Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

[Pariah]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

For some reason, as I've been reading this thread, Marvel's recent Civil War has come to mind.

 

Am I way off point here, or does it seem to me we've already seen what could happen if some super-genius like Reed Richards decided to change everything for the 'common good' of the rest of us?

 

If superheroes prevented all traffic accidents for us, how would we ever learn to wisely develop and use methods of transportation for ourselves?

 

If they dress us every morning, how would we learn to dress ourselves?

 

If doing reckless, stupid things always resulted in rescue by superhero instead of pain, injury and possibly death, wouldn't we all become recklessly stupid? Er, more recklessly stupid, I mean?

 

This problem moral hazard isn't absolute, of course.

 

There are things we could all learn from superheroic examples, too.

 

These are excellent points. The only way we seem to be able to learn anything of value is to do it for ourselves. Protecting people from their own choices--or from the consequences of their own choices, may be a better way to say it--teaches them that it's not important to make good, sound, and reasonable choices.

 

And you can't just eradicate choice. The Cold War should have taught us that.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

I do agree with the argument...to a point. I think that the average consumer and medical technology in a comic book setting should be significantly better(by anywhere from a decade to a whole century) than its real world counterpart, simply because it would strain credulity otherwise. I think human-induced genocide would and should be a pretty uncommon event, simply because it also strains credulity that some super team wouldn't take the time to stop thousands or millions from being slaughtered.

Also, the existence of angels, demons and aliens, if publicly known, would pretty obviously have an impact on human society. Atheists could still say, though, "well, sure this 'God' may exist, but I tend to doubt 'He' is anything more than a dimensional entity of some sort, perhaps even a manifestation of our collective unconscious--I don't see any particular need to worship him or follow his dictates".

The guys who invent FTL drive and make the first major interstellar trade deal--can you say "trillionaire", boys and girls?

 

I do think there's a certain desire to keep the world of the comics from looking too far different from the real world, for fear that the setting will become too difficult for the readers to relate to/identify with. If Captain Combat can simply replace his ex-girlfriends with android duplicates whipped up by his teammate, SmartGuy, there's not much of a sub-plot there, eh? (Well, maybe, but then they have to move the comic to the "Adults Only" rack). If every superhero can use their powers to make millions, there go all those "Spiderman has money problems again" stories, too.

 

As for supers taking matters into their own hands and setting themselves above humanity, well, there can be pretty good reasons for not attempting that. First, obviously, there's the possibility of being corrupted by all that power. Second, who wants that kind of hassle--there would be literally millions of different things the HeroKing would have to make decisions on. Third, more powerful doesn't always equal smarter, and smarter doesn't always equal wiser. Fourth, does humanity still control its own evolution, or is it now subject to the whims of its self-appointed guardians and saviors? Perhaps humanity was originally supposed to evolve in a way that was beneficial to the survival of the universe, but the forced evolution into super-powerful beings before they overcame their aggressive tendencies will now lead to galactic destruction and mayhem. Lastly, if an alien species or race of gods sees that superbeings have appointed themselves the arbiters of justice over one species, what's to stop them from imposing their will on other species/races? An Authority type of team may inadvertently give a casus belli to some coalition even they can't possibly handle.

 

In my own campaign I try to reflect a setting where superpowers have had an impact on the world, but humanity is still basically running their own lives, supervillains still exist, and there's still a variety of "real" problems to deal with that aren't easily solved by super-powers.

[nexus]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

I definitely think there is a desire to keep superhero settings at least similar to the real world. You can explain/rationalize it in a number of ways but it boils to that after a point it stops being a comic book superhero story and becomes transhumanist or space opera sci fi, not bad genres but not what most readers expect or possibly want.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

I can see where each of these things(super-tech/aliens/gods and angels/other dimensions/time travel) could be explained away, in isolation, but in the aggregate it just really strains the ol' suspension of disbelief thing. Even if it's a fictional world with extraordinary things going on, it still has to follow some kind of causality.

