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Date Posted: 22:02:30 07/07/02 Sun
Author: Indri
Subject: Re: Suspension of Disbelief
In reply to: Cas 's message, "Suspension of Disbelief" on 02:19:29 07/06/02 Sat

>I have noticed, especially when reading fanfic, but
>sometimes in reading books I've bought, that an
>otherwise great read can be ruined by a single
>sentence or reference.

>So, to the point. Does this happen with any of you?

Oh, absolutely.

>And if so, what sort of thing does it for you?

You know, I'm willing to gloss over a lot of types of mistake and fudging---small historical errors, woo-woo science, magic computers---but there's just one type of thing which sets off my Disbelief Alarm so loudly that I can't believe in a fiction any more. Call it a pet peeve on overdrive.

It's when a character of a given nationality behaves or speaks in a way that sounds completely false. Examples usually fall into two extremes: either the person sounds nothing like someone from their homeland (e.g. a Glaswegian using the vocabulary and expressions of someone from California) or they conform too firmly to some national stereotype ("I'm from Australia and I wrestle crocodiles!"). Bad attempts at regional accents will also shatter my suspension of disbelief in an instant.

One aspect of BtVS that I've enjoyed is that they seldom fall into these traps, although some of the Watchers come close (Mrs Gwendolyn Post was skating on thin ice there)and there are unfortunate examples of Oirishness from time to time. Whereas other fine TV programs sometimes completely scutter themselves---I tell you that not a single Australian I have met understood The Simpsons episode in which Bart goes to Australia, except for the jokes about the frogs and the koala.

Indri

BTW, Cas, thanks for adding your website address to your post---I read "The Hobo" yesterday and much enjoyed it. Now I can read your other fics too.

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Replies:

[> [> Re: Suspension of Disbelief -- Cas, 05:10:00 07/08/02 Mon



>It's when a character of a given nationality behaves
>or speaks in a way that sounds completely false.
>Examples usually fall into two extremes: either the
>person sounds nothing like someone from their homeland
>(e.g. a Glaswegian using the vocabulary and
>expressions of someone from California) or they
>conform too firmly to some national stereotype ("I'm
>from Australia and I wrestle crocodiles!"). Bad
>attempts at regional accents will also shatter my
>suspension of disbelief in an instant.
>

I'll agree with you on that whole heartedly. For some reason I've read quite a lot of William and Fanged Four fic recently and talk about anachronistic language! It's such a shame when the rest of the characterisation is spot on.

National stereotypes can be a problem, but then most of the peripheral non-American characters on the shows are pretty stereotyped, especially the British ones - original Wesley for example and certainly Mrs Gwendoline Post.

Cas


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[> [> [> Re: Suspension of Disbelief -- Auntie Diluvian, 16:31:11 07/08/02 Mon

Putting 'regional' words in a character's mouth is one of my pet peeves. I recently had to send feedback to an author in the UK who had some slipups like having Xander say 'fag' in reference to cigarettes. Uh, no.

Stuff like that makes my eyeballs trip & stumble over the page.

I guess though, the big thing is for a character to do/say something completely out of character, with no lead-up as to why. I've read many a fic that gave a fairly believable build-up for the characters to do some wacky things you'd never figure them for, and that was fine. Even fics that have an unlikely premise as a given (ie a Spike/Xander relationship already established) are okay by me if the characters then act according to those ground rules.

But to have a character just lose it completely for no reason - I'm outta there, especially if it looks like the author did it just because they *could,* not because it made sense in the context of the plot. Unfortunately my best example of this is not in the Buffy fandom, it was an X-Files fic that has Skinner bound into a room and shout, "Never fear, the Marines are here!"

At which point I slapped myself on the forehead for plowing through 600 pages worth of that story. Even with the enormous time investment, I just couldn't read it any more. I still don't know how that one ends.

And yeah, the occasional glaring anachronism gets me. I once read some printed erotica that had some guy fantasizing about getting it on in a Victorian setting, only to have him *un-zip* (!!) the woman's dress. Argh.


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