Arbitrary Skepticism / Video Games

Arbitrary Skepticism in video games.

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• The world of A3 has its fair share of magical and supernatural happenings such as the famous Urban Legends in Mankai Company. Homare Arisugawa never believes in these things and, despite having encountered one of the Urban Legends and had other supernatural experiences himself, often makes a logical, down-to-earth explanation of them and ends up invoking Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane. However, the encounter with the Loupe of Sincerity changes his mind a bit; his butler Takao in Dazzling Rose Mansion notes that Homare never believes in supernaturals and is surprised that he now kind of believes these things. Though overall, Homare is not big about supernaturals and magic.
• Another Code: In the Recollection version of the second game, Ashley dismisses Matthew's claims about his father being kidnapped for ransom, saying it doesn't seem logical or realistic. Strong words from a girl who, in the previous game, befriended a ghost on an island where her aunt gets kidnapped and she eventually faces off against the man who killed her mother. Downplayed in that Ashley privately admits that it was moreso that Matthew didn't seem confident when explaining the details, making her think he was making it up at least some of the story as he was going along. She ends up being correct about this when she goes to apologize for being mean about the whole thing, with him admitting that he doesn't really know what caused his father's disappearance and is searching for clues about it, which earns him her sympathy and help.
• APICO: Despite having studied various bees with magical properties, Dr. Beenjamin doesn't believe in the existence of bee species associated with the Hivemother, even if you tell him about them. For example, he thinks that the Hallowed Bee is a forgery made by you.
• In Arc Rise Fantasia, the disbelief of several characters (most prominently L'Arc, the main character) in the existence of gods is awfully odd considering many other aspects of their day-to-day lives such as monsters and magic. L'Arc is particularly notable for this because he is capable of summoning extremely powerful beasts called Rogress, which would make it a bit odd that he outright denies the god's claim of existence. What makes it even crazier is that he is explicitly referred to as "the Child of Eesa" and is The Chosen One of the local religion.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum:
    • In the Case Files included with the Collector's Edition, it's noted that Dr. Penelope Young refuses to believe that the Ratcatcher can actually command rats, and believes he just has a bizarre form of Messiah complex; quite apart from the fact that working at Arkham requires her to treat extraordinary patients like Clayface and Poison Ivy, she's also going out of her way to ignore all the evidence of the Ratcatcher's ability provided by Batman and most of the other doctors at Arkham. For good measure, she continues to maintain her skepticism despite the fact that the Ratcatcher's cell is infested with rats!
    • On a lesser note, Doctor Whistler initially didn't believe Killer Croc's insinuations that he engaged in cannibalism, assuming he was just trying to scare her. Keep in mind that Croc is about ten-feet tall, an extraordinarily violent criminal (with Whistler being well aware that police only tend to find partial remains of his victims), is kept in Arkham's sewers for lack of a better place to house him, and has scales and razor sharp teeth.
  • Eavesdropping on random mooks in Batman: Arkham City can reveal some real gems. Working for a crazed supervillain with a clown motif? No problem. Biggest enemy is a man in a bat costume who drops out of the sky and disappears into the darkness? All in a day's work. Dealing with a monster who resurrects every time he dies, a woman who controls plants with her mind, drugs that can double your height and bring mass from nowhere? Pshaw, no big deal. Claim you saw ninjas? What, are you crazy or something? (The fact that they happen to be in America and not Japan is the main reason for them mocking the one witness.)
  • In Batman: Arkham Origins, at one point, a thug can be heard claiming Batman doesn't exist, but then states he was in town working for Killer Croc. His companions quickly lampshade this.
• In BioShock Infinite, near the end of the game Elizabeth transports herself, Booker, and Songbird to Rapture via a tear. Booker's reaction, after having been merrily galavanting around a city in the sky? (Though considering it's right in front of him and rather hard to ignore, he could just be saying that the concept is ridiculous.)
  Booker: A city... at the bottom of the ocean? Pfft. Ridiculous.
