Sometimes I’ll be reading a book and start mentally screaming at the main character for overlooking a key piece of information.
Or for not knowing something that, according to all logical trains of thought, they should know.
Or for reacting in a way that is totally irrational to me.
I’ll scream at the villain when their presence or how they know things is explained…nowhere.
When their reasoning for bringing down the MC is hazy at best.
I’ll get mad at the setting when things just kind of appear. Or two seconds ago they were in a cave but now it’s a shack. Or when I thought it was morning but they start talking about the moonlight.
With all the filters put up by agents and editors and publishing professionals- I can’t help but ask myself ‘How the hell can they let this slip by? How can the readers who gave this book five starts let this slip by?’
And I think I’ve got the answer.
Movies and television have trained us to think that lapses in logic and rational are just par for the course in a good story line.
Take Disney shows, for example. Nobody figures out Miley is Hannah Montana? Really? And don’t get me started on the Waverly Place Wizards. My kids are big fans. I watched one episode where the brother turns into a werewolf because ‘when you kiss a werewolf, you turn into one’ and then in the next season Alex has herself a werewolf boyfriend who she kisses on a regular basis without turning into one. And that’s just one inconsistency. Don’t get me wrong-the witty banter often makes me snort but I honestly feel a little dumber after watching Disney.
Lets face it- things happen in movies because, well, if they didn’t then there wouldn’t be a plot line. And taking the time to find more logical explanations doesn’t seem to be a top priority. Like in Titanic- I always wondered why Rose doesn’t just move her ass over so Jack can get on the raft? Why hold his hand and sing, all relaxed like, while he slowly freezes into a blue popsicle? I thought she loved him, dammit!
I stopped watching ‘Pretty Little Liars’ because the way they are constantly jumping to the wrong conclusion and the evil ‘A’ seems to be everywhere at once with no logical explanation drives me nuts. Even when we find out who ‘A’ is- they’ll never be able to explain how she managed to see and hear everything she did, unless she happens to be in the CIA. Give me a break.
Why do soap operas contain mutant children who age three times faster than normal human beings? Like Stephanie Mayer’s Renesme – soap kids seem to reach breeding age in about six years of life. Yuck!
Why do all historical movies have people speaking in English accents? No matter where the movie takes place? Roman Empire soldiers, Desert peasants in Arabia, Egyptian kings, Greek warriors? All of them sounding like they’re straight off the cast of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Come on.
Can you think of any movies/books/tv shows that exhibit flagrant lapses in logic?
