The Irony of "Logic" we apply in Fantasy/Sci-fi Videogames/Movies/Comics/Etc.

senordesol

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SweetShark said:
No problem, I understand.
I just had this question to my head for so long and I wanted to make a Thread about.
Also doesn't mean because a Videogame/Movie doesn't give clear answers to many questions is bad.
Yumme Nikki is one of the most popular Indie games in Japan and in general around the world.

Or even movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Donnie Darko, etc.
Good movies, they never explain nearly nothing.

Neon Evangelion, the ending.....one of the biggest WTF in Anime History.
But this TV show was awesome.

You get the idea.

Anyway, back to the discussion:

You said earlier this is a big failure for the writer. Sure, if only apply to the heroes of a story.
What if these broken rules apply as well to anyone?
What if the bad guy also is super powerfull and only got kill after 2000 stabs or hits?
What if a small child survived a big fall from cliff?
And you know what? These specific examples happens a lot.
Sure, not the best writting, but at least the "broken" rules of universe of a Fantasy/Sci-Fi world apply for everyone.
With regard to bad guys in games taking 2,000 hits to kill, in these cases it's usually established that death and injury is dependent on a health bar, rather than physical damage. So long as this rule is consistent, then it's accepted. However, it's always jarring when the established rules are ignored in favor of plot motivation. Why didn't Cloud just use some Phoenix Down on Aeris? Because it was necessary that she die for the sake of the plot, but his inaction was inconsistent with his established motivations.

Basically, there are things that exist in the universe that are understood to be the 'rules'. It could be about magical unicorns flying naked through space; but if there's ever a scene where one of these unicorns suffocates because they got pushed out an airlock -this is a contradiction to the rules.

Audiences will accept a certain degree of 'plot armor' for main characters, but if the things they endure (such as surviving a fall onto jagged rocks) are so unbelievable that they actually contradict the established rules of the universe, then it breaks immersion.
 

Woodsey

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Magic is in-universe logic, so as long as your consistent in your explanation and usage you can tell the audience pretty much whatever you want.

Falling down a rock face is a physical scenario which is immediately transferable into the real world, so you don't just get to hop up and act like that's perfectly normal without some semblance of explanation.
 

Atmos Duality

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Fantasy is based on irrational or arbitrary logic.

When something violates its own Internal consistency where I start taking jabs at it.
There are only so many circumstances where spouting "MAGIC!" can excuse problems.
 

lacktheknack

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Properly applied logic to fantasy and sci-fi can actually add immeasurably to the appeal.

Take Myst, for instance.

Specifically, the supplementary books.

In The Book of Atrus, Catherine shows Atrus a world she wrote. He's utterly baffled when he lands beside an enormous column of water that shoots up into the stars and evaporates. Catherince then takes him down/up a tunnel through the ground and he emerges, only to find that he's standing on a two-sided disk with a huge stormy lake on one side that's constantly draining, and the drained water comes spraying out the other side, only to evaporate, float around to the other side of the disk, condense and rain back into the lake.

Pretty freaking cool, huh? It also only exists because the author wrote down "huge column of water" or "constantly draining lake" and said "Heh, I bet I can make this make sense logically", which is the whole appeal of the Myst series.

Similarly, in the second game, we find that all the water is infected with a harmless bacteria that abhors heat. Thus, by heating up a flask of the water, you can't boil it, because it will literally flow up and out of the flask before getting lukewarm, so you have to have an upended bowl to catch the rising water. This resulted in some bloody spectacular moments in the game ("Logging Cart Through The Tunnel In The Ocean" comes to mind) and really cool props (the natives' boiling pots), and the appeal is in its logic.

When it comes to magic in fantasy, we're never given an explanation of how it works AND there's no analog in reality (aside from maybe "tech that I also don't understand"), so we can suspend disbelief. If you're going to flagrantly upend very common standards from real life (such as "falling a hundred feet will kill you"), however, you have to explain it or the audience will be too jarred.
 

