Question Theory: Powers draw inspiration from Legacy or Desire and Interest

Here's the thing... your examples are confirmation bias. Yes, the theory works in those cases... note that they are mostly PoV characters and authors are mostly inclined to write stories where there are natural inclinations for powers to sync up to psychology and to build patterns and connections in said ways. What isn't on your list are the people who are GSD. The people whose powers cause them to hurt people when they manifest and end up being villains because society isn't prepared to accept them.

Is there potentially an element of "you get what you wish for, so be careful" involved? Could be. But its not the only thing. Most of the WU mutant powers could go ANY direction. Take Jimmy's Shieldwall technique. You say he got it because he wants to protect people? Well, that IS why he uses it to protect people. But He has the ability to throw a PK 4 level PK shell away from his body. Think about that for a second. Hank can extend his far enough to put it around paper swords to allow him to transfer that force into an edge weapon for application against targets. Jimmy can throw his force application around... anyone. Can he throw it on objects? Can he throw it into open air where it just stands on its own like a second (and third) person in a line of combatants... like an infantry shieldwall? (*coughcough*)

Jimmy USES his PK Shell in applications that defend people because he's psychologically that guy... but that doesn't mean his power is a defensive power.

The same is true with many of your examples trying to support your theory.

Meh... everyone already knew it wasn't a rule that worked that way. There have been too many exceptions. And too many plot points of characters fighting to control or get rid of their powers.Even if some of that were resisting for the sake of appearance... there's enough. Take some of the GSD situations that are dying and are willing to risk JOBE as a means of cure. Or people whose powers are killing them. Me pointing that out just jumps you past the part where everyone else throws evidence at you.

It's better for the conversation if you go into it knowing its not in the 'mechanics' to work that way. Because one common mistake people make in doing it that way... that their personality before defines their powers and that defines how they're going to be as a mutant... is that you lose a lot of the depth of character. It makes it sound like a 'destined' Chosen One thing. "Everything in her life led to this moment of saving the world." Ya... if you're good, you can tell that story. But its better to tell the uncertain story. The moment where the world comes crashing down and instead of saving things, she chooses to push the doomsday button instead? If the character has doubts, then so can your reader. And if the reader has doubts, they are desperate to find out which way things go.

So if it doesn't come from legacy, desire or interest... then... instead of having the character who was a massive nerd who is now an exemplar and gadgeteer... you get the nerd who is a Manifestor who has an arm that he can make appear over his own that is massively muscled and scaled like a lizards... and razorsharp spines that stick out of the skin of the hand along all the bones that will slice and shatter up to a PK-4 shell. Or you have the dumb jock who is now a gadgeteer. He's STILL a dumb jock... doesn't know anything about how tech works even after he builds something... but his innovation events are massive jumps forward... like, he's building things from at least a thousand years into the future.

Then you find characters like Diamondback, and the Fury Twins. Odds are they didn't want to become monsters, and still don't. Diamondback's drawn a correlation between her transformation and her ranting pastor back home likening mutants to the serpent in the garden of eden. But correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

Razorback? After three years feral, ANY acceptance is preferable to having to live like an animal.

hell even Jericho would have chosen to keep his eyes.

Erik Mahren would have been quite content to be the orneriest baseline ever envisioned in creation rather than develop any sort of mutative powers. A gun is the only power he needs beyond pure bull-headed intransigence.

Miranda grew up thinking mutants were some form of diseased bogeyman. Sort of. But she didn't come out causing plagues.

A lot of characters powers aren't born of their personality. A lot of their personalities adapt to having the power.

Malady wrote: There's cases when hypno modded BITs, no?

BIT != Powers.

Is the BIT influenced by desire and interest? Again, not in ALL cases. But don't assume that learning the mechanics for what powers a mutant gets and knowing what they will look like from their BIT are the same answer/same question. Completely NOT.

IIRC, there was some chatter that the form of GSD cases are naturally resultant from genetics?

GSD is 'in theory' what happens when you're manifesting and you're in the midst of that power spike that maps out how you're going to evolve to that 'end point' and something says... there's no way I can get there from here. Simply cannot map this plan into that body. But I can do that if I, instead, go there after taking that left turn in Albuquerque. So, you end up with scales. Or gender flipped. Or whatever.