a common misconception about realism
A complaint I often see people have about media is how quickly everyone can turn on a “good” character. The narrative introduces us to this honor-roll student, or star athlete, or otherwise paragon of virtue and optimism, but as soon as anything starts to go awry the peoplein their life become suspicious of them. Suddenly everyone is leering and jeering and shouting accusations - seemingly out of nowhere.
While this is extremely jarring - both to us as the audience and to the character - I don’t actually think it’s unrealistic. The unfortunate truth is that we do not know those around us as well as we think we do, and this trope reflects that, both in the main character who is shocked by the doubt and resentment harbored by those around them, and in the side characters who acknowledged this truth (perhaps a bit too readily).
That said, I’m not surprised that people often regard this as unrealistic.
That is what would be more comfortable, isn’t it?