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* ''TheAdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'' has Huck's undisputed CrowningMomentOfAwesome drop a much-needed anvil about standing up for what you believe and [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight doing the right thing]]. A slave named Jim, who is also Huck's friend, has been captured. Huck intends to go save him, but is told by doing so, he would condemn his soul to Hell. Huck [[ShutUpHannibal responds]] with "All right, I'll ''go'' to Hell, then!" What's especially awesome about it, and what makes it such a powerful anvil? Huck honestly believed he would go to Hell for rescuing Jim. ''[[YouAreWorthHell Huck does it anyway]].''
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* ''TheAdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'' has Huck's undisputed CrowningMomentOfAwesome drop a much-needed anvil about standing up for what you believe and [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight doing the right thing]]. A slave named Jim, who is also Huck's friend, a runaway slave named Jim, has been captured. Huck intends to go save him, but is told by doing so, - having grown up in a slave-owning society - he believes that helping Jim escape would be grand theft, and rescuing Jim would condemn his soul to Hell. Huck [[ShutUpHannibal responds]] with concludes,]] "All right, I'll ''go'' to Hell, then!" What's especially awesome about it, and what makes it such a powerful anvil? Huck honestly believed he would go to Hell for rescuing Jim. ''[[YouAreWorthHell Huck does it anyway]].''
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** ''TheEcho'' by J. Nagibin hammers in its anti-bullying message ("Bullying is bad. Siding with bullies is bad. Betraying trust is '''despicable'''") with the subtlety of an avalanche. Yet this is also what makes this story so important and standing out.
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* A lot of Dickens falls under this heading from ''[[AChristmasCarol A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas]]''. He gets away with his anvils because they're never based on the idea that [[ViewersAreMorons Readers Are Morons]] and need lessons in basic decency, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking they are always motivated by genuine passion, fury against real injustices, and a need to increase word count]]:
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* A lot of Dickens falls under this heading from ''[[AChristmasCarol ''[[Literature/AChristmasCarol A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas]]''. He gets away with his anvils because they're never based on the idea that [[ViewersAreMorons Readers Are Morons]] and need lessons in basic decency, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking they are always motivated by genuine passion, fury against real injustices, and a need to increase word count]]:
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** Since the book isn't widely available, here goes. The Anvil is ''blatantly'' about Middle Eastern geopolitics: the Palestinians are certainly more sympathetic, and the Israelis more arrogant in their greater power, but the simple fact is the Israelis are right. It's their home, their land, they're doing more for it, and they just haven't crossed enough [[MoralEventHorizon horizons]] to actually be wrong. But Palestinian radical groups and a Western world, especially the media, who love nothing more than vicariously living out a Glorious Struggle for Freedom through a puny people they consider as ants, simply are not ever going to give up. Like it or leave it.
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** Since the book isn't widely available, here goes. The Anvil is ''blatantly'' about Middle Eastern geopolitics: the Palestinians are certainly more sympathetic, and the Israelis more arrogant in their greater power, but the simple fact is the Israelis are right. It's their home, their land, they're doing more for it, and they just haven't crossed enough [[MoralEventHorizon horizons]] to actually be wrong. But Palestinian radical groups groups, a surrounding Arab region who make their money from oil sales to the West while using the Palestinians as unwilling pawns, and a Western world, especially the media, who love nothing more than vicariously living out a Glorious Struggle for Freedom through a puny people they consider as ants, simply are not ever going to give up. Like it or leave it.
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** Since the book isn't widely available, here goes. The Anvil is ''blatantly'' about Middle Eastern geopolitics: the Palestinians are certainly more sympathetic, and the Israelis more arrogant in their greater power, but the simple fact is the Israelis are right. It's their home, their land, they're doing more for it, and they just haven't crossed enough [[MoralEventHorizon horizons]] to actually be wrong. But Palestinian radical groups and a Western world, especially the media, who love nothing more than vicariously living out a Glorious Struggle for Freedom through a puny people they consider as ants, simply are not ever going to give up. Like it or leave it.
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* Norman Juster's ''ThePhantomTollbooth'' drops the learning-is-fun anvil pretty early on, and keeps picking it up and dropping it again. This strategy would not work if the book were not also ''funny as hell'' -- it reads like a combination of ShelSilverstein, JamesThurber, and DouglasAdams. Kudos to Norton Juster for also throwing in enough ParentalBonus moments to keep the book funny and relevant.
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* Norman Juster's ''ThePhantomTollbooth'' drops the learning-is-fun anvil pretty early on, and keeps picking it up and dropping it again. This strategy would not work if the book were not also ''funny as hell'' -- it reads like a combination of ShelSilverstein, JamesThurber, Creator/JamesThurber, and DouglasAdams. Kudos to Norton Juster for also throwing in enough ParentalBonus moments to keep the book funny and relevant.
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** Twain's ''Literature/ThePrinceAndThePauper'' is so much shorter in all its film incarnations because it cuts out a great number of instances of brutal medieval "justice": it was, at the time, a timely moral about the insanity of [[TheGildedAge a judicial system constructed entirely for the benefit of the wealthy.]]
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** Twain's ''Literature/ThePrinceAndThePauper'' is so much shorter in all its film incarnations because it cuts out a great number of instances of brutal medieval "justice": it was, at the time, a timely moral about the insanity of [[TheGildedAge a judicial system constructed entirely for the benefit of the wealthy.]]
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* Both of the most popular Stratemeyer Syndicate series were victims to this:
** NancyDrew was feminism delivered with all the subtlety of a Mardi Gras float. Nancy has constantly been under scrutiny for her MarySue tendencies and general perfectness. However, when the series began in 1930, feminism was still only just picking up steam. The books went a long way to in helping create the idea of women being smart, tough, resourceful, and capable.
** The HardyBoys had a strong anti-authority message initially (easily summed up in the idea that the brothers never listened when the police told them to back off and leave the detective work to them.) This was deliberate on the part of primary ghostwriter Leslie [=McFarlane=], who wanted to try to encourage independent thought in children, saying that cops and politicians can be just as crooked as anybody. Considering all the cases of political corruption and police brutality that have been reported on, it's not an entirely horrible belief to hold.
** NancyDrew was feminism delivered with all the subtlety of a Mardi Gras float. Nancy has constantly been under scrutiny for her MarySue tendencies and general perfectness. However, when the series began in 1930, feminism was still only just picking up steam. The books went a long way to in helping create the idea of women being smart, tough, resourceful, and capable.
** The HardyBoys had a strong anti-authority message initially (easily summed up in the idea that the brothers never listened when the police told them to back off and leave the detective work to them.) This was deliberate on the part of primary ghostwriter Leslie [=McFarlane=], who wanted to try to encourage independent thought in children, saying that cops and politicians can be just as crooked as anybody. Considering all the cases of political corruption and police brutality that have been reported on, it's not an entirely horrible belief to hold.
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** Although it should be noted that since the mother was comforting Alexander at the time, the anvil is phrased more along the lines of "some days are just like that, honey."
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* ''Peter Pan'' (the original book, anyway) drops two anvils: first, when we grow up, if we forget our childhoods we'll forget important qualities along with them (like awe and wonder at the world, for example). But second, if we never grow up, we'll miss out on important adult pleasures, like the love between husband and wife that Peter Pan will never enjoy.
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** A fifth Anvil concerns how people treat others and how powerful that can be toward how they treat you. When Frankenstein's monster is abandoned by his creator and he (the monster) starts wandering about, he is at first a shy, gentle creature. It' sonly when he's treated with fear and revulsion by the townspeople he encounters that he starts to become a fearsome, ferocious, hateful creature.
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* ''TheSwordOfTruth'' is a DoorStopper twelve-book series of AuthorFilibuster from the fourth book on, about the evils of extreme Socialism and of the importance of individual rights and freedom. Although the D'Haran Empire under Richard is no less of an autocracy than the Imperial Order, it is one guided by a firm sense of individual liberty championing the idea that every individual should be the best that they can be, and should be free to benefit based on the effort they put in and the skills they possess, and how this benefits society as a whole. By contrast, people under the Imperial Order are living in absolute squalor, and there is a fear of being anything more than mediocre to avoid rising above anyone else and drawing undue attention and punishment from those in power.