SweetShark

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darkstarangel said:
I think we tend to call bullshit if the exceptions to the rule aren't explained or demonstrated. When we see dragons it becomes appearent that dragons are apart of this universe because they arent in ours (as far as we know) but if someone takes a huge dive off a cliff & lands or hits the ground but brushes it off like a trip then we impose our understandings of this worlds rules onto the rules of the fantasy universe, unless it is explained that this is the case or demonstrated by everyone doing it like its a normal thing. Remember how the characters in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon just suddenly flew & glided all through out the movie? Thats because, despite there being no explanation, everyone did it & was casual about it. Not one person in the movie looked puzzled when they saw it, unlike everyone in the audience seeing it in the first scene it happened. If it just happened once in the film everyone would be like WTF was that?!

Unlike Iron Man. As much as I love these movies they are so filled with physics violations, such as the first suit Tony makes in the cave. He flies off into the air & suddenly lands smack bang right into the sand, without any injury or broken bones. The exception to the rule in these movies is the suit itself, functioning totally on science, but without any explanation as to how the suit can protect a human body from the force & momentum of such an impact. Therefore, being based on science, all rules in that movies universe are subject to the sciences of our own universe unless exceptions to those rules are elaborated upon.

Communication is the key.
Or with the Fridge in the last Indiana Jones movie....
Pluvia said:
SweetShark said:
What if the writer of his/her own Fantasy world don't want to explain how exactly a world work?
He/she want the audience to figure the rules by themself.
A really good example I have is the game "Yume Nikki".
The game literally never explain a A LOT OF THINGS about this specific world, but this doesn't stop the audiences to speculate possible theories for the game.

Sure, this will be very obscure for the audience, but for sure it will make it more interesting, don't you think?
People don't care if somethings explained, which is why techno-babble works, people just want it to be consistent.

A good example of this would be the healing in Lost. While on the island they heal from injuries in a matter of days, but in the entirety of the series this is acknowledged, what, two times in throwaway comments? Almost all the cast don't even notice they're healing far quicker than they should, and most of the audience wont notice either, but it's consistent. The moment they're off the island they heal from injuries at a normal rate, the suspension of disbelief is kept because the story doesn't break it's own rules.

I don't really get the point in this thread. I don't think even you know what you're talking about.
My point is why we can accept Flying Dragons and Time-Travel in movies/comics/books/etc and not "broken" rules of the universe that we think that it must necessary apply.

What if for example in a movie if someone shoot a person in the head don't die.
Sure, this would be wtf/weird/obscure as f*ck, but if this was actually a rules of its own universe, is doesn't matter.
 

JimB

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SweetShark said:
Why do we question the logic of some fantasy/sci-fi worlds we watch/read/play? Here's a specific example: Let's just say we watch a film that is about a medieval fantasy world full of dragons, animated skeletons, wizards using magic, impossible landscapes, etc. Most of the times we accept that, because magic, right? But when we see someone falling from a cliff and he survives, we immediately say, "Bullshit! This is not realistic. He should had died from this fall!"
We question the logic because a fiction is required to demonstrate to us how its laws of physics differ from those of the real world so we can understand them. If there's no greater set-up for "falling from enormous cliffs is not fatal in this world" than just watching it happen, then it comes off as lazy and forced.

I'm only speaking in generalities, of course. If you have a specific example we could discuss of that ever happening, I could perhaps offer a more useful answer.
 

SonOfVoorhees

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Pluvia said:
People don't complain as long as it doesn't break the rules of the universe.

Falling off a cliff in a world of dragons doesn't mean you can survive better than falling off a cliff in a world of instant global communication transmited through space.
But then people expect to take fire breath damage, stabbed, shot, bitten and more - one hit with a sword should mean dead. Or atleast major damage. Its just one of those weird things. For me if i survived a drop, say falling off a cliff and you do that slide down the cliff with a few bumps and a bit of damage. So i dont mind that.

To be honest, only stuff that i think should change is shooting an enemy and they keep coming at you. Regardless if they have 3 arrows sticking out of them. I would like arrows to the knee (pun intended. lol) to make the enemy slower. Or shooting their sword arm makes them unable to fight well. Head shot = death. Maybe they could have a hardcore mode where these rules apply to you. Like original Ghostrecon had one hit kills and you never risked rushing into fights.
 

