power in contrast

Been thinking about strong/weak character representation: erm, not sure how to put it. It's something I look for in dynamics, and get annoyed when the mangaka is unbalanced at it, or purposefully throws off the balance, to achieve a set goal. It's not quite a deus ex machina (manga ex machina?) but it has similarities;  it's when the mangaka wants you to see that A is particularly strong, but having written B, C, and D as strong, the manga must then weaken and/or distort B, C, and D, so that A can remain the strongest. This especially shows up in shonen series, where A is the lead character and his development is the focus of the story.

( Any decent storyteller knows that you want A's environment/competition -- B, C, and D -- not to be weak. )

All that aside, major grrrr on making female characters into plot devices.