[[StrangerInAStrangeLand http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Stranger.jpg]]
[[caption-width:250:Clothes are for squares.]]
All writers put something of themselves into their stories, but some of them go just that little bit too far. For them, the real point of writing is not to shape worlds or create characters, but to express the [[AnAesop Big Important Truths]] that are close to their heart.

[[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped This is certainly not always a bad thing.]] Done well, this can add an extra layer of meaning and resonance to a story. [[{{Anvilicious}} Done poorly]], it will just result in the audience rolling its eyes and giving up. Even done well, an unfortunate result of the Author Tract is that [[PreachingToTheChoir some people will dismiss perfectly good stories simply because they disagree with the author's viewpoint]]. Even those who agree with the author may tune out if the author begins to lay it on too thick.

Of course, what is and isn't an author tract is highly subjective. Asking the author to not have an opinion on anything is absolutely absurd, and demanding that the author has to appeal to everyone is equally absurd. Sometimes PreachingToTheChoir is a good thing, as the reader may agree and not know there is a choir to be preached to, depending on where he or she grew up. Art for art's sake is nice, but sometimes so is knowing that somebody shares your opinion on a subject.

These are often filled with {{Author Filibuster}}s and StrawmanPolitical characters.

Note that this only applies when the entire universe and characters have been created to put forward the author's viewpoint. If an existing fictional universe or character has been altered to create a medium for a tract, then it's due to a WriterOnBoard. If the author's just filling up their story with stuff they like, that's AuthorAppeal.

Contrast WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic. May overlap with YouFailEconomicsForever.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime]]
* ''EarthMaidenArjuna'' starts out as a fast-paced mature MagicalGirl series. Then it quickly veers into ''very'' heavy-handed ecological preaching. Tolerable, because the animation is freaking sweet, because Theresa is really {{Badass}} and because Juna's transformation is [[RuleOfCool damn cool]], but the storyline is still {{Anvilicious}} to the point of being distracting, and full to the brim of ''very'' [[DidNotDoTheResearch bad science]] about why ScienceIsBad.
** Plus 10 points for realizing that processed food suck, minus 10 points for not realizing nuclear power is less environmentally hazardous than coal or oil. Plus 10 points for realizing that dumping sucks, minus ten for failing to realize a properly constructed land fill is a great disposal method.
* Ditto for another Shoji Kawamori recent series, ''MacrossZero''. ''MacrossFrontier'' seems to be free of it yet, but then, it isn't really directed by Kawamori.
** In a recent, post-series interview, Kawamori stated that he [[spoiler:deliberately left the "{{love triangle}}" unresolved because he doesn't believe that human relationships can't be solved by a single, neat choice. Then he went and said that he didn't believe in monogamy, either]].
* Kawamori loves to do this. His MindScrew-y ''GenesisOfAquarion'' (the one with the GetterRobo-knockoff) is all about weird New-Age hippie philosophies. The heroes are all based on pagan mythical figures (and some actually are), while the bad guys are angels who brainwash humans and steal their souls. SoYeah...
* ''MobileSuitGundam''. [[WarIsHell War is bad, m'kay?]]
--> ''You soldiers can decide to live and die by any rules you want, commandant. You can play any games you want, but civilians shouldn't have to lose their lives as a result.''
** Incidentally, most of this came about of it being based off of WorldWarII.
* OsamuTezuka did this occasionally, but he usually managed to pull it off ''well''. For instance, in ''BlackJack'', Tezuka often criticizes the current state of the medical establishment, lent some weight by the fact that he was trained as a doctor before becoming a manga artist. It rarely feels heavy handed, though because of its wonderful characterization (Black Jack himself is a JerkWithAHeartOfGold with a convoluted BackStory) and the title character's amazing demonstrations of surgical skill that go BeyondTheImpossible. His science fiction stories, including ''AstroBoy'' often discuss the dehumanizing effects of modern society & technology, but counterpoint it by showing all the good that can come of modern technology. ''Karma'', the 4th (or 5th, depending on the localization) volume of ''Phoenix'' series is largely built around Buddhist themes , discussing Karma and reincarnation at length and lamenting the corruption of the Buddhist faith by political interests, but it is widely considered to be Tezuka's greatest masterpiece. The later ([[AuthorExistenceFailure and sadly, final]]) ''Phoenix'' story ''Sun'' does something similar with Shinto.
** Tezuka's science fiction book ''Apollo's Song'' did the same as ''AstroBoy'', but touched on the nature of romance (not to mention Greek Mythology) as well.