PoolCleaningRobot

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No matter what exists in a made up world, everything has to follow a set rules. That's just how reality works :/

You can make whatever rules you want but if a fictional universe isn't consistent then then it's Deus Ex Machina and shitty writing

Edit: ok, so I just realized not every world needs to follow an important set rules but if you lay them out there, you gotta stick them. Fuck, this is hard to understand but it's not "ironic" to question a fictional universe's logic
 

Demongeneral109

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SweetShark said:
Pluvia said:
People don't complain as long as it doesn't break the rules of the universe.

Falling off a cliff in a world of dragons doesn't mean you can survive better than falling off a cliff in a world of instant global communication transmited through space.
The big error is we assume the rules of the universe work the same in every single Fantasy/Sci-Fi world we see and know.

Take for example the most Anime Action TV Shows we know.
Most of the heroes are like sh*t when they finish a fight.
But Do-Pe-Do, they are just fine after only a few day of rest.
[Naruto,Bleach, you name them...]

You get the idea.
There are certain established baselines that we assume are true depending on the genre of a story. Outside of things like healthbars and other game play elements, concepts like anime protagonists being able to get up from fatal injuries and other such oddities are considered standard tropes of the genre unless it is explicitly subverted. This is typically done by having the subversion occur early on in the work. An example might be if at the start of an anime, a character gets crippled and can no longer fight from an injury that the typical naruto/goku/ichigo style protagonist would recover from in an hour... this establishes that in this story, heros aren't made of iron as a rule of thumb. The problem comes when this isn't consistent without some kind of explanation. Like if you watch Dexter, then suddenly some dude shows up who can 1v1 goku and win... wouldn't you be shocked that such a thing happened? Here is another example.

Imagine you're playing a game where it is established that...*sigh* people die when they are killed. Think Fire Emblem or something similar. Now imagine that one of your characters dies...and is back in the next level without explanation. No particular reason, he's just there, back from the dead...when no one else has done so. That tends to be jarring because we have established that people 100% of the time stay dead... except for this guy. It violates the rules of the world that have been established. Thats why Aris' death in FF VII tends to irritate fans of the game(outside of people liking aris) We know that there is an item the revives those killed in combat 'phoenix downs' yet when Aris is killed Cloud doesn't use one to revive her. This goes against his characterization/development up until this point(loves aeris, doesn't want her to die) Most players have used at least one at this point, so its not like he doesn't know how to use one, and almost everyone has them in inventory eliminating that excuse. That violation of logic breaks immersion and kills suspension of disbelief

To make a great fantasy the world needs to run on consistant and reliable rules and every exception having a reason(Shirou's healing artifact in Fate/Stay Night for instance, or Touma's imagine breaker canceling supernatural powers in To aru Majutsu no Index...though that's kinda explained as a total mystery to everyone else in that world to... so its a known exception that baffles everyone in that world the same way we would react to gravity reversing for a single object in ours, which allows us to accept it.
 

Demongeneral109

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SonOfVoorhees said:
Pluvia said:
People don't complain as long as it doesn't break the rules of the universe.

Falling off a cliff in a world of dragons doesn't mean you can survive better than falling off a cliff in a world of instant global communication transmited through space.
But then people expect to take fire breath damage, stabbed, shot, bitten and more - one hit with a sword should mean dead. Or atleast major damage. Its just one of those weird things. For me if i survived a drop, say falling off a cliff and you do that slide down the cliff with a few bumps and a bit of damage. So i dont mind that.

To be honest, only stuff that i think should change is shooting an enemy and they keep coming at you. Regardless if they have 3 arrows sticking out of them. I would like arrows to the knee (pun intended. lol) to make the enemy slower. Or shooting their sword arm makes them unable to fight well. Head shot = death. Maybe they could have a hardcore mode where these rules apply to you. Like original Ghostrecon had one hit kills and you never risked rushing into fights.
As long as that applies to everyone its fine, its only if everyone dies in one hit then a super juggernaut appears for no reason and wrecks everyone's shit without an explanation or even anyone acting surprised that problems occur.
 

