Writing I think I wrote myself into a corner

[Terrate]

You see, my character - main character, is a person with superb memory.

For added context:

In this fantasy setting, I've already wrote that he can do a lot of things with it, like reconstructing everything from memory, remembering smallest details that shouldn't even be remembered; the generic photographic memory, creating a "mind space", learning previously encountered language by remembering the words and instantly associating it(He doesn't know the language before, he just learned it after having good recollection of it), and he could even "slow down time" by using it.

Basically a cheat skill. His cheat skill to be exact - a cheat skill that doesn't appear in his status, just naturally inherent for him.

Now, here's the problem.

What's stopping my character from just going into a library and becoming an All knowing God? Like... He would kinda just be unstoppable after that, I guess?

I don't know about you, but I think that him being too good at everything just by being locked into a library would just remove all stakes.

How do I not make him this all knowing God in an instant?

 

[LuoirM]

Kill someone

I don't even read the post

But the answer is always to kill someone whenever a writing problem occurs

 

[Hoshino]

He can't read. Or give him PTSD.

 

[Valmond]

He can't read. Or give him PTSD.

Now you’re reminding me of a plot my friend did lol.

This was pretty much it. ?

 

[NotaNuffian]

You see, my character - main character, is a person with superb memory.

For added context:

In this fantasy setting, I've already wrote that he can do a lot of things with it, like reconstructing everything from memory, remembering smallest details that shouldn't even be remembered; the generic photographic memory, creating a "mind space", learning previously encountered language by remembering the words and instantly associating it(He doesn't know the language before, he just learned it after having good recollection of it), and he could even "slow down time" by using it.

Basically a cheat skill. His cheat skill to be exact - a cheat skill that doesn't appear in his status, just naturally inherent for him.

Now, here's the problem.

What's stopping my character from just going into a library and becoming an All knowing God? Like... He would kinda just be unstoppable after that, I guess?

I don't know about you, but I think that him being too good at everything just by being locked into a library would just remove all stakes.

How do I not make him this all knowing God in an instant?

The mind yearns but the body cannot?

The soul is strong but the flesh is weak?

Will he die when he is killed?

So what if he has perfect memory that allows him becoming a library? Does he have the raw power to utilize said power? Or would he get turn into a human stump by stronger foes?

 

[Deleted member 206441]

Maybe the mc is a commoner, and only rich people gets to read.

 

[Arkus86]

Limit the information avalible to him? There is only so much he can learn from a library, if the library is drowning in Naruto smut BL fanfiction. Or if he can't access the library in the first place.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Give him ADHD. That's the best way to avoid doing stuff.

 

[LesserSarcasm]

Knowledge is power wisdom is wanting to be dominated by a wizard, just because he has access to books and can memorise them doesn't mean he can instantly understand what is written , even if he can remember it all. I have access to quantum mechanics book and hydro/thermo dynamics books doesn't mean I want to or can understand what is written but its there.

 

[Rezcore]

The human brain holds around 350 billion Petabytes of storage, which is huge, but not enough to become a God. There is also the fact that even eidetic memory can't store everything, and there being a biological limitation on humanity

 

[Terrate]

The mind yearns but the body cannot?

The soul is strong but the flesh is weak?

Will he die when he is killed?

So what if he has perfect memory that allows him becoming a library? Does he have the raw power to utilize said power? Or would he get turn into a human stump by stronger foes?

He's pretty much not immortal, so, yes.

He'll have some way to utilize them, in time.

Maybe the mc is a commoner, and only rich people gets to read.

Let's say, he has status enough to not be considered a normal commoner.

Limit the information avalible to him? There is only so much he can learn from a library, if the library is drowning in Naruto smut BL fanfiction. Or if he can't access the library in the first place.

That's what I'm thinking. Maybe just not have one library get all the good stuff. Spread it across I guess.

Knowledge is power wisdom is wanting to be dominated by a wizard, just because he has access to books and can memorise them doesn't mean he can instantly understand what is written , even if he can remember it all. I have access to quantum mechanics book and hydro/thermo dynamics books doesn't mean I want to or can understand what is written but its there.

Yes, but knowledge is also accumulation of other knowledge. If there's a book for thermodynamics then there will also be another book for breaking down thermodynamics into a form that can be said to be "basics of the basics". So it's only a matter of time before that one complicated book becomes easily understood.

The human brain holds around 350 billion Petabytes of storage, which is huge, but not enough to become a God. There is also the fact that even eidetic memory can't store everything, and there being a biological limitation on humanity

His cheat is basically to store anything without any limitation.

