I Will Believe Anything You Tell Me

The Big Dirty Article

“I Will Believe Anything You Tell Me”

by Tim Appelbaum

I enjoy a well told story. Whether it’s through a novel, video game, film, or a game of Dungeons and Dragons, if you create a world, I’ll buy into it. That being said, if you have inconsistency within the world that you create, it’s distracting. It’s usually when a character does something extravagant instead of the simple solution. If I asked you to turn off the light, would you unscrew the bulb or flip the switch? Sometimes, the hole in the story is enough to be a fatal flaw.

To me, Harry Potter is one of the biggest culprits of questionable tactics. It’s set in present day, correct? Why does nobody have a gun? Not one gun? If one more person tells me “It’s a magical world! They can just use their wands!” as if I didn’t already know, I’m going to poison their drink. Guns are faster, more practical, and cleaner than wands. If you insist on saying magic is enough for some and they don’t need guns, you enter the world of Star Wars, and guess what? That works! Yet, Luke had a gun in A New Hope, because he wasn’t a Jedi Master. Adepts in Mass Effect still kept themselves strapped. But what about the people that suck with magic in Harry Potter? Piss-poor spells against the power of someone so powerful, they don’t even speak his name. That’s a fatal flaw; people (whether they had magic or not) would not want to lay down and die so easily. A solution could be to have one line in the story that said something along the lines of, “too bad guns don’t work in magic lands.” Why would that be a solution? Because you can create the magical world to have whatever magical properties you want! If you want me to assume these things without direction or structure, why couldn’t I simply say, isn’t there a magical spell that auto-kills evil people? Do your fucking job Rowling.

This concept was touched on in Thank You For Smoking. Rob Lowe and Aaron Eckhart were discussing cigarettes in space and the concern of a massive explosion in an oxygen environment stopped the story. Lowe says, “…But that’s an easy fix, one line of dialogue. ‘Thank God we invented the… you know, whatever device.’” Is that a cop-out? Maybe. Does it fix a major problem in the story? Without a doubt.

Now for the readers that know my begrudging opinion of Harry Potter, you may think that I was just looking for a problem, but finding inconsistency in a story is a curse and can even distract me from even the greatest of films. Too be fair, let’s take a quick glance at Star Wars, a film that impacted my life more than any school teacher, public official, and possibly family member. Why does a lightsaber have the ability to cut through solid steel, but will hit someone off Jabba’s sail barge as if it was a baseball bat? Liam Neeson can cut through a blast door, but winging someone so it doesn’t cut them in half will knock them off their feet? Because I love this movie, I have deduced that the person is jumping back in fear. But that doesn’t solve Empire and Vader’s onslaught of inanimate objects to which Luke swings at as if they were piñatas.

Before dummies start emailing me about how it would be unreasonable for a storyteller to go through every possibility of solutions to problems, let me answer that on two points. First, it’s not unreasonable to plug holes in your story, so don’t be an asshole and write me. Second, sometimes the mystery is enough. Sometimes, you don’t have to answer the question. You want some brilliant examples?

Highlander didn’t have to explain the mythology. Guns, swords, and time, aren’t enough to kill an immortal unless they are completely decapitated. When one immortal decapitates another immortal, the transfer of power is called “the quickening.” Do you have to know where the immortals come from? Do you need to understand what causes the transfer of power? Or the power itself, is it just “extra” immortality? No, all you need to know is that immortals are killing each other and “there can be only one!”

The Way of the Gun utilizes some very pragmatic and clever tactics between Phillippe’s and Del Toro’s characters. I really don’t care where these two petty criminals learned them, I just care about how they are used during gunfights.

Big Trouble in Little China stars Kurt Russell as the All-American hero, Jack Burton.

Jack: “What’s in the flask, Egg? Magic potion?”

Egg: “Yeah.”

Jack: “Thought so, good. What do we do, drink it?”

Egg: “Yeah.”

Jack: “Good! Thought so.”

Do you really care about the previous time someone crossed Jack? Do you want John Carpenter to explain how the magic potion was made? It’s simply a story about how far someone will go for a friend in need, and “besides that, it’s all in the reflexes.”

I’m not saying creating a world without holes is easy, and no, I don’t believe I can do better; but to those that spend countless hours tightening up that screenplay or novel, there are some that appreciate it.