Demongeneral109

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PoolCleaningRobot said:
No matter what exists in a made up world, everything has to follow a set rules. That's just how reality works :/

You can make whatever rules you want but if a fictional universe isn't consistent then then it's Deus Ex Machina and shitty writing

Edit: ok, so I just realized not every world needs to follow an important set rules but if you lay them out there, you gotta stick them. Fuck, this is hard to understand but it's not "ironic" to question a fictional universe's logic
Aaaand, you nailed it, thats the essence of the answer to this thread.
 

Dr. Cakey

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SweetShark said:
My point is why we can accept Flying Dragons and Time-Travel in movies/comics/books/etc and not "broken" rules of the universe that we think that it must necessary apply.

What if for example in a movie if someone shoot a person in the head don't die.
Sure, this would be wtf/weird/obscure as f*ck, but if this was actually a rules of its own universe, is doesn't matter.
You could have someone be shot in the head and not die, sure. But that means everyone doesn't die when shot in the head (Or some other explanation. Like demons. Or unicorns.).

SweetShark said:
Or even movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Donnie Darko, etc.
Good movies, they never explain nearly nothing.

Neon Evangelion, the ending.....one of the biggest WTF in Anime History.
But this TV show was awesome.
I have not seen 2001 or Donnie Darko - and seen but not played Yume Nikki - all of which I need to rectify. But Evangelion. When does Evangelion break the rules of its own universe?

SweetShark said:
You said earlier this is a big failure for the writer. Sure, if only apply to the heroes of a story.
What if these broken rules apply as well to anyone?
What if the bad guy also is super powerfull and only got kill after 2000 stabs or hits?
What if a small child survived a big fall from cliff?
And you know what? These specific examples happens a lot.
Sure, not the best writting, but at least the "broken" rules of universe of a Fantasy/Sci-Fi world apply for everyone.
Yes. That's the point. The rules apply to everyone. Because that's...you know...how universal laws work. They apply to everyone.
 

darkstarangel

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SweetShark said:
darkstarangel said:
I think we tend to call bullshit if the exceptions to the rule aren't explained or demonstrated. When we see dragons it becomes appearent that dragons are apart of this universe because they arent in ours (as far as we know) but if someone takes a huge dive off a cliff & lands or hits the ground but brushes it off like a trip then we impose our understandings of this worlds rules onto the rules of the fantasy universe, unless it is explained that this is the case or demonstrated by everyone doing it like its a normal thing. Remember how the characters in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon just suddenly flew & glided all through out the movie? Thats because, despite there being no explanation, everyone did it & was casual about it. Not one person in the movie looked puzzled when they saw it, unlike everyone in the audience seeing it in the first scene it happened. If it just happened once in the film everyone would be like WTF was that?!

Unlike Iron Man. As much as I love these movies they are so filled with physics violations, such as the first suit Tony makes in the cave. He flies off into the air & suddenly lands smack bang right into the sand, without any injury or broken bones. The exception to the rule in these movies is the suit itself, functioning totally on science, but without any explanation as to how the suit can protect a human body from the force & momentum of such an impact. Therefore, being based on science, all rules in that movies universe are subject to the sciences of our own universe unless exceptions to those rules are elaborated upon.

Communication is the key.
Or with the Fridge in the last Indiana Jones movie....
Pluvia said:
SweetShark said:
What if the writer of his/her own Fantasy world don't want to explain how exactly a world work?
He/she want the audience to figure the rules by themself.
A really good example I have is the game "Yume Nikki".
The game literally never explain a A LOT OF THINGS about this specific world, but this doesn't stop the audiences to speculate possible theories for the game.

Sure, this will be very obscure for the audience, but for sure it will make it more interesting, don't you think?
People don't care if somethings explained, which is why techno-babble works, people just want it to be consistent.

A good example of this would be the healing in Lost. While on the island they heal from injuries in a matter of days, but in the entirety of the series this is acknowledged, what, two times in throwaway comments? Almost all the cast don't even notice they're healing far quicker than they should, and most of the audience wont notice either, but it's consistent. The moment they're off the island they heal from injuries at a normal rate, the suspension of disbelief is kept because the story doesn't break it's own rules.

