The original post: /r/television by /u/AporiaParadox on 2024-09-17 12:48:53.
Over in the real world, being skeptical of the supernatural is a normal thing, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and all that. But over in fictionland, there are worlds where the supernatural and science-fiction are a fact of life with tons of evidence to prove it. And yet, in these settings we often get “smart” characters whose thing is that they insist that the supernatural isn’t real, or at least particular supernatural things aren’t real, despite living in a world where the supernatural is normal and happens all the time, even worse when the character has personally witnessed countless supernatural events.
Scully from the X-Files is a particularly notable example of this. Early on, it made sense for her to be the logical character who dismisses the existence of aliens. But as the series went on, her continued insistence that aliens weren’t real made her seem illogical.
Similarly, Jack from Lost refused to believe that there were any supernatural things going on in the Island despite personally witnessing a bunch of unexplaible things. Although he did do a complete 180 after leaving the Island and ruining his life.
And then there’s Doctor Who, where we constantly get civilian characters who scoff at the existence of aliens despite aliens having publicly invaded the Earth like 50 times in the last 2 decades.
So what other series have characters that are skeptics even in a setting where it makes no sense? Or for some reason are skeptical about one particular supernatural thing despite accepting others?