# How Much "Unreality" Will You Accept In A Plot **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 1, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531 "2009-04-01T02:30:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/21 "2009-04-01T14:12:06Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > God on earth, quest, etc., – fine. Shrink having time to follow around one client – who presumably isn’t paying her – nope, gonna choke on that. Flipping through the channels a few days ago I saw SWAT was on. I had no problem with all the cliche good guy bad guy stuff. What I could not believe was a bunch off cops working 24 hours straight without asking about overtime. Or management letting them build up that much over time. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/22 "2009-04-01T14:16:29Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > The North Pole thing would have bothered me, because it’s unclear (I mean, from how you described it, I don’t know if it’s unclear in the actual story) if you are doing it on purpose or not. I think this is an excellent point. If you’re reading a story (even a fantasy story) and something isn’t quite right or doesn’t ring true, it’s either a sign that the author is being clever or that the author is being sloppy. In the hands of a clever author, the discrepancy is intentional, it means something, its significance will be revealed before the story’s over, and the careful reader will be rewarded for noticing it. In the hands of a sloppy author, you never get that kind of payoff, and you feel annoyed and cheated. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/23 "2009-04-01T14:18:09Z")
> [@Nom\_de\_Plume](#): > > I have worked in TV newsrooms for 25 years, and have yet to find a show that accurately displays what goes on in a TV station. You’d think that would be the one thing a TV show should be able to get right, wouldn’t you. I have learned to just accept it–to just shut up and watch the show. Newspapers, too. It shouldn’t bother me so much, and I understand that 99 percent of the time, the media only shows up to show that a character is famous or infamous, but it’s irritating that the people who write news broadcasts into their movies have apparently never watched the news and don’t know how it sounds. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/24 "2009-04-02T04:51:07Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I refuse to believe that Larson erroneously had penguins at the North Pole. > > I fully believe he accidentally put a polar bear in Antarctica. Well I also do a lot of parody cartoons so I had to laugh at this. I remember that cartoon. The polar bear had a penguin disguise on and the other penguins were wondering what happend to their friends. 🙂 I get what you all are saying now. If something is plausable it has to have a reason, if it’s impossible it doesn’t need a reason. Since penguins could plasuably live at the North Pole, (after all Great Auks, which were flightless) lived in the North Pole regions, why not penguins. But since penguins can’t have arms and nukes you can take that impossiblity as fact and overlook it. I actually got the idea from a “Tennessee Tuxedo” cartoon. In case you don’t remember it was zookeeper Stanley Livingstone, who was at the South Pole and found Tennessee Tuxedo (a penguin) with Chumley (a walrus). Walruses don’t live at the South Pole. So Stanley was going to take Chumley back to the zoo and he wanted Tennessee Tuxedo to go with him. Thanks for the feedback ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/25 "2009-04-02T04:59:16Z")
James Bond with a watch bezel that spins and cuts rope is believable. James Bond with a watch that has a LASER beam that cuts through steel, not believable. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/26 "2009-04-02T05:26:46Z")
> [@](#): > > I kept getting the comment, “But you know Mark, penguins don’t live at the North Pole.” > > Of course they don’t carry guns and have nuclear arms and other assorted armaments they used against Canadians and their polar bear allies. I agree with the posters above who suggested that the difference is that the latter is clearly intentional and just the way things work in the world of the story, whereas the former feels like it might be a genuine mistake. In my view, the problem could be fixed even by something as simple as one character saying “I thought penguins only lived at the _South_ Pole” and a penguin replying “That’s what we _want_ you to believe.” In other words, you just need to make it clear that “penguins at the North Pole” is part of the joke. ---
**Author:** ![runcible\_spoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@runcible\_spoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runcible_spoon)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/27 "2009-04-02T06:16:56Z")
I’ll admit, I’m a total nit-picker. Largely because I enjoy making snide comments, but it does, from time to time, interfere with my enjoyment of a story. The big one for me is plot-induced stupidity, and especially, _especially_ when people don’t communicate with each other/the police/anyone and are then surprised when suspicious things turn out to be bad after all. The one I like to hold up is Star Trek II - first off, if some military commander tells you he has orders to commandeer your science project, you sure as hell a) call his superior officers to bitch and b) get yourself a damn lawyer. You do not immediately go into hiding and hope he goes away. There are plenty more scientifically-stupid things going on - it’s Star Trek, after all - but that’s the one that just sticks in my craw, because it just screams bad writing. You want to posit mind-controlling ear-bugs, okay, that’s a little weird, but when your military is functionally retarded, I gotta question the survivability of the Federation. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/28 "2009-04-02T09:45:27Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > In other words, you just need to make it clear that “penguins at the North Pole” is part of the joke. I thought they flew North for the winter. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/29 "2009-04-02T12:11:31Z")
