@Solipsist:
That's not the "opposite"
Forget the fact that the assertion above does not agree with formal logic (go and negate my original statement and see for yourself), I believe you're just trying to derail the convo at this point. Note that this is your statement:
it's a lot better for him to have a reason standing in front of him that'd require that much power, rather than just literally let him stand still on a battlefield and then enjoy his sweet time by sucking away everyone's abilities and strength for no reason.
Thus far you have only paraphrased the same idea over and over, but you have yet to substantiate it:
"You gained a lot of power, let's go find something to do with it", which I repeatedly explained is potentially much, much worse than the former.
You didn't explain why it is worse, you just kept paraphrasing that it is worse. I am still waiting for a solid argument as to why this is so. If this is simply your belief and you have no other basis for it, you should probably mention it.
"If you're asking "why even have overwhelming power to begin with?" -- then you're stepping outside of the topic."
That's not what I am asking though, is it? The statement:
that's established as strong and providing a challenge where he doesn't have to unrealistically gain such power
admits the possibility of overwhelming power in the part "established as strong". But I digress (partly thanks to you). Back onto the main topic:
Says who? With the risk of repeating myself - the last few replies you've kept going in circles postulating the same things over and over. I want you to provide arguments, not just paraphrase your points.
Also regarding your other comment:
you better have a good reason for it
Here's the thing - an insurmountable obstacle is not more of a reason for your MC getting a power up, if he gets it out of thin air, than having no obstacle. Thus my whole point is that what you presented as a "good" reason is in fact not a good reason. Let me make it explicit for you - a good reason would be your MC having trained for 5k years, a MC getting a power up does not logically follow from him being in a dire situation, thus it's not obvious how you derived the fact that the obstacle a MC faces is a "good" reason. It's not logically consistent - it does not follows the causality principle. And this is precisely the reason why I am trying to understand why you believe it's "good", but you keep dodging it. It seems that for you it makes more sense if a MC gets a random power-up if there's something he must beat at the moment with this power up, rather than the MC getting a power up and then the challenge being introduced. I argue that the former is not better than the latter. Note that I already provided arguments why it is not (the plot hole patching argument).