Line #1 YMMV/Struwwelpeter


1	%% * {{Anvilicious}}: Bullying, racism and cruelty to animals are downright evil.
2	* CommonKnowledge:
3	** There's a general belief that all the central characters die horribly (promoted by the stage musical, in which they do). In fact, in the ten poems, the only characters who die are Pauline/Harriet, Kaspar/Augustus, and possibly [[NeverFoundTheBody Robert]].
4	** Due to the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' CutawayGag referencing ''Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher'' (as quoted on the main page), most people are under the impression that it was the thumb-sucker's mother who cut off his thumbs. It wasn't. The tailor was the one who cut them, his mother merely warned him not to suck on them, because the tailor disliked it and would come for him if he did.
5	* FairForItsDay: The book features a very 19th century outlook on family life and children's obedience, marked by its infamous spurts of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids grotesque violence]] and DarkHumour ({{Fingore}} and repeated DeathOfAChild, to name just a few). But it features the often-forgotten story of the Inky Boys: Three kids who tease a black boy for being black, and then get their just desserts when St. Nikolas dips them into a big vat of ink. When they continue to tease the boy, they just come off as the ridiculous racists they are. The black boy is called a "moor" by the narrator, which would be considered offensive today, but was very much a descriptive term back then. As you can see, the story isn't exactly pro-racism.
6	* KarmicOverkill: In most of the stories, the fate of the children is either deserved (Frederick abuses a dog and gets bitten, necessitating an unpleasant doctor's visit, the three boys who mock a black man get dipped in ink as punishment), or a logical consequence of their actions (Harriet/Pauline burns to death after playing with matches, Kaspar starves to death after refusing to eat). Then there's Little Suck-a-Thumb, who gets his hands gruesomely mutilated just because he sucked his thumbs. His thumb-sucking didn't even necessarily bother anyone, he did it while alone at home only for the tailor to barge in with his shears and snip his thumbs off.
7	* NightmareFuel: Seeing a child get his thumbs cut off is disturbing.
8	* ParanoiaFuel: The roving tailor. To recap: a HumanoidAbomination who, should you suck your thumb, will jump from ''nowhere'' and unceremoniously chop them off.
9	* ParodyDisplacement:
10	** ''Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher'' is better known to modern audiences through the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUOf_GRUVAE gag version]].
11	** The Little-Suck-a-Thumb is mostly known to comic book readers for inspiring Creator/GrantMorrison's Scissormen, from their opening arc on ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol''.
12	** Also the scene on Series/TheOfficeUS where Dwight reads it to a group of his co-workers' children (although it's more a sincere reference than a parody).
13	* SignatureScene: Out of all the stories, the most memorable one is that of Little Suck-a-Thumb, and more specifically the image of the tailor cutting off a child's thumbs, due to how [[NightmareFuel horrifying]] and [[KarmicOverkill disproportionately gruesome a fate]] it is. The aforementioned ''Family Guy'' parody also more than likely helped.
14	* ValuesDissonance: Late 18th century stories, such as Struwwelpeter, were generally darker and often filled with someone dying or otherwise suffering horribly for not having known or learned the lesson it tried to teach. Nowadays, these stories would be considered cruel, mean-spirited, and sadistic to a modern reader, because of the treatment of children in said books, especially since those stories were intended for children.

Context YMMV / Struwwelpeter