I don't really get the point in this thread. I don't think even you know what you're talking about.
My point is why we can accept Flying Dragons and Time-Travel in movies/comics/books/etc and not "broken" rules of the universe that we think that it must necessary apply.

What if for example in a movie if someone shoot a person in the head don't die.
Sure, this would be wtf/weird/obscure as f*ck, but if this was actually a rules of its own universe, is doesn't matter.
But those rules need to be stipulated to be accepted by the audience. Because Fantasy worlds adopt a majority of our worlds elements, usually has humans, has gravity, people eat to live, weapons hurt etc, then the less distinct fantasy elements, like dragons or magic, need to be elaborated upon. (Spoiler warning) The Death = zombie rule in The walking dead needed to be explained to allow for the guy who became a zombie from a broken neck, where up until that point the rules Zombie bite/scratch = zombie were already established & accepted as the norm. Without that explanation the broken neck zombie wouldn't have made sense within the universe that had set up different rules earlier. Same with War of the worlds, if the explanation that it was our bacteria that killed the aliens wasn't given the ending wouldn't have made sense & be unfulfilling.

There are also inconsistencies between characters & the universe they're in. Why would someone shoot somebody in the head if it was common knowledge it wouldn't hurt anyone? And why would they be surprised that it didn't? Further more, if head shots dont kill but shots anywhere else on the body did then that would cause the audience to think "So he can take a bullet to the brain but not in the stomach? Bulls**t!".

Also, I think the fridge in Indiana Jones was a better example. Unlike Iron man theres no 'advanced technology' to be used as an excuse to brush it off.
 

DudeistBelieve

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A dirty secret about me is that I love the Harry Potter universe. I'll probably read the books one day. An ex made me watch the movies, and I loved them. And I loved them because I hated them.

I can't stand watching fantasy movies. Swords and elves, I can tolerate. I just can't stand magic.

Cause what the fuck is magic other than science? But rarely do I find a fantasy book that explains their magic the way a superhero comic explains where the hero got their power from.

Like how does magic work in the Harry Potter universe? Fuck if I know! They just wave wands and spout bullshit, and I don't understand why they can do it but Wizards can not other than genetics. People ***** about Star Wars midochlorians, but at least that makes some sort of logical sense. Why can only these people do this amazing thing? Well theres something genetically different about them. They're mutants. Well all right then.

I also can't stand? Initially I believed the magic world of Harry Potter existed in it's own little pocket dimension. It doesn't, it's integrated with our own universe. So why the fuck doesn't Hogwarts and people flying on broomsticks pop up on google fucking earth? People go "Oh well it's protected by magic!" Bullllll fucking shit, how the hell can they have protection against muggle tech when they don't even know the technology we do have??? Fucking Ron Weasley's pap was pleasently surprised we had a fucking automobile!!!!

I also ask, why can't they use guns? Again the whole "well muggle tech doesn't work..." like, look, I can buy an Ipod not working around magic. Some how the bullshit fucks with circuit boards and electricity. I get it. But telling me a gun doesn't work in that universe, then you're telling me basic fucking chemical reactions don't work. By that logic, Harry Potter whole body should just collapse when he's around magic because the nuerons in his body can't send signals to his muscles. Why the fuck wouldn't gun powder work? A gun is mechanical to boot! Does a rope and pulley not fucking work around magic either? What about a baseball bat?

I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but NONE of this fucking bullshit in harry potter makes sense.

I also spend a lot of time watching those movies thinking.... These fucking cunts, these fucking wizards think they're so much better than us normies? Like hey jerkoffs, we made picture frames that can show movies too. You got a little water fountain you can put memories inside? We got fucking iphones! they hold a 1,000 songs, records video/audio, makes phonecalls, it's a source of infinite knowledge, and you can play angry birds on it.

They make a fucking swiveling staircase. How fucking inconvient is that over a plain normal stair case? What if your in a hurry you gotta wait for the fucking thing to swing all the way back around? Whats the point of that? Who the hell wants to eat under floating lit candles? The fucking candlewax will get everywhere!