[nexus]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

I can see where each of these things(super-tech/aliens/gods and angels/other dimensions/time travel) could be explained away' date=' in isolation, but in the aggregate it just really strains the ol' suspension of disbelief thing. Even if it's a fictional world with extraordinary things going on, it still has to follow some kind of causality.[/quote']

 

Like anything else of this nature, its a matter of personal taste. Some people's SOD is more flexible than others. Afterall some can't accept comic book superhumans (who tend to violate several laws of physics just by existing) at all.

[OddHat]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

A related trope worth examining is the "Superhero as Other". Partly because American Superhero stories are mainly aimed at a younger audience convinced of their outsider status, and partly because people like to categorize, these conversations often focus on the idea of the Superhero as an outside force or racial minority, separate and distinct from his own society. When they act to solve a societal problem, it's put in terms of outsiders stepping in to fix that problem, sparking anger and resentment from "real" people.

 

I'd rather look at it as members of a particular society stepping forward and dealing with an issue. When a real world scientist works to cure a disease, most people accept that it's a case of society dealing with the problem (and a few will sometimes argue that the problem shouldn't be solved); in a world with Super geniuses, I'd write the story from the POV that most people accept Reed Richards curing cancer as the way things are done. The Great Man Theory of history would be demonstrably true; "Great Events occur because Great Men act, problems are solved when Great Men step forward and solve them."

 

Whether that's true or not in the real world has little bearing on the case in a world of Supers.

 

And yup, Alien Invasions, Supervillains, and Giant Monsters are real problems in Superhero worlds. No one is going to be left to whinge about the cause of the week if the Superheroes are all so busy attending protest marches they let Galactus eat the planet.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

Like anything else of this nature' date=' its a matter of personal taste. Some people's SOD is more flexible than others. Afterall some can't accept comic book superhumans (who tend to violate several laws of physics just by existing) at all.[/quote']

 

True. I think one way around this in a campaign setting is to simply say 1) there aren't all that many supers around; and 2) they haven't been around very long(and, option 3) they aren't all THAT powerful). That way, they really haven't had much of a chance to change things around.

Of course, in the DC Universe, supers have been around since WW2, exist in fairly large numbers, and many of them are awesomely powerful, so it would be logical to expect they've had a big impact on society(of course, a cynic would argue that their biggest impact seems to be that reality needs to be "rebooted" every 10-20 years).

[Hermit]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

And yup, Alien Invasions, Supervillains, and Giant Monsters are real problems in Superhero worlds. No one is going to be left to whinge about the cause of the week if the Superheroes are all so busy attending protest marches they let Galactus eat the planet.

 

*Crunch crunch Gulp* "Mmm, Socially Conscious Earth was tasty, but confused elaborate seasoning with meaty substance ..."

[megaplayboy]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

A related trope worth examining is the "Superhero as Other". Partly because American Superhero stories are mainly aimed at a younger audience convinced of their outsider status, and partly because people like to categorize, these conversations often focus on the idea of the Superhero as an outside force or racial minority, separate and distinct from his own society. When they act to solve a societal problem, it's put in terms of outsiders stepping in to fix that problem, sparking anger and resentment from "real" people.

 

I'd rather look at it as members of a particular society stepping forward and dealing with an issue. When a real world scientist works to cure a disease, most people accept that it's a case of society dealing with the problem (and a few will sometimes argue that the problem shouldn't be solved); in a world with Super geniuses, I'd write the story from the POV that most people accept Reed Richards curing cancer as the way things are done. The Great Man Theory of history would be demonstrably true; "Great Events occur because Great Men act, problems are solved when Great Men step forward and solve them."

 

Whether that's true or not in the real world has little bearing on the case in a world of Supers.

 

And yup, Alien Invasions, Supervillains, and Giant Monsters are real problems in Superhero worlds. No one is going to be left to whinge about the cause of the week if the Superheroes are all so busy attending protest marches they let Galactus eat the planet.

