Onward: A Study on Power Escalation

 

Onward was a phenomenal story, there's no doubt about that. Say what you will about the "necromancy", but in the end, that's what it was. A good story, so what can we learn from Onward that can help us make our own stories? The first thing I noticed was Onward's masterful job at power escalation. As Ian learns new spells, he doesn't just "get more powerful." We can feel that it's something that's difficult for him, something he's not too sure about, even though we never really hear him say so. Why is this? Take a look at these two scenes. 

The first is the scene where Ian and Barley encounter a wide, deep, gorge that they have to cross. There is a drawbridge, but the only problem is that it's on the side that they aren't on. Barley shows Ian how to use a spell to make an invisible bridge over the gorge, so he can lower the drawbridge. Ian tries to, but he fails at first, and nearly falls into the gorge. On his second try, he finally is able to make the bridge, but on his last step, he fails again and, also again, nearly falls.

The other scene was when Ian and Barley are trying to escape from the police, and run into a dead-end, literally. Ian tries to use the spell arcane lightning to cause an avalanche to stop the police, but he fails completely here. The one common thread between these two scenes that are so important to Ian learning new spells and becoming more powerful (That's power escalation) is that Ian fails to use the spells. In the climax, as Ian tries to battle the dragon, he uses both spells successfully. The reason that this makes the climax just a bit more poignant is that we feel that Ian earned the ability to use these spells, that he fought hard to get the ability. As we realize this and we think back over other scenes in the film we can see that, actually, almost every single time Ian uses a spell before the climax he fails, from the growth spell to the levitation spell. So, what can we learn from this? The way to make power escalation feel convincing and to avoid people going, "Oh wasn't that convenient?" we need to show that our characters earned their powers, and how do we do that? We show them failing, and struggling to succeed in mastering the power that they want. This doesn't just apply to magic power escalation. It can apply to anything where your characters have to learn a new skill. What are your thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments!