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Ned: You don't really believe a ghost killed Lucas Shoemaker, do you? Chuck: How do you know there's not a ghost somewhere right now telling his ghost friend "You don't really think there's a guy who can touch dead people back to life, do you?" Ned: That's not fair. Just because there's magic in one place doesn't mean there's magic in every place. — Pushing Daisies, "Girth" Flash: Let's see, after I caught the gorilla, he told me that... Green Lantern: He talked to you. Flash: Yeah, right after I stopped his car. Green Lantern: I'm supposed to believe this? Flash: Hey, we've both got a Martian's phone number on our speed dial. I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt here. — Justice League Unlimited
Arbitrary Skepticism is the tendency of characters who deal with the bizarre on a daily basis to be unreasonably closed minded. Sometimes this makes sense – just because aliens exist, it doesn't mean that unicorns do – but often the viewer is left wondering how the characters can still be skeptical after everything they've seen. It could also be argued that this is a case of Truth In Television — after getting acquainted with quantum physics, fairies, dragons and many other supernatural phenomena do seem quite reasonable in comparison but it doesn't automatically make them true.
Sometimes this is used to define the extent of the fantasy of the world: for example, letting the viewer know that in this Fantasy Kitchen Sink, there are no vampires or ghosts, even if there are unicorns. Sometimes characters will discuss this, comparing someone's cynicism about talking bats to their fighting dragons last week. The extent to which this makes sense for the characters varies.
The Agent Scully is fond of this.
Compare This Is Reality. A staple in Crossover Cosmologies and Fantasy Kitchen Sink humor. Arguably the opposite of All Myths Are True. See also Flat Earth Atheist, If Jesus Then Aliens, Skepticism Failure and No Such Thing As Space Jesus.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. Leprechauns are clearly absurd, right? Yeah. By the end, leprechauns were pretty much the only thing that didn't exist in their world.
- Charmed to a ridiculous extent at some points. Such as when they acted as though situations they had been in before were impossible.
- Occurred on Stargate SG-1 from time to time despite all the weirdness they usually had to deal with.
- Heroes often shows people extremely skeptical about Hiro's powers, even if they have powers themselves. The most obvious example is Nathan Petrelli, who flies under his own power to escape a kidnapping — and then treats Hiro like a complete nutcase just minutes later.
- Matt (a psychic) is equally skeptical in the dystopian future of "Five Years Gone":
Mohinder: Hiro Nakamura can stop time. Teleport by folding space. Theoretically, he can fold time as well.
Matt: So you're saying he's a time traveler.
Mohinder: Is that any stranger than being able to read someone's mind?
(pause)
Matt: Yeah. It is.
- Supernatural is bad about this; despite making a career out of hunting supernatural menaces and retaining enough experience and Genre Savvy to fill an aircraft carrier, Sam and Dean Winchester almost inevitably have an argument over whether or not the Monster Of The Week could be the real thing or not. Though to be fair, their almost textbook knowledge of the abnormal is what makes them question the technicalities of the situation, not the existence of the supernatural being itself. For example, in one episode, Dean doubts that the MOTW is a Wendigo due to the fact that it is outside of its natural habitat.
- Subverted in a first-season episode where the MOTW turns out to be only an ordinary human serial killer (a trope that the series has never used again).
- One memorable scene has Dean explaining to Sam why he doesn't believe in angels (their mother said that angels were watching over them, but she was murdered by a demon), despite hunting demons straight out of Hell on a regular basis. When Sam points out that there's more folklore on angels than any other creature they've fought, Dean says that there's a lot of folklore on unicorns as well. Sam's response? "Wait, you mean unicorns aren't real?" In this same scene, Dean says that there's no God. This is an odd belief given that in this series the name of God and holy water are harmful to demons, and Christian exorcism rituals are effective. By the end of the episode, Dean is less certain that no higher power is at work.
- Dean justifies this by pointing out that, given all the demons and other evil creatures they've encountered, if angels existed they'd have probably run into them or gotten a reliable account of them at some point in the last 20 years. The flaw in this argument is that the boys hunt evil, not miracles. You find what you go looking for. They don't know everything that's out there, as demonstrated by having to look things up.