• Chroma Squad: The endgame of the Night Driver Route leads to the assault teaming up with a talking cat. When the assault comments on how weird a talking cat is, the cat replies that they're currently aboard a spaceship fighting aliens, the assault's mentor is a talking Brain in a Jar who teleported them both aboard, and the assault is a former Sentai stuntman who became an actual Sentai hero through Clap Your Hands If You Believe. In other words, a talking cat fighting evil isn't making the situation much weirder at this point. The assault can only reply with "Er... Point taken!"
• Clive Barker's Undying: Patrick doesn't believe in magic. But he uses magic all the time, and owns a magical stone.
• In Daikatana, Hiro chides his buddy Superfly for being "superstitious" about the idea of entering a graveyard. At this point in the game, Hiro has traveled through time to ancient Greece to fight skeleton warriors straight out of a Ray Harryhausen flick, and met multiple different ghosts.
• In The Darkside Detective, McQueen has no trouble accepting the existence of ghosts, gremlins, alternate universes, werewolves, lake monsters, zombies, etc., but he doesn't believe in Bigfoot, an inconsistency he immediately lampshades.
• Deus Ex Universe:
  • Deus Ex: JC Denton calls out Tracer on mentioning the Illuminati when the former was on his belly trying to escape the VersaLife labs with his life, thinking Tracer was making a poorly-timed joke. Tracer wasn't, and it's strange that JC would doubt him, after having escaped a hidden base beneath his old workplace, and discovering the existence of a shadow government.
    • JC is skeptical when the NSF commander in the mole tunnels tells him about the secret passage in the bathroom. This would be understandable if JC hadn't just entered the mole tunnels via a secret passage in another bathroom.
  • In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, JC's predecessor Adam Jensen has a moment of his own. After discovering the terrorists he's hunting have ties to no less than three of the world's most powerful corporations, battling his way through not one but two secret underground bases, and learning the most famous and respected news anchor on Earth is actually an AI propaganda program... Adam still scoffs when his boss suggests the Illuminati are behind it all.
• Diablo III:
  • Leah's skepticism of her Uncle Deckard's "crazy stories" (expressed while in the middle of a siege against the risen dead) is spoofed in this Penny Arcade strip. Justified due to having a magically-maintained Weirdness Censor no one knew about.
  • Abd al-Hazir who provides narration on mostly mundane creatures and historical events is openly dismissive when it comes to the Burning Hells and High Heavens.
• Dragon Age:
  • One of the conversations between Leliana and Morrigan in Dragon Age: Origins points out the flaw in many accusations of arbitrary skepticism. Asked why she doesn't believe in the Maker despite using magic on a daily basis, Morrigan points out that she can see and feel magic and watch it cause tangible effects on the world around her, yet she has nothing more than vague legends to support the existence of the Maker. On the other hand, Morrigan's lack of belief in an afterlife seems odd considering that your party encounters ghosts on a number of occasions.
  • Morrigan's skepticism continues in Dragon Age: Inquisition, where she adamantly believes the Elven Gods of old were merely ancient elf rulers whose subjects mistook them for gods, if they existed at all. If the player allows it, she will even knowingly complete a ritual that binds her to serve one believing it to be an empty threat because the being in question doesn't exist. Unfortunately for her, she's wrong. Mythal is very real, or rather, was real: she was murdered by other gods and her vestigial aspect is carried by Morrigan's mother, Flemeth. That said, Trespasser basically vindicates her skepticism: the elven pantheon were real ancient elven kings, the Evanuris—although "god-kings" would be a more appropriate term, since their magical power approached that of a Physical God, so Morrigan is at least wrong about the "mistaken for gods" part.
  • Sera from Dragon Age: Inquisition also adamantly believes the Elven Gods of old were not gods at all, but merely demons (proven entities in this world). However, while Morrigan had at least not believed in any gods or the afterlife before, Sera had earlier in the game been confronted with "proof" (to her) that "fairy stories" she had previously not believed in like the Seven Magisters entering the Fade and becoming the first Darkspawn, thus the Golden City and the Maker, were "real things" after all. But not elven stories. Nope.
