I’m not sure about you all, but I find stable characters boring. You know, the ones that basically stay the same throughout the entire story? No fun at all. Even the most interesting or funny character losses appeal if they never grow! And I’m not just talking physically. It’s more important that they grow mentally. For me though, a diehard fan epic battles and awesome superpowers, it’s most important that they grow in abilities. That’s the one beef I have with most superheros: they never get any stronger! Spiderman has, for the most part, always been Spiderman. Same powers, same strength, same all that. He’s still cool, but superheros whos’ powers and abilities evolve, either through training or clever shortcuts, are way cooler in my opinion.
Here’s an example: One of the most popular animes of its time was a series called “Dragon Ball”. As most of you reading this doubtlessly know, it stars a friendly little kid named Goku, who’s much more than he seems. When the series starts, he’s already an exceptionally strong kid, and a good fighter. He lifted up a car in the first episode! Still, that was the limit of his abilities. As the series progresses though, he trains constantly to be stronger. Many episodes of the series focus souly on his training, and certain exercises could run on through several episodes. He keeps getting stronger and stronger, and later learns how to shoot a blast of energy from his hands, and even how to fly! By the sequel, “Dragon Ball Z”, he’s grown into an adult, and a near unparalleled warrior. Ever time he comes up against someone stronger than he is, he trains hard to become even more powerful. He’s always attaining new levels of power, and it always comes through hard work. By the end of the series, he easily can defeat opponents with a flick of the finger, and destroy mountains with a simple punch. He even has to be careful to never fire his energy blasts downward, as by then he’s so powerful that he could easily destroy the entire planet! Now that’s character growth! Is it any wonder that I have a poster of the guy on my wall?
There are many other examples of how much this sort of thing appeals to me. For instance, Gamera and Mothra Leo are two of my kaiju (giant monsters). During the course of their respective trilogies, they are constantly evolving, gaining new powers and forms from movie to movie. By the conclusion of their final movies, they have evolved into two of the most badass creatures ever to hit a movie screen! Gamera looks like a totally badass and is firing plasma blasts that can take out ten city blocks, and Mothra Leo has a sleek armored look and is going toe to toe with a monster known for destroying entire planets!
Another example would be Digimon, one of my favorite animes. Usually, the various Digimon animes star kids or teenagers who bond with a little monster partner who can draw on their strength to evolve into bigger monsters. As the series progresses and the kids grow closer to their partners and begin to mature, they are able to evolve their partners into increasingly more powerful forms. By the end of the series, the kids may have aged only a little, but have grown into remarkably mature and strong willed individuals capable of evolving their partners into towering, noble beasts with enough power to defend the world from even the greatest of evils! Again, this shows growth of both the characters themselves and their abilities, which is probably why I love this series of animes so much.
Also, another example would be the books I choose to read. My favorite books are usually fantasies, often involving a teenager or young man who is taken from his normal, humble roots and, through hard work and training, grow into characters of incredible strength, skill, and nobility that I can’t help but admire. The Mystara books I loved as a kid, for instance, where a young man with strange eyes must learn to fight, use magic, don a suit of mystic armor, take his place as a ruler of the most powerful race in the world, and in the end becomes a literal God! Another example is Eragon and its sequels, where a farmer boy becomes an expert swordsman, a dragon rider, and a powerful magic user capable of laying waste to armies with a word! These are probably my two favorite series, and again it’s because of the gradual growth of the main characters into people I can’t help but stand in awe of.
There’s other instances of this sort of thing that I could mention. There’s the Monkey King, a myth about a being who starts out as a literal monkey that grows into an immortal being with the strength to take on the Gods themselves! There’s Yusuke from the anime Yu Yu Hakusho, a teenager who goes from a regular school bully into a noble warrior with enough spiritual energy to destroy even the most powerful of evil demons. There’s Luke Skywalker, who as everyone knows goes from being a whiny brat into a noble Jedi Master throughout his trilogy, or his sister who eventually becomes the a jedi in her own right and great leader of the Republic. There’s Tony Stark, who goes from being an asshole who sells weapons for a living to a man of integrity who frequently saves the planet using his increasingly more powerful high tech armor suits. There’s King Arthur, who went from being a whiny page boy to the noble ruler of great kingdom!
So what’s the point of all this rambling? Basically I’m trying to say that I think the best franchises are ones where things…no, the characters themselves…grow and evolve. I want to see, to believe, that a common man or woman can rise up and grow to incredible heights. I want to see that character become strong, both in mind and body. I want to see a person with incredible willpower, and the strength to reshape the world. I want to see characters grow to a degree that could never exist in the real world, but that I can aspire to be like. Most of all, I want to see characters that can inspire people to remake themselves into the kind of person that can truly make a difference in the world. Characters like this are few and far between, but they are out there, if you just keep your eyes open. Luke Skywalker, Neo, Eragon, Goku, Samwise Gamgee, (and yes, even real people like Michael Phelps)…these are the kind of people that make great stories. I want to work hard to be more like them…don’t you?