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* ''TheSwordOfTruth'' is a DoorStopper twelve-book series of AuthorFilibuster from the fourth book on, about the evils of extreme Socialism and of the importance of individual rights and freedom. Although the D'Haran Empire under Richard is no less of an autocracy than the Imperial Order, it is one guided by a firm sense of individual liberty championing the idea that every individual should be the best that they can be, and should be free to benefit based on the effort they put in and the skills they possess, and how this benefits society as a whole. By contrast, people under the Imperial Order are living in absolute squalor, and there is a fear of being anything more than mediocre to avoid rising above anyone else and drawing undue attention and punishment from those in power.power, and how this drags down all of society with it.
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* ''TheSwordOfTruth'' is a DoorStopper twelve-book series of AuthorFilibuster from the fourth book on, about the evils of extreme Socialism and of the importance of individual rights and freedom. Although the D'Haran Empire under Richard is no less of an autocracy than the Imperial Order, it is one guided by a firm sense of individual liberty championing the idea that every individual should be the best that they can be, and should be free to benefit based on the effort they put in and the skills they possess, and how this benefits society as a whole. By contrast, people under the Imperial Order are living in absolute squalor, and there is a fear of being anything more than mediocre to avoid rising above anyone else and drawing undue attention and punishment from those in power.
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Holy crap: Black Beauty is a justification of child labour, slavery, and servitude. Its moral has zero to do with animals!!!
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* ''BlackBeauty'': "Treat animals kindly." Well, that's all well and good, but unless you've seen some of the true horrors people put their animals through (and not just horses, but also dogs, cats, birds, and ''anything'' [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman that isn't a human being]]), you can't possibly appreciate how often this anvil needs to be dropped. (Anna Sewell also made the brilliant choice to make at least one of Beauty's owners not a bad guy, but ignorant about how to care for a horse. There's another much-needed anvil: "Learn how to care for an animal before you make it part of your life.")
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** ''Horton Hears a Who'' is just as anvilicious. And ridiculously necessary, considering the simplicity of the message.
-->A person's a person, no matter how small.
-->A person's a person, no matter how small.
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** ''Horton Hears a Who'' is just as anvilicious. And ridiculously necessary, considering the simplicity of the message.
-->Amessage: "A person's a person, no matter how small." Unfortunately for Dr. Seuss, the meaning turned out not to be ridiculously obvious, as he found to his horror when it was stolen by the pro-life movement - a movement that he utterly and completely ''loathed''.
-->A
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*** Though not ''completely'' integrated: women don't serve in Rico's branch of the military (the Mobile Infantry.) It ''is'' made explicit that most of the best pilots in the Space Navy are women, and Heinlein evidently believed that women should be able to serve in roles that didn't require getting up close in the enemy's face: in another novel, he opines that there wasn't a single job in the US Navy that couldn't be done just as well by a woman (or a eunuch, for that matter.)
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* PleaseStopLaughingAtMe. There is nothing "normal" about bullying, and the consequences for the recipients are serious. Author Jodee Blanco even states at the end of the preface that so many people see it as an exaggeration, and that the only ones who truly recognize it for what it is are those who've been through it. This book took only two days to become a bestseller, and is now a required part of many schools' curriculum.
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* ''GulliversTravels'' as a tract against human self-importance in general, and English society in particular. And, of course, the final anvil dropped in that book -- that misanthropy isn't always a good attitude to take toward the failings of humankind.
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* ''GulliversTravels'' ''Literature/GulliversTravels'' as a tract against human self-importance in general, and English society in particular. And, of course, the final anvil dropped in that book -- that misanthropy isn't always a good attitude to take toward the failings of humankind.
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----
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Return to SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped.
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** ''The Butter Battle Book,'' is about the Cold War arms race, of all things.
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** ''The Butter Battle Book,'' Book'' is about the Cold War arms race, of all things.
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** In general VictorHugo was the master of this. Another favourite anvil of his told how cruel the death sentence is, done in TheLastDayOfACondemnedMan . And it won't leave you for a long, long time.
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** In general VictorHugo Creator/VictorHugo was the master of this. Another favourite anvil of his told how cruel the death sentence is, done in TheLastDayOfACondemnedMan . And it won't leave you for a long, long time.
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* TheRulesOfSurvival not only shows the horrors of child abuse but also makes a clear point; people need to step in and help rather than ignore it until it's too late.
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* In ''TheLovelyBones'', the main character is Susie Salmon, a young girl who was raped and murdered. Posthumously, she longs to have her life back. It isn't until she and her family accept things as they are that they can finally live in peace again. It really drives home the aesop that bad things will happen to you, but you must come to terms that it happened, and you must carry on as best you can, live in the moment, and don't dwell on past grievances.
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* In ''TheLovelyBones'', ''Literature/TheLovelyBones'', the main character is Susie Salmon, a young girl who was raped and murdered. Posthumously, she longs to have her life back. It isn't until she and her family accept things as they are that they can finally live in peace again. It really drives home the aesop that bad things will happen to you, but you must come to terms that it happened, and you must carry on as best you can, live in the moment, and don't dwell on past grievances.
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* ''TheAdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'': "All right. I'll ''go'' to hell, then." Called the greatest phrase ever in American literature for a reason.
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* ''TheAdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'': ''TheAdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'' has Huck's undisputed CrowningMomentOfAwesome drop a much-needed anvil about standing up for what you believe and [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight doing the right thing]]. A slave named Jim, who is also Huck's friend, has been captured. Huck intends to go save him, but is told by doing so, he would condemn his soul to Hell. Huck [[ShutUpHannibal responds]] with "All right. right, I'll ''go'' to hell, then." Called Hell, then!" What's especially awesome about it, and what makes it such a powerful anvil? Huck honestly believed he would go to Hell for rescuing Jim. ''[[YouAreWorthHell Huck does it anyway]].''
** In short, it's called the greatest phrase ever in American literature for a reason.
** In short, it's called the greatest phrase ever in American literature for a reason.
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* ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': The nature of the Universe, including whether there's any creator or meaning behind it, is pretty much unknowable, and the best thing to do is not worry about it and do what makes you happy.
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* ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': The nature of the Universe, including whether there's any creator or meaning behind it, is pretty much unknowable, and the best thing to do is not worry about it and do what makes you happy.happy.
----
----
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* Though all of Creator/AynRand's novels are {{Anvilicious}}, the unsubtle political messages in ''We The Living'' come off more acceptably than those in her later works, because it targets Russian Communists rather than generic StrawmanPolitical equivalents.
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* Though all of Creator/AynRand's novels are {{Anvilicious}}, for some people the unsubtle political messages in ''We The Living'' come off more acceptably than those in her later works, because it targets Russian Communists rather than generic StrawmanPolitical equivalents.
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--> ''I have also told them not to work for companies that make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.''
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--> ''I have also told them not to work for companies that make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.''''
* ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': The nature of the Universe, including whether there's any creator or meaning behind it, is pretty much unknowable, and the best thing to do is not worry about it and do what makes you happy.
* ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': The nature of the Universe, including whether there's any creator or meaning behind it, is pretty much unknowable, and the best thing to do is not worry about it and do what makes you happy.
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namespace thing Changed, yeah!
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* ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' by RobertAHeinlein drops anvils about military service.
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* ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' by RobertAHeinlein Creator/RobertAHeinlein drops anvils about military service.
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* ''TheAdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'': "All right. I'll ''go'' to hell, then." Called the greatest phrase ever in American literature for a reason.
* ''{{Night}}'' by Elie Wiesel: The Holocaust happened, and we have to come to terms with that. It was a dark mark on human history that should never be repeated. Real human beings with feelings were slaughtered for no reason other than their heritage. Genocide is bad. It cannot happen again.
* Margaret Atwood's ''TheHandmaidsTale'' -- a sci-fi fable about patriarchal society and religious fundamentalism -- is about as subtle as a high-velocity cinder block, but has a highly influential and important message.