- As of season 4, the existence of angels has been confirmed. Dean and Sam may yet wish he had been right, though. No word yet on unicorns.
- The creator of the series has said that Dean doesn't think too deeply about religious items harming demons, seeing it as just more of the hoodoo they regularly run across. This trope may be partially justified, as Dean was raised to fight supernatural threats since he was four, so believing in them may be the same to him as believing in dogs.
- Less justifiable is in season one when the boys learn of the existence of vampires, which they thought didn't exist. Dean later scoffs "Vampires. Gets funnier every time I hear it".
- Halfway subverted in a season two episode where the boys call in Bobby to help them figure out a case. One of the things that the boys have found out is that one of the victims claimed to be abducted by aliens, which surprises Bobby. But instead of flat out dismissing it, Bobby points out that even if aliens do exist, he's never found any evidence of them.
- In the show Strange, the title character explains at length the presence of demons on earth, but flatly denies the possibility of ghosts.
- Not so strange, as the Catholic Church's position is demons exist, but not ghosts, since Church doctrine says all souls would immediately go to their judgment at death. Ghosts sightings are believed to be either false, or in rare instances, the work of demons.
- Some Catholics do believe in the existence of ghosts as restless spirits from purgatory; an especially popular belief in pre-Reformation England. Cast in point: the Dead Person Conversation between Hamlet and his father's ghost, who complains about having died without the Last Rites and being doomed to wander the earth until his crimes are "burnt and purg’d away". The concept was, of course, a hotly contested issue in the Catholic vs. Protestant wars of Shakespeare's time.
- In Special Unit 2, everything from gargoyles to werewolves are actually real, except for vampires. "Never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life"
- The Tenth Doctor, a man who travels through time and space in a dimensionally transcendental police box, and who has come back from the dead by rewriting his biological structure nine times, regularly pronounces things impossible.
- He also denounces magic, despite seeing what could be described as an inverse of the Third Law everywhere he turns.
- Given the personal beliefs of Russell T Davies (namely that any supernatural claim should be automatically laughed off the table; he says this in practically every other interview he gives), this troper sees this as a particularly annoying case of Writer On Board.
- It's especially annoying given that in "The Brain of Morbius" he met a sisterhood who could teleport and scry by forming a circle and chanting, with the implication that the Time Lords have enough power to do the same thing.
- And even more irritating given that several of Davies' own episodes have had the Doctor demonstrate powers and / or engage in behaviour that, without a very thin veneer of sci-fi technobabble, might as well be magic — and, at times, might be more convincing if they were just called magic without the vain attempt at establishing scientific credibility (the ending of Last Of The Time Lords, any one?).
- This troper likes to think that Doctor Who's definition of magic is "anything the Doctor isn't capable of understanding". Since he can potentially understand anything he encounters, by definition it isn't magic, even if it looks like it to us mere humans. In other words, to the Doctor, Clarkes Third Law is never invoked because no technology is sufficiently advanced.
- Although the Doctor was doing this long before Davies came on board. Just ask Miss Hawthorne from "The Daemons".
- It's been a bit inconsistent, though. The Seventh Doctor told Ace that Morgaine's powers were magic, and that "Any advanced form of magic is indistinguishable from technology."
- Hell, the tenth Doctor is very mild compared to the William Hartnell Doctor in the very first seasons, who was regularly denouncing most anything his companions told him as ridiculous fantastickery.
- Ian Chesterton did this to a degree as well, although he stopped short of flat earth atheism most of the time.
- Creatures of Beauty, a Big Finish audio drama, features the Doctor and Nyssa encountering the Veln. They know about aliens, but refuse to believe that there is more than one kind of alien: Even after blood-testing Nyssa they discover she's not Veln and assume she's Koteem. After finding no match with Koteem blood samples, one remarks that it must mean that she's a Koteem with a "different sort of blood".
- In Monk, the genius detective Adrian Monk often holds what appear to be implausible beliefs. A seemingly open-and-shut suicide or accident case may be interpreted as a homicide by Monk, or he may accuse a person who has an airtight alibi. The captain, Randy and his assistant are consistently skeptical, despite that he turns out to be right just about every time.
