Skepticism Failure: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:leveLc4p107 1408.jpg|link=LeveL|
{{quote|''"In movies and TV series about the paranormal, the stereotypical "skeptic" figure always seems to convert into a believer by the end. And why does this occur? Well, because in ''fiction'', the author can control the laws of nature, and in these fictional narratives (which show an abundant lack of creativity), the supernatural always turns out to be ''real''."''
|'''Chris Mooney''', [http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2007/06/hollywoods_offensive_and_deepl.php 'Hollywood's Offensive and Deeply Unoriginal "Skeptic Conversion" Narrative']}}
The paranormal has a way of creeping into TV shows, even those which don't have a paranormal premise. In real life, being neither skeptical nor a believer of various paranormal forces is the default, and a better option than either dogmatic belief or [[Arbitrary Skepticism|dogmatic skepticism]]. On TV, characters are far less likely to express any doubt, and those who are skeptical are often treated as naive or ignorant, and the plot will go out of its way to prove them wrong.
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Contrast with [[Invisible to Normals]] and [[Weirdness Censor]] in which an alien, a robot and a werewolf can be having a fight in right front of someone's nose and still be ignored or dismissed.
{{examples}}
== Played Straight ==
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* Kyon in ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' experienced this trope when he realizes that aliens, espers, and [[Time Travel|time-travellers]] exist. He now regularly spends much of his time in damage control to make sure ''more'' of this weirdness doesn't manifest—i.e. [[Defied Trope|he tries to prevent Skepticism Failure]] in the local unconscious [[Reality Warper]], Haruhi in case she ends up destroying the world accidentally.
* Seto Kaiba from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' is a shining example of a disbeliever to the point of seeing the past, his ancestor, and still brushing it off as fake.
** Well, mostly in the dub version. He's more open-minded about it in the original version. He just doesn't see magic or Duel Spirits as any more of a threat than problems he's already overcome.
* ''[[This Ugly Yet Beautiful World]]'': Everybody is surprisingly easily convinced that Hikari and Akari are aliens. Also, nobody bats an eyelid when Hikari's servant, a [[Ridiculously Human Robot]], shows up.
* An episode of ''[[
** One episode, Watanuki nearly got killed because he cut his toe nails at night.
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** Averted in [[True Blood|the series based on the books]], where those who don't know her mistake Sookie for stupid, but those close to her know she hears thoughts.
* [[Judge Dee]] often proclaims that he is not an impious man, as not believing in the supernatural was positively irreligious in [[Imperial China]]. However he temperamentally prefers natural explanations for apparently ghostly phenomena and usually finds one. Usually. There are however distinct indications that the Judge himself is 'psychic'. Certainly he is extremely sensitive to atmosphere, often sensing evil before he even knows there's been a crime.
* The doctor known as [[Awesome McCoolname|Mr. Chillingworth]] in the penny dreadful ''[[Varney the Vampire]]'' plays this role, both with regard to the vampire and the literal interpretation of the Bible.
=== [[Live Action TV]] ===
* ''[[CSI]]'': the episode "Stalker" had a man who kept claiming that he was receiving visions related to the crime, and knew stuff that the CSIs hadn't released to the press. By the end of the episode, he's dead, and there's [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane|no explanation either way for how he knew what he did]].
** Almost this [[Recycled Script|exact same story]] appears in an episode of ''[[Now and Again]]'', an ill-fated science fiction series from the late 90's about a man who was rebuilt out of spare body parts by the government.
* The early run of the 2000s ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* A major plot point of the second season of ''[[Lost]]'' revolves around characters being convinced to push a button every 108 minutes in order to save the world. Jack vehemently protests the belief that anything will happen if they don't push the button, and the others treat him as if he is being completely irrational. Locke later losing his faith in the button is also treated as a bad thing, even though evidence seems to suggest that the whole thing is a hoax. Now granted it turns out pushing the button was necessary, but there was nothing wrong with disbelieving on the available evidence, which remained true of their situation for the most part, up until the end of season 4 (when ''anything'' was now possible and should probably be believed).
