Suspension of disbelief and education

[MatthewJHanson]

I have a harder time with human behavior. When people do things that don’t match their character’s precedent in the sort or really defy most human tendencies I have a hard time…

Yeah, this is what gets me too.

I remember back in the day reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and wondering how any sane person was okay with what was going on. First the fact that there even was a tournament, which was notorious for killing young children. Maybe it's more gentle now? No, there's an event where you have to steal an egg from a literal dragon.

Even if I'm going to suspend my disbelief about them holding the tournament, I can't handle that they let Harry play even though he's not old enough, he didn't enter the competition, and it's obviously part of Voldomort's plot. And other than the little bit about killing Harry, the plot totally worked. Hey Dumbledore, you don't want the dark lord to return. How about you don't walk into his obvious trap?

I can handle wizards, dragons, FTL, sound traveling in a vacuum. But supposedly smart people do stupid stuff, characters acting way out of character for plot reasons, those are what break it for me.

 

[MarkB]

Um... you can't walk on two legs without friction.

Go search youtube for people slipping on ice if you don't believe me.

And, ultimately, this is the sort of thing that generates most of my nitpicks - attempts to justify something as realistic that are blatantly incorrect, and would be known to be so with a minimum of effort.

As someone highly educated in the mechanics of the universe, I don't mind telekinetic space wizards with laser swords. I don't mind FTL spaceships that have engines stuck way out on pylons distant from the center of mass of the ship. I don't mind time travel, I don't mind bigfoot, or aliens sneaking around on Earth doing battle with ancient lizard people native to Earth that we don't know about. I don't mind giant transforming robots or mechas with little concern with the size/mass differences between forms.

I mind them putting in details to justify all that, and getting those details wrong. Doubly so when those details are not plot relevant.

Authors, please - if we are so dumb that we can be fobbed off with lazy explanation, we don't actually need the explanation. If you are going to try to explain it, have the honor to research the point to know if what you're saying is even vaguely correct.

For me it's often when something inexplicable or clearly wrong comes up, and the in-world experts don't call out or even acknowledge the obvious weirdness. Like, I think it's in the first episode of Fringe, a time-accelerated baby grows to adult size within minutes, and the scientist characters are very intrigued by the temporal implications, but none of them wonder where it's getting all the extra mass from.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, the nitpick thread got me thinking: Is there a correlation between a person's level or education/knowledge and how much you're willing to give on suspending disbelief in entertainment?

Probably. I studied history and for a while I was a pain to watch certain movies with. It ruined Gladiator for me when it cane out because I had just done a paper on the Meditations and Marcus Aurelius (when in fact I should have been happy this area of Roman history was gaining more public interest). Even intentional anachronisms for effect would bother me. It took me years to relax and enjoy stuff like A Knight’s Tale

 

[MNblockhead]

I have a harder time with human behavior. When people do things that don’t match their character’s precedent in the sort or really defy most human tendencies I have a hard time…

The older and more experienced I've become, the less this bothers me in terms of suspension of disbelief. I've seen enough in real life that most shows don't go far enough. Funny thing is it still bothers me. I guess I want my fictional characters to have more consistency than people do in real life. Similarly, highly socially awkward people don't annoy me as much in real life as they do on TV and in movies.

 

[MGibster]

For games, one important bit is to realize that unless we intend to use these details in game play, the explanation is extraneous. Similarly, if the factoid isn't going to be used by the characters to impact the plot, it could be removed without harming the narrative.

Bingo. I don't really need to know how faster than light travel works unless it has something to do with the plot.

It took me years to relax and enjoy stuff like A Knight’s Tale

For a work of fiction like A Knight's Tale, something one of my professors would have referred to as historical fantasy, I'm pretty much fine with the anachronisms. So in a game like Pendragon, it bothers me not that the campaign might start with people wearing chain armed with spears and kite shields but by the end we're wearing full plate and there are cannons on the battlefield. Sometimes it's the little things that throw me off though.

