When the original 28 Days Later was released, circa 2002, a great battle was fought on TV screens across the land (well, those that happened to be tuned to BBC2 at 11pm on a Friday night, anyway). In the one corner, renowned film critic and Orlando Bloom hater, Mark Kermode. In the other, renowned radical feminist writer, Germaine Greer. The subject: chimpanzees in Cambridge.
For those who have not seen the film in question, I give nothing away to tell you that the opening sequence is set at a laboratory at the University of Cambridge, where chimpanzees and other animals (I think) are held in tiny, cramped cages - presumably while they are being experimented on. It is the middle of the night, and animal rights activities sneak in and set them free. But one of the chimps happens to be infected with a zombie virus. The rest of the film is about the ensuing hilarity and hijinks.
On Newsnight Review, a late night cultural/arts programme that had a cult following in Britain in the late 90s and early 2000s, Kermode and Greer drew up their battle lines. Ostensibly, they were supposed to be reviewing the film. But the initial reconnaissance-in-force by Greer met heavy resistance from Kermode and a full scale engagement ensued before they had even discussed anything beyond the first scene.
For Greer, 28 Days Later was ruined from the start by its unrealistic depiction of what happens at science labs at the University of Cambridge. Speaking with some authority in this regard (Greer did her PhD at Cambridge), she asserted that chimpanzees and other examples subject to scientific study at the university were treated with the utmost care and attentiveness. The idea that they would be living in cramped conditions and subject to cavalier experimentation was a fantasy, which completely spoiled the film.
For Kermode, Greer was being pedantic. Worse, she was committing a category error. The point of 28 Days Later was not that it was realistic. How could it be? It was a zombie film. The point was that 'animal being experimented upon by mad scientists and escaping to unintentionally wreak terrible revenge on hubristic humanity' is an SF trope that is as old as the Cambridge fens. Danny Boyle wasn't trying to accurately portray the way zoologists treat animals at real universities. He was being loyal to the expectations of genre.
The Greer-Kermode debate is illustrative of a deep rift at the heart of humanity, between those for whom fiction ought to accurately portray what would be the case in real life, and those who willingly suspend disbelief for the sake of the story. Whether you tend to tack more closely to Greer or Kermode probably says a lot about you - but of course, we probably all have occasions upon which we snootily insist that 'that would never happen', and others on which we freely accept flights of fancy on the part of authors or directors in the interests of the story.
Both positions are defensible. Kermode's is probably the more sympathetic, on its face, because it seems to embrace a more creative and enthusiastic approach to storytelling. But Greer has her point - at a certain point a storyteller can act so fast and loose with plausibility that it becomes insulting to the audience's intelligence. (Top Gun: Maverick, anyone?)
DMs and players often struggle with Chimpanzees in Cambridge conundrums conundra problems. How realistic is it that a bunch of murderhobos would be able to come back from successive dungeoneering expeditions with tens of thousands of gold pieces' worth of treasure - enough to feed an entire village for years on end - and it not impact on the local economy? How realistic is it that room 32 contains a dragon and room 31 contains a tribe of halfings, living in apparent harmony? How realistic is it that Bob the Fighter went down to 1 hp after being savaged by a dragon but was still able to carry his fair share of loot?
Every Chimpanzees in Cambridge argument must be resolved by one side or the other backing down and sacrificing their values in the name of the continuation of the game. I offer no solutions, except to call for common understanding across these divides, which are some of the bitterest that can exist between human beings.
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[I am currently running a Kickstarter for the 2nd edition of Yoon-Suin, the renowned campaign toolbox for fantasy games. You can back it here.]
This sort of thing baffles me to no end. Always has. 'Realistic' and 'accurate' depictions of weapons and armor (for example) must be adhered to as we leap on the back of dragons and cast magical spells. Good grief. Kill me.
ReplyDeleteMy eternal rule is, 'It need not make sense in reality but it must be internally consistent with the world you're (gaming) in." If a brick wall explodes outward due to the Hulk smashing through it, the police on the other side of it would be severely injured, even killed. They're not though.
Not in a Marvel Comic, a Superhero RPG modeled after a Marvel Comic, and most MCU films. The cops get up, a few having cuts and bruises. One holds his head, another helps her partner to his feet, while a third dusts dirt and wall crumbles off their uniform.
You could say that's not realistic but it is. It is absolutely realistic and adhering to the physics of the universe...the Marvel Universe. It is real within Marvel and that's all that matters.
I thiink the point is that if something exists in the real world, we know about it and feel something is amiss if it doesn't meet our expectations about realism. Dragons and magical spells don't exist, so it doesn't matter if they're not depicted 'realistically'.
DeleteSure, I get what you're saying. The confusing part for me is that if one takes just a moment to embrace the fact that your Fantasy Game ISN'T taking place in the real world, one would (in my mind) be more flexible about any sort of 'realism'.
