Today, I’m covering the concept of flaws as they relate to overpowered characters, because “being overpowered” is not the same as being “perfect”. With the right flaws, one can not only counterbalance overwhelming abilities, but also devise hilarious shenanigans (and harrowing tragedies, I suppose, but that is not the case in this example).
The example shall be Konosuba – God’s Blessing on this Wonderful
World. This is a story that has not one,
not two, not even three but FOUR overpowered characters (five if you want
to include that guy who may or may not have the "cursed" sword, Gram). I am talking about the main cast, of
course.
AQUA
Let’s start with Aqua, a literal goddess, who is dragged down to the mortal world by Kazuma to be his “cheat item” on his quest to save the world from the demon king. As a goddess, she has power far beyond any mortal. In fact, her stats are maxed out; they can’t get any higher no matter how much she levels up. Furthermore, she can cast all sorts of healing magic, from mending injuries to breaking curses and even reviving the dead. Her functionally limitless mana means that she can cast these freely and easily.
She sounds totally broken, right? How can the author possibly maintain tension in a fantasy action-adventure story with someone like her? Easy. She causes as many problems as she fixes. Aqua is vain, lazy, whiny, ditzy, and short-sighted. Her laundry list of character flaws makes her as much of a liability as an asset, and all the more so because Kazuma doesn’t want to regularly accept guild quests dangerous enough to merit a healer of her caliber. Thus, he often calls her a “useless goddess”.
MEGUMIN
Second is Megumin, the foremost Arch Wizard of the Crimson Demon Clan and Master of the Most Powerful Spell Known to Man, EXPLOSION!
This is not an idle boast. She really is that powerful. After three seasons and a movie, the number of foes who have survived a single casting of her Explosion can be counted on one hand (Beldia, the Dullahan from the first season, who wasn’t even the main target). She is her party’s ace-in-the-hole, the knock-out punch whom they rely on to defeat their enemies. If she casts Explosion on someone, then they will die, no matter who they are.
She sounds totally broken, right? How can the author possibly maintain
tension in a fantasy action-adventure story with someone like her? Easy. She
can only cast this spell once per day, because it exhausts her to the point that she is unable to move, much less cast other spells, if she knew other
spells. That’s right, she knows exactly one spell and refuses to learn more, because they pale in comparison to her beloved Explosion. It’s implied
that she’s gets some kind of dopamine high from casting it and watching the
explosion that takes place; the countryside is littered with craters
from her daily castings. This a wide-area spell and so the potential for
massive collateral damage and/or friendly fire is extremely likely.
Finally, she is “chunnibyou”, which essentially is an obsession with being “cool” and/or “mysterious”, often at the expense of practicality, and for this reason, she is rejected from every party she attempted to join prior to Kazuma’s.
DARKNESS
The third character on this list is a powerhouse, a crusader class adventurer who can effortlessly slice through boulders with her tremendous strength. She is also so physically tough as to be practically invulnerable. An attack that would seriously injury another person is something that she will laugh off, with a wide grin on her face. She will dare her foe to strike her harder and even jump into the path of attacks meant for others. After three seasons and a movie, she has never been seriously injured. She can even survive Megumin’s Explosion! (It was a complicated situation).
She sounds totally broken, right? How can the author possibly maintain tension in a fantasy action-adventure story with someone like her? Easy. She has atrocious aim. Even in melee, she can’t successfully strike a humanoid target, who is taller than her, not even if they are standing still and she tries three times. This is because she focused her built on defense to the exclusion of everything else.
She’s also a masochist, and at times she seems more focused on…her own pleasure…than protection. No, seriously, her enjoyment of pain and her lewd ramblings of such creep out the demons and monsters that her party fights. For these reasons, she was ALSO rejected from every party she tried to join, much like Megumin.
KAZUMA
That leaves the party leader, Kazuma, the protagonist of this isekai. That means he has some “isekai cheat” that makes life easy for him, right? Well….sort of. Officially, his “cheat item” is Aqua herself, and we all know how well that worked out. But he is also very lucky. His luck stat is, in fact, his highest stat. Furthermore, he is very clever, with a creative and agile mind that can devise solutions to any problem. This means that he can direct his party members and achieve success as an adventurer, right? Well….again, the answer is “sort of”.
Kazuma is indeed a major reason for the success that his party enjoys, but if he had his way, then the only thing he would ever do is lounge around at home. Kazuma is lazy and was even a shut-in on his home world. More often than not, his party members have to wedge out of his room with a crowbar to convince him to go on quests. He is also so self-serving, perverted (though not to the same extent as Darkness), and dishonest that he is known in-universe as "Kazu-trash" and "Scumzuma", and thus all that cleverness is sometimes used to outsmart himself. Finally, being “lucky” doesn’t always mean “fortunate”, because his luck stat might twist events in a way that seems to help him at the time but actually screws him over in a different way (like what happened at the end of the Destroyer arc).
On paper, this party sounds like some super elite unit that can defeat any foe and accomplish any objective. In practice, they are a ragtag bunch of misfits who stumble their way through one misadventure after another. Their “overpowered” traits act as a counterbalance to their sundry faults and vices. This leads to a series that can span three seasons and a movie (and a much longer source material light novel series that has several spinoffs).
Index of the Appeal of Overpowered Characters series:
* The Appeal of Overpowered Characters - Part 1 - No Need for an Underdog
*The Appeal of Overpowered Characters - Part 2 - The Meaning of the Fight
*The Appeal of an Overpowered Protagonist - Part 3: What is Gained
*The Appeal of an Overpowered Protagonist - Part 4: Super Combat Power does not Create
*Appeal of an Overpowered Protagonist - Part 5 - I Swore an Oath
Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
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