- He actually was wrong on one case, where he accused a nudist of being a murderer because he had a trauma of nude persons because when he was born, he was nude and the doctor slapped him in front of his mother who didn't stopped it.
- Same thing takes place in Medium. Spoofed in a Mad TV skit where the protagonist points out that she does this every "Wednesday... 10:00 PM, right after Las Vegas." The chief just sits there going "I don't understand."
- In the early seasons of Red Dwarf in particular, Arnold Rimmer sneers at the idea of believing in God, yet remains fanatically devoted to the idea of meeting an Sufficiently Advanced Alien species — particularly those consisting of gorgeous multi-breasted women who will be able to construct for him a new body out of nothing — to the extent that he blames every slightly unusual occurrence, such as using up an entire toilet roll in a day, on aliens despite there being just as much evidence for the existence of either in the Red Dwarf universe (i.e. none, the strange creatures seen on the show are all GELFs — Genetically Engineered Life Forms).
- Lampshaded on Firefly: Wash says that River being psychic sounds like "something out of science fiction". His wife points out that they live on a spaceship, to which he glibly replies, 'So?'
- Remember: You're sitting in front of a computer.
- In the new series of Doctor Who and its spin-off Torchwood, most of Britain suffers from this. There have been numerous incontrovertible incidences of Aliens, including giant spaceships hovering over London, another spaceship crashing into Big Ben, an enormous horned monster stomping around Cardiff, a hospital being beamed to the moon and back. There was even a Lampshade Hanging in the 2007 Christmas Special whereby London is apparently deserted as everyone has fled to escape whatever alien menace will turn up this year. And yet, whenever any of the characters refer to aliens, they will encounter "Are you mad?" scepticism.
- And two months of daily "ghost" activity across the whole world which turned into an army of Cybermen. These ghosts were so prevalent in British culture that they even had a scene where a character was watching Eastenders and it had a ghost in it.
- Which also led to a reverse version of the trope. In the Torchwood season 1 finale characters believed that apparent ghosts of family members were real, even though all of them would have recently encountered fake ghosts of Cybermen posing as family members.
- Particularly egregious was the Torchwood episode Meat, in which Gwen's fiancé Rhys refuses to believe that her job is "catching aliens", despite having seen one himself not two hours earlier. Although to be fair, he probably thought that was just a regular giant mutant land whale.
- His response is an incredulous "Aliens? In CARDIFF?". London has been invaded, publicly, by various aliens constantly over the last few years. But Cardiff? No f'in way.
- In Torchwood, while Gwen freaked out at first and was in mild denial, she accepted aliens pretty quickly. Fairies, on the other hand, she scoffed continually at, until some did show up and started killing people.
- Happens on at least multiple occasions in the Highlander TV series. At various times, MacLeod has scoffed at the concept of Methos ("the world's oldest Immortal? He's a legend"), the idea of a Dark Quickening (absorbing the essence of an endless number of evil Immortals would eventually make you evil as well), and the Methuselah Stone (an artifact that makes normal folks immortal). He's eventually proven wrong each and every time he makes such a pronouncement, usually in a fairly dramatic way. These reactions would be a little more believable if Mac Leod himself wasn't over four hundred years old and incapable of being killed by anything other than decapitation. He also tends not to listen to those who offer him alternate viewpoints on such matters, despite them being (a) the world's oldest living man, with over five thousand years of research and exploration under his belt, and (b) a friendly member of an organization that has been studying such phenomena since before the invention of the written word.
- Lampshaded in Pushing Daisies, in the conversation containing the page quote. Ned states firmly that he doesn't believe in ghosts, witches or the like, saying "this may sound strange coming from a guy who can shoot sparks from his finger, but that's what I believe." This is reasonably justified, as Ned has never before encountered anything paranormal other than his own power. Plus, it's possible that having the ability to resurrect people is why Ned doesn't believe in ghosts, as no one he brings back ever remembers doing anything beyond dying.
- Definitely one of Scully's more infuriating traits on The X Files. Her ability to deny phenomena outside her "present scientific knowledge has all the answers, and if something's outside that set, it doesn't exist" worldview becomes increasingly illogical the longer she's dealing with aliens, vampires, etc.
