Reality plus vs reality is different?

[Kahuna Burger]

Thinking about a comment one of my lj friends made regarding Harry Potter and comparing it to the STNG episode where "introns" cause the crew to mutate into various creatures. He was trying to figure out why some things bothered him so much even in the context of clearly reality defying worlds that he is fine with.

I suggested that the issue was "reality plus" versus "reality is different". He doesn't mind suspending his disbelief when a magical or fantasticly out there sci fi tech is added to reality to create a setting, but when you change something that he has a decent understanding of to be different, that annoys him. He agreed that this was a good description of what was bugging him - it's one thing to say "this universe also has warp drive" and another (to him) to say "in this universe humans are descended from spiders and have spider DNA in their genes (which will cause you to grow extra limbs if activated - limbs which will disappear if you turn off the introns)"

Do you react differently to sci fi or fantasy which is "reality plus" vs that which is "reality is different"? Do you prefer one over the other?

 

[trancejeremy]

I don't think there is that much of a difference. At least in my mind.

IMHO, the universe is a lot like a computer program. You can simply add something to it, like an say via an expansion pack (which I guess would be your "reality plus", but at the same time, you can also re-do some of the basic underlying mechanics, via a patch. (which would be reality is different). Or maybe the latter is more like a sequel.

Like say The Sims. When the Sims 2 came out, there were things in it like "Where did all the pets go to?" (which were in the Sims 1, but not the Sims 2, at least until the pets EP came out) and "Why is it that everyone seems to go to work in a carpool, but no one owns a car?" (since ownable cars weren't in the base game, either).


Ultimately though, I don't think you can analyze fictional universes too much, because things snowball so much that even minor things can have huge differences. If Harry Potter style magic existed, the world wouldn't even remotely be like it is now. Same as if we had spider DNA. Heck, if 90 years ago, that guy painted "Cats playing Poker" instead of dogs, things would likely be completely different.

 

[kinem]

I suggested that the issue was "reality plus" versus "reality is different". He doesn't mind suspending his disbelief when a magical or fantasticly out there sci fi tech is added to reality to create a setting, but when you change something that he has a decent understanding of to be different, that annoys him.

More likely the real issue is "self consistent/rational" versus "lamely fantastic/unconstrained".

There is nothing wrong with sci fi where humans have spider DNA (if there is some explanation provided).

There is nothing right with sci fi in which limbs dissapear without a trace when you turn on or off some genes (with no explanation to be had, not even magic). It is pure fantasy, and not the good kind; obviously some hack pulled the idea out of his backside without bothering to think about it as an idea, since he must have figured "anything goes, weird stuff is fine on this show" and didn't bother to consult a thoughtful person (aka a nerd) about whether it would be cool or not.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

More likely the real issue is "self consistent/rational" versus "lamely fantastic/unconstrained".

I am almost certain that the two of us could accurately pinpoint our own "issue" better in discussion than you can by reading a summary of the discussion. While most "reality is different" world do tend to lack self consistency simply because you can't be sure of how anything is going to work until it comes up, he (and I) was definitely prefer that reality not be retroactively changed as much as added to in our fantasy/sci fi.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Thinking about a comment one of my lj friends made regarding Harry Potter and comparing it to the STNG episode where "introns" cause the crew to mutate into various creatures. He was trying to figure out why some things bothered him so much even in the context of clearly reality defying worlds that he is fine with.

I suggested that the issue was "reality plus" versus "reality is different". He doesn't mind suspending his disbelief when a magical or fantasticly out there sci fi tech is added to reality to create a setting, but when you change something that he has a decent understanding of to be different, that annoys him. He agreed that this was a good description of what was bugging him - it's one thing to say "this universe also has warp drive" and another (to him) to say "in this universe humans are descended from spiders and have spider DNA in their genes (which will cause you to grow extra limbs if activated - limbs which will disappear if you turn off the introns)"

Do you react differently to sci fi or fantasy which is "reality plus" vs that which is "reality is different"? Do you prefer one over the other?

