Have you ever picked up a work by a creator who claims (or strongly implies) that his writing is based on thorough and careful research, only to discover what you are actually holding is a steaming pile of lazy assumptions or outright lies?
Congratulations, you've been Dan Browned.
Some authors and writers will admit that they take advantage of
Acceptable Breaks from Reality, the
Rule of Cool, the
Rule of Funny, or any of the other
Rules of Whatever. Some acknowledge freely that
Reality Is Unrealistic, and admit that it affects the choices they make in their works. And the audience, in turn, will forgive a
Necessary Weasel or two as long as the story is engaging and the contradictions aren't too egregious.
Not these guys. They claim that their work is carefully researched and entirely accurate; with the exception of some fictionalized elements which will be obvious to the reader, what they offer is as factual as the encyclopedia.
Why they do this varies: perhaps a work which they can call nonfiction seems more serious than a work of fiction, or it will attract a "better" readership, or it will increase the author's standing among "real" experts in history, geology, religious studies, etc. Perhaps it's some kind of
Stealth Parody on the chosen media in general, seeing how far our
sociopathicTrolling Creator can get away with presenting lies as facts. Or perhaps it's to cover the fact that they have not done any research at all, and
Refuge in Audacity is less humiliating than admitting the truth* .
Some genres and media tend to be free from Dan Browning by their very nature. Comic books, cartoons, manga and anime very rarely make claims of authenticity. Advertising examples are rare, largely because of truth-in-advertising laws; companies are allowed to make all sorts of claims about their products as long as they avoid making clear statements of fact.
Named after (
of course)
Dan Brown, who (as the page quote should make painfully clear) is rather fond of asserting that most of the stuff that goes into his
thrillers is actually true.
Even though it's child's play to find errors of fact in them.
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