 

It could be a reasonable explanation to state that Reed Richards et al would have gotten a lot further on curing cancer, except 90% of their professional time is taken up fighting Galactus, Doom, etc.

[OddHat]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

*Crunch crunch Gulp* "Mmm' date=' Socially Conscious Earth was tasty, but confused elaborate seasoning with meaty substance ..."[/quote']

 

Need to rep this, and your earlier contribution as well, but can't yet.

[nexus]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

For being so much more "realistic" I did notice that in the Authority the teams and their opponent's actions seemed to have little impact on the rest of their world. Several major cities are decimated, the nation of Japan basically ceases to exist, several other cataclysms strike and that's in the first series. Mass death is apparently common in that universe, a group of rogue supers execute the president of the United States and take over. Oh, and everyone on the planet is displaced into another dimenion for awhile. On a positive note its mentioned that the Engineer has developed cures for most types of cancer and, IIRC, AIDS at one point. Surely, these things woud have had masssive social, political, economic, even spiritual impact but things are still basically the same or any changes are glossed over.

[OddHat]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

Surely' date=' these things woud have masssive social, political, economic, even spiritual impact but things are still basically the same or any changes are glossed over.[/quote']

 

Yup. Crappy writing is a force that's difficult for even the mightiest Superhero to challenge.

 

Personally, one of my favorite bits in Alan Moore's work, especially Miracleman, LoEG, and Tom Strong, is that the presence of Supers has a real measurable impact on the world and daily life, in large ways and small.

[assault]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

Of course' date=' in the DC Universe, supers have been around since WW2, exist in fairly large numbers, and many of them are awesomely powerful, so it would be logical to expect they've had a big impact on society[/quote']

 

The interesting thing about this is that it is a relatively recent development.

 

In the early Silver Age, characters more or less existed in their own worlds. There were occasional crossovers, but the DC "universe" was effectively a set of parallel universes.

 

The JLA notionally changed this, but the real-world driving force was probably competition with Marvel's more integrated universe.

 

Even then, the universe effectively "began" with the emergence of the current generation of heroes, with very little in the way of a previous generation. Earth-2 was somewhat different, with the first generation of heroes emerging in the 40s, but with relatively few heroes from the next generation.

 

Crisis On Infinite Earths broke things, by forcing the timelines together. All of a sudden, heroes *had* been around since the 40s, in numbers that couldn't be ignored. It was no longer a case of passing over the changes that had happened in the few years since Superboy appeared. (Admittedly, those changes should have been substantial!)

 

Superhero roleplaying universes often seem to be based on this "lots of heroes for a long time" model. I've suspected for some years that this is a case of creating a rod for our own backs. These little exercises in Creative Writing, while fun, actually push the bounds of suspension of disbelief further than is necessary, and require huge applications of handwavium and duct tape to avoid falling appart.

 

One experiment I engaged in a couple of years ago was to recreate the Marvel universe at the point it was after the first dozen or so issues of the Fantastic Four. It worked out pretty well. There were other heroes for the FF to interact with (Spidey, Hulk), as well as a good variety of bad guys. There was a sparse history of previous heroes (Cap!), but basically the world was a blank slate, ready to be created.

 

I'm beginning to suspect that that might be the approach I will take if and when I ever get around to running another game. Writing histories and constructing timelines is fun, but they're actually pretty unnecessary for a game.

 

Yep. From now on, I'm running "universe-lite".

 

I like this post. I might copy it to my blog.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

We avoided this in our MidGuard campaign by having metahumans first appear in the year 2000. There aren't a whole lot of them worldwide; maybe a couple thousand total - most of whom are more pulp than super in power level.

[Doctor Agenda]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

I am having my metahumans appear the day the game starts, also more pulp-level types than supers. This doesn't make my load lighter as I have to deal with social disturbances from the appearance of supers (a goodly number of them, too), which I'm hoping to enjoy, but I have a time before the 'why haven't they cured cancer yet?' question pops up.