* ''TheRisingOfTheMoon'' by Flynn Connolly, in which an Irish woman returns to Ireland after having spent fifteen years in self-imposed exile so that she could teach actual Irish history instead of [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory the redacted version authorized by the government]]. Anvils include, but are not limited to, "Freedom of Religion," "Freedom Isn't Free," "Equal Rights," "Sexism Works Both Ways," "One Person Can Make a Difference," "Those Who Cannot Remember the Past," etc.
* Literature/{{Empire}}, by OrsonScottCard, is not the least bit subtle about the problems of the current political system in the United States. The bad guys aren't "the Democrats" or "the Republicans." It's not the right or the left, it's a few people ''at the top'' on both sides, with extremist views, who could pull everyone else along with them into a second civil war. (And the unanswered question posed by the ending is even creepier...)
** ''EndersGame'' also rejects subtlety and symbolism, and is all the better for it.
* A lot of Dickens falls under this heading from ''[[AChristmasCarol A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas]]''. He gets away with his anvils because they're never based on the idea that [[ViewersAreMorons Readers Are Morons]] and need lessons in basic decency, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking they are always motivated by genuine passion, fury against real injustices, and a need to increase word count]]:
--> ''"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."''
* Creator/CharlesDickens's ''OliverTwist'' is the book responsible for abolishing workhouses as a placeholder for orphans. Who can forget the iconic "Please, sir, I want some more!" scene?
* BenElton's ''High Society'' makes some very important points about the harm created by drug prohibition and the power wielded by sensationalist tabloid media, and still manages to be a thoroughly entertaining read.
* The novel ''Literature/{{Momo}}'' by Creator/MichaelEnde. The book's message about how we need to make time for each other and all the things we love in our lives is ''really'' obvious -- and you couldn't imagine the book being nearly as good without it.
* ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' by RobertAHeinlein drops anvils about military service.
** "If you want to participate as a citizen, you have to serve your country, up to and including ''being prepared to'' quite literally fight, even die, for the privilege. And it ''is'' a privilege, not a right."
** Also, an [[BadassArmy all-volunteer army that's well trained,]] [[PoweredArmor well equipped]], and [[NoOneGetsLeftBehind knows the value of the individuals that serve in it]] trumps an army that treats its infantry [[RedShirtArmy like so many potatoes to be thrown at enemies]], even if the latter greatly outnumbers the former. Basically, if your idea of troop management is "[[BadBoss let 'em die like pigs]], WeHaveReserves", [[WhatMeasureIsAMook then those "reserves"]] [[MookFaceTurn are going to]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere run out]] [[VillainBall a lot sooner than you think]]... [[LaserGuidedKarma and you are going to]] ''[[KarmicDeath deserve]]'' [[HoistByHisOwnPetard to be]] [[HumiliationConga screwed over]] [[SenselessSacrifice once that happens]].
** Another perspective taken is that Heinlein, who was not especially pro-military, took the morally-brightest example of a militarized society (the Terran Federation) and compared them to the worst example possible (the bugs). The anvil falls from the comparison between the two.
** There's also the Anvil that "violence never solves anything" is wishful thinking. Yes, it ''is'' preferable and best that you look for a non-violent solution to any given problem. But at the same time, sometimes that simply ''isn't going to work''. Insisting on avoiding ''any'' violence once it's clear that a compromise can't be reached is dangerous in itself.
** Lastly, there are two aesops regarding sexism and racism. ''Johnny Rico'' is ''Juan'' Rico and his girlfriend Carmen is an officer and a pilot, trying to demonstrate an integrated service being the ideal.
* ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' wouldn't have been half as effective if Aldous Huxley had been even the least bit subtle.
* Norman Juster's ''ThePhantomTollbooth'' drops the learning-is-fun anvil pretty early on, and keeps picking it up and dropping it again. This strategy would not work if the book were not also ''funny as hell'' -- it reads like a combination of ShelSilverstein, JamesThurber, and DouglasAdams. Kudos to Norton Juster for also throwing in enough ParentalBonus moments to keep the book funny and relevant.
* Harper Lee's ''ToKillAMockingbird.'' Enough said.
-->''"Atticus, he was real nice..." His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them." He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.''
* ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' and ''AnimalFarm'', both by Creator/GeorgeOrwell. If these books weren't overblown, they wouldn't be nearly as effective in conveying how truly fragile and precious the ideal of freedom really is.
** The chief Anvil in both is about individuality versus conformity and the important of holding onto the truth that's right in front of your eyes. As long as you have that, you are still free, no matter what anyone else does to you.
* Creator/TerryPratchett's YoungAdult ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels drop anvils labeled "take personal responsibility" so often you think you're being attacked by an anvil-wielding 82nd Airborne. But it works.
* Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' drops the anvil that humans need to learn stories when they're young -- that they ''need'' to believe in silly things like SantaClaus and the tooth fairy, so that when they get older, they can believe in other things that don't exist without people believing in them and acting on them -- like Justice, Mercy, Duty, and that sort of thing.
* Though all of Creator/AynRand's novels are {{Anvilicious}}, the unsubtle political messages in ''We The Living'' come off more acceptably than those in her later works, because it targets Russian Communists rather than generic StrawmanPolitical equivalents.
** The same qualifies for Howard Roark's AuthorTract at the end of ''The Fountainhead''. Regardless of whether you agree with its content, it's passionately written, very moving, and completely devoid of subtlety. It helps that it appears in a context where one would expect to hear (and to listen respectfully) to a passionate speech appealing to universal principles and a sense of justice: [[spoiler:the end of a criminal trial.]]
%% * JohnSteinbeck's ''Literature/TheGrapesOfWrath''. Lots of anvils, many of which needed dropping.
* ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' basically consisted of Harriet Beecher Stowe gathering together a whole bunch of stories of actual people who were actually enslaved, then changing the names and adding in a plot to tie it together.
** It drops another on the caring of children - if you expect a child to be wicked and immoral, that's exactly how they'll act.
* ''GulliversTravels'' as a tract against human self-importance in general, and English society in particular. And, of course, the final anvil dropped in that book -- that misanthropy isn't always a good attitude to take toward the failings of humankind.
* ''A Modest Proposal'', also by Jonathan Swift, took on the British policies and attitudes towards the [[TheIrishQuestion Irish]] by proposing that the Irish sell their children to the aristocracy as [[ImAHumanitarian food]] in a [[RefugeInAudacity marvelously over-the-top]] detailed manifesto.
* ''The Feminine Mystique'' dropped a big fat anvil of "society shouldn't pressure women to be housewives if they'd rather have careers." Seems too obvious to bother mentioning now, but it was quite controversial when it was published in 1963.
* ''The Crucible'', as well as almost any other leftist fiction written during the Second Red Scare, and the height of [=McCarthyism=]: pointing fingers is ''wrong''.
* ''The Jungle''. The protagonist Jurgis goes through nearly every possible disaster a working-class citizen of his time can possibly suffer, with his child even drowning in the muddy streets, and Sinclair's intent becomes quite clear in the final chapters, which attempt to set up the Socialist party as saviors. Of course, it was the depiction of what goes into meat that ended up hitting the general public and sticking with us. As Mr. Sinclair himself remarked, "I aimed for America's heart and I hit them in the stomach." The book was ''solely'' responsible for the Meat Inspection Act of 1919.
* Between the refugee camps and the "planet assassins," ''TheHolyLand'' never even tries to be subtle with its satire. Whether it's a good book or not depends largely on your political stance.
* In ''Literature/LesMiserables'', literacy is not just useful, but makes the difference between life and death for several different characters. ThePowerOfLove changes Jean Valjean [[HeelFaceTurn from a petty crook into a great philanthropist.]] Javert [[LawfulStupid only cares about enforcing the law,]] and is driven to suicide when he finally realizes that Valjean is a more moral man than he is.
** The musical drops one as well at the end, when [[spoiler:almost all of the cast is dead, except for Cosette and Marius, who are HappilyMarried]]. All of the cast gathers on stage peacefully, for the final song:
-->Do you hear the people sing/Lost in the valley of the night/It is the music of the people who are climbing to the light/For the wretched of the Earth/There is a flame that never dies/Even the darkest night shall end and the sun will rise!