> [@runcible\_spoon](#): > > The one I like to hold up is Star Trek II - first off, if some military commander tells you he has orders to commandeer your science project, you sure as hell a) call his superior officers to bitch and b) get yourself a damn lawyer. You do not immediately go into hiding and hope he goes away. There are plenty more scientifically-stupid things going on - it’s Star Trek, after all - but that’s the one that just sticks in my craw, because it just screams bad writing. You want to posit mind-controlling ear-bugs, okay, that’s a little weird, but when your military is functionally retarded, I gotta question the survivability of the Federation. 😕 Did you actually watch the movie? Carol Marcus DID immediately call Captain [del]Puppet[/del] Terrell’s superior officer: specifically, Admiral James T. Kirk. And her doing so is imminently plausible. If you think you are about to be screwed over by someone in a hierarchy, and you happen to be friends with someone far above the screwer in said hierarchy, you immediately call the person whom you already know likes you. Moreover, Khan jams her signal so she never gets a completed response from Kirk. It’s only after that that she goes into hiding. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/30 "2009-04-02T15:33:04Z")
I will suspend my disbelief quite far. In fact, I really like movies that mess with reality. I tend to think of the themes of such films as more important than the plausibility of what’s actually happening. Take _Juno_. The biggest complaint about this movie is that the dialog was ‘‘too clever.’’ So what you’re saying is you’d rather watch a movie with \*realistic \*teenage dialog? I guess I just operate on the premise that whatever I’m watching is not real and I’m okay with that. I let go of all expectations for realism the moment I set foot in the theater. I’m looking for a visual and emotional experience, not reality. Sometimes, though, you just gotta laugh. I once watched this horrible movie about a giant prehistoric snake that lived underneath a maximum security prison at the South Pole. That part was okay. The plucky professor with a Ph.D. in _Advanced Sciences_ is what really pushed me over the edge. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/31 "2009-04-02T15:36:14Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > 😕 > > Did you actually watch the movie? > > Carol Marcus DID immediately call Captain [del]Puppet[/del] Terrell’s superior officer: specifically, Admiral James T. Kirk. And her doing so is \*\*imminently \*\*plausible. And also **eminently** plausible. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/32 "2009-04-02T15:47:44Z")
Well, you don’t just jump into plausibility right away. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/33 "2009-04-02T15:50:48Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Well, you don’t just jump into plausibility right away. You’ll pay for this, Superman. Oh, how you’ll pay. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/34 "2009-04-02T20:59:54Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > I will suspend my disbelief quite far. In fact, I really like movies that mess with reality. I tend to think of the themes of such films as more important than the plausibility of what’s actually happening. Take _Juno_. The biggest complaint about this movie is that the dialog was ‘‘too clever.’’ So what you’re saying is you’d rather watch a movie with \*realistic \*teenage dialog? I guess I just operate on the premise that whatever I’m watching is not real and I’m okay with that. I let go of all expectations for realism the moment I set foot in the theater. I’m looking for a visual and emotional experience, not reality. Imagine really, really accurate teenage dialog: Teen 1: I’m pregnant. Teen 2: Whatev… Teen 3" lol Followed by 90 minutes of kids silently texting each other. I liked Juno and of course I knew about the dialog going into it. The only time it really bugged me was right at the beginning in the scene with Rainn Wilson. It seemed like the cleverocity was dialed up to 11 or so, soon after that it settled down for me. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/35 "2009-04-02T21:30:53Z")
I can accept a rift in spacetime over Cardiff. I can accept the time travel, all the absurd aliens, Jack’s immortality, everyone being bisexual, and all sorts of events being covered up. I do have a problem with the Torchwood Institute itself. How does it function with less than half a dozen employees? If it’s supposed to be a secret organization how come everybody knows about it and goes along without question? If it’s “beyond the government” who the bloody hell is funding them? Jack has to answer to somebody (is it under the direct control of the Queen). ---
**Author:** ![De\_La\_Rue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@De\_La\_Rue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/De_La_Rue)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/36 "2009-04-02T21:50:07Z")
The thing that turns me off is contrived coincidences, either for plot or convenience. Although sometimes it takes time to realize the implausibility of the plot’s events. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/37 "2009-04-02T22:19:48Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > In regards to the story mentioned in the OP, I’d have just changed the penguins to auks. I’d have to caution the OP against a careless search-and-replace, especially if much of the story’s humor is specific to penguins. So be careful… … it might get auk-ward. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/38 "2009-04-02T23:12:44Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’d have to caution the OP against a careless search-and-replace, especially if much of the story’s humor is specific to penguins. So be careful… > … it might get auk-ward. No one knows what an auk is. Well some people, but my audience can’t figure out what happens to the world when you close the door. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Iacob\_Matthew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Iacob\_Matthew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iacob_Matthew)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/39 "2009-04-03T03:18:00Z")
In the videogame _Okami_, set in 12th century Japan, one of the major characters is a flying soothsayer, who has a winged hat, a flute that turns into a lightsaber, and speaks a half-dozen words of modern French. Guess what was the one thing my then-roommate’s girlfriend questioned. ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531/40 "2009-04-03T03:22:38Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’d have to caution the OP against a careless search-and-replace, especially if much of the story’s humor is specific to penguins. So be careful… > … it might get auk-ward. It should be changed back. That way it will no longer be penguin-ward. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-unreality-will-you-accept-in-a-plot/491531.md?page=3)