Pearl Harbor (2001) - Nevermind that an active duty U.S. airman was fighting at the Battle of Britain, but you mean to tell me that in the year 1942 on an American Naval base not a single person in the control tower was smoking? No? Not a single person?

The Patriot (2000) - If you were to learn about the Revolutionary War from this movie you'd walk away with the impression that the British were poopy heads and that'd be the least of it's crimes. There's a scene where a British officer shows up to Mel Gibson's "plantation" and offers all the black "workers" their freedom if they come to the Crown's side. One of the black workers says something like, "We're free men." Okay. This plantation in South Carolina pays its black workers a wage? Uh, huh. Here's my other leg, go ahead and pull it.

 

[Ryujin]

I rather thought that "A Knights Tale" brilliantly showed how certain words and actions would have appeared to people in that time, by using more modern analogues. The "Golden Years" scene was a particular stand-out as a comparison of royals, then, to how the stodgy modern upper crust might react to something like Bowie.

 

[Baron Opal II]

OTOH, my Dad is an MD, and cannot stand most medical shows.

After we watch something medical, my son likes to turn to me and ask "how much of that was technobabble and how much real"? He likes to guess how much of reality is bent or discarded to make the story work.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Bingo. I don't really need to know how faster than light travel works unless it has something to do with the plot.


For a work of fiction like A Knight's Tale, something one of my professors would have referred to as historical fantasy, I'm pretty much fine with the anachronisms. So in a game like Pendragon, it bothers me not that the campaign might start with people wearing chain armed with spears and kite shields but by the end we're wearing full plate and there are cannons on the battlefield. Sometimes it's the little things that throw me off though.

Pearl Harbor (2001) - Nevermind that an active duty U.S. airman was fighting at the Battle of Britain, but you mean to tell me that in the year 1942 on an American Naval base not a single person in the control tower was smoking? No? Not a single person?

The Patriot (2000) - If you were to learn about the Revolutionary War from this movie you'd walk away with the impression that the British were poopy heads and that'd be the least of it's crimes. There's a scene where a British officer shows up to Mel Gibson's "plantation" and offers all the black "workers" their freedom if they come to the Crown's side. One of the black workers says something like, "We're free men." Okay. This plantation in South Carolina pays its black workers a wage? Uh, huh. Here's my other leg, go ahead and pull it.

I walked out of the Patriot when I saw it. But later I learned to enjoy it watching it with my wife for what it was. What did it for me was the realization that I was annoying friends and family with my points (who just wanted to watch a movie and relax).

 

[bloodtide]

It's not just "education/knowledge" it's more about the person.

Entertainment is not made to be 100% factually accurate in all ways. Entertainment content is made to be entertaining.

Nearly all Entertainment Content has something factual wrong with it. And a lot of the time the Entertainment Content does this for a reason in the fiction. They want a six lane highway right next to the White House for a big car chase....then 'pop' that highway exists.

A lot of the time it is simple cost and availability. They have a bunch of "army like uniforms", so they have their Army Troops wear them.....even though they are nothing like 'real' military uniforms.

And the vast majority of all creators know little or nothing about most topics. And don't or can't do much research.


So, when you watch Entertainment Content, you need to have a certain level of acceptance. What you are watching is not real: and it was never, ever intended to be.

Is "a lot" of the content, or even "all of" the content wrong? Yes, very often it is.....but so what?

This is where you get Them. They are super quick to jump up and try and get attention saying "that is wrong".

 

[grankless]

THERE’S my quibble!

I was enjoying Death Note until the lead detective followed the clues with impeccable logic…until it implicated someone he knew.

Not that that doesn’t happen, but it kept happening!

I mean, Souichirou does some pretty wild things to try and establish Light's innocence... And also stuff like that happens all the time. Death Note is as much an indictment of Japan's justice system as anything else.