** People can change when given the chance. And being friendly towards those in need DOES make a difference to them. While putting a Cain's mark on former convicts under parole most surely will exclude them from honest work, thus leaving them not much choice than resorting to crime again. By expecting them to break parole and treating them as criminals in advance again you're making them into criminals. Or by treating an unmarried mother as a whore and firing her you force her to resort on prostitution to provide for her and her child.
** Also he loved to ponder about whether wars and fights are justified or not - concluding that wars are always bad and should be avoided. Unless they are necessary to bring humanity along. Still, every death is regrettable, no matter which side.
** In general VictorHugo was the master of this. Another favourite anvil of his told how cruel the death sentence is, done in TheLastDayOfACondemnedMan . And it won't leave you for a long, long time.
* ''{{Catch-22}}'': War makes you crazy. Ostensibly about WorldWarTwo, but there's a reason it was immensely popular during TheVietnamWar.
** The book also has a deeper anvil dropped about the individual's responsibility for the [[CrapsackWorld evils of the modern world]]. Almost every character death could have been prevented by Yossarian, had he actually done anything, and his friends continue to die around him until [[spoiler:he finally balls up and sticks it to TheMan]].
* The essay "Body Ritual Among the [[SdrawkcabName Nacirema]]" was a not-very-subtle jab at both anthropology and American culture.
* Many of these in ''TheLordOfTheRings''.
** This one in particular:
--> '''Gandalf:''' ''Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment, for not even the very wise can see all ends.''
** For the series in general: "There is good in the world. There is also bad in the world, but the good is worth fighting for."
** "Never leave your friends behind."
** One of the most powerful anvils dropped, yet oddly one of the most often missed, was how truly evil despair and defeatism are. All of the heroes keep pushing on despite apparent hopelessness, and eventually win through and defeat the BigBad. By contrast, the secondary villians -- Saruman and Denethor -- are both corrupted by their own despair into joining the wrong side, or giving up and committing suicide while leaving family and friends to die; and are both eventually destroyed.
** There's a rather lovely scene at the end of ''TheTwoTowers'' when Sam is talking about his very favorite stories, and how things go so bad that you wonder how anything could ever go back to the way it does before, and yet it does. Not only is it a not-so-subtle "This is what's happening right now to the person saying it" moment, but it perfectly encapsulates the anvil mentioned here.
** Treebeard's comment when Merry and Pippin ask him about what side he's on. Considering that Tolkien wrote this before green anvils were being dropped like the Blitzkrieg, the message is pretty powerful:
--> ''"I am on nobody's side because nobody is on my side. Nobody cares for the woods anymore."''
** The movie follows up with a second anvil when Treebeard is promped into choosing a side when he discovers that Saruman has been cutting down the trees, the lesson being: if you refuse to take a side because YOU have no personnal stake in it, it will come back to bite you in the ass later.
** And, of course, the obvious messages of the One Ring: "Power Corrupts", and "The End Does Not Justify The Means".
** One of the most important and poignant Aesops in all of Tolkien's works is that times change and that all things, no matter how good or beautiful, will someday end. The First Age of Middle-earth, a time of immense beauty and magic when the gods walked the earth, ended without ever coming again. The whole race of the elves is a testament to this Aesop. Because of their immortality, the elves wither away from grief and longing of the Undying Lands if they stay on Middle-earth too long. The mortality of humans is portrayed as a ''good thing'', because man is able to pass to a new world freely. More so, the same applies to the Shire, in the Book at least. The Scouring of the Shire drops an anvil about the safety of Home and personal investment in a fight.
* ''The Hobbit'', especially what Thorin says to Bilbo near the end:
--> ''"There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!"''
* One SherlockHolmes story (The Sign of Four) had Dr. Watson blatantly chastising Holmes for the dangers of his cocaine habit. Although it's often thought that having a character give this lecture was either prescient or a lucky guess, in reality, it was not: doctors already knew that cocaine was dangerous when used as a recreational drug, but the idea that drug sales could and/or should be restricted had not yet been imagined, let alone implemented. (When the idea was suggested some years later, Doyle was among its strongest supporters.) At this point in time, it was perfectly possible to buy arsenic or strychnine at the apothecary's without any formality greater than signing a book, and there was no doubt that both of those drugs were pure poisons.
** ''The Adventure of the Yellow Face'' contains a remarkably progressive anti-racist message for its time. The client hires Holmes to find out why his wife keeps asking him for money and not revealing what it is for. He also spies her making visits to a cottage and spots someone with a hideous jaundiced and deformed face from the window. He suspects a blackmailing plot, but when Holmes enters the cottage and confronts the yellow-faced individual, it is revealed to be a young black child wearing a mask. Turns out the wife was previously in an interracial marriage before her husband died, and she has been hiding their child out of fear that her current husband will leave her if he finds out that she was married to a black man. The story ends with the client picking up the child, kissing the young girl, and saying "I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being."
* [[Literature/TheBible The New Testament]]. Jesus wasn't all parables and allegories. He said some pretty blunt things about hypocrisy and following the commandments. (The scene where he bowled over the businessmen's tables in the Temple comes to mind.)
** His biggest Anvil that he dropped was his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech leveled at the Pharisees (The religious leaders of his time), calling them out for their hypocrisy and how they were leading the people away from heaven and onto the road to hell.
** The Old Testament is also pretty anvilicious in places, but it's hard to argue that "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is an anvil that didn't need dropping (and indeed, continues to need dropping).
* Literature/TheBible is, pretty much by definition, preachy (especially when used by preachers), but some messages like "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." is about as blunt as you can get, but it's hard to argue against love for others. {{Jesus}} used plenty of parables, metaphors, and symbolic language, but there were times when something needed to be stated in simple and plain English (well, Aramaic).
** The Passion episode alone is full of these, and these are shown rather than told: "What matters is not that you fall down, but that you get up again", "Herd mentality will lead to unfortunate consequences", "The ability to feel pain is a good thing", and most important of all, "Good will always triumph over evil".
*** This is also in turn equally applicable to the other two holy books of the Abrahamic faiths.
* Dr. Seuss's ''The Lorax''. Seuss speaks against logging, environmental destruction, or greed and short-sightedness in general? Given that he himself removed the line "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie" when informed that Erie was no longer a dead lake, the second and third seem probable.
** Also from ''The Lorax'': "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
** ''Horton Hears a Who'' is just as anvilicious. And ridiculously necessary, considering the simplicity of the message.
-->A person's a person, no matter how small.
** ''The Butter Battle Book,'' is about the Cold War arms race, of all things.
** And the anti-racism message of ''The Sneeches''. In fact, a great many of his books drop a pretty obvious anvil of some sort; but then, subtlety is not necessarily useful or effective when writing for children.
* HisDarkMaterials's condemnation of repressive institutions (WordOfGod says it isn't only condemning religion, although whether Pullman came up with that later after the backlash is debatable) and messages promoting secularism and the need to improve this world rather than hoping for paradise in an afterlife wouldn't have been nearly as effective if they had been subtle, mostly because these ideas weren't as widespread at the time (and especially not in young-adult books).
* ''{{Frankenstein}}.'' [[ScienceIsBad Be careful toying with the natural order of things]], [[WhatHaveIDone because who knows what it'll lead to]].
** Also "Take responsibility for what you create."
** "Projecting things onto your children is wrong."
** Science is neither good nor evil, any more or less than fire. It depends who uses it and for what. Fire could be used to cook meals for the homeless, or [[ImAHumanitarian to cook the homeless for meals.]]
** "Men should not eliminate women from the [[WomenAreWiser process of creating life]]." - Mary Shelley's mother was essentially the grandmother of feminism, and unlike some movements within 20th-century feminism, 19th-century feminism believed women should have a public voice ''because'' they were different from men.
* ''OnTheBeach'', by Nevil Shute. Oh my God, ''OnTheBeach''... Noted how ''{{Threads}}'' and other films depicting horrors of nuclear holocaust in the film section of this page demand strong nerves from the viewer? Well, compared to this book (and the films of it), they are ''downright optimistic''. As one critic said: "Most novels of apocalypse posit at least a group of survivors and the semblance of hope. ''OnTheBeach'' allows nothing of the kind." You don't get any less subtle in telling exactly what an all-out nuclear war might mean for humanity.