Anime/Manga
- Bleach: Ghosts? Fine, most of the cast can see them. Heartless monsters that eat ghosts? Again, fine, pick up the BFS and let's go kill something. Talking cats? That takes some getting used to. The only cast member who isn't wigged out by Yoruichi on first meeting is Orihime, and that's because she has an overactive imagination.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Ed Elric is an agnostic-atheist in a world where Alchemical Rule Magic is commonplace and Ed himself is one of the most skilled alchemists around, souls and magical dimensional gates are known to exist, and his own brother Al consists of a soul that has been supernaturally bound to a suit of armor.
- Additionally, Ed remarks in the beginning of The Movie that fortune-telling is "unscientific". Approximately five minutes after he finishes recounting a story in which magical alchemy takes place. this exchange takes place in the real world
- In the manga, he meets God (or the closet thing to it)
- To Aru Majutsu No Index: Touma sees esper powers on a regular basis (including being blasted by lightning the previous day) but initially dismisses the idea of magic as nonsense. To him, esper powers at least have a scientific basis.
Comic Books
Film
- In The Last Mimzy, the brother has already found a strange cube that deposited several mysterious items, including a strange crystal that makes noise that only he and his sister can see (adults think it looks like a flat rock), a crystalline conch shell that enhances his hearing and teaches him how to command spiders through sound, and a set of stone "spinners" that his sister can spin to create a strange portal that causes her hand to split harmlessly into a million particles. Yet he still refuses to believe that her stuffed rabbit, which also came through the cube, speaks to her, despite it being the one that taught her how to spin the spinners. It takes the mimsy predicting their father's arrival to convince him.
- I think Indiana Jones qualifies for this. He's had contact with the actual Ark of the Covenant, heart-stealing sorcerers, the Holy Grail, and Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, and yet every time someone talks to him about anything even vaguely supernatural, he scoffs.
- That seems to be more of a defense against being sent all over the world after dangerous artifacts than an outright disbelief. And, as any archaeologist would say, a healthy dose of skepticism keeps things firmly rooted in the plausible, rather than the impossible.
- That would make more sense if he had not personally seen God melt Nazi faces off in the very first movie.
- He didn't actually see that, he had his eyes closed so God wouldn't melt his face off at the time.
Literature
- Harry Potter. Carnivorous skeletal winged horses that can only be seen by those who have seen death? Fine. Crumple-Horned Snorkacks? Not a chance.
- By Word Of God, Luna goes on to discover many previously unknown species of magical creatures due to her open mind. Unfortunately, Crumple-Horned Snorkacks aren't one of them.
- Let's not forget the Deathly Hallows themselves. Harry, and Hermione live in a world of constant magic. Harry and Hermione, at least, should've by now realised that very many of their Muggle legends and stories contain a grain of truth. But the possibility of these three magical talismans from a fairy tale existing? Preposterous! I mean, heck, we've got a spiffy invisible cloak, for cryin' out loud!
- Hermione's general Arbitrary Skepticism annoys This Troper. Book after book she tells Harry that whatever is happening to him is impossible. You'd think a girl who thought magic was impossible until she got a Hogwarts letter would be more open, but appearantly when Hermione spent that first summer reading every school book, she gave in that goblins are real and have civil right complaints and reset her skepticism in a new paradigm, sterner than ever.
- This occurs in the Discworld series. Things like gods, wizards, trolls and dragons are perfectly acceptable, but things like Death and talking dogs are so impossible that people just ignore them. Arguably explained in Hogfather, where it's stated there's an upper limit on things people can believe in.
- This is partially subverted in that some people believe in dragons, despite the fact that they don't actually exist (not proper dragons, any way.)
- They do, one shows up in "Guards! Guards!"
- Yes, but they don't belong to the normal plane. That dragon was summoned.
- Witches and wizards in the Discworld interact with gods and demons on a regular basis, but don't believe in them, as this only encourages them.
- Plus, at several points in the series, there are statements to the effect of "there's not point believing in what already exists" — such as the space turtle on which the world rests.
