Writing I think I wrote myself into a corner

[Madmcgee]

Send him to a library that's filled with propaganda for a super and over-the-top religious/nationalist country with an iron curtain, yet has been so loudly and obnoxiously heralded as the best place of learning in the world that everyone thinks it is.

Now, his head is filled with misinformation and absurdly wacky half-facts that he's got no idea what's real and what isn't. Then, enjoy your mentally crippled protag who is always confidently pissing people off and getting stuff wrong, despite being a demi-god.

 

[beast_regards]

Sounds like the job for the famous interdimensional assassin: Truck-Kun

 

[StoneInky]

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?

Agree with everyone else.

Make him the kind of person who is good at trivia but struggles over math.

Or his brain overloads when he crams too much information into it all at once, and he can literally die from it.

Orrrr he's like AI. He has difficulty distinguishing between false and true information, a joke or a fact. And there's people trolling him or trying to manipulate him, so it's even worse.

Orrrrrrrr limited access to said info.

 

[Tyranomaster]

I'll be honest, perfect memory or not, an entire library isn't enough to be a god. Application of knowledge is what is required. All libraries aren't gods. Perfect memory and reading a library just makes you a library yourself. If you can't apply that knowledge it doesn't really matter. Most libraries also have less knowledge than is easily accessible by a smartphone, yet every human isn't a god.

In essence, if they read a library, all they have is a lesser equivalent of a smartphone. Magic rituals, intonation, conceptualization, these can all be limiters on actually performing magic.

Further, it takes time to read. Time might slow down in the mind space, but it still flows. An entire library of 10k books is a meaningful commitment.

In a medieval setting, you'd also have a lot of rubbish books. Books with false knowledge about how something works, or theories that seem sound but are false. There were, on earth, plenty of these. From the works of Pliny the Elder to books on Alchemy. Grains of truth and a lot of wrong info. (Modern libraries and the internet still suffer this to a lesser degree).

All it takes is like 25% of the information being wrong and that leads to death in combat because you believed you had a protection spell and it was wrong.

Have them go to a library, then get their ass kicked in a fight. They would then need to test their knowledge from the books, which, given the amount of info, could take decades and be deemed not worth it. Even mentally sorting for the most valuable info and testing that could take years.

 

[Gallahart]

Maybe he won’t go because this is ridiculously boring? And it’s such a easy and time consuming thing to do, he may just delay doing it. He could always tell himself he would go the next day.
Don’t underestimate procrastination.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I have access to a library right now to learn everything I want, and I don't do it. Instead I read GL romance novels and smut on occasion.

 

[JayMark]

Okay, this going to sound stupid, but every time he bumps his head, he gets the opposite condition, forgots all his accumulated knowledge, and can't remember anything.

Then, get this, he bumps his head again and regains the power, but has to relearn everything.

So he has to go around in a safety helmet so he doesn't ever hit his head and everyone makes fun of him for it.

 

[ManGoat]

If its a historical fantasy world you could just make there be no libraries and make books rare and expensive

 

[vzymmer]

I'm gonna give you a quote that will explain your misunderstanding that knowledge is power.

"Knowledge does not equate to wisdom."

Both might be of the mind, but both are different in their own ways.
Here's another quote.

"Learning how things work is science, knowing what things are is knowledge, applying these things in reality is wisdom."

/\/\Props to anyone who knows where I got this quote from, some people might be surprised.

 

[Terrate]

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.

Olympic level of our world right now. Though in the fantasy world, should be like an adventurer who's way past being newbie but like two steps behind being a "Veteran" kind.

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?

Yes, can easily link knowledge from each other. Like he was doing ctrl + F on a website page for a word, and he could do it 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

The books not being all useful is a good one.

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.)

Noted. thanks for some ideas.
Don't worry though, I just got hung up on the idea that my MC would just no diff everyone if he ever stepped into a library. Hence why I wanted to see if there are other ways to stop that from happening. Also, he has enough weakness as is

Sounds like the job for the famous interdimensional assassin: Truck-Kun

Sorry, he was already claimed by truck-kun since July 7, 2023.

I'll be honest, perfect memory or not, an entire library isn't enough to be a god.

Yeah, I'm starting to think, that he wouldn't instantly turn into one, even if he does set foot on one.

 

[expentio]

Just by knowing what is written in a book, would he be actually able to apply it? Just because he knows the content, he doesn't have to be intelligent enough to make heads of anything complicated. I could as well read a book about nuclear thermodynamics, and wouldn't be able to build a nuke. Application of knowledge isn't just about the knowledge, but you need the skill to make use of it.