* In TheSaint in New York, a Scene where Simon Templar rescues the daughter of a Jewish financier is followed by a paragraph in which anti-semitism and Nazism is denounced in the bluntest possible terms. It's totally out of place in the novel, but remains an extraordinary (for its time) and necessary warning of the evils of Nazi Germany.
* ''ASongOfIceAndFire'' has many examples of these. The best may be the lines '"Bread!" boomed a man behind her. "We want bread, bastard!" In a heartbeat, a thousand voices took up the chant. King Joffrey and King Robb and King Stannis were forgotten, and King Bread ruled alone.'
** Also the [[ShellShockedVeteran broken men]] in ''A Feast for Crows''.
** As well as Arya Stark's entire arc in Clash of Kings. Basically, Martin would like you to know that WarIsHell and that the common folk suffer the most during war.
** After Tyrion learns about how his siblings were almost married into the Martell family [[spoiler:and how King Aerys spurned friend/hand Tywin Lannister by not marrying Cersei to Rhaegar]]. At that moment, Martin makes explicit just how much of the strife and trauma our current characters are going through is due to the actions of those generations before and often long dead.:
-->''"It all goes back and back, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads."''
* ''{{Candide}}'' was essentially an anvil dropped on the philosophy that everything that happens is a good thing and that we 'live in the best of all possible worlds.'
** It's a particularly delicious anvil, because it points out that, although life really sucks, [[EarnYourHappyEnding we can still make some good out of it in the end]].
* ''JenniferGovernment'' is set in a world where the government has very little power at all, but it's as [[{{Dystopia}} dystopic]] as ''1984'' and ''Brave New World'': a girl gets killed in order to increase the street cred for some new shoes, 911 won't send an ambulance unless they can confirm whether the girl can afford it, and the government can barely afford to bring those responsible to justice. Basically, "unchecked capitalism is very bad."
* ''AtlasShrugged'' is a {{deconstruction}} of the Marxist slogan “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. In story, this takes the form of the 20th Century Motor Company which functions as a microcosm of a communist police state, such as the Soviet Union (which Rand fled from after her family’s business was seized by the new communist government).
* The main, undisguised message of JaneAusten's novel ''{{Emma}}'' is about the evils, dangers, and folly of a practice we now know as {{Shipping}}. [[hottip:*:Called "matchmaking" in Austen's day, and "lovering" in ''LittleWomen''.]] If there was ''ever'' an anvil that ''desperately'' needed to be dropped...
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' on the PowerOfLove. Not only is it a message that seems to be lost all too often (seriously, look up how many fanfictions there are about how Harry ought to have been a dark vigilante who beat up the Dursleys and trusted no one), Rowling puts far more emphasis on how important the love of family and friends are instead of love interests. Seriously, how often does ''that'' happen?
** Another one is that just because you made terrible choices in the past does ''not mean you are an inherently horrible person -- you can change if you truly want to.
** Death is inevitable; respect it, know it, and you will live a happy life.
** Pretty much every poignant sounding line said by Dumbledore resumes some important anvil from the books:
-->"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
-->"To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
-->"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."
-->"Fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself."
-->"You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."
-->"It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated."
-->"Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and above all, pity those who live without love."
* The ''WickedLovely'' series -- "There are always choices."
** Ink Exchange in particular-- "Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter" and one which doesn't actually get spoken, which is that no-one (Niall and Leslie, in context) is DefiledForever; you can survive, and that's what matters.
* Book (Abridged)" is based on the premise that America's phone books are lists of people who will all be dead if a nuclear war occurs. The anvil is that such a war is not survivable, much less winnable, and that science fiction "after the bomb" stories are just stories. He drops it in gut-wrenching fashion by detailing a number of horrible ways that people who survive the first detonations will suffer and die in the hours and days after the attack.
* ''BlackBeauty'': "Treat animals kindly." Well, that's all well and good, but unless you've seen some of the true horrors people put their animals through (and not just horses, but also dogs, cats, birds, and ''anything'' [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman that isn't a human being]]), you can't possibly appreciate how often this anvil needs to be dropped. (Anna Sewell also made the brilliant choice to make at least one of Beauty's owners not a bad guy, but ignorant about how to care for a horse. There's another much-needed anvil: "Learn how to care for an animal before you make it part of your life.")
* DavidGemmell: All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
* Literature/TessOfTheDUrbervilles: Yes, the book is incredibly depressing, leading the main character from one bad situation to an even worse ones. But, at its time, it was very different and controversial, making the main character, who wasn't a virgin via rape, very sympathetic and, ultimately, more morally good than many of the other supposedly "pure" and pious characters rather than some harlot that the society of the time would have deemed her.
* Chris Crutcher's young adult novels (''Running Loose, Stotan!, The Crazy Horse Electric Game, Chinese Handcuffs, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Ironman, Whale Talk, The Sledding Hill'', and ''Deadline'') all drop anvils, but the one that appears in all these books? Child abuse is '''bad'''. Not just beatings, but verbal and emotional abuse is also given a lot of attention, especially in ''Ironman'' and ''Whale Talk''. Given how prevalent ParentalAbuse is in RealLife, not only does this anvil need to be dropped, one could argue that it isn't being dropped anywhere '''near''' ''enough''.
* H. Beam Piper's "Day of the Moron" delvers its message with all the grace and aplomb of a Thor strike: In fields that require educated, thoughtful workers, ignorance and thoughtlessness absolutely must not be tolerated in any degree.
* ''Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day'' features the titular ten-year-old character having the "worst day of his life", though most of what happens are petty things like getting gum in his hair, not getting a window seat in the car, and not finding a prize in his cereal box. He get so frustrated that he wants to run away to Australia, but his mom tells him that everyone has bad days, even in Australia. In short: shit happens; deal with it.
* ''TheLottery'' shows us that just because something is "tradition" does ''not'' automatically make it good and right.
* In ''TheLovelyBones'', the main character is Susie Salmon, a young girl who was raped and murdered. Posthumously, she longs to have her life back. It isn't until she and her family accept things as they are that they can finally live in peace again. It really drives home the aesop that bad things will happen to you, but you must come to terms that it happened, and you must carry on as best you can, live in the moment, and don't dwell on past grievances.
* John Wyndham's ''The Chrysalids'' has some pretty non-subtle messages about nuclear war, and religious intolerance too. Most of his other books are quite damning of humanity's mob mentality, and how clever people can band together to become a stupid collective. Very much a "think for yourself" message.
* Mark Twain's "[[http://www.ntua.gr/lurk/making/warprayer.html The War Prayer]]" slams home the undiscussed side of war ''hard''. But the real {{aesop}}, what makes it work, is how willingly people ignore the obvious because it doesn't fit in with their world view.
* Terry Pratchett's early Discworld novel ''Small Gods'' deals with the difference between believing in God and believing in church. The only character who still believes in Om at the novel's start is a naive young boy, while His church controls an entire nation. The anvil is illustrated in the comparison between simple, honest Brutha and KnightTemplar Deacon Vorbis, who is ready to incite holy war with anyone and everyone, despite the fact that Om Himself states point blank that holy war was never His intention, even more so in the distant future of the ending: [[spoiler: Vorbis dies when Brutha is just a boy, but without his "belief" to guide him, waits between the land of the living and the dead for nearly a century, until Brutha also dies and leads him to the afterlife.]] The overarching message seems to be that if one twists religious scripture to suit one's own selfish desire, it becomes a completely different body of work.
* ''SlaughterhouseFive'' by KurtVonnegut drops the WarIsHell anvil about once a page or so. It also really, really wants to the reader to know that [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing enjoying (even vicariously) or glorifying war is foolish and wrong]]:
--> ''I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee.''
--> ''I have also told them not to work for companies that make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.''
* ''{{Night}}'' by Elie Wiesel: The Holocaust happened, and we have to come to terms with that. It was a dark mark on human history that should never be repeated. Real human beings with feelings were slaughtered for no reason other than their heritage. Genocide is bad. It cannot happen again.