* ''TeamMedicalDragon'' was written by Akira Nagai, a practicing doctor - and the manga basically centres around a maverick (but exceedingly skilled) cardiac surgeon and his team fighting against bureaucracy and corruption in the Japanese health services. It's particularly jarring when you realise that all the protagonists are incredibly good-looking compared to most of the antagonists, who are practically caricatures.
**The issue with the looks is somewhat taken care of in the live-action version, with the antagonists having a fair amount of attractive people, and Dr. Asada being the only one pointed out to be good-looking.
* ''OnlyYesterday'' sometimes comes across as a tract about the importance of Japanese farming. It avoids being irritating through the sheer quality of the animation and storytelling--and it helps that the monologues are sometimes being interrupted by the character saying that he is getting too serious.
* Most of HayaoMiyazaki's movies have at least one segment that preaches the importance of respecting and preserving nature. That is, if the plot itself isn't already completely built around the {{aesop}}.
** Which it usually is.
* The manga ''Gimmick!'' has a rather glaring example of this, after a flashback where [[spoiler:Kohei takes a job to do special effects for a video game commercial, which turns out to be a government conspiracy that takes the commercial and re-edits it into a post-9/11 pro-war viral video.]] After the revelation that [[spoiler:one of Kohei's friends from Hollywood joins the Iraq War because of it and gets killed]], Kohei launches into a "Don't be fooled by images" rant about how Hollywood (and American media in general) is always sneaking subliminal messages into movies and commercials and such, saying how filmmakers just want to make movies, but [[ExecutiveMeddling executives keep interfering to cram their evil propaganda into every crack and crevice.]] I think we can all agree that executives are bastards, but not every filmmaker is an unbiased saint like Kohei paints them to be.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The works of AlanMoore frequently stray into Author Tract territory, most notably ''Promethea'', which was a 32-issue series explaining Moore's views on the nature of magic and ''VForVendetta'' which was very much a vehicle for his political views.
** To be fair concerning ''Vendetta'', Moore was also trying to show the ''bad'' parts of Anarchism and the ''good'' parts of Fascism so that the readers could make up their own minds. The creators of the [[FilmOfTheBook movie]] [[CompletelyMissingThePoint did not take this tact as closely to heart]], unfortunately.
* SteveDitko's comics, which attempted to mix superheroic action of a street-level variety with [[AnAesop Aesops]] on various principles derived from AynRand's Objectivism.
* ReginaldHudlin in charge of BlackPanther; Africans are good and genetically superior, white people are evil, marry within your race, etc.
* Lest we forget, JackChick is famous for creating his "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Chick Tracts]]", which have thin stories whose only purpose is to provide a framing story for an illustrated extract from TheBible and/or rant about how [[ConspiracyTheory the Pope secretly rules the world]] and ''DungeonsAndDragons'' is a Satanic indoctrination tool.
** "[[http://www.fredvanlente.com/cthulhutract/pages/index.html Why We're Here]]" is a parody tract in the style of Jack Chick's works, but instead of being based on Christianity, follows the conversion of someone to [[HPLovecraft The Cult of Cthulhu]], complete with supporting quotations from the [[TomeOfEldritchLore Necronomicon]].
*** Don't forget to listen to [[http://www.cthulhulives.org/solsticecarol.html this]] while you read it.
** [[http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2006/11/galactus_is_com.html This parody]] uses the Chick tract format to promote MarvelComics instead of Christianity.
** A site specifically devoted to parodying Chick tracts can be found [[http://www.weirdcrap.com/chick/intro.html here]].
* "The Truth for Youth" by TimTodd are comics done in Japanese style artwork. They're like [[JackChick Chick Tracts]], but a bit more sane. It's pretty odd to read about [[{{Animesque}} Japanese-style]] characters talk about the evils of porn.
**They aren't that sane, however. Let's not forget this clunker of a statement about evolution:
--->'''Rashad''': Did you know that evolution is basically a racist concept? Some evolutionists still teach that white people evolved from "negroes" who evolved from apes- '''meaning "white people are more evolved!"'''
** I once visited that site several years ago and the stories were in Western comic book style. They obviously redid them once anime started to get big. Sad.
* One Chick tract explains where the idea came from -- Communist China found that Western children loved reading comics, so they decided that easy-to-understand comics would be an excellent medium with which to indoctrinate the people.
** That said, basically every piece of official publication in Communist dictatorships is an example of this trope.
** An alternate, and equally apocryphal origin story for Chick tracts, suggests that they were inspired by "Tijuana bibles" -- similarly pocket-size, staple bound amateur comics of the '30s and '40s, which featured [[LawyerFriendlyCameo very Lawyer-Unfriendly Cameos]] of licensed characters engaging in pornographic acts.
