love her is obviously evil. Mr. Right will always fall for her eventually, and they'll live happily ever after because she's just so pretty.

Beauty - speshulness is entirely possible, though. In this case, her looks won't save her from getting into trouble if she waltzes into the Council of Elrond and insists on being sent with the Fellowship, which hasn't even been decided on yet. If she's human, all the elves are prettier than she is, and they don't care—she's in trouble, period. If she acts like a spoiled teenager, other people will treat her like a spoiled teenager. If she actually is a good person, she'll need to learn to act like one before people will treat her like one. If all the men want her, that might be pretty annoying or even dangerous when it turns out some of them are bad people, and she's going to have to contend with the fact that they only want her for superficial reasons. (Some speshul characters angst about this, too, but don't be misled—it has no impact on them as people, they won't learn anything from it, and it's only in the story in a shallow attempt force the audience to feel sympathy for them.)

Or maybe she's okay with that—maybe she's a man-eating megab*tch and loves it, and the audience is allowed to dislike her for it rather than having the narrative insist that this is right and good behavior and anyone who doesn't like it (and her) is an idiot.

In a nutshell, speshulness is all about whether the people and the environment around the character react appropriately to them, regardless of whatever traits they possess, and whether the traits are there to advance the story and make the character grow rather than to make the character more awesome. Speshulness means the character doesn't have to work for her achievements; they're inevitable.

So, if you're picking character traits just because they're cool, or they let your character do cool stuff, you're going to want to step back and re-think that. Instead, pick character traits because you want to tell a story about them—pick traits that will give your character something to overcome. Character growth makes awesome characters. Giving them cool abilities/traits to make their life easier to start with makes them boring, and yes, maybe speshul.

~Neshomeh

That cleared things up. by ThArcanist on 2012-07-07 20:56:00 UTC Reply

I think it's more amusing, and gives me more to work with as a character, if the magician is bad at his job. However, am I mistaken, or are there canonically other magicians than the Maiar?

Re: That cleared things up. by desdendelle on 2012-07-07 21:29:00 UTC Reply

Well, I'm not the PPC's expert on LotR either (that'd be, as far as I know, Huinesoron, as the name -- Quenya for 'Eagleshadow' -- suggests), but aside from the Istari which are heavily hinted to be Maiar, the only magic you have is some Elvish stuff (healing, mostly, but there's also that other world thing Glorfindel does at the Ford of Bruinen) and the trickery of the Enemy.
Also, regarding Agents: there are, as far as I'm aware, two maxims:
1) If you think it's overpowered then it probably is;
and 2) context is everything.

Other world thing? by Neshomeh on 2012-07-08 02:06:00 UTC Reply

I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

Anyway, as a bit of a Tolkien nut myself, I'm pretty sure the Istari are in fact Maiar, so they have demigodly powers.

What the elves do is a little more vague—they tend to be amused when other people (such as hobbits) call it magic, and just sort of tolerate it. I don't have my book with me to find quotes right now, but I'm pretty sure either Elrond or Galadriel refers to it as "what you call magic" at some point. It's also unclear (at least to me) whether the powers we know about (Elrond's healing, Galadriel's Mirror and mind-reading, some sort of hinted-at telepathy between them) aren't to do with their rings, or if the rings just enhance the abilities they already have, or what.

That said, it's definitely not the same as Harry Potter magic and the like, whatever the badficcers think.

~Neshomeh

Re: Other world thing? by desdendelle on 2012-07-08 03:35:00 UTC Reply

The fact that Frodo still sees Glorfindel even when he wears the Ring (when they're running from the Nazgul). There's something about 'the other side' or something similar IIRC. And, yes, basically, it's vague like you said.

Ohhh. by Neshomeh on 2012-07-08 15:38:00 UTC Reply

That's because he's an elf. They naturally exist fully both in the regular world and the shadow-world, IIRC—they look a bit different there. Glorfindel is particularly shiny because he's particularly powerful.

~Neshomeh

The main thing to remember is to keep it all incognito. by doctorlit on 2012-07-07 05:44:00 UTC Reply

It's best to limit the agents to what inhabitants of the canon they're in could/would do. The Magician agent can definitely do missions in Middle-earth. Could s/he use a bit of magic in an empty cave in Moria, where no one would observe the spell or its effects? Certainly! Could s/he use a spell to assassinate a Sue if no canons are around to see? maybe, as long as the Magician and his partner dispose of the body so no canons come across it, and the signs of being killed by an uncanonical spell. Could the Magician use spells in the middle of the Prancing Pony in the broad light of day? Hell, no. (Unless it was accidental bad luck screwing over the agents, but in that case, they'd better whip out the neuralyzer pretty damn fast.)

(I'm assuming that by Magician you mean some kind of magic-user, and not an entertainer who performs at children's birthday parties. Although that would be pretty fun, too.)

Plus, don't forget! This Magician will probably be disguised as something different in Middle-earth. So he'll have the appearance of a native helping him to stay off the radar.

To elaborate on what doc said. by JulyFlame on 2012-07-07 21:35:00 UTC Reply

Can does not mean should, or ought. You can have a character that has magical powers, but it doesn't mean that you should use that character for the PPC.

A character is only as good as the writing that supports them, and it's far easier to turn a character with powers into a Sue or Stu than it is to turn a character with none into a Sue or Stu.

If you're intent on having a PPC agent that has special powers, you need to ask yourself if you're making them for the sake of special powers because it's cool, badass, or just because, or if the character is special powers first and characterization keywords second.

If these are reasons your character has those special powers, or if the character consists of special powers first, then maybe you shouldn't have said character as an agent.

Personally, I would advocate having a character that doesn't have special powers or abilities, rather than having one that has powers.

The PPC is not a place to be testing your legs as a beginning writer. You need to know what you're doing first before you hop in with writing.

I think that everything is now in order. by ThArcanist on 2012-07-08 00:23:00 UTC Reply

While that was the most stinging response out of them, it was also the most helpful. I will not write a character that has magical powers unless(and even then, possibly not) it is in a setting where the ability to use magic is common.

That's July's M.O. by AnnaBee on 2012-07-09 15:14:00 UTC Reply

Stinging, yet helpful.

It's got to be canonical. by SeaTurtle on 2012-07-07 05:40:00 UTC Reply

I'm not the world expert on LotR myself, but I am aware that there are magic users (Gandalf, for example) that exist in Middle-earth. If your agent is or is disguised as a canonical magic user, I don't see the problem with using one.

If you plan on using, say, a protoss High Templar that will psi storm the living daylights out of an area and hack foes to bits with psi blades well... not so much.
Well, I suppose it depends. by Pretzel on 2012-07-07 05:36:00 UTC Reply

For example, one of my agents is an elemental mage, but she really only tends to use her magical abilities in places where it's not uncanon for magic users to be or in HQ. It's personal choice, at the end, but I think as long as the agent's not a Maia or other equally uber-powerful magic user, you should be all right.

Also, you'd have to think about how well the use of magic fits in with the mission you're writing. Is it necessary for magic to be used, or can they get by with using more mundane methods to gank the Sue?