* Margaret Atwood's ''TheHandmaidsTale'' -- a sci-fi fable about patriarchal society and religious fundamentalism -- is about as subtle as a high-velocity cinder block, but has a highly influential and important message.
* ''TheRisingOfTheMoon'' by Flynn Connolly, in which an Irish woman returns to Ireland after having spent fifteen years in self-imposed exile so that she could teach actual Irish history instead of [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory the redacted version authorized by the government]]. Anvils include, but are not limited to, "Freedom of Religion," "Freedom Isn't Free," "Equal Rights," "Sexism Works Both Ways," "One Person Can Make a Difference," "Those Who Cannot Remember the Past," etc.
* Literature/{{Empire}}, by OrsonScottCard, is not the least bit subtle about the problems of the current political system in the United States. The bad guys aren't "the Democrats" or "the Republicans." It's not the right or the left, it's a few people ''at the top'' on both sides, with extremist views, who could pull everyone else along with them into a second civil war. (And the unanswered question posed by the ending is even creepier...)
** ''EndersGame'' also rejects subtlety and symbolism, and is all the better for it.
* A lot of Dickens falls under this heading from ''[[AChristmasCarol A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas]]''. He gets away with his anvils because they're never based on the idea that [[ViewersAreMorons Readers Are Morons]] and need lessons in basic decency, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking they are always motivated by genuine passion, fury against real injustices, and a need to increase word count]]:
--> ''"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."''
* Creator/CharlesDickens's ''OliverTwist'' is the book responsible for abolishing workhouses as a placeholder for orphans. Who can forget the iconic "Please, sir, I want some more!" scene?
* BenElton's ''High Society'' makes some very important points about the harm created by drug prohibition and the power wielded by sensationalist tabloid media, and still manages to be a thoroughly entertaining read.
* The novel ''Literature/{{Momo}}'' by Creator/MichaelEnde. The book's message about how we need to make time for each other and all the things we love in our lives is ''really'' obvious -- and you couldn't imagine the book being nearly as good without it.
* ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' by RobertAHeinlein drops anvils about military service.
** "If you want to participate as a citizen, you have to serve your country, up to and including ''being prepared to'' quite literally fight, even die, for the privilege. And it ''is'' a privilege, not a right."
** Also, an [[BadassArmy all-volunteer army that's well trained,]] [[PoweredArmor well equipped]], and [[NoOneGetsLeftBehind knows the value of the individuals that serve in it]] trumps an army that treats its infantry [[RedShirtArmy like so many potatoes to be thrown at enemies]], even if the latter greatly outnumbers the former. Basically, if your idea of troop management is "[[BadBoss let 'em die like pigs]], WeHaveReserves", [[WhatMeasureIsAMook then those "reserves"]] [[MookFaceTurn are going to]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere run out]] [[VillainBall a lot sooner than you think]]... [[LaserGuidedKarma and you are going to]] ''[[KarmicDeath deserve]]'' [[HoistByHisOwnPetard to be]] [[HumiliationConga screwed over]] [[SenselessSacrifice once that happens]].
** Another perspective taken is that Heinlein, who was not especially pro-military, took the morally-brightest example of a militarized society (the Terran Federation) and compared them to the worst example possible (the bugs). The anvil falls from the comparison between the two.
** There's also the Anvil that "violence never solves anything" is wishful thinking. Yes, it ''is'' preferable and best that you look for a non-violent solution to any given problem. But at the same time, sometimes that simply ''isn't going to work''. Insisting on avoiding ''any'' violence once it's clear that a compromise can't be reached is dangerous in itself.
** Lastly, there are two aesops regarding sexism and racism. ''Johnny Rico'' is ''Juan'' Rico and his girlfriend Carmen is an officer and a pilot, trying to demonstrate an integrated service being the ideal.
* ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' wouldn't have been half as effective if Aldous Huxley had been even the least bit subtle.
* Norman Juster's ''ThePhantomTollbooth'' drops the learning-is-fun anvil pretty early on, and keeps picking it up and dropping it again. This strategy would not work if the book were not also ''funny as hell'' -- it reads like a combination of ShelSilverstein, JamesThurber, and DouglasAdams. Kudos to Norton Juster for also throwing in enough ParentalBonus moments to keep the book funny and relevant.
* Harper Lee's ''ToKillAMockingbird.'' Enough said.
-->''"Atticus, he was real nice..." His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them." He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.''
* ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' and ''AnimalFarm'', both by Creator/GeorgeOrwell. If these books weren't overblown, they wouldn't be nearly as effective in conveying how truly fragile and precious the ideal of freedom really is.
** The chief Anvil in both is about individuality versus conformity and the important of holding onto the truth that's right in front of your eyes. As long as you have that, you are still free, no matter what anyone else does to you.
* Creator/TerryPratchett's YoungAdult ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels drop anvils labeled "take personal responsibility" so often you think you're being attacked by an anvil-wielding 82nd Airborne. But it works.
* Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'' drops the anvil that humans need to learn stories when they're young -- that they ''need'' to believe in silly things like SantaClaus and the tooth fairy, so that when they get older, they can believe in other things that don't exist without people believing in them and acting on them -- like Justice, Mercy, Duty, and that sort of thing.
* Though all of Creator/AynRand's novels are {{Anvilicious}}, the unsubtle political messages in ''We The Living'' come off more acceptably than those in her later works, because it targets Russian Communists rather than generic StrawmanPolitical equivalents.
** The same qualifies for Howard Roark's AuthorTract at the end of ''The Fountainhead''. Regardless of whether you agree with its content, it's passionately written, very moving, and completely devoid of subtlety. It helps that it appears in a context where one would expect to hear (and to listen respectfully) to a passionate speech appealing to universal principles and a sense of justice: [[spoiler:the end of a criminal trial.]]
%% * JohnSteinbeck's ''Literature/TheGrapesOfWrath''. Lots of anvils, many of which needed dropping.
* ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' basically consisted of Harriet Beecher Stowe gathering together a whole bunch of stories of actual people who were actually enslaved, then changing the names and adding in a plot to tie it together.
** It drops another on the caring of children - if you expect a child to be wicked and immoral, that's exactly how they'll act.
* ''GulliversTravels'' as a tract against human self-importance in general, and English society in particular. And, of course, the final anvil dropped in that book -- that misanthropy isn't always a good attitude to take toward the failings of humankind.
* ''A Modest Proposal'', also by Jonathan Swift, took on the British policies and attitudes towards the [[TheIrishQuestion Irish]] by proposing that the Irish sell their children to the aristocracy as [[ImAHumanitarian food]] in a [[RefugeInAudacity marvelously over-the-top]] detailed manifesto.
* ''The Feminine Mystique'' dropped a big fat anvil of "society shouldn't pressure women to be housewives if they'd rather have careers." Seems too obvious to bother mentioning now, but it was quite controversial when it was published in 1963.
* ''The Crucible'', as well as almost any other leftist fiction written during the Second Red Scare, and the height of [=McCarthyism=]: pointing fingers is ''wrong''.
* ''The Jungle''. The protagonist Jurgis goes through nearly every possible disaster a working-class citizen of his time can possibly suffer, with his child even drowning in the muddy streets, and Sinclair's intent becomes quite clear in the final chapters, which attempt to set up the Socialist party as saviors. Of course, it was the depiction of what goes into meat that ended up hitting the general public and sticking with us. As Mr. Sinclair himself remarked, "I aimed for America's heart and I hit them in the stomach." The book was ''solely'' responsible for the Meat Inspection Act of 1919.
* Between the refugee camps and the "planet assassins," ''TheHolyLand'' never even tries to be subtle with its satire. Whether it's a good book or not depends largely on your political stance.
* In ''Literature/LesMiserables'', literacy is not just useful, but makes the difference between life and death for several different characters. ThePowerOfLove changes Jean Valjean [[HeelFaceTurn from a petty crook into a great philanthropist.]] Javert [[LawfulStupid only cares about enforcing the law,]] and is driven to suicide when he finally realizes that Valjean is a more moral man than he is.
