I don't know what brought this to mind, but while I was mowing the lawn today I started thinking about a couple of the concepts I run across in fiction from time to time that just tick me off, mostly because they are so easily exploitable that the authors who use them apparently decided to forgo actual effort in favor of making TEH AWSHUM MAIN CARACHTUR OF you get the idea. And it's not really that the concepts are all that bad, either. They are explainable, is the problem. Just, most of the time....
Magical Skill
A person who has heretofore been no one in particular—the Ordinary High-Schooler comes to mind, but he/she is not alone—suddenly becomes capable of feats that other people have had to train years to even begin attempting. I liken it to the "I Wish I Were Famous" daydreams we've all had as kids, because that's kinda what it is. An unnoticed girl is suddenly 'discovered' and becomes a huge rock star, tearing out hot riffs on her guitar and writing a new hit song every week and singing for hours on end with no stamina problems at all; a small-town boy (no Boston pun intended) becomes an Unlikely Hero, engaging in full-on combat and turning the tide for the Righteous War against the Tyrannous Whoeverheis because it's always a male Tyranist. (Even Darth Tyranus was a man, I think.)
The huge problem here is the concept itself. You cannot be amazing at something unless you do it a lot. You can be good as a beginner while other people struggle with basic concepts, but almost every fifteen year old Prodigy Violinist started playing their instrument when they were two. (Which kind of boggles my mind, actually.) But you cannot be a master musician without having played your instrument seriously for several years (or in the case of those who play nonstop as soon as they get it . . . well, that depends on the talent but let's call it half a year at least), nor can you engage in combat without actually knowing how to fight—and 'pointy end goes in the other guy' isn't going to topple the evil king by itself, sorry to say.
The sad thing is, like I said, there are ways to explain the sudden virtuosity, and that is by way of illusion. Take, for example, William Turner from The Pirates of the Caribbean. Up until the beginning of the first movie, Turner had been a mere blacksmith's apprentice. When we see him in action, we are informed first that he is the best swordsmith in the area, and later that he is for some reason very good at swordplay. But this didn't just happen BAM you're a swashbuckler, matey. Turner had quite obviously spent his time doing little else besides smithing and, as he told Cpt. Sparrow during their first duel, practicing fencing "three times a day so that when I see a pirate, I can kill it."
William Turner may appear to be magically good at swordfighting in a movie where swordfighting takes a dominant entertainment role, but the writer deliberately explained Turner's talent so it would not end up as Holy Hell I'm Awesome.
Also note that for a long time Will Turner makes one terrible pirate.
Amnesia
This device is fallen upon when the author's main character uses some Ungodly Amazing Trump Card Power and realises that such a power use needs to be at least tokenly explained. The character is then given an alternate persona that activates under certain tense circumstances and leaves the character completely ignorant to what happened while the alternate them was in control. (It also has the added side effect of absolving the character from responsibility for any questionable actions they might have taken. Actually taking these kinds of action themselves ruins some of the empathy and love the audience has for the innocently-cast character, and so the alter ego is necessary.)
The problem here is that amnesia of this type is usually associated with something called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because modern man has to have a disorder for everything on God's Green Earth. But at least it gives us something where we all know what we're talking about, so onward we go.
Keyword in PTSD is Trauma. I think Indi would know more about this than I do, but it is not uncommon for rape victims to have a form of amnesia about the experience; reason there is quite obvious, so I don't have to state it. In the cases in question, though, the character's amnesia must be a result of what happens during the time their alter ego is in control. Call me cynical, but I'm not quite ready to classify saving the lives of friends as a traumatic experience, even if it involves utterly destroying the attacker. The person might suffer from some shock and be rather bewildered, but unless the character accidentally murders an entire town (theirselves, with no help) while their alter ego fought with this attacker, just defeating another person hardly qualifies as traumatic.
This concept can also be explained and justified, which is the kicker for me. (I use it myself in one situation, but I have been very careful how I handle it and the amnesia isn't recurring, a motif which really irritates me.) James Bond had amnesia at one point because he dove off a cliff escaping from Blofeld and struck his head on a submerged rock, and ended up living on a nearby island with the indigenous people for some time. When he wandered off, he was captured and brainwashed by Smersh to return and spoilers BUT THE POINT IS it worked without getting stupid and uses a real-world explanation.
For a more manga-like perpsective, the main character of Nurarihyon no Mago has an alter-ego-induced amnesia until about ten chapters or so in, at which point it was blessedly revealed that he was faking amnesia the whole time, which made me very happy indeed, and it made for a much better story in the long run. Another example that comes to mind is Daisuke/Dark from DNAngel, which used a variant of the same theme except justified it with a genetic deal that could eventually be remedied, and even then the two personalities weren't completely ignorant of each other.
Daisuke is also an example of how to expertly handle the Magical Skill deal; his parents trained him pretty much all his childhood to give him the skills he'd need, and all Dark added was talent. (This is not a spoiler; it is easily observable in the first few chapters, so it's essential to the core story.)
But often authors don't take this trouble, or they use a device that makes it all better but leaves the reader going "...well that was retarded" inside. Ichigo Kurosaki, for instance, being able to weild a sword with decent skill despite his father's training (similar to Daisuke's parents' thief training) only covering unarmed combat. Ichigo wins his battles because his enemies foolishly allow themselves to be drawn into a power face-off instead of killing him when they have the clear advantage, and when you're a born battering ram it's easy to batter.
Rant done, randomly interrupted by a person checking email, a shower, and a long phone call. Cripes.