** It's because on Lost's island, there are many things that are crazier than the button. It's a case of [[If Jesus, Then Aliens|If Jesus, Zombies, Bigfoot, Unicorns, Flying Pigs, Tap-Dancing Cutlery And Psychic Hamburgers, Then Aliens.]]
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** Also, it is implied that Scully, especially in the later seasons, remains skeptical on purpose to make Mulder come up with proof for his [[Epileptic Trees]].
** Whenever the subject was religion, especially miracles, Scully was the believer and Mulder the skeptic.
* There was an episode of ''Diagnosis Murder'' where a series of people were murdered in methods that pointed to a vampire or something similar. It was all played as if the killer was mentally ill and only believed she was a vampire until she flew across the room at Dick Van Dyke. Very unusual for a show that was, as much as a TV show can be, very realistic.
* In the finale of season 4 of ''[[NCIS]]'', Tony's girlfriend Jeanne (a doctor) sees a little girl wandering around alone in the hospital several times, often close to people who end up dying soon. One coworker says she's seeing the Angel of Death, another says that it's just a regular girl separated from her parents. Near the end of the episode, the second coworker points out to Jeanne that the girl's parents found her. {{spoiler|But when Jeanne looks, it's a different girl, leaving the mysterious first girl's identity unknown.}}
** The Episode's title is ''Angel of Death.''
* An episode of ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' puts the characters on both sides of this debate. The character of the week is able to show others his oracle visions. Rodney is at first skeptical, until the vision he has is proven exactly correct, just not his interpretation. All the visions are shown to be technically correct, though it is impossible to know exactly what the context is until the event comes to pass and various characters come over to the side of believing (more or less) as events play out.
* ''[[The Bill]]'' had an episode called "Haunted" in which police officers on a stake-out in an allegedly haunted building recounted spooky but just-about-plausible things that happened to them (a lost girl with uncanny similarities to a murder victim; a woman who dies at the around same time as her psychotic and jealous husband, who left a message on her machine saying "I need you with me"), before ending with DS Stanton (the [[Agent Scully]]) quite definitely encountering a ghost.
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** There's also the mummy mystery episode. Castle is supposedly cursed for disturbing a mummy's casket, and murder victims have been killed by apparently unfortunate accidents. Castle has horrible luck throughout the episode, while Beckett is laughing the whole time.
*** {{spoiler|Some of the 'bad luck' was ''deliberately caused'' by Beckett, Esposito and Ryan to freak Castle out.}}
* In the ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' episode "Cold Comfort", a psychic mentions that the victim will be found near a rocky shoreline. She's actually found in the middle of the city, but then the skeptical team member looks out the window... and there's a huge ad with a rocky shoreline on it.
** That's definitely an instance of [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]], though, as it could easily have been a coincidence. Water is a ''very'' recurring element for [[Phony Psychic|PhonyPsychics]].
* ''[[Bones]]'':
** Subverted in one episode, since the hints of supernatural activity (the ghost seen by Booth) was ultimately explained by a brain tumor. {{spoiler|Save for the fact that Bones saw the same ghost.}}
** Played straight in the season 5 premiere with the psychic who locates a mass grave. By the end of the episode, even Bones, the [[Agent Scully]] of the cast, is a believer.
** Other instances where spooky stuff comes up, however rare, tend to turn into cases of [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]] by the end.
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* ''[[Saints Row]] 2'' is a mostly mundane [[Wide Open Sandbox]] game where one of the rival gangs is the Sons of Samedi. For the most part, they just seem to be drug dealers who happen to worship the loa. Then you end up fighting one of their bosses, who has a [[Hollywood Voodoo|voodoo doll]] that can make your character fall on his ass.
** However, it's entirely possible that your character could have been drugged during the fight as voodoo practitioners allegedly use drugs to convince people what they're seeing is real, etc, and your character had already been doped at least once earlier in the game.
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* People on [[That Guy With The Glasses]] often accuse movies/comic books/video games etc. of not being realistic. This is despite the fact that there are magic guns, people coming back to life, and characters from the things they review. [[Rule of Funny]] usually justifies this, but it is still kind of weird.
** For a work to be "realistic" doesn't strictly mean "identical to reality." Most people can easily accept that a universe has FTL travel, or magic, or superheros. ''However,'' accepting characters acting in ways that no human allegedly in possession of a modicum of rationality would, even though the characters ''are supposed to be'' similar to identical in nature to "real" humans, is a whole different issue.
