Protagonist too Strong, Antagonist too Weak

[Myk]

Every battle the outcome is known before hand because the protagonist are too strong and the antagonist are too weak. I enjoy the word he has created but with what is essentially a team of Supermans he has yet to create an enemy that makes me believe that the team could lose or be hurt. When he does create an enemy that might have some promise he has the team fry them up fast. I would like to see an enemy that is a strong as as Chris and Declan and maybe see a major character maimed or killed. It becomes hard to remain invested in characters that have no real weakness or when they do they overcome them in a few chapters.

[Grumpy Bear]

Before I can discuss this issue I’m gonna have to know how many of the books you’ve read. If you haven’t read all of them I don’t want to mention spoilers.

[Myk]

I am almost done with book 14 Demon Divine: A novel of the Demon Accords

[Grumpy Bear]

Ah good! I’ll leave CAECO and Darrkin Queen out of this then.

As far as maiming goes in the books you’ve read:
In God Touched, Tanya was severely wounded by the Hellbourne and Chris was nearly beaten to death by a Were Weasel.
In Demon Driven, (I think, I don’t like this book much so I haven’t read it in a while) Tanya was bitten by a were and got silver poisoning and would have died but for Chris.
In Brutal Asset, Chris was poisoned by DU and Tanya was blinded by silver and again, saved by Chris. It actually burned her eyes and part of her face away so you could see her nasal cavity if I remember correctly.
In Falling Stars, about midway through the book, Chris was shot in the head and lost 2 years of memories.
In Forced Ascent, Tanya was poisoned by silver again, this time by a federal agent and Chris had his ass handed to him by the main demon. Sorry, but I can’t remember his name.
In God Hammer, Stacia was sliced to the bone twice(?), and Declan was nearly killed by a centipede drone.
In Demon Divine, Declan is wounded so seriously that even vampire blood can’t fix him quickly.

As far as death goes:
In Falling Stars, Chris actually died late in the book and talked to the Archangel Michael and he told him that it wasn’t his time to die.

I’m sure I’ve probably forgotten some events along the way, but you can see my point, there’s been lots of wounding and maiming of main characters but yeah, nothing permanent and not much death.

I’m not sure who you consider main characters, but for the sake of this discussion let’s consider Chris, Tanya, Declan and Omega (those two are kinda joined at the hip) as the four main characters, with the rest of Team God Hammer as supporting cast. Which have gotten their own books in CAECO and Rogues, and in the compendiums, with the Gramps, Stacia, Lydia and Nika stories for example.

Main characters, both protagonist and antagonist have plot armor, so looking for main character deaths before the ending of a series isn’t realistic.

All the character deaths worked in Game of Thrones, because in the OVERALL story arc, they weren’t the main characters, we just thought they were because we didn’t know what the various character arcs were. I’ll be the first to say that I thought Ed Stark was going to be a big player in the series, boy was I surprised!

As far as enemies go, the main demon in Forced Ascent, (I am so looking up his name after this post!) was actually a touch out of their league, according to Chris’s airport speech, and the Vorsook are shaping up to be the big baddies for the near future of the series. The fairy queens are, while powerful in their own right, are IMHO just a distraction. I guess for Doylist reasons, they acted as a way to bring in his first book Black Frost, and for Watsonian reasons, they acted as a proving ground for Declan to level him up, and an introduction for how to work with elementals.

We know from Barbiel’s talk with Chris in Winter Fall, that he’s used up over half of his Angel Fire. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something to the effect of, no more Angel fire, no more Angel. I’m actually expecting Chris to die in a big battle where he has to use up the rest of his angel fire to save Team God Hammer from certain death in some future Vorsook book. I’m kind hoping Declan buys it too, he annoys me lately.

[Myk]

And nothing you listed matters because there is nothing in the books past book 2 that makes me believe the that the over powered good guys are actually in any danger of taking a loss, because they haven’t taken any meaningful loss ever.

[Grumpy Bear]

I can’t speak for the author about the power level of the characters, nor would I try to, it’s his world, not mine. I don’t know what he has in store for them. That’s why I didn’t address that part of your post.

PLot armor is what it is, and it doesn’t change because you don’t like it.

You said, “he has yet to create an enemy that makes me believe that the team could lose or be hurt” I gave you 8 examples of the main characters being grievously injured and dying in the books that you’ve read. If that’s not good enough for you, that you would insult me by saying me taking my time to answer you doesn’t matter, then okay, to each his own.

There are plenty of series where characters fight above their weight class, you might find you enjoy those more. The Dresden Files comes to mind up until you get to Changes. After that he’s pretty much a superman too.

[Author]

Posts