Originally Posted by
Ascended
I really don't know how to explain it in plainer terms, but I'll try a last time.
Okay. First off. There is *no such thing* as "over powered." This entire concept you're arguing about? It's not real. There are only antagonists who do not adequately challenge the protagonist. So Diana is only "over powered" if she only ever fights threats that can not hurt or defeat her. Which doesn't happen; Diana's rogues are all dangerous to her physically, mentally, emotionally, or some combination of the three. If the protagonist can be hurt/challenged by the threat, then the protagonist is not over powered. Therefore, Diana is not over powered.
This discussion should have ended with a simple "Can Diana's villains hurt her? Yes, so she's not OP."
So this entire argument is a fool's errand in the first place (and I'm a fool too, for still posting in it). Seriously, study creative writing, you'll learn that "over powered" is not a thing, there's simply underwhelming antagonist threats. The entire concept of "over powered" is a f*cking illusion, stop buying into it.
As for the Presence, I didn't say anything even relatively close to "Diana can fight the Presence" and I don't think anyone else has either. What I *did* say is that I dislike the Presence because it's an obvious stand in for the christian god and people end up treating it like their religion is on the comic book page; they can't separate it from their faith and we end up in ridiculous "my god is better than your god" discussions like this.
As for the Stranger....the fact that he's in this discussion at all boggles my mind. What a Z-list character to bring into the debate! I mean, if it were the Spectre I could understand it, that guy at least matters and has feats beyond "I look at stuff and know things." But the Stranger? He's just a seldom-used exposition machine meant to dump info for the readers and occasionally provide a hand-wave dues ex machina. He is above the physical abilities of mortals and blessed with knowledge that transcends the timeline, but is seemingly limited to the singular earth he exists on, which makes him less powerful than everything that exists in the god sphere of the multiverse map (our current authority on DC cosmology). Even if we accept that the Presence is all powerful, his agents are not, otherwise the Spectre would never be imprisoned, Zauriel would have done all the League's work for them and ended crime forever, etc. At best we can place the Stranger in the realm of the demigods; beings limited to their singular earth but with great power derived from higher dimensional sources.
Guess who else is a demigod limited to a single earth but with great power derived from higher sources? Diana. Now, the Stranger's role is to watch but not interfere and he's durable enough to do that, and I doubt Diana could take him down physically (though his inability to act means he can't defeat her either). But that doesn't seem to be the debate; the debate seems to be about the lasso and whether it works on him. The lasso was forged by a actual god, in the god sphere (Olympus to be precise), and works on actual, literal gods, so the idea that it wouldn't work on a demigod-esque character like the Stranger is just fallacy. The Golden Perfect works on Darkseid, so it'll work on anything short of a Monitor (and that includes the Stranger).
Diana is a demigod who fights gods and beings with god-like power, so she's not over powered. The Stranger falls into that category. So what's the real debate here? It's just "my god is better than your god." The entire premise of your argument is flawed. Diana cannot defeat the Stranger but is still OP...but the Stranger who is more powerful than the OP heroine *isn't* OP? That doesn't make any sense.
If your argument is just "I don't like powerful characters" then Diana, Clark, Barry, Hal, Thor, Hulk, Silver Surfer, the FF as a collective whole, and half the X-Men are not for you and I question why you're here. Instead of wanting to change Diana to fit your sensibilities and screw over all of us who enjoy powerful characters, try reading Aquaman, Spider-Man, or Daredevil. Avoid Batman; if you think Diana is OP you'll really hate Batman.