The Problem With Your Protagonist Succeeding in the Impossible Task™

Let me set the scene.

The protagonist is going on a quest of some kind, and at some point in the journey, they are told of the Impossible Task™. There is something that they absolutely must do to reach their goal, but allegedly it's so impossible that no one before them has ever accomplished it. This is normally when some character pops out the line about 'many have tried, but all have failed'.

This would be all well and good, especially since the Impossible Task is such a good way to prove your protagonist's worth in the conflict and show off their skills, but there's a big problem that I notice almost every time this trope appears.

The task is, like, super easy??

The protagonist decides to attempt the Impossible Task™ despite the odds. Then they pass with flying colors. Easily. First try. At this point in the narrative, I'm very confused. Why couldn't anybody else ever do this if our young hero got it so easily?

The Impossible Task is such a good way to display your hero's skills and make the audience root for them in their goal. So how do we avoid making it look easy and undermining the seriousness of the moment?

1. Tell us what they had that no one else had.

There was clearly a reason why our hero accomplished the task when no one else could. So let us know what that reason is.

Does our hero have some kind of special power or talent? Some knowledge that's unique to them? A team that runs so smoothly that no one else ever stood a chance? If they're going to accomplish the Impossible Task™, they have to possess some kind of resources or abilities that none of the others before them ever had.

For example:

In Ender's Game, Ender is so extremely intelligent and has such unconventional ideas that he is the only one ever to beat the so-called 'training program' in his school.

In the Oceans 11 series, the eleven are very good thieves. Every one of them is the best at whatever they do, and the plans that Danny and Rusty are able to put together are so unexpected and flawless that no one is ever able to stop them.

Which leads us straight into the second point:

2. Tell us how their plan was different.

Even having resources or abilities that none of their predecessors had is not enough to accomplish the Impossible Task™ if our hero just does the exact same thing that everyone else did. The readers must not only see what our hero had that is different from everyone else but also what our hero did that is so different.

Some good examples:

In Mulan, Mulan was able to climb the pole in the camp, her impossible task, because rather than letting the required weights drag her down(what everyone else had done), she used them as a way to grab onto the pole, making them her method of climbing to the top.

We could also discuss why she individually was able to defeat Shan Yu, but we won't today for the sake of time.

In The Lord of the Rings, it's a little harder to see what the Fellowship did that was so different. Many people had tried to destroy the Ring of Power before them, so what made the Fellowship so special? They took it seriously. Everyone else just thought they could throw the ring into Mount Doom on the way by, and by the time they got there each one of them found that the ring had taken over their minds.

Frodo and the other eight members of the Fellowship made it their mission from the beginning to destroy the ring no matter what it cost. Many of them were tested by the ring on the way, but all of them were resilient, the hobbits most of all. Their resilience and determination are what got the ring to Mount Doom.

So there we go. This trope has been bugging me for a while, so I thought I'd break it down for fun. What movies have you seen this trope in? Did they do it well, or no? I'm interested in hearing about it if you'll drop me a comment!

See you on Tuesday.