[Funksaw]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

This is why superheroes - classic ones, anyway - don't kill people even if it saves more lives than killing would.

 

Imagine that there is a runaway train that you cannot stop. It is set to plow into five people waiting at the terminal - they cannot get away in time and will surely die.

 

There is a switch that you can reach, but if you pull that switch, the train will jump off the track and hit a man standing off to the side. He cannot get away in time either.

 

Most people would pull the switch.

 

Now imagine a similar scenario. Speeding train, terminal of five people. Only this time, there is no switch. However, you are standing above the train on a bridge with an exceedingly fat man - and you know that if you push the fat man onto the tracks, he will die, but it WILL stop the train.

 

Most people would NOT push the fat man.

 

The difference seems minute - and in fact it is - but it's still significant. In the first scenario, the man is a victim of circumstance - he is unlucky to be there, but the situation is dire and he's just in an unlucky situation.

 

In the second situation, you become the active initiator of the man's death. You have to willfully harm someone - putting them directly in harms way through your direct action - in order to save the lives of other people.

 

That's not what we think of when we think of being heroic.

 

Now, there are people who (supposedly) are active agents of willful harm in order to save the lives of people. Soldiers. (Let's not get into a discussion - let's just examine the generic idea of a soldier.) A soldier, however, needs to dehumanize the enemy in order to kill him. Dehumanizing people is not the mark of a hero.

[assault]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

A soldier' date=' however, needs to dehumanize the enemy in order to kill him.[/quote']

 

Why?

[LoresLost]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

A soldier, however, needs to dehumanize the enemy in order to kill him.

Why?

 

Off Topic but I had to answer:

The one word is empathy. If you think of your enemy just as human as you then you are less likely to pull the trigger to kill them. That is why the US training and propaganda films from WWII show Japanese as buck tooth, slant eyed savages and Germans as butchering 'Huns', it makes them less then human, less like my neighbor and friends, so I would think of them as demons and/or animals that needed to be put down.

 

ON TOPIC:

But the more I think of it this is part of the answer to the why heroes do not change the world... We would lose an empathic connection to them. If there world does not have a connection we can relate to on the simplest terms (Comics were originally a 'child's' media) then we might lose that empathic connection.

 

(I think too much)

[assault]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

Off Topic but I had to answer:

The one word is empathy. If you think of your enemy just as human as you then you are less likely to pull the trigger to kill them.

 

Yes, it is off topic, and I apologise.

 

I will, however, point out that "fraternisation" has an interesting history.

 

Hopefully the threadjack will more or less end here.

 

But the more I think of it this is part of the answer to the why heroes do not change the world... We would lose an empathic connection to them.

 

Yes. They would become weird and alien.

 

Even Science Fiction, where "weird and alien" is a good thing, needs a point of empathic contact with the readers/viewers/whatever. Usually, this is the viewpoint of the protagonist. Unfortunately, in the "superheroes change the world" situation, humans are either bystanders - or opponents!

 

If you want an active human protagonist in this situation, the opponent option is most probably the easiest - which brings us back to the superhumans being supervillains situation, all moral ambiguity aside.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

Yes, it is off topic, and I apologise.

 

I will, however, point out that "fraternisation" has an interesting history.

 

Hopefully the threadjack will more or less end here.

 

Ha! No threadjack ending for you!

 

Anyway, I was reading up on a thread a couple of years ago, and this point came up; however, several US ex-soldiers piped up and commented that while dehumanizing your opponent is ONE way to make it easier to kill, modern western armies don't teach it. Instead, they claimed that there are three ways to get a soldier to override the flinch response and to get them to kill:

 

1. intensive training - so that when the right combination of stimulus occurs, the soldier automatically pulls the trigger. This is one of the biggies in the US military.