*** Well, the "Communist China" pamphlets was the explanation Jack Chick gave in one of his tracts, and it's ''highly'' unlikely that a bluenosed fellow like Chick ever looked at a Tijuana Bible.
* ''TheInvisibles'' was basically created as a way for GrantMorrison to explain his experiences with extraterrestrial contact and magic.
* WarrenEllis has specifically stated that ''{{Transmetropolitan}}'' is basically him venting about his various opinions on politics and consumerism, with the main character being a sort of author surrogate. This is particularly notable in the issue where Spider Jerusalem takes on religion, which doesn't even end properly--the issue concludes with him dressed up as Jesus, tearing up a sort of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic religious convention in a mall]] (While giving [[AuthorFilibuster a long speech]] about why religion sucks, of course) and getting tackled by security. No mention is made of it afterward.
**{{Transmetropolitan}} actually does this right, as Spider is just unsympathetic enough to avoid being a MarySue 'I am right, you are wrong' type of character. You are left free to disagree with his individual likes and dislikes while sympathizing with his basic humanity, as many characters within the comic itself do.
** Many of the characters close to Spider constantly complain about what a [[{{Jerkass}} horrible and unpleasant person]] he is, frequently abusing and taking advantage of him when he's blitzed on whatever drugs he's managed to come up with. At one point, one of the characters closest to him gets sick of his crap and leaves; but later returns and comments that the worst part of working with such a [[MagnificentBastard bastard]] is that he's the good guy, and actually making a difference.
* ''{{Preacher}}''. Duh. "Uh, it's kind of preachy." "What part of the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin title]] confused you?"
* Much of the work of [[JMichaelStraczynski J. Michael Straczynski's]] work is infused with [[AnAesop Aesops]] derived from the author's political beliefs, with storylines implying that the contemporary U.S.A. is just a shade away from being a [[GodwinsLaw fascist state]] with only [[WriterOnBoard people like him]] heroically standing in the way.
* One of the reasons [[BunnyEarsLawyer William Moulton Marston]] created WonderWoman was to convince everyone to come under "loving submission" to a world matriarchy. Oh, and [[AuthorAppeal bondage is highly enjoyable]].
* Comically subverted by GrantMorrison when he literally shows up in ''Animal Man'' to (among other things) mention that he feels, his own, writing for the book has become too preachy and contrived.
* ''Blankets'' is a beautifully-drawn, emotionally engaging love story which uses the backdrop of a conservative Christian upbringing as parallel to the passion of teenage love - until the last chapter, when the love interest unceremoniously disappears and the comic becomes a vehicle for Craig Thompson's personal grudges against Bible-belt conservative Christianity. It was very jarring and out of place in what was until then a tale of romance spun against alternate interpretations of the New Testament.
** YourMileageMayVary. It really depends how you see the book--from one point of view, it's about the three kinds of love Craig feels: romantic love for Raina, familial love for his brother, and religious love for God. By the end of the story, all of those have been broken down, replaced with more nuanced feelings, drawn in finer strokes. He'll never love anyone as simply as he loved Raina, and he drifted away from the straightforward love he had for his brother (symbolized by them drawing on the same page). Drifting away from his childlike view of religion (but not from religion entirely--he specifically states that he's not an atheist) is part of the same growing-up theme.
* Dave Sim's ''{{Cerebus}}'' eventually came to be dominated by Sim's viewpoints on the evils of feminism and his rather unusual take on the Abrahamic religions. An entire story arc was dominated by the title character reinterpreting pretty much the entire Torah.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:{{Film}}]]
* {{Dogma}} is KevinSmith's AuthorTract about the absurdities of Catholicism.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]
* Writer Ayn Rand is the undisputed Queen of this trope. Several other authors here are noted as having many of their tracts derived from hers. She wrote several novels expounding of the virtues of her personal philosophy, Objectivism, culminating in her Magnum Opus - the {{Doorstopper}} ''AtlasShrugged''. With ''the'' AuthorFilibuster (actually only the longest of several in the book) lasting dozens of pages on end (exactly how many depends on which edition), {{Anvilicious}} doesn't begin to describe it.
* The ''SwordOfTruth'' series by TerryGoodkind is often accused by detractors of being nothing more than Objectivist propaganda, particularly the later books. ''Faith of the Fallen'' is two-fifths desperate battles and {{angst}}, and three-fifths [[{{Anvilicious}} clangingly obvious]] AynRand [[AuthorFilibuster soapboxing]] on how individuals working for themselves in a free market works far better than your broken, inevitably corrupt socialism, and will also get you the chicks. This didn't kick in at the start, though. [[AuthorAppeal Only the rape and bondage themes did.]]
