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This is an answer to Gillen complaining about how weird it is that Superman himself is acceptable to him while watching Smallville, but he has a hard time buying a reporter not only falling 20' and landing okay and ready to fight, but kicking someone on the way down: I remember reading an article in Asimov's back in the '80's... (I think it was Asimov himself writing) about how you can really only have one or at most two non realistic elements in a story. I've kept this in mind for years, and I think he's essentially right. The thing can be huge, like the entire start Trek universe, or medium sized like zombies, or small like a medieval woman black smith, but the thing must be of a piece and self consistent. I'm okay with a book where there are a variety of supernatural beings living among humans as in Charles DeLint, because those beings are self consistent and part of one unified idea. I can't swallow the "historical" novel, "Pillars of the Earth" because it piles at least one big unbelievable thing (Medieval people in England wouldn't know big news like a new Cathedral being built in England), with several small and medium sized things (Woman black smith; characters get married in the first scene, yet most of the plot hinges on them not being married; etc..) You can have aliens in a story, but the aliens must be self consistent and the humans dealing with them must be realistic. You can have a whole fantasy world, like middle earth, but the characters have to behave in understandable human ways.

You are willing to swallow the big fantasy element on Smallville (Superheroes exist), but you can't swallow that the ordinary humans in it aren't subject to physics and human limitations. They have asked you to believe one too many impossible thing.