** The musical drops one as well at the end, when [[spoiler:almost all of the cast is dead, except for Cosette and Marius, who are HappilyMarried]]. All of the cast gathers on stage peacefully, for the final song:
-->Do you hear the people sing/Lost in the valley of the night/It is the music of the people who are climbing to the light/For the wretched of the Earth/There is a flame that never dies/Even the darkest night shall end and the sun will rise!
** People can change when given the chance. And being friendly towards those in need DOES make a difference to them. While putting a Cain's mark on former convicts under parole most surely will exclude them from honest work, thus leaving them not much choice than resorting to crime again. By expecting them to break parole and treating them as criminals in advance again you're making them into criminals. Or by treating an unmarried mother as a whore and firing her you force her to resort on prostitution to provide for her and her child.
** Also he loved to ponder about whether wars and fights are justified or not - concluding that wars are always bad and should be avoided. Unless they are necessary to bring humanity along. Still, every death is regrettable, no matter which side.
** In general VictorHugo was the master of this. Another favourite anvil of his told how cruel the death sentence is, done in TheLastDayOfACondemnedMan . And it won't leave you for a long, long time.
* ''{{Catch-22}}'': War makes you crazy. Ostensibly about WorldWarTwo, but there's a reason it was immensely popular during TheVietnamWar.
** The book also has a deeper anvil dropped about the individual's responsibility for the [[CrapsackWorld evils of the modern world]]. Almost every character death could have been prevented by Yossarian, had he actually done anything, and his friends continue to die around him until [[spoiler:he finally balls up and sticks it to TheMan]].
* The essay "Body Ritual Among the [[SdrawkcabName Nacirema]]" was a not-very-subtle jab at both anthropology and American culture.
* Many of these in ''TheLordOfTheRings''.
** This one in particular:
--> '''Gandalf:''' ''Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment, for not even the very wise can see all ends.''
** For the series in general: "There is good in the world. There is also bad in the world, but the good is worth fighting for."
** "Never leave your friends behind."
** One of the most powerful anvils dropped, yet oddly one of the most often missed, was how truly evil despair and defeatism are. All of the heroes keep pushing on despite apparent hopelessness, and eventually win through and defeat the BigBad. By contrast, the secondary villians -- Saruman and Denethor -- are both corrupted by their own despair into joining the wrong side, or giving up and committing suicide while leaving family and friends to die; and are both eventually destroyed.
** There's a rather lovely scene at the end of ''TheTwoTowers'' when Sam is talking about his very favorite stories, and how things go so bad that you wonder how anything could ever go back to the way it does before, and yet it does. Not only is it a not-so-subtle "This is what's happening right now to the person saying it" moment, but it perfectly encapsulates the anvil mentioned here.
** Treebeard's comment when Merry and Pippin ask him about what side he's on. Considering that Tolkien wrote this before green anvils were being dropped like the Blitzkrieg, the message is pretty powerful:
--> ''"I am on nobody's side because nobody is on my side. Nobody cares for the woods anymore."''
** The movie follows up with a second anvil when Treebeard is promped into choosing a side when he discovers that Saruman has been cutting down the trees, the lesson being: if you refuse to take a side because YOU have no personnal stake in it, it will come back to bite you in the ass later.
** And, of course, the obvious messages of the One Ring: "Power Corrupts", and "The End Does Not Justify The Means".
** One of the most important and poignant Aesops in all of Tolkien's works is that times change and that all things, no matter how good or beautiful, will someday end. The First Age of Middle-earth, a time of immense beauty and magic when the gods walked the earth, ended without ever coming again. The whole race of the elves is a testament to this Aesop. Because of their immortality, the elves wither away from grief and longing of the Undying Lands if they stay on Middle-earth too long. The mortality of humans is portrayed as a ''good thing'', because man is able to pass to a new world freely. More so, the same applies to the Shire, in the Book at least. The Scouring of the Shire drops an anvil about the safety of Home and personal investment in a fight.
* ''The Hobbit'', especially what Thorin says to Bilbo near the end:
--> ''"There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!"''
* One SherlockHolmes story (The Sign of Four) had Dr. Watson blatantly chastising Holmes for the dangers of his cocaine habit. Although it's often thought that having a character give this lecture was either prescient or a lucky guess, in reality, it was not: doctors already knew that cocaine was dangerous when used as a recreational drug, but the idea that drug sales could and/or should be restricted had not yet been imagined, let alone implemented. (When the idea was suggested some years later, Doyle was among its strongest supporters.) At this point in time, it was perfectly possible to buy arsenic or strychnine at the apothecary's without any formality greater than signing a book, and there was no doubt that both of those drugs were pure poisons.
** ''The Adventure of the Yellow Face'' contains a remarkably progressive anti-racist message for its time. The client hires Holmes to find out why his wife keeps asking him for money and not revealing what it is for. He also spies her making visits to a cottage and spots someone with a hideous jaundiced and deformed face from the window. He suspects a blackmailing plot, but when Holmes enters the cottage and confronts the yellow-faced individual, it is revealed to be a young black child wearing a mask. Turns out the wife was previously in an interracial marriage before her husband died, and she has been hiding their child out of fear that her current husband will leave her if he finds out that she was married to a black man. The story ends with the client picking up the child, kissing the young girl, and saying "I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being."
* [[Literature/TheBible The New Testament]]. Jesus wasn't all parables and allegories. He said some pretty blunt things about hypocrisy and following the commandments. (The scene where he bowled over the businessmen's tables in the Temple comes to mind.)
** His biggest Anvil that he dropped was his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech leveled at the Pharisees (The religious leaders of his time), calling them out for their hypocrisy and how they were leading the people away from heaven and onto the road to hell.
** The Old Testament is also pretty anvilicious in places, but it's hard to argue that "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is an anvil that didn't need dropping (and indeed, continues to need dropping).
* Literature/TheBible is, pretty much by definition, preachy (especially when used by preachers), but some messages like "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." is about as blunt as you can get, but it's hard to argue against love for others. {{Jesus}} used plenty of parables, metaphors, and symbolic language, but there were times when something needed to be stated in simple and plain English (well, Aramaic).
** The Passion episode alone is full of these, and these are shown rather than told: "What matters is not that you fall down, but that you get up again", "Herd mentality will lead to unfortunate consequences", "The ability to feel pain is a good thing", and most important of all, "Good will always triumph over evil".
*** This is also in turn equally applicable to the other two holy books of the Abrahamic faiths.
* Dr. Seuss's ''The Lorax''. Seuss speaks against logging, environmental destruction, or greed and short-sightedness in general? Given that he himself removed the line "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie" when informed that Erie was no longer a dead lake, the second and third seem probable.
** Also from ''The Lorax'': "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
** ''Horton Hears a Who'' is just as anvilicious. And ridiculously necessary, considering the simplicity of the message.
-->A person's a person, no matter how small.
** ''The Butter Battle Book,'' is about the Cold War arms race, of all things.
** And the anti-racism message of ''The Sneeches''. In fact, a great many of his books drop a pretty obvious anvil of some sort; but then, subtlety is not necessarily useful or effective when writing for children.
* HisDarkMaterials's condemnation of repressive institutions (WordOfGod says it isn't only condemning religion, although whether Pullman came up with that later after the backlash is debatable) and messages promoting secularism and the need to improve this world rather than hoping for paradise in an afterlife wouldn't have been nearly as effective if they had been subtle, mostly because these ideas weren't as widespread at the time (and especially not in young-adult books).
* ''{{Frankenstein}}.'' [[ScienceIsBad Be careful toying with the natural order of things]], [[WhatHaveIDone because who knows what it'll lead to]].
** Also "Take responsibility for what you create."
** "Projecting things onto your children is wrong."
** Science is neither good nor evil, any more or less than fire. It depends who uses it and for what. Fire could be used to cook meals for the homeless, or [[ImAHumanitarian to cook the homeless for meals.]]
** "Men should not eliminate women from the [[WomenAreWiser process of creating life]]." - Mary Shelley's mother was essentially the grandmother of feminism, and unlike some movements within 20th-century feminism, 19th-century feminism believed women should have a public voice ''because'' they were different from men.