* OrsonScottCard's ''Empire'', where the characters will [[AuthorFilibuster pause during the action]] to explain exactly why sweeping demonizations of the views of others are destructive. Part of it comes from the ridiculous premise -- he was hired to write the backstory for a video game about a second American Civil War taking place TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, with the opposing sides being [[StrawmanPolitical strawman versions]] of the Democrats and Republicans.
**Note that a number of the "villains" in the novel are military, so it's hardly fair for tropers to characterize it as condemning any disrespect for the military. But the book itself is used as a [[StrawmanPolitical strawman]] by people who engage in the behaviors Card criticized as corrosive of civic discourse in the prologue, and form his true {{Aesop}}.
* PhilipPullman's ''HisDarkMaterials'' series. After [[{{Subtext}} bubbling under the surface]] for the first third of the trilogy, the final volume explodes into a massive TakeThat against organized religion. Part of Pullman's intention with this series was to set up an atheist response to the fantasy novels of Christian writer C.S. Lewis, whom Pullman loathes. Pullman, in doing this, has ensured that he will be remembered not for writing three wonderful children's fantasy books but for ruining his final book by putting his "message" first and the story second. Indeed he will likely be remembered alongside C.S. Lewis for the same thing, who did the same with ''The Last Battle''.
* Lewis, of course, wrote the ''{{Narnia}}'' books, in which children go to the titular land and have adventures with Aslan the Lion, who is basically AlternateUniverse TalkingAnimal [[CrystalDragonJesus Jesus]]. He generally keeps it in subtext, but makes it extremely blatant at some points, such as Aslan saying to the kids at the end of the fifth book that he is "known by another name" in their world. The final ''Narnia'' novel goes even further by having Aslan outright state that he is known as "the lamb" on Earth, and having the main characters follow him into Heaven.
** WordOfGod... ahem... in this case claims it didn't start out that way. Lewis said that he didn't set out to write the Narnia books as a religious parable, but that he had converted to Christianity (due to Tolkien!) at the time and his feelings about religion just found their way into his work. Obviously he had noticed it and was playing it up by the end, but it explains why it was more subtle early on.
** C. S. Lewis did write ''deliberate'' Author Tracts, however:
** ''The Great Divorce,'' an allegory.
** ''Pilgrim's Regress,'' which is SoBadItsGood or SoBadItsHorrible, depending on your religious and literary tolerances. Lewis wrote this as a deliberate allegory when he thought his path to conversion was typical. He later found out it wasn't...
*** Lewis later stated that he disliked ''Pilgrim's Regress'', and considered it one of his weakest works.
** ''TheScrewtapeLetters.'' In contrast to ''Pilgrim's Regress'', this is actually well-written, but since he deliberately used a VillainProtagonist, it's better as literature than as a tract. This is especially true due to Lewis noting in the introduction that, being a demon, Screwtape is an UnreliableNarrator.
** The ''Space Trilogy'' of ''Out of the Silent Planet'', ''Perelandra'', and ''That Hideous Strength'', where what sets Earth apart from the rest of the inhabited planets in the solar system - and the reason why none of them have ever contacted Earth - is that Original Sin occurred there, and on the other worlds it didn't.
*** Original sin ''which spreads like radiation''. The near side of the moon is populated with evil beings who have purged it of all organic life, and the far side being the last good holdouts battling against the evil beings.
**** Um, that's not ''really'' how it works. {{Satan}} is [[SealedEvilInACan imprisoned]] specifically within the moon's orbit, meaning he has free rein to corrupt Earth itself and the near side of the moon, but the far side is ''just'' out of his reach. [[EpilepticTrees So unless you consider Satan to be a form of radiation....]]
*** To give you an idea of how blatant this is, people have referred to the last of the three as "That Hideous Book".
*** [[YourMileageMayVary But]] it had an evil organization of mad scientists taking orders from the severed head of another mad scientist, [[CrazyAwesome which is now acting as a mouthpiece for demons, and then Merlin comes and kicks their asses with the help of some psuedo-pagan gods/angels/somethings]]
* ''Easily'' topping ''{{Narnia}}'' and ''HisDarkMaterials'' by not bothering with the slightest subtext in the first place, the ''LeftBehind'' series of novels, which are based on the idea of the Rapture (the non-biblical idea that faithful Christians will be taken to Heaven before Armageddon) actually happening. That they are ''horribly'' written, with the [[IdiotPlot world's entire population described as behaving in stupidly unrealistic ways]], just makes it all the worse.
