FEATURED AUTHOR - Author Miranda Oh Is your typical girl: She loves the sunset, loves long walks on the beach, world travels, and When not playing the corporate part she can be found sipping wine and spending all her hard-earned money on shoes. Among her friends and family, Miranda Oh is known to be the storyteller of the group, always recapping crazy life stories and situations. Her personal experiences, emotions, and fantasies are the inspiration for most of her books, so there is a little bit of her in every…
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1. The Wheel of Time Series. This series by Robert Jordan has a whole bunch of characters that are all way too powerful for their own good and that of the story. One character in particular, Mat Cauthon, appears to have the power of luck, so he always succeeds against any and all odds. The other thing that makes Mat incredible powerful is something that I like to call "plot armor." In other words, there is just no way that anything bad would ever happen to him because the author wouldn't let it.
2. The King's Dark Tidings Series. This series by Kel Kade is another one where the protagonist is basically a one man army. The lead, Rezkin, is only 19 years old when the books start, but was apparently trained from birth to be a living weapon. In reality, this means that he has mastered just about everything to kill opponents and keep himself alive. I've read a few of the books so far and there is just nobody that can even come close to Rezkin in terms of skills, so he might as well be Superman.
3. The Iron Druid Chronicles. I have to admit that this series by Kevin Hearne are somewhat guilty pleasures of mine, but they do fit your requirements for an overpowered protagonist. The lead character is a man named Atticus O'Sullivan who has to deal with all kinds of supernatural creatures along with gods and goddesses. It's all in a day’s work for Atticus, who runs an occult bookshop, but who is actually an extremely powerful Druid.
4. The Demon Cycle Series. I'm only up to book three in this series by Peter V. Brett, but I'm already hooked. It is set in a world where demons have returned to cause havoc each night, so the surviving humans have to make use of all kinds of wards to stay alive when darkness falls. Think "I Am Legend," but with demons instead of vampires. There are multiple protagonists in this series, but the most powerful one is called Arlen. Once again, he is a character that starts out as fairly normal, but due to circumstances he basically becomes a "chosen one" and decides to take the fight to the demons instead of cowering from them. How he does it is also pretty ingenious. The books contain a couple of problematic elements in terms of how women are portrayed, but overall it is nice.
5. Malazan Book of the Fallen Series. I was a bit divided whether or not to include this series as although it is filled to the brim with overpowered characters, they tend to sort of cancel each other out. I also have to give credit to the author for managing to keep the stories interesting despite how overpowered the characters are as this is something that a lot of new or less skilled authors tend to struggle with.
I don't read a lot of fantasy, so thankfully I tend to not see so many over powered wizard characters and whatnot, but it is something that crops up in science fiction too. Just take a look at the Andrew Wiggins character from the Ender's Game books by Orson Scott Card. When another boy teases him, Wiggins beat him up so badly that the boy dies from his injuries. When he is enrolled in battle school, he dominates all the other students even with the school leaders trying to do everything to stack the odds against him. Eventually he goes on to single handedly win a war thanks to his superior intellect. Oh, and did I mention that he accomplished all of this at the age of ten? Yeah, if that isn't overpowered, then I don't know what is.
2. Storm Front by Jim Butcher. Storm Front is the first book in The Dresden Files series and it was followed by a whole bunch of sequels. The protagonist is named Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden and he is not just a powerful wizard, but also a detective. Harry has access to a number of powerful spells like fire and wind along with lightning, ice and cold. To be fair, Harry doesn't start out as all powerful, but over the course of the fifteen or so books he has escaped death more times than what I can count.
3. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. I would argue that Gandalf is the most powerful (and overpowered) character in The Lord of the Rings series. He is not just a very powerful wizard, but also able to use his scheming tactics to persuade those around him to do what he needs them to do. One thing that a lot of people who have watched the movies do not realize is that Gandalf is not just a mere mortal, but actually an angelic being of great power. This would explain why he isn't just incredibly long-lived, but also managed to come back from the dead even more powerful than before.