• This can actually be used as a buff in Dungeons of Dredmor, through the "There Must be a Rational Explanation" skill. Gives you some pretty nifty magic resistance in exchange for not being able to cast spells, but why would you cast spells if they don't exist?
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Dwemer lived by this concept, to the point where they were atheists in a world where gods not only existed but could be summoned and bartered with. They even went so far as to build their own mechanical god, Numidium, to embody this concept of refusal and skepticism.
  • There are some out-of-game texts written by series writer Michael Kirkbride that suggest that Numidium was the weaponization of this concept. Because it was powered by the heart of the dead god Lorkhan, Numidium supposedly had the ability to define reality, and being made by the ultimate skeptics as the embodiment of their logic and refutation, it could take an object or person and refuse to accept its existence so hard that they became a lie and ceased to exist.
  • In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one quest starts with the player encountering a talking dog named Barbas. If you express disbelief, Barbas mocks you thusly:
    Barbas: Skyrim is now host to giant, flying lizards and two-legged cat-men, and you're surprised by me? Yes, I just talked! And am continuing to do so!
• Subverted in Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick, when Ash travels back in time to the 1700's, meets his colonial-era ancestor, and explains how he's the man's descendant from the future and came back to fight a time-traveling army of demons. His ancestor immediately agrees to help and when Ash skeptically remarks that he seems to be accepting the situation a little too easily, his ancestor responds that after a night of fighting demons from another dimension, he's ready to believe anything.
• In Fallout, several characters are skeptical of the existence of Deathclaws, believing them to be just ghost stories. This is a world where giant, bloodthirsty mutant beasts of all kinds roam the wastelands. Yet, a beast that's just a little bigger and scarier is apparently nonsense. Justified in that Deathclaws were a creature that had only recently moved into the area and there weren't very many of them. In later games though, the skepticism seems to have disappeared as Deathclaws have become more widely known about.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VII
    • Professor Hojo occasionally falls into this. He has two one-of-a-kind species in his lab at one point, he's trying to clone an ancient race of magic-using humans who no longer exist (Aerith is half-Cetra), he accepts that the Planet's giant self-defense Eldritch Abominations exist with little more than a shrug, his company uses souls to make batteries...yet he refuses to believe Chaos is a real thing until Vincent transforms right in front of him. Apparently, he thought Vincent's ressurrection after Chaos supposedly fused with him was a total coincidence.
    • Professor Gast is acknowledged as a better scientist mostly because he has morals, but he also seems to keep a more open mind, having been the first person both to think of the Jenova Project and to acknowledge that he was wrong about Jenova being an Ancient.
  • In the Monster Hunter: World collaboration in Final Fantasy XIV, your character speaks to the Felyne^note basically a large, talking cat Trenya. The player may choose to have their Warrior of Light express amazement at a talking cat, at which point Trenya will point out that there are far stranger things in your world^note such as large, talking catfish, and will certainly call out the hypocrisy if the Warrior of Light happens to be a Miqo'te or Hrothgar(and thus is a cat him/herself).
  • Defied for hilarity's sake in World of Final Fantasy, where Serafie mentions the "Guardians of Time" to Reynn and Lann and then immediately claims the story is "as preposterous as teeth-stealing faeries". When the twins promptly introduce her to a Guardian of Time, thus proving they're real, Serafie immediately wonders if tooth faeries are real as well.
  • When Deuce from Final Fantasy Type-0 is introduced in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, several characters are surprised that she uses a flute as a weapon... in a party that already has characters who wield paintbrushes, darts, and megaphones with deadly force.
• Ghost Trick:
  • Lynne says she doesn't believe in a sixth sense. Sissel points out that she is currently a ghost.
  • Subverted hilariously with Missile, who doesn't find Sissel's ability to travel back to 4 minutes before his death strange at all. His logic being something along the lines of "If human can walk on two legs, it's not so out there that they can walk backwards in time." Given Missile is a Pomeranian, one can't fault him for his logic.