- A variant occurs in The Odyssey, when his men lose faith as they approach the domain of Scylla, Odysseus reminds them of all the monsters and supernatural beings they had faced prior to that point.
- Jasper Fforde's Jack Spratt novels feature a reasonable amount of this. This world features aliens, talking bears, giant superhuman gingerbread men and the like. Yet when Jack tells his staff, whose job it is to investigate things like the murder of Humpty Dumpty and Rumpelstiltskin's illegal straw-into-gold operation, that his car heals itself, they think he's gone mad. As does his boss when he reports on exploding cucumbers. And so on.
- Used for humor in Robert Asprin's Myth series. During a war, the main character, a wizard in training, recruits a bunch of different helpers from different dimensions to prevent it. One of them is a blue Gremlin. The main character's mentor, a demon, insists that there's no such thing as gremlins, and the little monster in question always remains just out of sight. Until the very end...
- In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Caesar accepts superstition regarding the Lupercal festival as fact, and then refuses to believe a soothsayer telling him that March 15th will be a bad day.
- In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Duke Theseus, a mythical hero whose claim to fame is having defeated a half-man half-bull demigod, refuses to believe the protagonists' tale of fairy mischief.
- Belgarath of The Belgariad.
- Contrary to the popular belief this was not a trait of Sherlock Holmes. For example, in The Hound of the Baskervilles he does not outright eliminate the possibility that said hound is supernatural — he merely states that all other options have to be investigated first and if it proves to be so, he is powerless to do anything about it.
- Though he outright scoffs at the very idea of a Vampire in The Sussex Vampire.
- Mostly because he immediately finds bucketloads of clues pointing (*cough* excuse me) to a more lively culprit.
Western Animation
- Sokka of Avatar The Last Airbender seems to have trouble with this one from time to time. The second season episode "The Swamp" is one good example, in which he refuses to believe that the swamp called forth spirits. When Katara points out that Aang has contacted spirits regularly (not to mention he was once kidnapped by one and stuck in the spirit world), he dismisses it with "That's Avatar stuff; it doesn't count."
- He later subverts it, though, by thinking up his own insane ideas for what can get in their way (particularly a "giant, exploding Fire Nation spoon" or a city being mysteriously submerged in an ocean of killer shrimp) and admitting "Weird stuff happens to us", just before a drooling and insane-looking man with an ear of corn in his mouth comes by.
- The Scooby Doo cartoons feature the opposite of this trope, where the gang always assume that the monster of the week is real, despite every other one they have encountered turning out to be a real person who is simply pretending to be a monster.
- In one episode of Godzilla: The Series, Nick refuses to believe in the Loch Ness Monster. Elsie points out that "We've seen things in the last few months I never would have believed in before." The titular character leaps to mind.
- In The Venture Bros, Broc inquires if his boss's policy of "don't harm women and children" applies to female vampires. No, because they're undead, therefore technically not women, the boss replies. "Also? Fictitious." This is a world where ghosts, magic, and resurrections are downright common, and as a matter of fact, a later character is a Blacula hunter. Dr. Venture is especially prone to this: he says the Chupacabra (and Catholicism) are "utter crap" and then later exclaims "No way!" when he's attacked by a Chupacabra.
- Strangely applied in (of all places) the Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends Christmas episode, "A Lost Claus". It's been long established that the series takes place in a universe where everything children can imagine comes to life. Therefore, you'd think there'd be no question at all that Santa Claus is real in this world. And yet...
- Still, Imaginary Friends who happen to look and act exactly like Santa have a tendency to show up in droves around Christmas time.
- American Dragon Jake Long: In one episode, Jake scoffs at the idea of ghosts haunting his summer camp, despite being a human/dragon shapeshifter who deals with supernatural creatures all the time. He reassures the campers that, sure, unicorns and leprechauns exist, but ghosts? No way.
- The cynic Kevin 11 of Ben 10 Alien Force has this going for him in regards to magic and crop circles, despite being a mutant that battled countless alien species. The sad thing is, he's more or less right both times. Cue Fanon Dis Continuity.
