@hatking said:
Remember, tropes are not bad. Yes, I have been on TVTropes a time or two, why do you ask?
Anyway, cars exploding and guns making unnecessary noise and other inaccuracies are done for dramatic effect. Whether it's used well depends on the work, but it's not necessarily bad.
There are some tropes that stick out to me though, like guns and swords making noises they shouldn't.
I'm with you. I think suspension of disbelief is bullshit, and that we should just let ourselves enjoy a work of fiction regardless if it forms to our notion of reality. Choices like these are made consciously for a certain effect. If it doesn't deliver, okay. But if you're just going to dismiss it without paying attention to what's happening, then that's you're fault.
Like that scene in Beyond Two Souls, that was a pretty powerful moment emphasized by the explosions and fire. It is a visual representation of Aiden's anger and will to protect Jodie. But if you need to have every-fucking-thing explained to you, then tell yourself he's a ghost and he magicked that shit on fire. Then look inward and ask yourself why explosions are destroying your sense of reality, but the girl with a ghost chained to her is totally okay.
The problem most people have with suspension of disbelief is not when a work of fiction is unrealistic, but when it lacks internal consistency. Its a two way contract: the public accept the limitations of the technology and the premise of the story, and the work of fiction accept to work within the framework they established. Going back to your Beyond example, people accept the ghost chained to Jodie because that is part of the premise of the story. You accept that its part of the reality because its at the core of it, the same way you accept an alien with a cape can fly if you are watching Superman. You engage in that premise from the moment you start the game.
But things that escape that reality in ways that are not explained, escape that fictional framework or are inconsistent with the rest of the world it builds tend to irk at people the wrong way, even unconsciously. Add too many of those, and many people will notice them. In your cars on fire example, it could be established if someone addresses that is part of Aiden's and Jodie's powers, but that would open the question of why it didn't manifest that way in other cases before or after that sequence. In the end, it was something done that way to look cool, but that doesn't mean that is a blanket that would allow anything to happen.
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