• Guilty Gear: Goldlewis Dickinson refuses to believe in aliens. He lives in a world that provably contains magic, monsters, ghosts, vampires, demons, fairies, homunculi, his own subordinate Giovanna is a shaman who fights with the help of a wolf spirit, and he personally carries a living alien trapped in a coffin around with him wherever he goes. He doesn't deny that it exists, he just refuses to believe that it's an alien.
• In King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!, King Graham gets kidnapped by a giant bird, is promptly rescued by a smaller bird, and reunited with Cedric the Owl. When Cedric asks him what happened, Graham's response is You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You. This is despite the fact that ignoring the rest of the weird stuff that's happened to him, just five minutes earlier Graham killed a yeti with a custard pie to help an ice queen and her talking wolves. Why would he think a talking bird wouldn't believe a talking bird helped him?
• League of Legends: Camille is a cyborg enforcer for a Magitek city-state. In-game, she has special interactions with some pretty weird champions, including a star-making dragon god, a legendary Demacian folk hero, a magical wind spirit, and a storm god who looks like a bear, none of which make her express disbelief. The one special interaction she gets where she expresses disbelief? Kled, who's both a Noxian folk hero and a feral gremlin creature. Apparently a dragon god who made stars is fine, and one of the main gods of the Freljord is fine, but something like Kled is just too absurd to take seriously.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III, when the party visits Bryonia Island, Ash Carbide poo-poos the idea of occult stuff. The other characters point out that he already knows Celine, a talking cat.
• The Metal Gear examples below are parodied in Merry Gear Solid with Otacon asking Snake about the below-mentioned supernatural(-seeming) events, and how he's fine with those, but not the concept of Santa Claus. They then hypothesize that Santa uses nanomachines too.
• Metal Gear:
  • In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 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^note yet also natural at the same time), and then Vamp's ability to paralyze people by pinning their shadow (actually a form of hypnosis). 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 who is aware he is a video-game character.
  • This gets carried onto his Super Smash Bros. Brawl incarnation, with the way he grouses about magic.
  • Also in Metal Gear Solid 2, Ocelot says near the end of the game that there's no such thing as the supernatural. Never mind that he's previously been on the same team as the aforementioned raven-controlling guy and psychic, his father could communicate with ghosts, create rainstorms at will, and is now a ghost himself who continues to do these things, and he himself spends half the game being possessed by a ghost.
  • This also applies to Snake's comments regarding Fortune near the end of the game. Even though he's faced far stranger people than her, he maintains there's "no such thing as a witch".
  • In Metal Gear Ac!d, Snake is skeptical of the ostensibly psychic Alice Hazel. He turns out to be right... sort of. She was really just familiar with the layout of the base, which was why she was able to provide help there, but also involved is the reincarnation of ghost children... or something. It's complicated.
• The Might and Magic series, known amongst other things for its humor, lampshades this trope by having Roland Ironfist say the following on his first letter to his wife, in Might and Magic VI:
  Roland Ironfist: No, Catherine, Lord Kilburn was probably slain by something much more mundane than devils; perhaps a pair of dragons.

  This was clearly meant to be a joke, since Enroth, the planet on which the realm Roland rules is on, sports angels. The "devils" turn to be demon-like aliens. At least, an out-universe joke — from Roland's perspective, it's a lot less arbitrary than it might seem (the game that introduced Roland had dragon attacks as as mundane a cause of death as boating accidents, food poisoning and falling out of windows. Devils, meanwhile, have been completely absent from recorded history).

• In Mortal Kombat 9, Johnny Cage can use Ki Manipulation. However, he assumes that the exotic members of the tournament are just fighters into cosplay with special effects, and laughs off Raiden and Liu Kang's explanation of the tournament's purpose in allowing Outworld to invade Earthrealm. He is eventually convinced.
