Ellen Kuhfeld wrote:It has been said about fanfiction, that if you give Frodo Jedi powers, you have to give Sauron the Death Star. Keep a balance.
Except
that isn´t a balance, or anywhere near it. And you just either end up with Frodo going "splat" or needing ultimate luck just to stay alive a few seconds extra(like Sauron continually choosing NOT to blow up the planet and be done with the annoyance).
Let the Nazguls and Sauron´s armies be more active near Frodo´s path and those jedi powers will be hard pressed to keep him as alive as in the original story. Sauron doesn´t even have to be given anything, just a small shift in focus of his minions and troops will do it more than enough.
#####
My opinion too. This annoys me especially in Harry Potter fics since most of those have a vastly overpowered Harry.
That´s because canon HP relies so utterly on dumb luck that it´s nearly impossible to do fanfics without making them look silly one way or another unless you add something MAJOR to the protagonists.
There´s a "no luck Potter"(that´s not the name no, i don´t recall what the name is, it was just called something like that) fic somewhere that basically goes year by year and sees how many times the main characters would die without insane amounts of luck. I think HP died at least 7 times in first book. Not that by default he would have lived until the first book either.
Have you seriously looked at just how much is needed for a "happy ending"(or at least not catastrophic) in HP? And how completely the primary cast in canon doesn´t have most of it. Information, magic power, political power, money, numbers, absence of outrageous stupidity, take your pick and try to figure out how to make up for it without "cheating"(ie author fiat).
It´s really not easy.
You can superpower the main cast and still realistically have them crushed underfoot several times in just the first half of the series(and MORE realistically than having them get through it as well as in the original story).
It´s one reason why time travel fics are so popular with HP fanfiction, it´s about the only way to make it work without setting up something overpowered.
I have a bundle of HP fics in writing, and i keep running into that wall all the time, either find something to power people up without becoming silly, or you get a curbstomp defeat.
I even have a fairly dark fic that has powerups AND time travel and will still probably go very badly.