Thread "Unrealistic realism." in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 8:04AM, Apr. 15, 2022

I often get into discussions with my co-workers about entertainment, and one thing they both share is this obsession with "realism".

One topic was about ideas of an adventure post Curse of Strahd, I suggested that in the end typically the beings known as "mist born" would survive the curse being lifted, and it that would be a very bad thing.

My idea is those people would go out and become sort of walking wastelands that would gradually taint their surrounding areas, and the players would be brought in or stumble upon one of these areas to piece together what is happening and try to figure out how to stop it.

I was told it was not grounded in reality enough, and might cause an escalation to the point of throwing planets at each other. Which I just kept my mouth shut because I knew it would be a losing battle to press the fact it could be a slow investigation, not be obvious with massive mist everywhere and a mad ruler popping up over night but have things like live stock becoming more sick and tougher to eat, fruits and vegetables become smaller and bland, the sun giving more sickly light, leadership and respected members of society slowly losing their sanity.

The other co-worker loves to talk about 80's style horror movies, and the topic of how can a manchette chop off three heads in one swing in Friday the 13th part 6, he said the blade wouldn't be able to do something like that while I said it was because it was Jason Vorhees post lightning strike, and it was a movie so those rules should be tossed out.

Even online I see in many horror manga comments about "how unrealistic, people wouldn't turn on each other like this in minutes," and after working in several customer jobs I am like, "yeah, it would happen much faster."

Basically I want to bring up the idea of unrealistic "reality", the idea many hold near and dear of what and how things work in the so called real world world only to be utter and pure fantasy in the actual world. Kind of like how many teens in the '90's thought Liefeld style was realistic despite being, you know, '90's Liefeld.

Posted at 9:04AM, Apr. 15, 2022

Stories are not reality. They exist to help us process the chaotic and apparently meaningless mess that is reality. Artistic/story 'reality' on the other hand is an agreement between us as to what is acceptable and is constantly shifting, so your Liefeld example is a very good one. Long story short, if it feels right to you, go for it.

Posted at 10:04AM, Apr. 15, 2022

For me the real breaking point is if a story or setting breaks its own established rules. The more grounded and realistic a story seems the harder it is to suspend disbelief.

A prime example for me was the flash TV show. It was wildly inconsistent with the Flashes speed and reactions for the sake of plot, drama and cool moments.

Posted at 12:04PM, Apr. 15, 2022

Most people really don't know the fantastic things that have happened so have a painfully limited view of reality.

Machine guns can cut people in half, explosions can make someone disappear in a spray of red mist but Jason Voorhees is invincible. But he is a fantasy character. He's the Incredible Hulk not Joe Bloe. Fantasy where anything can happen and things are most assuredly not realistic. It's called suspension of disbelief because the completely impossible can happen at any time and if part of the story and believable within the context of the story– suspend the disbelief.

In real life a normal machete can't slice off three heads but the properly honed blade of a great sword could. Documented. An heirloom katana could go through the stock of a rifle or the barrel of a machine gun, but not every sword everywhere.

In other words, people don't know shit because they don't as a rule study this stuff outside of YouTube videos and movies. That's fantasy. One of the examples above is in fact a mistake Mythbusters made when supposedly testing a story. They didn't bother tracking down what really happened when an heirloom super fine katana did cut through a rifle, stock and barrel. So you have to dig through this stuff to the source and realize that more is possible than most people believe.

There's suspension of disbelief and there's the really far out shit that really has happened like the guy who fell out the rear turret of a Lancaster bomber at 20,000 and survived only with a broken leg but that running from a firey explosion could in reality burn you to a crisp as opposed to calmly walking away.

Shit is like that. Most people haven't really seen wild stuff so really don't know the insane things that do happen but they do believe that the entire US amd Israeli governments were in on 9-11 and no one has talked yet or that the world is flat and science and NASA is in a conspiracy for two thousand years to hide it when in fact you can look up the supposed "missing" proof in any decent science book. People can and do believe weird things. Michael Shermer wrote a book about it.(Why People Believe Weird Things) There's also the excellent book Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire by Kurt Anderson.

Posted at 10:04PM, Apr. 15, 2022

bravo1102 wrote:
An heirloom katana could go through the stock of a rifle or the barrel of a machine gun

No, this is a myth. Even if the machinegun was hot firing thousands of rounds is impossible,

Posted at 11:04PM, Apr. 15, 2022

I really don't get why people would turn to comics for realism. It makes no sense to me.

Posted at 10:04AM, Apr. 16, 2022

Ozoneocean wrote:
bravo1102 wrote:
An heirloom katana could go through the stock of a rifle or the barrel of a machine gun
No, this is a myth. Even if the machinegun was hot firing thousands of rounds is impossible,

Actually it is documented that a sword slashed through firearms. One mention is 16th century Japan when they cut through period muskets. Soft cast iron barrel and a wooden stick stock is not a modern steel weapon. A wooden stock on different long arms has the same strength as a tree branch often with a large groove down the middle. A sword can cut them. Maybe not all the way through but enough to render the weapon useless. Furthermore some stocks are hollow. Some weapons now are mostly stamped aluminum and plastic. The machine gun in question was actually the cooling jacket of a water cooled machine gun, not the barrel. There's also an account of the hollow metal legs of a tripod being cut.

So it is a myth about cutting the frame or barrel of a modern firearm but a early firearm could have been cut as could the wooden stock of any number of different long arms. But not gun barrels.

But I don't recommend even dropping your proposed hot machine gun barrel on a hard surface. It can get damaged enough to misfire.

Posted at 2:04AM, Apr. 17, 2022

Ozoneocean wrote:
No, this is a myth. Even if the machinegun was hot firing thousands of rounds is impossible,

But what if the katana was wielded by Tom Cruise.