The characters the story is written about do. The people living in it that the main character doesn't even interact with don't. Nobody cares about salaryman #97543784 who, at the beginning and end of the story is still pushing pencils but maybe reads about an office explosion in the news.

This is true of any work of fiction. People in works of fiction - at least works of sci-fi or fantasy adventure - are typically more risk taking because that's interesting to a reader/audience and the author knows this.