- Lampshaded in the South Park episode "Cartman's Incredible Gift" where Kyle voices his skepticism of psychic abilities throughout and tries to convince the police to take a more realistic, scientific approach to the murder investigation. At the very end of the episode it is revealed that Kyle may have psychic powers himself. The series as a whole has many episodes with skeptical themes, despite the fact that supernatural characters and phenomena are commonplace.
- In a Crowning Moment Of Funny on Veggie Tales, Laura Carrot and Junior Asparagus are at first suspicious of the talking Rumor Weed, like any schoolkids would be; the Rumor Weed points out, though, that "I'm a talking weed, you're a talking carrot..."
- Diana in Martin Mystery refuses to believe that any event The Center investigates is result of paranormal activity, claiming that there would be some logical explanation. Yet she works for an organization that employs aliens and cavemen, and it is a Monster Of The Week show, so the fact that she brought this up so often really messes with the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief.
- Played with in an episode of Batman Beyond, where Terry is telling Bruce about a so-called "ghost" his classmates believe to be haunting his high school. Terry expects Bruce to reject the notion out of hand because there's no such thing as ghosts. Bruce then turns to Terry and explains he's met ghosts, wizards, and demons... but he doesn't believe it in this case, because it sounds "too high school."
- Danny Phantom:
Frostbite: Your central cold reading indicates extreme cold, as if your body is self-generating it. I sensed it within you the last time we met.
Danny: How is that possible?
Frostbite: You become invisible, pass through solid objects, and emit beams of energy from your hands, and you ask "How is this possible?"
- The Simpsons episode "Lisa the Skeptic" where Lisa is arguing against the authenticity of an angel skeleton and states that one who believes in angels might as well believe in such things as unicorns and leprechauns, to which Kent Brockman replies "Everybody knows leprechauns are extinct!"
- Gargoyles: the titular characters are half a dozen creatures with superhuman strength and wings that turn to stone during the day and that only exist in modern New York after being put to sleep for a thousand years, yet their human friend tends to respond with disbelief every time they encounter new weirdness. She does get better as time goes on, though.
- While pinning down an in-universe chronology in Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers is perhaps an exercise in futility, but as far as this trope goes, it really doesn't matter: in the first two volumes, they've seen bona fide aliens, magic lamps, ghosts, mummies who can walk and talk, fortune tellers, leprechauns, banshees, and a weather-predicting tail, and been under the influence of mind-control juice. Yet every time (including some others in which they turn out to be right, and it's all a trick, it seems like someone (or almost everyone) doesn't believe the thing in question exists, and is only willing to check it out when forced to. Viewers who have seen the remaining episodes may be able to point out more cases.
Video Games
- The Legend Of Zelda series takes place in a world with its share of magic, powerful artifacts, and fantastic creatures. So it's rather odd that in Twilight Princess, Link has to go out of his way to ensure that no one knows that he can turn into a wolf. Well, not the humans, at least. The Minish Cap is similar, hiding the existence of the titular magical race from anyone who's not a child.
- What's weirder is that you'd think that turning into a wolf and back in front of them would make things a whole lot easier, because then you wouldn't have to worry about scaring anyone who's seen you do it anymore. But I guess it's like this: Sure, they idolize him now, but if it should get out that he can change like that, why, he'll be considered different, and therefore bad, regardless of the heroic deeds he's done in both forms.
- I interpreted that facet of the game to mean simply that people were terrified of wolves—if you run around Hyrule Castle Town as a wolf, everyone screams and cowers. If they found out Link was the wolf, it would likely damage his reputation beyond repair.
- Bear in mind, Link isn't just a wolf, but is a shadow creature from the Twilight realm, and these people have just been terrorized by similar creatures in a situation completely beyond their comprehension. They might be understandably suspicious if Link suddenly revealed himself to be half-shadow creature.
- Snake is extremely skeptical of Vamp's abilities, fervently reaching for every possibly logical explanation for the wall climbing (later proven to be tech-based), his regen ability (again, tech-based), and then Vamp's ability to paralyze people by pinning their shadow (far as the troper knows, no explanation has been given). What's funny is that Snake has seen a man that could command ravens, a very powerful psychic that can brainwash people, and is himself a clone.
