History Main / AccidentalAesop

* ''WesternAnimation/RubyGillmanTeenageKraken'': The plot's second and third acts involve Ruby befriending Chelsea who's a mermaid despite what her Grandmother warned her about mermaids as a whole being inherently evil and openly being baffled that Ruby's mother, Agatha, didn't kill them all when the chance was present. Ruby and Chelsea find common ground as secretly lonely teenage girls and become "Super Sea Girl Besties" despite their on-paper differences and messy history between their people and so attempt a plan to help unify both kingdoms in the name of peace in the ocean so both of them could a live a life without a generational, inter-species war. [[spoiler: The fact that Chelsea is proven to be EvilAllAlong, is the evil mermaid queen Nerissa, and was only manipulating Ruby caused a sizable amount of viewers to notice the UnfortunateImplications of a film with a lovable family of misunderstood kraken immigrants having an unintended pro-xenophobia/peace is impossible/your family's prejudice protects you/you must inherit your family's race wars regardless of your own beliefs/your racist Grandma is right about the target of her racism no matter what moral in a kids film.]]

** While there are exceptions and times this doesn't work, generally not being an asshole is a viable strategy to last longer. If you do your tasks, are polite to others, refuse to vote on flimsy evidence and do your tasks, you are ''far'' less likely to be targeted by others and they will most likely take your word if you accuse someone. If you establish yourself as a reasonable, decently friendly person, earning people's trust becomes a lot easier.

* ''WesternAnimation/WallE'' is often interpreted as having a rather [[{{Anvilicious}} heavy-handed]] [[GreenAesop environmentalist]] or anti-consumerism message, but the director stated that there was not supposed to be any political message, and the setting was created to justify the story of "the last robot on Earth". Fred Willard also ad-libbed the line "Stay the course," causing some people to assume the film was commenting on the Bush administration.

* The series finale of ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' seems to have a [[{{Anvilicious}} heavy-handed]] [[LuddWasRight anti-technology]] [[AnAesop aesop]] that comes completely out of nowhere. Ron Moore admits in his podcast on the episode that this was simply a desperate last-minute attempt to explain [[spoiler:why none of the fleet's technology was discovered after they arrived on prehistoric Earth, and he didn't put much thought into any message that could be read into it]].

* ''Manga/BakiTheGrappler'': There's quite a few fighters in this series who have big egos and promptly taste defeat when they underestimate their opponents, inadvertently creating the aesop that "underestimating your opponent, even if they are "weaker" than you, is a surefire way to be defeated no matter how strong you think you are". The only exception to this trope is Yujiro, [[spoiler:and even he is humiliated extensively during Baki's final battle with him by failing to take his son seriously until the final minutes of the match]].

* WebVideo/HBomberguy, in his review of ''Film/TheRoom'', explains how he believes that the film is a close impression of how Creator/TommyWiseau saw an actual breakup. Lisa's characterization as a manipulative gold-digging harpy who cuts off her relationship ForTheEvulz and Johnny's as an IdealHero suffering from the senseless betrayals of everyone around him are pretty accurate to how a lot of people feel about their exes and themselves after a bad breakup. This means that the film (unintentionally) works very well as a statement about how bad relationships warp your perceptions, with the nonsense characterization, rampant misogyny, and RandomEventsPlot being a symptom of the fact that Wiseau's viewpoint wasn't healthy or accurate.

* ''Film/TheTrumanShow'': If someone you know is having a breakdown, don't belittle their feelings or put your material needs above them, or you'll make their problems worse and drive them out of your life. Meryl choosing to do ProductPlacement in the middle of a serious conversation finally destroys her "relationship" with Truman. If Meryl had chosen to put Truman's mental health above her own needs, or at least ''pretended too,'' she could've convinced him to stay in Seahaven.

** Tommy and Richard start out struggling to sell break pads thanks in large part to Tommy's inexperience, which is exacerbated by Richard's insults after each failed meeting. But once Richard offers Tommy genuine sales advice rather than snide insults, their working relationship improves considerably, and they become an excellent partnership. So, the lesson here may be that students finding it difficult to learn often respond better to positive reinforcement than negative reinforcement.
** Richard's DeadpanSnarker attitude may be [[JerkassHasAPoint justified]] toward [[FatIdiot Tommy]], but his lack of people skills and smug behavior toward almost everyone he meets prevents him from being a good salesman or having any friends despite his technical intelligence. Tommy may not be intellectually gifted, but his friendly persona, charm, and [[GuileHero eventual craftiness]] ultimately keep Callahan Auto from falling apart. [[HardWorkHardlyWorks Hard work doesn't matter]] if you act like smug {{Jerkass}} who puts other people down to the point of alienating them.

** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E13TheMasterpieceSociety The Masterpiece Society]]" features a colony that practices strict eugenics to create perfect people free of genetic weaknesses. As a blind man, Geordi bristles several times at the idea that the colony would have aborted him in utero. In the end, it's Geordi's vision prosthesis that provides the technology to save the colony. It's easy to see this as an aesop against abortion, particularly for reasons of genetic defects, but the showrunner Michael Pillar insists that this was not intentional, saying that most people on the production staff would have refused to work on a Pro-Life episode. Some people have also interpreted it as having a moral about disabled people, and how they shouldn't be looked down upon or seen as inferior.
** In "Force Of Nature", the interstellar civilization had almost collapsed just because a scientist had no alternate way to test his theory outside a "Science Council" which rejected it, leading to the aesop: "Monopoly is bad. Especially in science."

*** [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke Genetic engineering]] is shown as a viable technology in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' in the person of Julian Bashir. On the other hand, there's [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} the Jack Pack]] from the episode "Statistical Probabilities". Lesson: if you prohibit a form of medical treatment (genetic engineering in this case), people will go to {{back alley doctor}}s with possibly disastrous results.

* {{Genetic engineering|IsTheNewNuke}} is shown as a viable technology in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' in the person of Julian Bashir. On the other hand, there's the Jack Pack. Lesson: if you prohibit a form of medical treatment (genetic engineering in this case), people will go to {{back alley doctor}}s with possibly disastrous results.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** The episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E25TheNeutralZone The Neutral Zone]]" is about cryogenically frozen humans from the 20th Century coping with being awoken in the 24th. It's full of all sorts of [[{{Anvilicious}} heavy-handed dialogue]] about how superior humanity has become, and seems to be intended as a TakeThat to the audience. One character in particular, a financier, gets the worst of it. However, at the end, he gives Picard some vital insight into what his opponents, the Romulans, are thinking. This has the effect of implying that the 24th-century humans have become complacent and naive (the script was in the midst of revision when a Writer's Guild strike hit, so it's possible that it was going to be rewritten to be more in line with later episodes, where humanity is still quite flawed).

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBadGuys'': If you want to be excepted in society, turn yourself in to the same people that discriminationated you and made you turn to crime in the first place even though it prove to that same racist society that they were right about you the entire time and see you nothing more than a criminal for the rest of your life.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBadGuys'': If you want to be excepted in society, turn yourself in to the same people that discriminationated you and made you turn to crime in the first place even though it prove to that the same racist society that they were right about you the entire timr and see you nothing more than a criminal for the rest of your life.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBadGuys'': If you want to be excepted in society, turn yourself in to the same people that discriminationated you and made you turn to crime in the first place even though it prove to that the same racist society that they were right about you the entire timr and see you nothing more than a criminal for the rest of your life.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBadGuys'': If you want to be excepted in society, turn yourself in to the same people that discriminationated you and made you turn to crime in the first place even though it prove to that The same racist they were right about you all the time and never see nothing more than a criminal

* The ''[[Literature/TheHeatherWellsMysteries Heather Wells book Big Boned]]'' can easily be interpreted as having the message 'Do not ever date your teacher', even if both parties are well above legal age of consent. There always will be the power-imbalance in the relationship, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking he might force you into doing exercise]] or [[spoiler:could simply be using you to make it big in the Big Apple]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'': While it's great to have heroes who inspire you, never forget that your hero is just a real person doing a job and does not owe you any admiration in return. It is never right to interfere with their personal lives or threaten them and their families.

** The game's housing system and all its various dramas have been referred to as the most unintentionally accurate portrayal of the modern Real Estate market. Prior to 6.1, the [[ScrappyMechanic artificial scarcity]] of available housing locations was awarded on a first-come-first-serve basis. As a result? People employed the use of alternate accounts and bots to snipe houses the second they went up for sale - similar to how real-life investment firms and real estate moguls scoop up lots the second they become available. When 6.1 [[AuthorsSavingThrow added a lottery system to help cut down on sniping]], players started using alt accounts and Free Company members to stuff the lottery box in hopes of getting picked for the lot - mirroring how real life investment firms and [=AirBnB=] stack the market in their favour. When some people finally managed to get the lots, some proceeded to make the house of their dreams... while others {{Troll}}ed their neighbours by doing things like constructing hideous houses resembling [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMansion McMansions]], constructing [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spite_fence spite fences]], leaving their lot empty to taunt others, making their lot look like a garbage dump, or even getting into contests with the neighbours to try and outdo the other with their opulent and ostentatiou house. It wound up teaching a lot of people just how ''unfair'' and how ''broken'' the market truly is, and how people even use real estate to harass others.