supercharacters

Noun

supercharacter (plural supercharacters)

1. A superhero or supervillain.
   • The Lensmen are shown, however, as a superior race, with advanced mental and physical powers, and there are few instances when mere humans appear in the stories or comment on these supercharacters.1981, David Cowart, Thomas L. Wymer, Twentieth-century American Science-fiction Writers, page 134
2. An amalgamation of characters that respond to the same selective pressure.
   • The combination of characters contributing to the supercharacter need not be logically or genetically related.1986, Behavior genetics - Volume 16, page 206
3. A single entity that represents multiple irreducible characters but is treated as a single character in the algebraic theory of Carlos André.
   • The supercharacter analog of the A.A.2015, A. N. Panov, “Supercharacters for the finite groups of triangular type”, in arXiv
4. A group of characters in a play, movie, or story, that act together as a single combined entity.
   • His separate existence, indeed, is now superfluous: the conflict over, his better qualities are incorporated in the lover who survives, the more mature stage of the supercharacter Palamon-Arcite-Emetreus-Lygurge.1988, Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Chaucer's The knight's tale, page 53
5. Something that pervades a story as a common theme or presence, transcending the level of individual characters.
   • As one critic has astutely noted, ideas in Huxley's novels assume the role of "supercharacters."1957, Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay and the Gioconda Smile, page xii