* ''OnTheBeach'', by Nevil Shute. Oh my God, ''OnTheBeach''... Noted how ''{{Threads}}'' and other films depicting horrors of nuclear holocaust in the film section of this page demand strong nerves from the viewer? Well, compared to this book (and the films of it), they are ''downright optimistic''. As one critic said: "Most novels of apocalypse posit at least a group of survivors and the semblance of hope. ''OnTheBeach'' allows nothing of the kind." You don't get any less subtle in telling exactly what an all-out nuclear war might mean for humanity.
* In TheSaint in New York, a Scene where Simon Templar rescues the daughter of a Jewish financier is followed by a paragraph in which anti-semitism and Nazism is denounced in the bluntest possible terms. It's totally out of place in the novel, but remains an extraordinary (for its time) and necessary warning of the evils of Nazi Germany.
* ''ASongOfIceAndFire'' has many examples of these. The best may be the lines '"Bread!" boomed a man behind her. "We want bread, bastard!" In a heartbeat, a thousand voices took up the chant. King Joffrey and King Robb and King Stannis were forgotten, and King Bread ruled alone.'
** Also the [[ShellShockedVeteran broken men]] in ''A Feast for Crows''.
** As well as Arya Stark's entire arc in Clash of Kings. Basically, Martin would like you to know that WarIsHell and that the common folk suffer the most during war.
** After Tyrion learns about how his siblings were almost married into the Martell family [[spoiler:and how King Aerys spurned friend/hand Tywin Lannister by not marrying Cersei to Rhaegar]]. At that moment, Martin makes explicit just how much of the strife and trauma our current characters are going through is due to the actions of those generations before and often long dead.:
-->''"It all goes back and back, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads."''
* ''{{Candide}}'' was essentially an anvil dropped on the philosophy that everything that happens is a good thing and that we 'live in the best of all possible worlds.'
** It's a particularly delicious anvil, because it points out that, although life really sucks, [[EarnYourHappyEnding we can still make some good out of it in the end]].
* ''JenniferGovernment'' is set in a world where the government has very little power at all, but it's as [[{{Dystopia}} dystopic]] as ''1984'' and ''Brave New World'': a girl gets killed in order to increase the street cred for some new shoes, 911 won't send an ambulance unless they can confirm whether the girl can afford it, and the government can barely afford to bring those responsible to justice. Basically, "unchecked capitalism is very bad."
* ''AtlasShrugged'' is a {{deconstruction}} of the Marxist slogan “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. In story, this takes the form of the 20th Century Motor Company which functions as a microcosm of a communist police state, such as the Soviet Union (which Rand fled from after her family’s business was seized by the new communist government).
* The main, undisguised message of JaneAusten's novel ''{{Emma}}'' is about the evils, dangers, and folly of a practice we now know as {{Shipping}}. [[hottip:*:Called "matchmaking" in Austen's day, and "lovering" in ''LittleWomen''.]] If there was ''ever'' an anvil that ''desperately'' needed to be dropped...
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' on the PowerOfLove. Not only is it a message that seems to be lost all too often (seriously, look up how many fanfictions there are about how Harry ought to have been a dark vigilante who beat up the Dursleys and trusted no one), Rowling puts far more emphasis on how important the love of family and friends are instead of love interests. Seriously, how often does ''that'' happen?
** Another one is that just because you made terrible choices in the past does ''not mean you are an inherently horrible person -- you can change if you truly want to.
** Death is inevitable; respect it, know it, and you will live a happy life.
** Pretty much every poignant sounding line said by Dumbledore resumes some important anvil from the books:
-->"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
-->"To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
-->"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."
-->"Fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself."
-->"You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."
-->"It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated."
-->"Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and above all, pity those who live without love."
* The ''WickedLovely'' series -- "There are always choices."
** Ink Exchange in particular-- "Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter" and one which doesn't actually get spoken, which is that no-one (Niall and Leslie, in context) is DefiledForever; you can survive, and that's what matters.
* Book (Abridged)" is based on the premise that America's phone books are lists of people who will all be dead if a nuclear war occurs. The anvil is that such a war is not survivable, much less winnable, and that science fiction "after the bomb" stories are just stories. He drops it in gut-wrenching fashion by detailing a number of horrible ways that people who survive the first detonations will suffer and die in the hours and days after the attack.
* ''BlackBeauty'': "Treat animals kindly." Well, that's all well and good, but unless you've seen some of the true horrors people put their animals through (and not just horses, but also dogs, cats, birds, and ''anything'' [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman that isn't a human being]]), you can't possibly appreciate how often this anvil needs to be dropped. (Anna Sewell also made the brilliant choice to make at least one of Beauty's owners not a bad guy, but ignorant about how to care for a horse. There's another much-needed anvil: "Learn how to care for an animal before you make it part of your life.")
* DavidGemmell: All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
* Literature/TessOfTheDUrbervilles: Yes, the book is incredibly depressing, leading the main character from one bad situation to an even worse ones. But, at its time, it was very different and controversial, making the main character, who wasn't a virgin via rape, very sympathetic and, ultimately, more morally good than many of the other supposedly "pure" and pious characters rather than some harlot that the society of the time would have deemed her.
* Chris Crutcher's young adult novels (''Running Loose, Stotan!, The Crazy Horse Electric Game, Chinese Handcuffs, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Ironman, Whale Talk, The Sledding Hill'', and ''Deadline'') all drop anvils, but the one that appears in all these books? Child abuse is '''bad'''. Not just beatings, but verbal and emotional abuse is also given a lot of attention, especially in ''Ironman'' and ''Whale Talk''. Given how prevalent ParentalAbuse is in RealLife, not only does this anvil need to be dropped, one could argue that it isn't being dropped anywhere '''near''' ''enough''.
* H. Beam Piper's "Day of the Moron" delvers its message with all the grace and aplomb of a Thor strike: In fields that require educated, thoughtful workers, ignorance and thoughtlessness absolutely must not be tolerated in any degree.
* ''Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day'' features the titular ten-year-old character having the "worst day of his life", though most of what happens are petty things like getting gum in his hair, not getting a window seat in the car, and not finding a prize in his cereal box. He get so frustrated that he wants to run away to Australia, but his mom tells him that everyone has bad days, even in Australia. In short: shit happens; deal with it.
* ''TheLottery'' shows us that just because something is "tradition" does ''not'' automatically make it good and right.
* In ''TheLovelyBones'', the main character is Susie Salmon, a young girl who was raped and murdered. Posthumously, she longs to have her life back. It isn't until she and her family accept things as they are that they can finally live in peace again. It really drives home the aesop that bad things will happen to you, but you must come to terms that it happened, and you must carry on as best you can, live in the moment, and don't dwell on past grievances.
* John Wyndham's ''The Chrysalids'' has some pretty non-subtle messages about nuclear war, and religious intolerance too. Most of his other books are quite damning of humanity's mob mentality, and how clever people can band together to become a stupid collective. Very much a "think for yourself" message.
* Mark Twain's "[[http://www.ntua.gr/lurk/making/warprayer.html The War Prayer]]" slams home the undiscussed side of war ''hard''. But the real {{aesop}}, what makes it work, is how willingly people ignore the obvious because it doesn't fit in with their world view.
* Terry Pratchett's early Discworld novel ''Small Gods'' deals with the difference between believing in God and believing in church. The only character who still believes in Om at the novel's start is a naive young boy, while His church controls an entire nation. The anvil is illustrated in the comparison between simple, honest Brutha and KnightTemplar Deacon Vorbis, who is ready to incite holy war with anyone and everyone, despite the fact that Om Himself states point blank that holy war was never His intention, even more so in the distant future of the ending: [[spoiler: Vorbis dies when Brutha is just a boy, but without his "belief" to guide him, waits between the land of the living and the dead for nearly a century, until Brutha also dies and leads him to the afterlife.]] The overarching message seems to be that if one twists religious scripture to suit one's own selfish desire, it becomes a completely different body of work.
* ''SlaughterhouseFive'' by KurtVonnegut drops the WarIsHell anvil about once a page or so. It also really, really wants to the reader to know that [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing enjoying (even vicariously) or glorifying war is foolish and wrong]]:
--> ''I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee.''
--> ''I have also told them not to work for companies that make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.''
