Two questions: 1. Is it cliche to want "great power," 2: What to do with great power?

Who cares about responsibility. If I'm all powerful who am I accountable to?

Most motivations are personal and start small, then mushroom as when someone has power they start to think of other things they can use it for.
People who want power....and actually want power, not something else, usually want to do one specific thing with it, or be more powerful than another specific person. Ricky Gervais put it well on a podcast when he said that someone who says they wish they had a time machine so they could put money on a horse race is really wishing for money.

Power might mean money.
Power might mean freedom from something you don't want to do.
Power might mean the ability to do something you want to do. that might mean preventing someone from stopping you or doing something that should be impossible.
Power might be about gaining recognition and fame, and/or love
Power might be about starting from a place where you feel undervalued and have a hint of "I'll show them" about it.
Some people just get a boost from feeling superior

The level of power I want is the ability not to have to work and have a house with a swimming pool. I really want money.

Give me enough money and i'll start wanting things I can't have. i'll want a private island. I might want to privately fund my favourite tv program and then i'd be tempted to improve it.

Give me even more money and i'll buy Liverpool Football club and make sure they get the best players.

Give me even more money and I'll buy Manchester Utd, sell all their best players and give the tea ladies a game.

At that point i'd be pretty famous and loved by everyone but Man Utd fans and well on my way to power and corruption, even though I only really want a house with a swimming pool.

Craig

Look at real life people who aspire for great power, and see what it is that they really want.

Stalin. He was fearful, distrustful, and used his power like a cocoon to force others to keep their distance. He also used it to force others to publicly admire him, and put to death anybody who said bad stuff about him. The more power he obtained, the more paranoid he became that somebody close to him would try to kill him so he started killing off members of his cabinet in an attempt to protect himself.

Napoleon. I don't know much about him personally, but he would be someone worth looking into.

Hitler is another.

Saddam Hussein is yet another.

It seems that one thing a lot of these power hungry real life villians have in common is that they were born into impoverished lifestyles. Perhaps the pursuit of power is something of a safety measure in their minds, taken to extreme.

ETA: not that napoleon is a villian. He just kind of got lumped in with the others. Sorry about that.

Actually, they did something like this in a Marvel Comic. Doctor Doom, foe of the Fantastic Four, actually did take over the world. He'd created a machine that bent people's will to his and finally made one big enough to actually cover the globe.

He spent the first couple of weeks enjoying life.

Then boredom set in.

Then the endless meetings to deal with the world's problems. The lines of supplicants asking him to send the other superheroes (under his thrall) to assist them. Asking him to help feed the hungry kids, and so on.

After a month, he destroyed his machine. People woke up with no idea he'd actually won.

He didn't quit being a villain . . . just set his sights a tad lower in private. He still played the ego-maniac because it ensured the good guys kept after him and that kept him from being bored.

I'd say it's not cliche, but I'd like to go see you develop his character a bit more, otherwise his want of power is meaningless. I know characters who want power... maybe they had some underlying issues that, when taking a closer look, made them feel more human.

I suppose that, as a magician, his version of great power may well be to become the greatest magician of all time, capable of swaying the earth, the heavens, and all things between.

But...

I'm more entertained by what might happen to him on the way to realizing this goal. If your character can briefly inhabit a person and gain their knowledge during that brief trip, my inclination would be to inflict upon the magician all of the psychological problems of the person that he possesses, no matter how petty and small the problems. And I imagine, too, that the kinds of things he may want to know may not be in the minds of good, kind, and stable people, but twisted ones.

So, the more such people he inhabits to acquire knowledge, the more he is likely to become psychologically erratic by the accumulation of others' problems, hitches, and glitches. In other words, he'd likely go bonkers. Heck, for that matter, who he is may become subsumed by the lingering taint of all those others, his personality drowned out by the thumbprints of so many others, perhaps rendering his the ultimate split personality.

Oh but that's just me.

Maybe not the power of being 'in charge'

underthecity said:

He's about 66, a magician, both stage and "real." . He is able to do some magic, but not topple buildings, kill with a single thought, or anything like that.

So, I guess what I'm trying to iron out is that he's not really driven to become "all powerful." He wants immortality, that is in traveling the spirit world indefinitely. Become knowledgeable about the spirit world, perhaps possessing people as he feels necessary.

Click to expand...

Maybe it's not about the power, but the magic. Maybe he's gone from wanting to control the 'unseen forces' to being the 'unseen forces'.
He started with stage magic as a kid, doing tricks to impress his buddies and family, then learned about 'real' magic, managed to learn some, so he can mystify people, even if they don't know it's him. Now, at 66, he's thinking that he's running out of time to learn the really big magics. The killings and the topplings. Maybe that's what he wants the immortality for? To give himself the time and the knowledge that he needs? Or, by possessing people, to at least give the illusion of doing bigger tricks.
Gandalf and Merlin were real old guys therefore if I want to be a powerful magician, I must live to be a real old guy. One way or the other.

underthecity said:

So, I guess what I'm trying to iron out is that he's not really driven to become "all powerful." He wants immortality, that is in traveling the spirit world indefinitely. Become knowledgeable about the spirit world, perhaps possessing people as he feels necessary.

Click to expand...

There's loads to work with in the above quote.

Why does he want immortality?
Is this a character with a fear of death?
Is this a character who's lost someone?
Does he enjoy life so much he wants to live forever?

Why is he more interested in the spirirt world than the real world?
Again, has he lost someone who he thinks might be in there?
Are there people in the spirirt world he wants to talk to / hang out with?
Is there an answer to a question in there?
Is he a voyeur (not in the bad sense) Does he like to stand on the sidelines and watch rather than participate?
If he does, then why?
Is he shy / underconfident?
Has he had bad expereinces that stop him from acting?

Why does he want knowledge?
Is this a basic thirst for knowledge about something that interests him?
Is there something he wants to do with the knowledge?
Is there some advatage to gain?
Is there one piece of knowledge that, when he finds it, will be the end of his search?

Why does he want to possess people?
Is this again a fear of acting as himself?
Is there an advantage to posessing someone rather than acting himself?
If he's in the spirirt world is it only possible to act by possessing someone else?
Is he just curious?
Does he like knowing people's secrets?
Is there a thrill for him knowing something he shouldn't know?


There's still a lot of scope for refining his motivation further. Just keep putting the word "because" after everything this character says?

"I want to live for ever because..........."
"I want knowledge because........."

Quite a fun game that keeps me entertained for hours, both professionally and in my writing

Craig