to me, there's a difference between the vague 'worth in yourself' and the 'succeed in spite of having no powers' because...well, to use your example, just because you end up not making it as a professional artist doesn't mean there aren't 20 other ways to define success, and even then, if you find no success or even value in attempting to learn to be an artist, you're still a perfectly lovely and worthy person - just not an artist. It's hard to be encouraging and realistic at the same time.

not saying you can't still relate to the unpowered people, I just feel like most of the time the story's result is contradictory to the overall idea that everyone has value. but then, there wouldn't be a point to making one person the oddball compared to the in-group if the point wasn't to make their oddballness the ultimate reason they win.