History Main / SpaceWhaleAesop

When done wrong, it defies all logic and muddles the connection it has with the action itself. Often, how well it comes off depends on how close you're looking and (if the consequences are still unknown) what you believe.

This is pretty common when used with GreenAesop as consequences of poor environmentalism tends to result in GaiasVengeance. Similarly tends to overlap with AbusiveAdvertising if the message is "Buy our product or you'll meet with a grisly end somehow." A SpoofAesop can happen when the author is more interested in the space whale than the Aesop.

A CluelessAesop can be similar, as it is about inherent limitations in trying to present a moral argument in a limited or restricted presentation. An anti-vigilante moral doesn't quite work in a {{superhero}} universe where vigilantes are celebrated and world-ending disasters can only be stopped by them. Complex issues such as homelessness or personal security can't be given a proper analysis in an hour long action-adventure show.

[[Administrivia/TropesAreTools This is not necessarily an indefensible trope.]] If your purpose is to both teach the audience a highly applicable lesson ''and'' to entertain them with a fantastic scenario, then a Space Whale Aesop is probably the best way to go. And speaking about entertainment, RuleOfFunny may also be a huge factor in some more complicated cases. Also, sometimes you just can't fit the realistic consequences of an action into a twenty-three-minute episode or a 120-minute film, so you need to speed things up a bit. It also helps if the fantastic consequences can be interpreted as a ''metaphor'' for the realistic ones rather than trying to portray a real-world result.

** Basically, an entire ad campaign based on this trope combined with ForWantOfANail.

* ''[[Characters/DCComicsLobo Lobo: I Quit]]'' is another deliberate example played as comedy. Shortly after Jonas Glim lectures Lobo on the dangers of his constant smoking, Lobo gains a wheezing cough and a shadow on his chest X-ray, suggesting not even his healing factor can keep up with the damage he's doing. At the end of the issue, Lobo has completely cured himself of his habit, a fed-up Jonas slugs him in the stomach for accidentally punching him--and Lobo coughs up [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext the harmonica he swallowed in an earlier fight with a street gang dressed as a Salvation Army band]]; turns out he never had cancer in the first place, to which he promptly celebrates by smoking the tobacco the rest of the gang was smuggling. The moral can best be summed up as "Smoking is bad for you, unless you're the Main Man".

* ''Series/TheXFactor'' also has this trope applying to it [[https://web.archive.org/web/20101009120209/http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/156897/X-FACTOR-KATIE-S-NAKED-VID/ as seen here.]] Probably the biggest Space Whale Aesop the show has given out as a message--become a contestant and have your dirty laundry [[BleachedUnderpants literally launched into the limelight]].

* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'': [[spoiler:Hey, don't overpopulate or pollute the planet or else a magma monster representing the will of the planet will mutate all of the planet's animals to kill all of us]]! Ultimately averted though. [[spoiler:Turns out the Gohma were created by Chakravartin, the creator God of the universe, to train the deities, and specifically Asura, to become the new God of Gaia. Pollution had nothing to do with it.]]

* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' has a [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=598 chapter]] that seems to be leading up to an aesop about [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=610 treating others the way you'd want to be treated,]] but instead it ends with [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=632 this]]:

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E5TheUnderwaterMenace "The Underwater Menace"]] has a ScriptWank where the Atlantean chief decides that religion and superstition was what got them into the state where they were following an ObviouslyEvil MadScientist, and decrees the temple should be buried and a new age of enlightenment should follow... "without gods. [[BreadEggsMilkSquick And without fish-people]]."

* The [[Creator/ECComics E.C. horror comics]] frequently used this trope to demonstrate the consequences of many immoral acts, ranging from "Don't screw your business partners" (or when you try to escape to South America, your plane will become trapped in the web of a GiantSpider), to "Don't cheat on your wife" (because when she and your mistress find out about each other, they may decapitate you and use your head for a bowling ball and your eyeballs for golf balls), to "Don't murder your spouse" (he or she will come back from the dead some time later and murder you back).

