Making main characters 'special'

I love twisting things up. There are two cases of mine where a main character is special, but in one of them the character dies in the end anyways, and in the other case the character's power is significantly overshadowed by the secondary character in focus. The rest of the time, anything that gives a character consequential meaning is coincidence or the result of becoming involved (wittingly or not) in a complicated matter.

Well... currently my main character is special, due to prosthetic enhancement (of the steampunk variety) and a preexisting talent for shooting things.

That said, he exists in constant and significant pain due to the way his prosthetic limbs are set up, and his enhanced abilities just make it so that he's less likely to get pointlessly slaughtered, considering that in this setting, "above average" means "not cannon fodder."

Once again, I'd point out that powerful is not what this thread necessarily means by "special". We're talking uniqueness. It doesn't really matter if your protagonist can regularly beat up gods if this is normal for the other characters as well.

'Tis true, 'tis true, and in the context of my setting my protagonist is absurd, so you're right on that.

Then again, he's technically a villain. Make of that what you will. He dies, too.

What nrj said.

See, that right there is what I have an issue with. I've utilized Power Levels in a few of my stories, but a level 40 archdemon is only one unlucky day or poorly thought-out strategy away from being stabbed to death by a level 1 human with a knife.

edited 23rd Dec '11 11:23:52 PM by feotakahari

He's not fighting dragons, though, he's fighting men.

Men with lots and lots of guns.

The dehumanization of war is one of my themes, after all. And this is World War I. What do you expect?

Though he gets plenty of cunning in, too. My favorite bit is where he takes out a battalion of enemy troops with one artillery shell... by shooting down the airship that's hovering over them.