• In MySims Agents, we have Agent Rosalyn and Agent Vic, government agents who are investigating the disappearance of a young bottled water CEO. Vic is sure it's the fault of a yeti, while Rosalyn is just as sure that it's not. It turns out that there is a yeti, but the boy was unaware of this, and pretending to be a yeti and smashing things so the lodge would have to shut down and he could move in. But Rosalyn isn't who we're talking about here. At your next jet destination, there's a zombie butler. Both the yeti and the zombie gained their current form thanks to the Nightmare Crown. Additionally, you've been able to communicate on a pretty high level with a dog and a wolf... but you're skeptical about a girl befriending a giant squid?
• Thoroughly mocked in Neverwinter Nights 2. Grobnar believes in the Wendersnaven, mythical, invisible, all-powerful entities that he thinks can help in the quest. Everyone else dismisses his claims out of hand. This is in the motherfracking Forgotten Realms, where every single fantasy creature you can think of and dozens of gods demonstrably exist.
• In No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, Travis can't believe Sylvia when she says he's just fought an undead child powered by the devil. This is coming from a guy whose master's ghost ran his own gym for a while after dying, guided him through a forest, and handed him a farewell note. This boss was at the first of three Akashic points in the game. The mere fact that he even got there by some strange sort of teleportation should tell him something's off. It's lampshaded after Travis beats the first Akashic boss, where Sylvia tells Travis the undead devil kid's story, and Travis simply shrugs and replies with "All assassins are fucked up somehow. Hell, nothing surprises me anymore."
• Persona 3 has a Scooby-Doo subplot about the high school being haunted. The members of SEES treat the rumor with varying levels of skepticism and fear. That would make sense, if it weren't for the fact that SEES fights dozens of "shadows" in the high school several times a week. This may be more of an If Jesus, Then Aliens case, as the shadows had thus far followed a strict set of rules regarding their appearances and ability to affect reality, being confined to the Dark Hour and all. A supernatural event taking place outside of that time would be at best a hoax, at worst an actual incursion beyond their previously established limitations. Turns out the ghost story is not a ghost's doing but a girl who was trapped in Tartarus due to a cruel prank played on her and the ghostly sounds were the echoes of her inner voice while her body didn't exist in our world. It's... complicated.
• In Potion Permit, Sister Socellia, who worships the gods of a Christianity-like religion, criticizes Victor's belief in spirits, when she lives on an island where magical plants and animals are used for potion ingredients, which she slowly trusts the Chemist to use to cure her illnesses.
• Plants vs. Zombies: The sentient English-speaking Puff-shroom had trouble believing in zombies.
• Tommy of Prey (2006) doesn't believe in what his grandfather is trying to tell him about his mystical heritage. This is understandable at the game start, but is a little strange that his beliefs are nearly unchanged after dying multiple times, visiting two different afterlifes, routinely separating his spirit from his body and running around a giant bio-mechanical spaceship. In fact, when Tommy first expresses his disbelief over the spirit world, while in the spirit world, to the glowing blue ghost of his dead grandfather, said grandfather just stares at him in a way that lampshades the absurdity more than words ever could.
• Radiant Arc: Despite the existence of magic and other fantasy tropes in this setting, Linky refuses to believe in the existence of the Radiant Arc who is destined to save humanity from the Morians, since no such hero arrived to save his mother and hometown. Ironically, he is the second coming of the Radiant Arc.
• In The Reconstruction, the main characters bring Tezkhra Back from the Dead... but his claims to be a god? Preposterous! Lampshaded by himself at one point:
  Ques: So, you really are a god?
  Tezkhra: Of course. You did not believe me?
  Ques: 'Twas a preposterous claim.
• Over the course of the The Secret World, the player character has encountered magical creatures and phenomena of every single kind, from zombies to vampires, from mummies to werewolves, from a Wizarding School to the very depths of the Hollow Earth. Despite all of that- and despite being a powerful magician himself/herself- the player character appears to draw the line at Dragan having a conversation with a teddy bear.
