Originally Posted by
Godlike13
Fantasy does in fact mean anything can happen. A fantasy world might reflect the real world, it might even establish the illusion of rules it’s world follows, but those rule don’t overrule the inherent rules fantasy. If a writer does something that causes readers to stop becoming attached and to check out, that doesn’t mean they broke the fantasy, that just means they made the reader disinterested in the fantasy they are creating.
Regularly killing off Gothams citizens isn’t anymore fantasy breaking then Batman’s flying cars, and super kung fu, and ridiculous suit, etc. They can in fact just wave it away. Now would that be interesting, probably not, but they can and have done it. Why, because none of it is real. As a city Gotham needs people. It’s not a city with no population. So Gotham always has people. Just because a fantasy world might resemble our world, doesn’t mean it has to follow the rules of our world. The population of other cities in the real world do not matter. The point of Gotham is that it’s not real, it just looks like it, and therefore does not have to actually function like other real cities. Readers picking and choosing when it needs to and when it doesn’t, sorry but It doesn’t work that way.
What’s more, Batman’s done alright. This narrative that they have driven a lot of readers away, and broke the fantasy, by its constant and escalating crime, or it’s populations death toll, isn’t actually supported by any real metric. In fact, the opposite is more supported.