Forgetful Characters/Maximum Capacity

[caliburncy at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 27058

On a cute personal note, imagine my surprise when I checked the 
list this morning to see who had posted while I was sleeping and saw a 
post by ME.  Eh?  Oh, I realize, that's the post I sent back on 
Sunday (prior to my other posts that nevertheless arrived sooner) 
which never showed up and I'd completely forgotten about.  Gotta love 
Yahoo and the fun, fun delay time.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., cynthiaanncoe at h... wrote:
> What strikes me about your comments on maximum capacity, however, is 
> that there must be at least two ways of having one's villian act at 
> maximum capacity for the majority of the story, and then have him 
> lapse at the crucial time without generating "eye rolls" among 
> readers.  One way is to just have him blunder, which is what we see 
> with "Phoenix tears -- I forgot."  (We need to think of a catchy 
> name for this type of blunder.)

Umm, "The Minor Oversight"?
Or, "The Blatantly Obvious Moronic Oversight"?
Or, "M.O.R.O.N.I.C. (Minor Oversight Regarding Obvious Neglect of 
Information Critical) -- Darn, it almost works except for the 
noun/adjective reversal

> Perhaps the better way, however, is simply to deprive the villian of 
> a critical piece of information.  Because the villian does not have 
> this information, his actions make perfect sense based on what he 
> does know.  His lack of a complete understanding of the 
> circumstances becomes his downfall, rather than just his poor memory 
> and general lack of Evil Overlord skills.

We can call this "Ka-Blaam! Elimination: Lack of Education", assuming 
Disney doesn't sue us.
 
> Back to maximum capacity.  Are there other effective ways of having 
> the villian come up short in a believable way so that the hero's 
> victory isn't contrived?

Well, if I may quote myself first just in case the reference becomes 
necessary:

"I should add that, in theory, a villain can act at maximum capacity 
and still lose.  Their maximum capacity *at that moment* just needs to 
be smaller than the hero's was *at that moment*.  This does not imply 
that the hero should be unbalanced to the villain and generally more 
capable (that's a very BAD idea for a dramatic story).  It means that 
something in the external circumstances must hinder the villain 
somehow from having the normally equal amount of maximum capacity as 
his protagonistic counterpart."

What I mean here, as you probably realize, is that there would be some 
external hindrance that temporarily puts the antagonist at a 
disadvantage through no direct fault of his own or through 
any intentional manipulation by the protagonist.  It would have to be 
something totally unavoidable--where the antagonist, despite having 
made decisions at a maximum capacity equal to or greater than the 
protagonist, finds that those decisions inevitably backed him into 
some kind of wall.  It is very difficult to do, which is perhaps why 
I'm having trouble thinking of suitable examples.

But anyway, a credible, non-contrived way to make a villain lose 
doesn't just have to be deprivation of critical information, of 
course.  Take a villain, like the one-eyed pirate Klingon (I forget 
his name . . . General Chang, I think) from Star Trek VI, who as a 
strategic commander was pretty equal to Kirk, and had the added 
advantage of firing while cloaked to up his maximum capacity higher 
than Kirk's was.  Both were acting making full use of their resource, 
and hence both were acting at their maximum capacity--Chang's was just 
higher because of what was at his disposal.  But Kirk's crew were able 
to track his ship from emissions and thus destroy him (at this point 
their maximum capacity exceeded Chang's).  Chang acted out of his full 
maximum capacity and still lost; and what eventually gave Kirk the 
upper hand was not information, but technology.  Anyway, it's the same 
thing in the end, and that's still not quite the example I mean when I 
refer to the possibility of an external circumstance temporarily 
lowering the protagonist's maximum capacity.
 
> Cindy (who belatedly realizes that her English Lit classes might 
> have been interesting had she bothered to pay attention)

Yes, they might have been, but for different reasons than why what we 
talk about here is interesting.  English Lit is often all about 
Faulkner and Joyce and experimental fiction and streams of 
consciousness and symbolism and occasionally reading things into the 
books that Faulkner himself denied the presence of.  Don't get me 
wrong--I enjoyed my English classes (up to a point) and was a top 
student.  But they don't teach you anything about the techniques of a 
dramatic novel, except perhaps the occasional reference to 
foreshadowing.  That sort of thing is more likely to be encountered in 
a creative writing class or something of the sort.

-Luke