** The works also need to be consistent; if the internal logic of the story is being blatantly broken, it doesn't matter how much magical weirdness it has.
*** For example, we all know that the world of [[The Lord of the Rings]] is pure [[High Fantasy]] and has no basis in reality. However, if Frodo or one of the other characters were suddenly to sprout wings for no explained reason and fly to Mordor, that would still violate the realism of the story.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
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***** Given that Sokka's sister has had magical powers for Sokka's entire life, he cannot possibly deny the existence of the supernatural. On the other hand, just because schools of magic exist for manipulating elemental forces or talking to spirits, that does not necessarily mean they also exist for seeing the future. So yes, it would seem to be bad phrasing on Sokka's part, not bad logic.
* The ''[[South Park]]'' episode "The Biggest Douche In The Universe" had Stan say at the end that John Edward was a fraud and there were plenty of things in the real world that people could be fascinated by. It's a sort of strange message seeing as how the exact same episode featured Kenny's ghost being taken out of Cartman's body. An even weirder example is the episode "Dead Celebrities" where the Ghost Hunters come to look for ghosts and look like complete idiots for believing in ghosts, despite that fact that ghosts existing is the premise of the entire episode.
* An episode of ''[[Fillmore!]]'' involves a crime that takes place during the magic act at the school talent show. While working on the case, Fillmore tries to figure how the trick at the finale was done but kid who did the trick keeps shaking his head no. At the end it's implied he really did do the trick through magic.
* Winston Zeddemore initially didn't believe in the supernatural when he applied to become one of ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'', and only signed up because he was having trouble finding a job after getting out of the army. He quickly changes his mind once he starts seeing the ghosts and goblins for himself.
* Brian from ''[[Family Guy]]'' is a [[Flat Earth Atheist]], and the show seems to agree with him... which would hold more water if Brian hadn't met God and Jesus personally, and that Peter has died and met Death several times. Of course, the God and Jesus he runs into bear little resemblance to the religious figures beyond outfit and name.
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== Subversions and Aversions ==
=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===
* Considering ''[[
** There was an episode where Watanuki presumed that there was a supernatural cause for the problems of a young woman that he helped. He notice that light flashed from her shoulder and he presumed that it was the cause of the problems. When she met Ms. Yuuko, Yuuko explained to him that it's actually purely physiological and the light just reflected from a buckle on her shoulder bag.
* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' loves playing with this trope, with Battler, the main character, representing logic and order and Maria and Beatrice - depending on whether we're on or off the board - representing belief in magic and the inexplicable. Most of the other characters run around in the middle, and shift their orientations throughout the story.
* In ''[[
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
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=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* ''[[Metalocalypse]]'', of course, as [[Skepticism Failure/Quotes|quoted]]. In a later episode, Dethklok one-upped even ''that'' by negotiating the standard [[Deal with the Devil]] contract down to a $5 Hot Topic gift card in exchange for options on the soul of ''the Blues Devil himself''.
* One notable exception to this rule is ''[[Scooby Doo]]''. [[Scooby-Doo Hoax|The skeptical perspective is consistently proven correct]], to the point where one wonders why the gang continues to even entertain the notion of ghosts and monsters. However, this is inverted ([https://web.archive.org/web/20111221170235/http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/06/the_corruption_of_scooby_doo.php disappointing angry skeptics everywhere]) in the ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' movies, both theatrical and [[OAV]], where the monsters are real. Typically in these movies there is also a fake version of the monster that is unmasked before the real one shows up. They [[Lampshade Hanging|Hang A Lampshade On It]] in the first live-action movie, in one scene where Scooby tries to tell Shaggy that his new girlfriend isn't what she appears to be. He says, "Mary Jane is a man in a mask!"
** Also [[Lampshaded]] in the more recent cartoon movies, such as the scene in ''Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island'' where Fred yanks a genuine zombie's head off in an attempt to remove its "mask". When the head moves in his hand and he stammers that it must be animatronic, the girls declare: "You're not a skeptic, Freddy, you're in denial!"
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Index Failure]]
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