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People, it is impossible to drown in a bed.
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I think what you're really missing, though, is the handwavium!
What I'm missing is something that I seem to complain about a lot: internal logic.
I have no problem redefining rules and even creating a whole new logic system that will work within that world, but it has to work within that world.
No internal contradictions, no plot-crucial points going unexplained, and unless otherwise specified, the "real" rules hold.
Faster than light travel is an impossibility as far as we are concerned, but I have no problem with having it in my science fiction. What I do demand is that if you decide that your FTL system takes time travel from point A to point B, then make sure that those times make sense
within the confines of the story. A trip to Barnard's Star should take less time than a trip to Betelgeuse.
Similarly, women who somehow have a lake inside them and must have some part of their bodies being wet all the time in order to survive is fine. It fits the parameters of the story. But people magically drowning doesn't.
And (perhaps sadly) that kind of thing ruins an otherwise good story for me.
Let's see if I can come up with a good example......
Let's look back towards the end of the Trojan War, after Achilles had left the Achaeans' camp and the people of windy Illios had beat the pants off of them and Odysseus had been dispatched to see if Achilles might forgive Agamemnon.
What would have happened if Achilles had said "You're right old buddy old pal. I'm being petty and childish. What do I care if Agamemnon took what everybody else agreed would be mine? People are suffering and dying because of our squabbling! C'mon! Let's go and beat the togas off Hector and his pansy spearmen!"?
In the scope of the story Achilles is selfish and hot-headed and stubborn, and people die because of that and the only person who can change his mind is his mother. It is completely out of character for him to be reasonable, and totally out of character of the entire world population at the time to have such reasonable reasoning as "people are dying because of our stupidity".
That does not fit within Homer's world of The Iliad, and such a plot twist would ruin it for me.
I know it's not a perfect example because that deals with people's behavior and not simple science, but I think that most people will have read The Iliad and can relate to it.