Talk:Winter Schnee/@comment-25405817-20151112014002/@comment-24891101-20151112015752

We've gone over this repeatedly. That statement should not have been taken literally. Semblances have names, therefore there exist multiple instances of each. They may vary in slight particulars, but they're basically the same thing; this might hold true even below detection thresholds if you're not closely studying it. For instance, you could have two people with Polarity, both of whom therefore control magnetism, and in a lab setting you can distinguish them by the strength of the semblance, and by the means by which it performs the task. But to a layman's standards, they're identical.

Moreover, we've been told that semblances are semi-heritable, which is another hole in that notion, because you could theoretically convergently breed semblances until they're indistinguishable, selecting for certain traits in the smeblance over generations.

And consider the global population, of millions. If indeed everyone has a semblance, but merely lacks access, you're dealing with millions of superpowers, all unique. DC and Marvel, whose business runs on developing interesting superpowers, can't come up with that many individual types of superpowers. Hell, if you aggregate all of fiction, I'd doubt you'd be able to do that.

Likewise, consider the motif. Semblances are linked to individuality, to personality. Just as every person is unique, they can also be grouped reasonably accurately into archetypes, or can be broken up into features, like "has a short temper", "gentle", or "socially awkward". Many millions of people can be described in this way, and there's basically no way to practically differentiate them all further, unless you want to sit and listen for years. Two very similar people can be differentiated by extensive scrutiny. So too with semblance.

In short, it's an issue of degree of accuracy and sensitivity of instruments. The question is what degree of accuracy was meant by that word.