Off the wall question, Writing/Reading related

This is a question in consideration for the WIP I'm currently working on for Camp NaNo, because I realized in my old draft I was working with a character with this depiction and I didn't know whether to keep him the same or change him.

 

There are many writers who compose stories of characters who start at moments of weakness and build up to tasks where they step up and become stronger after several try fail cycles.  But I wonder if any of you guys have read any particular stories of characters who start off as very strong or idealized and get progressively torn down before they have to build themselves back up to face challenges?  Or they start off with a lot of power or responsibility and somehow that gets compromised. How do you feel about characters like that? Where have you seen cases where this has worked for you? There have been a few people who pointed out to me some heroes/heroines/anti-heroes in anime as examples, but I wonder if there are any other stories I can check into where this dynamic works.

 

I think my concern is that I'm managing to make the characters I'm crafting identifiable and not thinly veiled Mary Sues/Gary Stus, and some examples of where the power advantage deconstruction works might actually help me think about ways to shape this project differently.