 

2. Acceptance of consequences - this includes accepting the necessity of killing your enemy, and understanding why it is you're killing them: basically, ideology training. This also includes accepting your own mortality, and being at peace with your own death: religious training. Both are used in the US military, but not as much as the first.

 

3. Dehumanization of your foe - so that you don't consider them human, so that you can kill them more easily. This is actively NOT used by the US military, as the consequences are too difficult to control in a post-war scenario: ie, you don't want a bunch of soldiers thinking that group X isn't human, when group Y looks and talks a great deal like group X, but group Y is a significant minority in your country.

[OddHat]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

YUnfortunately' date=' in the "superheroes change the world" situation, humans are either bystanders - or opponents![/quote']

 

Don't agree here. I've been running games for a couple of decades now where technology and some aspects of politics and religion have been changed by the presence of supers, without turning non-supers into passive bystanders or opponents. Aberrant was an entire RPG setting where Supers had changed the world, and not a bad one in and of itself despite White Wolfisms that eventually wrecked it for many players. Alan Moore's Tom Strong manages it (albeit with a serious dose of whimsy), as did Watchmen (where a single super was the cause of much of the change) and LoeG (though you'd need to read the annotations to notice some of the changes if you're not a UK history buff). Sci Fi writers have managed stories where people with strange powers have an impact, positive and negative, for over a century. Whether these stories work or not is pretty much a matter of taste.

[OddHat]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

Pulled from a thread on rpg.net. I thought it was pretty thought provoking even if I don't emtirely agree with the assement. Thoughts?

 

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Here's a link to the original thread as well

 

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=354856

 

Getting back to the first post, the idea that superior people (almost always meaning "Us") have the right and obligation to rule inferior people ("them") is one of the oldest saws in politics and philosophy. Looking at it from the point of view of Superhero comics just gives a group that's undeniably superior in some ways. Kind of a moot point with the Supers example, imo; rulers past the small group level are chosen based on their ability to organize and lead. Person A might lift heavier weights than George Bush or John Howard, and his standardized test scores might be better, but very few people would consider those to be serious qualifications for running a country.

 

I'm more a "Good government requires the informed and willing consent of the governed" type myself.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

Unfortunately' date=' in the "superheroes change the world" situation, humans are either bystanders - or opponents![/quote']I'm recalling an adventure of Superman in which Kobra had the Man of Steel down, and to his surprise started getting pelted with bricks. The bystanders were taking a stand for Supes! (They didn't have any real effect, of course, but they did provide enough of a distraction for Supres to sucker-punch Kobra.) So, clearly, a superhero who becomes sufficiently iconic and engages the public's heart can make a real difference in how we think (or at least how the public thinks in their own world).

[OddHat]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

I'm recalling an adventure of Superman in which Kobra had the Man of Steel down' date=' and to his surprise started getting pelted with bricks. The bystanders were taking a stand for Supes! (They didn't have any real effect, of course, but they did provide enough of a distraction for Supres to sucker-punch Kobra.) So, clearly, a superhero who becomes sufficiently iconic and engages the public's heart [i']can[/i] make a real difference in how we think (or at least how the public thinks in their own world).

 

And the idea of Superheroes inspiring the public to be better people is one of the oldest in the genre, as well as one referenced in many popular films (Superman II, Batman Begins, Spiderman II).

[Damascan]

Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility

 

Regarding the 'Why don't supers cure cancer?' gripe --- I guess in a more realistic reality they might. The question is, what would nature throw at us to take cancer's place, if cancer serves a purpose in nature?

 

If you cure cancer, couldn't you possibly engender a mutation that could have worse consequences for humanity? Maybe the brainy supers realized that curing cancer would cause some horrible repercussions that we are not yet ready to accept.

 

Then again, maybe the supers are constantly battling more hideous viruses and diseases, but we never hear about them because the public would go into panic mode, riots would start, end of the world parties, etc.