 

[UPineapple]

While him being able to memorise anthing, it souldnt affect his understanding, so he would still need to gain the understanding thought practical use of the knowledge.

 

[Deleted member 206441]

Let's say, he has status enough to not be considered a normal commoner.

Take it away.

 

[K_Jira]

Make him lazy

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Sounds like he's on the drug from the movie and TV series Limitless - if you haven't seen those, check them out to see possible downsides or reasons why he would not do that.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

He has stamina. He has a lot of it, not infinite. He can get tired if he push himself forward, and he could collapse.

After learning how to fight, He can defeat a LOT of the threats and yet There's are more threat in the world to keep him watch out for.

A library, the bigger it is, the slower it would be to acess the books.

Older people are slow in thought, not because theyre weak minded, but because they have lived so long, there's so much Memories and Knowledge inside their head, they need lot of time to sorting them out.

An Sword genius, student of sword saint type of opponent, who have specializing in sword fighting, can still give physical wounds to your MC, or even give your MC major wound.

How's the physical capabilities of your MC ? Does he have "great physical" condition in our world standard, which translate to "lower average" in fantasy world standard ?
Or he actually have great physique even according to fantasy world standard ?

And even if your MC have learned the way of sword, and trained quite a lot, your MC still have very hard time push your MC to the limit physically.

And we have yet mention about "killing" because your MC definitely has at least multiple "Anti-Death" cheat pass from you Author-god.

 

[Garolymar]

Does he also have absurd processing powers? Having all that knowledge is nice but if he can't easily parse all the information in his head to find something useful then it might not always come in handy at every moment. Not to mention having to discern between trash information and useful stuff. Libraries are full of nonsense as well I'm sure, even in the old days or whenever your story takes place. Who is to say what he is remembering is even useful or applicable to the situation at hand?

 

[Paul__Michaels]

You see, my character - main character, is a person with superb memory.

For added context:

In this fantasy setting, I've already wrote that he can do a lot of things with it, like reconstructing everything from memory, remembering smallest details that shouldn't even be remembered; the generic photographic memory, creating a "mind space", learning previously encountered language by remembering the words and instantly associating it(He doesn't know the language before, he just learned it after having good recollection of it), and he could even "slow down time" by using it.

Basically a cheat skill. His cheat skill to be exact - a cheat skill that doesn't appear in his status, just naturally inherent for him.

Now, here's the problem.

What's stopping my character from just going into a library and becoming an All knowing God? Like... He would kinda just be unstoppable after that, I guess?

I don't know about you, but I think that him being too good at everything just by being locked into a library would just remove all stakes.

How do I not make him this all knowing God in an instant?

Some books can be false and have bad information in them. You can have him be cocky about something, but since he remembers bad Intel it could almost get him in trouble or harmful to others and himself. So, yeah, he can like himself in the library, but what percentage of books are actually useful is the angle I would take.

Because my MC in my main novel has something similar as she can read, speak, and understand every language in the cosmos. She doesn't have the photographic memory like yours but when she goes into the Mage's Guild's libraries and looks up books in dead languages that the Mages think are important, she finds out that most of them are boring diaries. So, a large percentage of the books are mostly useless for her purpose.

Anyway that's the angle I would take.

I don't know if that helped

 

[Naash]

Make this knowledge useless by creating a limiting factor. Either one that your mc has, or an external one.

Per example, you could turn them into a Cassandra. Nobody believes what your main character says, as accurate as it is. With only themselves to rely on and achieve what they want, going somewhere won't be easy.
Or, make your mc weak. Their mind is strong but what use do they have of it if their head can be detached from their body in an instant ?

And what if there was some entity that consumed knowledge to erase it ? Some kind of reverse- bookworm ? One that wants to destroy everything that holds knowledge ?Your mc would be a prime target of this enemy.

(Side note, I never understood why people make their mc with super op-cheats without planning stakes, consequences or threats beforehand. That's a huge roadblock.)

 

[Placeholder]

> If there's a book for thermodynamics then there will also be another book for breaking down thermodynamics into a form that can be said to be "basics of the basics".

Here in the real world that's true, but students still need to work through the derivations and problem sets in order to understand anything.

And that's without trying to levitate an apple by staring at it, chanting, visualizing stuff, and moving their bodies around.

Consider a woodcarving course, or pottery. The wood and the clay's right there ... so it's easy, right?

Or learning swordplay from a manual. One with opinions.

---

Fuck it, take the easy way out - grimoires have runes and it is work and something of a fight to understand them.