• Racter in Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong, despite working with magic and mages on a regular basis, refuses to entertain the idea of souls or the afterlife and will state so if brought to a mission where the party encounters a walking, talking and sentient corpse. In this instance he is possibly correct, as the setting includes beings that can possess corpses (most notably Shedim Spirits).
• In the Silver Falls series, Holt is one of the main characters of 3 Down Stars, who gets swept up in a mystery that involves time suddenly stopping and the presence of aliens. Lovecraftian monsters roam the forest around the town, and disappearances have become increasingly common. Despite this, he refuses to believe in the existence of ghosts, even after Analise tries coaxing him into exploring a supposedly haunted mansion in Deathly Delusion Destroyers. Anyone who played Vicarious Brothers knows exactly how haunted that mansion is.
• In Spider-Man (PS4), ol' Web Head is reluctant to believe that a person could mind-control people into being henchmen via The Power of Hate, despite being a man with spider powers in a World of Weirdness. Mary Jane wastes no time pointing this out:
  Mary Jane: I talked with a detective about questioning the arrested Demons. They're all claiming their leader has the power to, quote, "corrupt" people. They say it's sort of like mind control— it brings out the "negative" part of you. Makes you do things you wouldn't normally do...
  Spider-Man: Hm. Sounds a little far-fetched.
  Mary Jane: This coming from a guy who can run up walls.
• In TimeSplitters Future Perfect, Cortez brushes off the idea of zombies, even though he's a time-traveller from a world that is currently under siege from ravenous, lightning-shooting creatures and he fought zombies in the previous game.
• Travians includes a pig that can talk, two hats possessed by the souls of dead robbers, a physical land of the dead (apparently controlled by the military), and magic spells cast by a good witch and several druids... including a spell that turns a man into a frog for quite some time and some spells to protect houses and people, plus a love spell. Despite all this being pretty common knowledge among the NPC's, one NPC scoffs at his brother believing in a dowsing rod (which works, btw).
• In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Nate and Elena's disbelief that the Cintamani Stone has supernatural powers would be a lot more believable if they hadn't fought Nazi zombies in the first game. Then again, the scene where Gabriel Roman is killed makes it look like the zombies are caused by The Virus. Supported by Navarro mentioned how much this thing is worth "to the right buyer". They get better about it once they actually reach Shambhala, but Chloe still isn't quite convinced. Elena calls her out on it.
  Elena: We're standing in Shambhala and you're questioning what's possible?
• In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Alistair Grout, the head of the Malkavian vampire clan, leaves around audio logs where he talks about his "condition" (vampirism) as if it was an unknown but entirely natural disease, and is dismissive of the supernatural explanations given by his fellow vampires. There are two justifications for this. First, Grout was an Enlightenment era psychologist before he became a vampire, and he held fast to his naturalist world view despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. Second, as a Malkavian, he is absolutely insane.
• WarioWare: Mike says that ghosts don't exist, despite living in a world where aliens and witches do exist.
• In Warriors Orochi 3, Date Masamune refuses to believe that Zhang Jiao can work miracles when he meets the character, despite by that point in the story Masamune has been working for a demon lord, traveling through time, and met and fought with and beside multiple gods.
• In Wolfenstein: The New Order, Set Roth and his secret circle might be devoutly religious but they look down on the idea of magic and supernatural forces, believing that pure reason and knowledge alone are the path to understanding God. It is, however, justified in that Roth is fully aware that most of the Nazis super-weapons are actually stolen or reverse-engineered from discoveries that he and his companions made over the years.
• Minor NPC Maynard Algerson in World of Warcraft doesn't believe his men who tell him they're being attacked by tree monsters and giant spiders, even when presented with the skulls of said tree monsters. Given that not only is Azeroth a Fantasy Kitchen Sink where everyone and their cousin has dealt with dragons, demons, and undead, but the man knows about witchcraft, you'd think he'd be more open-minded.
  • Several Kul Tirans brush off stories of things like witchcraft and monsters, claiming they aren't superstitious. The fact magic is so common there's several orders dedicated to each variety, including the Stormsages in Kul Kiras, seems to escape them.

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