In genre fiction, the characters that display the traditional male heroic fantasy display competency. This competency is usually the result of the hero’s past training and practice. These kinds of heroes easily fit into nearly any kind of genre fiction. The old Western heroes and noir detectives must come into the story with their competency already established, or the writer is telling an origin story. These same kinds of heroes can also be placed within a fantasy or science-fiction story and engage the audience in the same way.

The fantasy and science fiction genres have the advantage that the hero can begin as an everyman who can gain competency quickly before the story becomes too long. The caveat to this is that it can only exist in those genres where the audience is asked to suspend their disbelief and expectations of reality. The explanation of finding a powerful magical item or gaining superhuman abilities from an accident does not work in a story that is supposed to be grounded and realistically feasible.

However, there is another option for explaining the hero’s competency beyond an exceptional past or a fantastic occurrence. It is when a previously unvalued skill or ability becomes relevant to the situation.

Now this method is not very unlike establishing a hero’s competency by referring to past training or preparation, but is different in an important sense. The character who has trained and prepared specifically to address the present conflict enters the story with more confidence than the character who must discover the relevance of their skills. When a fight occurs, the soldier who trains for fighting has more confidence in their skills than the athlete who has the necessary physical abilities but hasn’t used their skills in that way before. Science fiction and fantasy can use this same reframing of familiar skills by making them relevant in normally unrelated situations; like having a skill in music or games translate to power in some magic system or competency with new technology. In either case, we as the audience get to experience both the thrill of unexpectedly gained competency and the flattering thought that maybe the niche interests that we have pursued were not wasted time.