Thomas Shey
Legend
So to simulate a comic genre wouldn’t we just have energy beams blow through concrete but not through people? I don’t understand why you say that doesn’t constitute a simulation?
Because its not actually simulating anything in the setting. Its an entirely dramatic conceit. If you asked a super scientist "Why do energy beams destroy steel but not vaporize that avenger of the night?" They'd likely go "What are you talking about? Of course they'd vaporize him."
Now in setting the event occurs because the beam "never quite hits dead on" or "always has an obstruction" or "isn't at full power" but that sort of things is a clear case of writer-intervention--that is to say a dramatic choice--not anything about the setting in theory. Its like the discussion of mooks earlier. If you ask someone in a setting that features them why they go down so easy (and often, notably, selectively, since you'll sometimes get That One Guy who is more trouble), they'd tell you its because the guy fighting them is just so badass, ignoring the other apparently identical cases where it doesn't work that way (or coming up with a bunch of different reasons that happens).
They're not features of the worlds involved; no one in those worlds no matter how knowledgable would see them that way. They're features of a particular stylization of the fiction that goes on.