DeleteIf a tribe of halflings live next to the dragon in apparent harmony in a dungeon, the more thoughtful players may try to rationalize the circumstance: they might wonder if the halflings are in thrall to the dragon somehow or, if not, how otherwise these dungeon denizens came to be peaceable neighbors (perhaps they share an interesting symbiotic relationship). In my experience murderhobos would not be concerned that a tribe of halflings lives next to a dragon. They want to kill monsters and take their stuff. Are the halflings going to help the murderhobos kill the dragon? If not, the halflings are merely part of the scenery as far as the murderhobos are concerned.
ReplyDeleteYes, there are usually ways to explain 'unrealistic' things in such a way that they add to the game. This is totally true.
DeleteI haven't seen this film, I will watch it tonight.
ReplyDeleteBoth aspects are conducive to an interesting game experience if managed appropriately. In your "crashing the economy situation" I find it highly unlikely that the Lord Governor of This Region would not try to seize tax/seize this treasure before the news of this seemingly endless source of riches makes it to the Lord King of This Whole Land so that when the King declares the Dungeon TM property of the realm the thing would be mostly devoid of resources. Or perhaps a neighbouring kingdom tries to seize them first. Or perhaps the players decide that they've had enough of this tyrannical rule and they try to secede from the kingdom. Or perhaps the dragon gets tired of this bullshit and decides to take matters onto itself. Or perhaps the players strike a deal with the dragon: now they will bring treasure to it in exchange of protection from rival parties/lords/kings/kingdoms.
ReplyDeleteThe hack and slash approach has its merits, of course, but it can become tiresome pretty quickly if the only thing there is to it is getting more loot to gain more levels. At that point, you might as well start playing Diablo The Boardgame.
I agree - see above. Explaining unrealistic situations can lead to very creative results.
DeleteI like a moderate position: plausibility between the rules, the setting and some common sense.
ReplyDeleteIt's harder than it sounds!
I like it when considerations of realism appear as a "fig leaf" to generate creative descriptions and challenges. What does the giant eat? Maybe the goblins are fighting over a water source. Oh no, Gold Rush-style inflation has hit the adventuring village! Not so much when things have to be calculated down to the last kilocalorie and gold piece (which rarely add up in fantasyland).
ReplyDeleteI think Mark Kermode was missing the point. Few people will watch 28 Days Later and end up believing zombies are real. But more than a few people might watch 28 Days Later and end up believing that people who experiment on animals are evil. I didn't watch this episode of Newsnight Review, but I assume Germaine Greer was upset not because the depiction of Cambridge University was unrealistic but because it was both unrealistic and misleading. Good fiction can be unrealistic, obviously, but it shouldn't be misleading. I agree with Germaine Greer 100%
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm upset that the BBC cancelled The Film Review, with Mark Kermode and Jane Hill, in October last year. That has no relevance to this blog post - I'm just still angry about it!
Also - I know I read a good blog post recently criticising the "but dragons" argument excusing any lack of realism in fantasy fiction, but I can't find it now!
That's an interesting perspective on it. I think I agree, actually.
Delete@akayima It was Deltas blog.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteIt was his post "Nothing Remains Interesting If Anything Can Happen" (linked to at the end of his post "Because-Dragons Is a Bad Argument") that made an impression on me.
When I got back into D&D, this was quite a big issue for me, particularly with regard to treasure. It still is, a little, though playing in your game has altered my stance somewhat. I think Akiyama is right here though, the issue is not that showing Cambridge University this way is unrealistic, it's that it's pernicious. To reductio this somewhat ad absurdum, suppose somebody made a fantasy movie about you, but in that movie you were a child abuser. I think you'd be right to object to that. If they'd used The University of Nowhere in the film, this would be less of an issue (though still tarring all universities with that brush)
ReplyDeleteAlmost entirely unrelated, but I can't resist getting it out there: my ex was primate adviser on Planet of the Apes 2 (which I seem to remember including similar scenes)
A lot of this is dependent on your own knowledge. I wouldn't even notice if chimpanzee cages are not realistic, but I'm going to roll my eyes heavily at historical stuff that a scientist isn't going to notice. And I just can't help getting annoyed at things like fantasy cities with not a single farm within sight of their walls no matter how fantastic the setting people still need to eat!
ReplyDeleteI really think you should try to set things up so that both sides play well together. For example if there are a 101 reasons why the heroes will realistically lose the upcoming battle but genre conventions say that the heroes MUST win then it's hard to give a crap about those 101 things since you know they're just window dressing. That hurts the drama a lot.
C Northcott Parkinson's books include an argument that the reason budget meetings will let millions in spending through quickly but fight to the death over the coffee bill is that they understand the coffee bill - it is comprehensible in scale, they understand what went into creating it, and they are familiar with its uses.
ReplyDeleteI think the same principle applies here. Dragons are big and incomprehensible. I don't understand how large lizards work, but I know some could fly and I know they existed. Firebreathing and such isn't that much of a stretch on my existing knowledge.
But I know how gravity works, and how fast people can run, and things like that, and violating that stuff is rather blatantly obvious.
My personal thinking is that the more specialized knowledge that is required to know the thing is wrong, the more reasonable it is to let it happen anyway.
Yes, that's probably right.
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