I definitely prefer 'reality plus' to 'reality different'. I tend to analyze sci-fi/fantasy books/movies/shows while reading/watching them, so something that ought not to be there can often break my suspension of disbelief. (Which is a rather annoying habit for a genre fan, but I gather that I'm not the only one who does it.) Sometimes I can just ignore it, sometimes it's mildly annoying and sometimes it's really annoying, even a dealbreaker for liking it or not.

 

[Lewis526]

One person's "reality plus" is another person's "reality is different." To me the only difference between the two is how much disbelief I have to suspend. I think it helps magical stories like Harry Potter and Narnia that they happen in parallel worlds, rather than in, say, 20th Century London. The farther the setting itself gets from the familiar, the easier it is to suspend disbelief in what happens there. For the same reason, Lucas put the Force in a galaxy far, far away, and Tolkein put LOTR in a nebulously archaic, prehistoric Middle-Earth. Fantasy, of which sci-fi tends to be a sub-genre, bothers us when it gets too close to home.

So for me, it gets easier to suspend disbelief as the story gets farther from contemporary Earth.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, I somehow can accept the "turning back to your normal form after major transformations" in StarTrek. Maybe it is because Startrek does this too often. But then, the Voyager story where Janeway and Paris turn into some kind of reptile because they're flying at trans-warp did break my... "acceptance". (Note that building their own revolutionary warp engine didn't bother me that much, but that is just because Voyager did such things often).

I think to accept breaking the realms of reality is okay if it's part of the convention related to what you're reading or watching - if you were able to accept these conventions in the first place.

In Startrek (TNG at least), Humans seem to have evolved morally and ethically a lot beyond our current "average". If you can accept this convention, you will have a lot less problems with the Utopian Federation Society and can enjoy the show and its messages a lot better. If not, well, you will probably prefer other shows (or at least shudder at some naive plots or "holier than you"-attitudes )

For a movie like 28 Days/Weeks later, you have to accept that Zombies can create spawns in mere minutes, and despite unintelligent, can distinguish friend (other Zombie) from foe (healthy human) easily, and you will enjoy it. But if suddenly a Vulcan Landing Craft would appear and phaser the Zombies down and take the surviving humans aboard, you would certainly feel negatively impacted. Aliens with phaser cannons weren't part of the convention, even if they are no less realistic than the Zombie-Thingie...

 

[Ranger REG]

Well, I somehow can accept the "turning back to your normal form after major transformations" in StarTrek. Maybe it is because Startrek does this too often. But then, the Voyager story where Janeway and Paris turn into some kind of reptile because they're flying at trans-warp did break my... "acceptance". (Note that building their own revolutionary warp engine didn't bother me that much, but that is just because Voyager did such things often).

Yeah, I still cannot wrap my head around as to why they mutated simply for achieving Warp 10 speed. Any other reason like affecting one's DNA through genetics I can understand.

When it comes to certain unrealistic or fantastic elements, I want to be able to rationalize it, not necessarily through scientific method.

 

[Tiberius]

Yeah, I still cannot wrap my head around as to why they mutated simply for achieving Warp 10 speed. Any other reason like affecting one's DNA through genetics I can understand.

It probably had something to do with being everywhere in the universe simultaneously and the odd effects pan-galactic presence has on human physiology, to say nothing about the... you know what? It was a bad episode, and it's probably best that we all put it from our minds.

 

[Plane Sailing]

He doesn't mind suspending his disbelief when a magical or fantasticly out there sci fi tech is added to reality to create a setting, but when you change something that he has a decent understanding of to be different, that annoys him.

I'm in the same boat as your friend.

Introduce something new that at least attempts to be internally consistent? Fine. Do something which seems (to me) to be outside the bounds of what is reasonable? Not fine.

That SNG episode was one of the worst ones to my mind. If they wanted to change people back it would have made much more sense "in genre" to have done something fancy with the transporters and stored pattern buffer stuff, because that is a technology that already makes things appear and disappear. It could even have been a nod to old favourites like 'the fly' in that respect.

(off hand I can't think of anything from Harry Potter that bothered me in the same way though)