Line #3 Headscratchers/TheTortoiseAndTheHare


1	* The moral to this story is ''not'' "slow and steady wins the race"! That homily means that you shouldn't rush things or you'll wind up cutting corners and making stupid mistakes. In this story, however, the hare doesn't rush things at all -- with the tortoise as his opponent, he figures he can take his time. The moral of the story is about not getting arrogant and lazy. Why does everybody feel the need to tack that non-sequitur moral onto a perfectly serviceable fable?
2	** Taking a break halfway through a race that you're winning certainly seems like a "stupid mistake" to me.
3	*** But that was poor judgment, not a result of recklessness. Stupid mistakes are errors that get lost in the shuffle. If you try to wash 100 dishes in 5 minutes, obviously, some if not most, will come out with a half-assed cleaning job. Where if bought more time for each individual dish, they'll look cleaner. Apples-to-Oranges as some of the principles may seem, the moral applies to some extent.
4	** Not wanting to only reformat the page, I wish to lay a comment on the subject as well. Apparently, the point of the non-sequitur Aesop is that the hare was quick but not ''steady'' (it stopped and napped as mockery), while the tortoise kept going. Still, it is dumb, and there are plenty of other Aesops that fit better (even though it's the original Aesop's Aesop), making this a clear case of a BrokenAesop. Quick and Steady would still beat Slow and Steady.
5	** A phrasing that makes more sense is "Slow ''but'' steady wins the race," as opposed to quick but not steady, raw talent but no perseverance.
6	** That's ''exactly'' the problem, that is ''not'' the moral. The original Aesopian moral of ''The Tortoise and The Hare'' is "Hard work can beat talent, when [talent is] neglected". "Slow and steady" is either La Fontaine or other people's thing.
7	** Among the morals that I have found could be interpreted in the fable include 'Never underestimate your opponent or you will be doomed to failure,' 'Arrogance is a dangerous thing,' 'Hard work and perseverance can exceed natural talent,' 'Always compete with honor' (the hare lost because of a taunt, after all) or even running instructions; 'Going too fast will cause you to need rest, and you will be slower in the long run.' Alternately, it could be the good-to-know but obvious '''Never stop and take a nap in the middle of a race.''' For that matter, how long is this race? Even if he lost, if the Hare assumed he had enough time to stop and take a rest that seems overly long...
8	*** The hare was competing against a ''turtle''. Consider how slow turtles are in real life. If the track was decent sized instead of a short burst of speed thing (say, a 1-mile track or longer instead of the 100-meter race), the hare could reasonably assume there was enough time to take a nap and beat the turtle anyways.
9	*** Turtles (box turtles, anyway) can be quick little buggers. It's more ''tortoises'', in this troper's experience, that are consistently slow.
10	*** Tortoises may be slow, but they are extremely persistent. From my experience of them as a child, they are surprisingly persistent, especially if it comes to eating plants in the garden that they're not allowed to. There certainly is some truth to the story, don't assume you can take your eyes off a tortoise for too long.
11	** According to my copy of Aesop's Fables, Aesop never wrote morals to them anyway. The fables became extremely well-known and used to illustrate various points, but all the morals were added by others. Some of the morals you commonly find bear almost no relation to the story.
12	*** According to mine, they not only are extremely straightforward, but they also have some [[BrokenAesop stupid morals]] that are just there to fit the story, apparently.
13	** It should especially be noted that slow and steady will only win the race if your opponent acts like a fool. In any other case, slow and steady won't win you any race at all.
14	** This troper once read a version where the Hare lost the race on purpose to cheer the Tortoise up; apparently, the rest of the animals were annoyed by his constant wangsting about being so slow. This troper is still confused about what the moral is there.
15	*** Do nice things for people?
16	*** If you complain enough, people will give you what you want?
