The one thing most people seek; though few fully achieve. There are few who strive to obtain the same power that the gods poses; and even some who come close to it. What follows is one of my favorite styles, list ranking styles. I will state a power and then a description will follow. This has been a list I've wanted to make for a while now. Here you'll notice that the list can easily be divided into two distinct groups: as "antisocial" powers, meaning that the person has to meet a special set of circumstances; and as "human" powers, where there aren't any real requirements that need to be met. These are the main powers and out of these others spawn.
Legal Disclaimer: I must say that this list is for edification and entertainment purposes only and nothing more, and only convey the opinions of the author; those who seek to imitate what is written may be faced with criminal charges and may be prosecuted, not by any fault but their own.
Friendship – This and the one that immediately follows it are primal powers, meaning that they aren't superficial or self-serving. Some would argue that these two (this and "Love") are crucial to achieve for survival purposes; or at least to achieve biological success (another topic that I'll dedicate a whole post to). This can be a rather easy thing to achieve or a rather hard one; reputation/perception seems to play a huge part in this. For some making friends comes naturally. As the saying goes "there is strength in numbers".
Legal Disclaimer: I must say that this list is for edification and entertainment purposes only and nothing more, and only convey the opinions of the author; those who seek to imitate what is written may be faced with criminal charges and may be prosecuted, not by any fault but their own.
Friendship – This and the one that immediately follows it are primal powers, meaning that they aren't superficial or self-serving. Some would argue that these two (this and "Love") are crucial to achieve for survival purposes; or at least to achieve biological success (another topic that I'll dedicate a whole post to). This can be a rather easy thing to achieve or a rather hard one; reputation/perception seems to play a huge part in this. For some making friends comes naturally. As the saying goes "there is strength in numbers".
Love – A step just above friendship and a true commitment; where one devotes their life to another because they feel compatible. While I really don't have much to this, due to lack of experience or desire to seek it. With that level of commitment, you can see why it can be considered a formidable power. Love's ability to blind people can make for some interesting possibilities. If by now you haven't come to guess that I am not in any referring to sex, but more along the lines of marriage.
Comedy – While this one may seem out of place on this list, this can be quite a useful power/ability that can even help achieve those that are to follow and those that precede it. It is truly sad that comedy doesn't get the respect it deserves as an art form, since people fail to realize how hard it is to make people genuinely laugh. From a shear psychological standpoint there has been many papers published on the power of laughter itself. The reason this is such a hard power to master is because everyone is different from one another; so there are too many variables to take into account. While there seems to be universal things that make us laugh (like slapstick, parody, and irony); it's the act of turning that into a tool that can be used to disarm a person that makes it truly tricky.
Complete Control – This is the second hardest power and also the second darkest; the power of true manipulation, or the bending of one's will to the controller's whim. One of the greatest examples of this from the last century was Adolf Hitler and his control over his countrymen. So, as you can probably guess the easiest way to control another human being is taking advantage of them when they're at their weakest. This is one of the powers I've been trying to achieve myself, and have been able to do so to a great degree; for you see the emotionally compromised aren't the only ones that are susceptible to manipulation, another easy target are those that are dumber than you. Look at communism; in theory it's the perfect form of government, but its weak point lies in relying that none of the subordinates question their leader. Once that seed is planted, like a weed it spreads quickly (the lemming effect). The weakest manipulators seek the mentally handicapped to control; but even that has its drawbacks. For one, most mentally handicapped people govern their lives by a strict set of rules and the trouble of going through the reprogramming process might not be worth the trouble (but that is contingent on what the task requires; if its criminal then it might not be a bad investment, but they are also most likely to talk too). Later on I'll dedicate a whole post on the topic of "manipulation", since it's one of my favorite topics to cover.
The Suicidal/Homicidal Subordinate(s) – One way to look at this power is by seeing it as one of the greatest compliments a human being can ever receive. Mind you some might find that statement disgusting, but the ability to have someone willingly kill themselves for "you" (or whatever "cause") is really quite a feat in itself. Cult leaders seem to have a real knack for this. One then can assume that it is easier to control those who are spiritually lost or even troubled. While this is similar to "Complete Control"; the ability to take it that extra step and involve death is quite the leap, since it requires one to temporarily retard their morals. This power would fall under killing/dying due to a sense of "duty", and it's for that same reason that the puppet is able to justify their act. This is what weaker people use if they themselves can't come to committing murder; so they employ others to do their deeds for them. While I find getting others to kill for you as an act of cowardice; having them willingly kill themselves is quite the feat, for its one thing to kill others and a whole different thing to have them kill themself.
Trust – This is a rather fundamental power without this the rest are hard to even achieve; except for comedy. This is regarding garnering trust and not you trusting the subject (while if seeking to create relations; then trust is important, or so I'm told), since their trust is rather irrelevant superficially speaking. This is arguably the hardest power to obtain and some may argue the most powerful; as you can see I disagree, since man has always sought to become God (and killing is the closest we can come). The reason why this is so hard to achieve is because it requires the other party to make them vulnerable and let them into their "world". This in turn goes against the whole primal urge of self-preservation, which was used as a survival method before we did away with such primitive needs.
Judge / Jury / Executioner – This is the most power any one human can possess; that is the ability to willingly take another human being's life (note: those who take lives in battle are different than those who do it as a sport; again I'll dedicate a post strictly on the topic of death and killing). This power alone is the closest thing to God, since most would tell you that only God has the right to say who deserves to live or die. This is also the hardest to do; that is if you have any kind of moral system. The reason being that all humans have a morality system built in morality system in the beginning; whether or not it gets corrupted as time progresses can be the fulcrum that can change everything. We usually call people who can easily take another's life, sociopaths. Whatever your viewpoints are on the matter doesn't really matter since it's hard to argue that there is a power greater than this; and in the same regards the hardest to achieve.
A little warning to those who might think of creating their own blog; don't use MS Word to write it, well to be more precise when using special formatting like lists since it doesn't translate. Changed all my list values to "1" instead of maintaining the number system I had in place; and then it was a whole annoying process trying to fix it, that's where "blogger" got really annoying.