Also, what's his reading speed? That can be a limiting factor. Even if he only needs to see a page for a nano-second, that requires quite a bit of time to skim through every page of a thousand-page book. Not to forget that having the information stored doesn't quite mean he has processed it.

What about mental fatigue? I already freak out if I have to read twenty pages of something boring. Why would he be fine with cluttering his mind with useless info? And how does he access the stored info? Even with the best system ever in his mind, there would be a lot of cross-references, double info, and contradicting statements that would have to be sorted, which may just as well be unsortable. How can he tell what of these he needs? If he can just constantly process the entirety of this information, then you don't have to worry about him becoming god, because he already is by default, being able to simulate worlds in his mind, better than any quantum PC. That's just not a human being.

Then what others said. A fantasy world would have barely any books lying around. Even more so, the majority is going to be useless. History, religion, philosophy, not as much engineering or strategy. Why would anyone put something like this into a library? Would a hot-blooded fighter really write a book about fighting? Then you also have science convoluted by opinions and theocracy. Not much to gain in a library.

 

[John_Owl]

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?

Omniscient does not mean omnipotent. Just because he knows HOW to do something doesn't mean he is physically capable of it. I know how to carve a canoe. Doesn't mean I'd have the physical ability, endurance, or skill to do so.

Half the fun of writing an overpowered character is exploring the limitations and still finding ways to add drama.

 

[beast_regards]

Sorry, he was already claimed by truck-kun since July 7, 2023.

Lighting may not strike twice. The truck-kun might.

 

[GlassRose]

Knowledge does not equal skill. There's a lot he could learn, yeah, but you can't learn everything just by reading it in a book, there's a lot of things that you have to practice and actually try to learn how they actually work in practice. Reading a bunch of books about blacksmithing isn't going to help you swing a hammer. The knowledge in those books will certainly show him the right place to start if he didn't have a teacher, but a teacher is better because there's lots of little tidbits, tips and tricks and safety measures, that aren't something that you write down in a book but rather learn from experience and pass down to apprentice.

Plus, there's a time restriction. Sure, he could read a whole library, but that would take a lot of time and patience, and he might have other priorities at any given moment.

 

[miyoga]

Head trauma. He's going about his business when someone/something hits him in the back of the head and throws him into a vegetative state. while he's unconscious and healing, all that gained knowledge gets "locked away". He can do the basics for life, but his skill is disabled until he can find a way to repair the damage and regain his mind palace.

 

[NotaNuffian]

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

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

Then he is not as broken as you state.

Don't worry about it.

Worry about what types of obstacles you would be throwing in front of him.

If he is weak physically, make him ally with someone.

Then you can play games with the alliance.

Maybe he gets backstabbed, maybe he shall cause his ally's death.

Ps. If he is olympic level strong, then the power ceiling can go higher.

Also, just because he has knowledge doesn't mean he knows it all.

Maybe the opponents know things he does not.

Maybe what he learnt is purposefully wrong and his opponents hold the answers to screw him over.

Maybe in his quest to gain more knowledge, he serves to antagonise more people because knowledge is power and many don't like to share that.

Maybe he can be weight down by ethics. Some knowledge are deadly, like the knowledge of human sacrifice to make the philosophy stone.

Maybe someone knows about him knowing said knowledge and is gunning to rip it out of him.

You have what I need or you need what I have and there is no way for a fair trade.

 

[Jailbreak571]

Make him dumb

 

[Terrate]

Kill someone

I don't even read the post

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

Okay, this going to sound stupid, but every time he bumps his head, he gets the opposite condition, forgots all his accumulated knowledge, and can't remember anything.

Then, get this, he bumps his head again and regains the power, but has to relearn everything.

So he has to go around in a safety helmet so he doesn't ever hit his head and everyone makes fun of him for it.

Head trauma. He's going about his business when someone/something hits him in the back of the head and throws him into a vegetative state. while he's unconscious and healing, all that gained knowledge gets "locked away". He can do the basics for life, but his skill is disabled until he can find a way to repair the damage and regain his mind palace.

Make him dumb

I have compiled the things that will make my readers hate me.

They should've started hating me from the very start.

 

[LiteraryWho]

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?

Having all the books memorized in a library wouldn't make you all knowing, even if we assume all the information in the books in the library was true, complete, and accurate. Besides of which, just because you can perfectly recall every book you've ever read, doesn't spare you the trouble of reading every book. Do you have any idea how long it would take you read the entire contents of a library?

If you want an easy solution, MC goes into the library meaning to become "all-(this library)-knowing", but then his journey is interrupted by the plot.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Plot twist: The closest library is at Alexandria and he arrives the day of the sacking...