Ohhhhh and the entire fucking time, they're making up bullshit like if Voldemort had one he would of taken over. Bullshit, these Wizards are so assbackwards and condecending to humanity we'd kick their asses in a straight conflict fight to the finish. Ohhhhh gonna wave pointy stick at me? Well catch this! It's a bear grenade! PULL THE TRIGGER AND RUN CAUSE YOU'RE ABOUT TO BE COVERED IN BEAR MEAT *****!!!!!

Yeah.... There is no truth in the harry potter art.
 

Funyahns

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I consider any fantasy that is not based with rules to be bad. Like magical fire can be made with magic, but should behave like fire. Dragons! Great, as long there is a good reason for why they work and how they breath fire. Because Magic! is the worst thing in fantasy
 

DoPo

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SaneAmongInsane said:
I also ask, why can't they use guns? Again the whole "well muggle tech doesn't work..."
Erm, they can use guns. Where did it say they can't? It's more of they just don't use them, rather than being unable to. I'm not even sure if a lot of the wizards even know what a gun is, seeing how they are so ignorant of the muggle world. Even then, Harry Potter is set in the UK - a place not really known for shoveling guns on the streets.
 

kickyourass

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It's not quite a matter of 'logic' it's more a matter of internal logic.

Most people will accept a huge range of impossible things as long as they're explained at least a little, or it follows the internal rules of that universe. If it's established why someone managed to survive, say, falling off a cliff, it's MUCH easier to accept that it can happen. Even saying simply "He had a magic ring of Not-Splattering-Against-the-Ground" is acceptable if that character is actually wearing a ring before hand and you establish that magic like that exists in this story.

Even if magic DOES exist in the world of the story, we generally understand how human bodies work, you can usually bend the rules a little because no one expects 100% realism. But if you blatantly break them you had better have a very good reason that lines up with the rules you have already established or people will call bullshit on you.
 

DudeistBelieve

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DoPo said:
SaneAmongInsane said:
I also ask, why can't they use guns? Again the whole "well muggle tech doesn't work..."
Erm, they can use guns. Where did it say they can't? It's more of they just don't use them, rather than being unable to. I'm not even sure if a lot of the wizards even know what a gun is, seeing how they are so ignorant of the muggle world. Even then, Harry Potter is set in the UK - a place not really known for shoveling guns on the streets.
When I'd talk to Pot-Heads (he he he) growing up, that was always their default response. The tech don't work.

I'm fully aware that the Wizard world wouldn't know what the fuck a gun is. All the more puzzling why Harry doesn't come to this conclusion. He spends a good chunk of change hanging out here. Why he doesn't think to acquire one on a xenophobe like Voldemort is beyond me.

But then people say "Well then the story would of been anticlimatic." and the english major glande on the back of my neck flares up.
 

Torrasque

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There is a difference between, "we can't explain this" / "it would take way too long to explain this" / "explaining this would kind of ruin the atmosphere" and "you should know how this works, but it isn't like that in our universe".

For example:
In most shooters, head shots are critical damage multipliers and usually lead to 1-shot kills. This is because the head is the most vital area of the body and in real life, if you get shot in the head, you're almost guaranteed death.
This is an example of game rules making sense because of real life rules. There's also a case of "getting head shots is hard" but I don't care about that argument at the moment.
In those same shooters, if you shoot someone in the heart or the chest with a high powered rifle, they will probably be damaged a whole lot, but they usually won't die (excluding 1-shot kill guns). You can also shoot someone enough times in the foot or a really un-vital area of the body, and this will translate into X damage done = death.
You can argue, "well if you get your foot shot off, you will die of blood loss" or "if you have your foot shot off, you are so overcome with pain and the inability to walk, that you cannot fight anymore" or something else. Whatever you argue, the point remains, game rules kind of make sense because of real life rules, but only so much that the game is still fun and balanced.

I would love to play a game that rewarded accuracy and had accurate damage portrayal, shooting someone in the arm doing little "damage" but shooting them in the heart doing as much damage as a head shot, but at the same time, I know that a mechanic like this would also reward blind luck and make me rage at those people that spray and pray.

TL;DR: the rules of a game universe can be whatever the creators want it to be, but if 2+2=5 in that universe, it's hard to turn a blind eye.