- This gets carried onto his Super Smash Bros Brawl incarnation, the way he grouses about magic.
- Averted in Psychonauts, where the psychic Raz meets a deep-voiced talking mutated lungfish (who later turns out to be female) and doesn't even bat an eye.
Web Comics
- Though his speech is certainly dramatic, the fact that this character
 in Girl Genius won't believe that a clank could have real emotions is pretty jarring—in the room with him is a talking cat with a human's intelligence (a construct, not a clank, but the only difference seems to be that constructs use an organic base—he's certainly not using an unaugmented cat's brain), lurking around nearby are three Proud Warrior Race Guy constructs with human emotions, and the character he's talking to was even raised by a pair of constructs.
- Played with a bit in Scary-Go-Round. After scaring off a ghost with a holograph, The Boy expresses surprise that it would fall for such a trick. Ryan's response: "Ghosts got to be superstitious! Tell them there's a flying top-hat full of yoghurt out to get them...you'll get the benefit of the doubt."
- Kat Donlan of Gunnerkrigg Court seems to be mentally distinguishing between magic and science, in a 'verse where that dichotomy may not exist. She has no difficulty accepting the explicitly supernatural: Psychopomps, ghosts, fairies, demon-possessed stuffed animals, shadow-men, Physical Gods, and people turning into birds. But when it comes to robots, she's reluctant to consider the possibility of magitek even though her own parents are both science teachers who practice magic, and she outright scoffs at the idea of androids realistic enough to pass for humans.
- Kat only disbelieves the possibility of Ridiculously Human Robots because she has never encountered that level of technological sophistication. It's like a modern day scientist disbelieving the existence of a fully functional quantum computer. Kat realizes that such a thing is possible, she just finds it implausible that someone managed to actually do it with current technology.
- Psycho Mantis in the Metal Gear Solid fan webcomic The Last Days Of Foxhound is vehemently opposed to the idea of ghosts existing despite increasing evidence that they do when Big Boss possesses Liquid and being confronted by The Sorrow later on. This despite the fact that he is a psychic. The Sorrow lampshades this.
- Sluggy Freelance usually avoids this, at least with its main characters anyway. The bartender Crystal, however, falls pretty squarely into this trope. If she hears the other characters talking about aliens or vampires, she just assumes they're very drunk (which, granted, they usually are around her). She does this despite the fact that she's been to their Halloween parties (where a demon appears each year to devour Torg's soul), and regularly serves alfalfa margaritas to a talking rabbit.
- To be fair, it's implied that the Halloween partiers generally believe the demon is a fake. Doesn't explain Bun-bun, though...
- In one Misfile arc Ash refuses to believe that a guy who just challenged her to a race could (a) talk to cars, and (b) be haunted by a dark force. For the record Ash lives with two Angels, has been intermittently stalked by a third, befriended by another racer who was haunted by her dead sister oh, yeah, and she used to be a guy.
- Piro (and Erika, and sometimes others) from Megatokyo openly discredits the concept of zombies, and seems to be completely unaware of the existence of Kaiju, Magical Girls and, possibly, ninjas. This is coming from a guy who takes advice from an angel and devil and, oh yes, has a Robot Girl living with him. There's also his gunslinger friends, the odd gadgets Largo creates, and Hawk, but these may be negligible compared to everything else that happens.
- In Chaos Pet, we have two characters discussing wether dogs can think like humans think. Then, we cut to Sufficiently Advanced Aliens discussing if humans can think or not.
Web Animation
Web Original
- One of the protagonists in the sci-fi novel John Dies at the End has a healthy amount of skepticism before his mundane life is derailed by a torrent of supernatural horrors, but even after he's accepted the existence of demonic beings that can erase people from history, and hunting ghosts has become a routine freelance job for him, he's still quick to dismiss things that are merely unlikely, such as a claim his friend John makes about birds' feet getting frozen to power lines during particularly cold weather.
- To be fair, John is perhaps just a little unhinged.
Without breaking my gaze with the TV, I said, “To John, something being funny is more important than being true.”
- Jamie from More Tales Of MU has a habit of dismissing as ludicrous rumors that readers know to be true (from MU classic).
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