17	** This troper has nothing to add but feels that this page would benefit from Lore Sjoberg's take: "Generally speaking, slow but steady loses the race rather humiliatingly. Slow but steady wins the pie-eating contest. The story is amusing enough, but the moral should be changed to 'Slow but steady wins the race if all the other participants are narcoleptics,' or alternatively 'Don't be a moron.'"
18	*** 'Don't be a moron' is really what 90% of all Aesops boil down to anyway.
19	*** The problem with Sjoberg's snark is that the story ''knows'' that the Tortoise will in most circumstances lose if it just comes down to speed; it's not pretending that the Tortoise is the fastest racer who is always guaranteed victory every time. Aesop is perfectly aware that the Tortoise is a very slow animal that should not under normal circumstances win a race against a fast animal like the Hare. That's ''why Aesop made him a Tortoise''. Sjoberg is ignoring the fact that the story is about illustrating the one circumstance in which the Tortoise ''would'' win against the Hare, and more importantly ''why'' -- because the Hare essentially gives up, and the Tortoise doesn't.
20	** One way to read the moral is: "Don't just give up, even if your opponent is much stronger than you. Keep in the contest, and be prepared to take advantage when your opponent makes a mistake."
21	** I read it as, "If you're arrogant and overconfident in your abilities, you'll make stupid mistakes that will [[HoistByHisOwnPetard lead to your downfall in the end."]]
22	** The quote "It is our choices who make us who we are, far more than our abilities" is almost always attributed to ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'', but it applies here, too. Even though the hare is obviously more capable than the tortoise, he chooses to be a LastSecondShowoff while the tortoise chooses to keep moving forward. In the end, the tortoise is, in more ways than one, the winner.
23	** The moral I've always got is, "Fast and steady wins the race."
24	** It's all in the "steady". The moral is about persistence. Persistence gives you a chance to win, even in the face of a colossal disadvantage like slowness. Because you never know what circumstances might arise, like your opponent being an overconfident moron. But if the tortoise had not been persistent and steady, he would still not have won even if the hare slept all day.
25	** "Slow and steady" is good advice for the ''Hare'', if one assumes the reason he took a nap was exhaustion from having burned through his energy too quickly. Otherwise, the moral is essentially a lesson in complacency.
26	* Why don't the Tortoise and Hare shag each other?
27	** You've spent too much time around the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom.
28	** Because the Tortoise knows that the Hare would go too fast and then fall asleep before the Tortoise had finished.
29	*** Win. You are hereby awarded a shiny new Internet.
30	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare People have been arguing the moral of this story]] for over a century, according to Website/TheOtherWiki.
31	* It is, it should be said, possible for a story to have more than one moral, and different morals which are applicable to different readers and different situations. For the tortoises among us (i.e. the "slow"), it can indeed be 'slow and steady wins the race' -- or alternatively, keep going, persevere, your opponent might leave an unexpected opening you can exploit, etc. For the hares among us (i.e. the "fast"), it can also be "don't get overconfident in yourself" -- don't be an idiot, you're skilled but you're not untouchable, don't think you've got something won until it's all over, etc. It's not necessarily an all-or-nothing, only-one-moral-allowed situation.
32	* Slow and steady doesn't just apply to the tortoise; it also applies to the hare. The hare believes that his top speed is all that's needed to secure victory, but Aesop is saying that speed alone isn't everything. The hare doesn't stop and think about the best way to achieve his goals, he doesn't stop and think about whether his decisions during the race are good ones, and when he decides to take a break he doesn't consider just continuing the race at a slower pace. Had he done any of these things, he would have won: had he "slowed down" and thought about a good strategy instead of acting impulsively, he would have realised that stopping in the middle of a race, even against a tortoise, is a terrible idea and would have kept going. Had he maintained a slower but more consistent pace instead of running as fast as possible at the start and burning himself out, he wouldn't have let the tortoise catch up to him. In other words, had the hare been a bit more slow and steady, he would have won the race.

Context Headscratchers / TheTortoiseAndTheHare