* ''ComicBook/UncannyAvengers'' gives us "Don't be racist or else giant men from space will appear and blow up the Earth." Odin even gives [[Characters/TheMightyThorThorOdinson his son]] an extended speech about how while the Celestials pulled the trigger, it was ultimately humanity's own inability to stop fighting over petty differences that caused them to deem us a "failed experiment." Though there were a few extenuating circumstances, such as one of those giant men having been murdered by a human mutant was what kicked off the crisis.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E150StopoverInAQuietTown Stopover in a Quiet Town]]" has Creator/RodSerling delivering one of the most hilarious space whale aesops ever, in the smirking, self-aware tone that only he can. The episode deals with a married couple who awaken after a drunken car crash and gradually realize that [[spoiler:they've been abducted from Earth and are now being kept as pets inside a giant alien child's model town]]. Sterling was ''very fond'' of the IronicHell.

** Thumb-sucking summons up a scissors-wielding tailor who [[{{Fingore}} snips off the offending digits]]; fussy eating habits result in death by starvation; and going out in a rainstorm to play leads to being hurled away to your doom by a sudden gust of wind. There is also a girl who ends up as a pile of ashes after playing with matches despite admonitions from her parents and her two pet cats. And many similar.

* In ''VideoGame/CassetteBeasts,'' Felix's personal quest teaches that creatives [[OldShame shouldn't be embarrassed of their old work; even if it's not up to your current standards, it still laid the grounds for your current skills]]. Because if you don't, [[spoiler:when your work [[ArtInitiatesLife comes to life]] and hears you talking smack about her, she'll be driven to do dangerous things to try and impress you before she eventually [[RageAgainstTheAuthor tries to kill you]].]]

* In ''VideoGame/CassetteBeasts,'' Felix's personal quest teaches that creatives [[OldShame shouldn't be embarrassed of their old work; even if it's not up to your current standards, it still laid the grounds for your current skills.]] Because if you don't, when your work [[ArtInitiatesLife comes to life]] and hears you talking smack about her, she'll be driven to do dangerous things to try and impress you before she eventually [[RageAgainstTheAuthor tries to kill you.]]

* ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' has Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader, go through the events of the film clearly not getting enough sleep. As such a common fan moral of the film, the importance of getting your proper amounts of sleep, gets mixed with the events of film to create the ''somewhat'' over the top lesson of 'If you don't get eight hours of sleep, you won't make good decisions, the evil space wizard will win, you'll murder children and your wife, and then you will fall in lava.'

This trope should not be confused with FantasticAesop. The Fantastic Aesop promotes or discourages a course of action which can't even be ''attempted'' in the real world (e.g. "[[Literature/PetSematary Never use black magic to resurrect your dead dog]]") by showing a reasonably plausible (in the fictional world) set of consequences ("Poor beloved Tropey CameBackWrong"). The Space Whale Aesop promotes or discourages a course of action which ''can'' be attempted in RealLife ("don't perform nuclear tests") by showing ''consequences'' that strain credibility ("radiation from the tests will awaken [[Franchise/{{Godzilla}} a giant monster]] that destroys Tokyo") instead of a more realistic but not quite as dramatic example [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmvbjcmyKGo ("it can burn whole buildings if someone is careless").]]

Overlaps with GaiasVengeance if the intended message is an [[GreenAesop environmental one]], which it often is. Overlaps with SpoofAesop when the author is more interested in the space whale than the Aesop. Overlaps with AbusiveAdvertising if the message is "Buy our product or you'll meet with a grisly end somehow."

* ''VideoGame/BioShock1'': Be wary of Objectivism, or else your society will be overrun with mutated zombies.

* ''{{VideoGame/Bioshock}}'': Completely unregulated Objectivist capitalism is all fun and games until someone discovers that sea slug goo, processed through the stomachs of little girls who've been converted to creepy glowy-eyed bloodsucking freaks, can give people the power to shoot bees from their hands but also turns them into superstrong homicidal mutant addicts, and you'll be forced to sacrifice your ideals, become a tyrannical dictator, and command your [[spoiler:artificially-aged brainwashed offspring to murder you just to really underline the drama of your final speech]].