** Regardless of how you view the idea of the "Rapture," [=LaHaye=] and Jenkins ''do'' have a frequent habit of misquoting scripture...not to mention quoting it out-of-context, and re-interpreting it to suit the needs of the story (all of which the [[http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html Slactivist]] analysis readily points out).
** You know you're dealing with an AuthorTract when you read a women's clinic employee saying that she's sad that all the world's children disappeared... ''because they can't perform any more abortions now''!
*** Not to mention when the ''bad'' characters are likable and the ''good'' characters are nigh-sociopathic.
* The elves of the ''[[InheritanceCycle Inheritance]]'' books (''Eragon'', ''Eldest'' and ''Brisingr'') are atheist, [[AuthorAppeal nudist]], vegan tree-huggers who impart their "wisdom" [[{{Anvilicious}} repeatedly]] to the main character and the reader.
* A large part of RobertAHeinlein's ''StrangerInAStrangeLand'' revolves around nudism and polyamory, both of which Heinlein practiced in his real life. (''For Us The Living'', a [[MissingEpisode lost early Heinlein manuscript]] which was first published in 2003, contains similar themes.) Indeed, his works can largely be divided into pre-''Stranger'' and post-''Stranger'', with the latter showing far more evidence of this. There's also a greater-than-average amount of incest, including a mention that in his distant future it's genetically safer in some cases for a woman to bear her brother's children than an unrelated man's -- a couple's decision to have children together (or not) is based purely on their gene scans, not on consanguinity. Not that that necessarily stops them from ''marrying''; there's a reference to a happily married couple who are raising seven children, "four his, three hers, none theirs," using donor sperm for hers and donor eggs for his because the genetic risks of having children together were too great. Apparently HollywoodEvolution leads to a world where [[MarySuetopia whatever the creator thinks is hottest happens]]. Heinlein was probably unaware of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect#Westermarck_effect Westermarck Effect]], or he would have been less sanguine about the possibility of genetic scans completely replacing the incest taboo as society's method of minimizing pregnancies and births marred by reinforced harmful recessive genes.
** All of Robert A. Heinlein's heroes have the same views as he does. Some of his early writing was made solely for the purpose of AuthorTract. However, even his stories that weren't solely designed for it still have plenty of it in there. It is just that he was such a good writer with good ideas that he could get away with it. He also does get you to think about the issues, as well. ''StarshipTroopers'' is the most popular story of his that has been accused of being an AuthorTract, with critics basically saying it is just about worshiping the military.
***''StarshipTroopers'' is an Author Tract, all right. He wrote it in protest of America signing a nuclear treaty with Russia--whom he did not believe would keep nuclear treaties. UnfortunateImplications in that RealitySubtext, but this novel is good in itself. And it ''doesn't'' have the {{Squick}} that ''StrangerInaStrangeLand'' does, which makes a difference: there are probably a lot of people who appreciate Heinlein's military politics, but not his sexual politics.
*** Or vice-versa - ''Stranger'' was well-liked by the hippie movement, for example, while they certainly weren't fans of ''Starship Troopers''.
*** Weirdly, given that it suffers from such a severe dose of AuthorTract, ''Starship Troopers'' comes closer than any of his other major novels to breaking the main character out of the "Heinlein hero" mold. The protagonist ''isn't'' an attractive resourceful polymath; he's just a regular Joe (well, Juan) who believes the political line fed to him in school.
*** Heinlein is an unusual author tractist in that his political opinions and issue of choice evolved over time. While he never stopped writing author tracts, has later tracts effectively contradict his middle tracts, which in turn contradict his earlier tracts.
* ''[[NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'', by George Orwell, is nothing but an extremely {{Anvilicious}} AuthorTract based on his vision of how Stalinist revision of history might be taken to its logical extremes. In Orwell's case, though, he never really tried to hide his message, and SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped.
** Orwell's ''AnimalFarm'' is also a thinly veiled satire of the Russian Revolution, and more generally of the nigh-universal cycle of revolution and corruption.
** Not only did the anvil badly need to be dropped, but also, Orwell was a brilliant enough writer to pull it off not once, but twice. Much {{Dystopia}} fiction is by lesser authors and is utter garbage.
** And he dropped this anvil when Communist parties throughout Europe had widespread and vocal support, and nobody realized the extent of the horrors inflicted upon the Russians during the Soviet Union era. In other words, it's a kind of SeinfeldIsUnfunny, except with more anvils and less funny.
*** In fact, in the case of ''AnimalFarm'', Orwell had wanted to drop the anvil as early as 1943, but was dissuaded because the Allies feared the book would piss off Stalin. This was arguably the point -- the book was in part inspired by his experiences in Spain, where while engaged in some capacity with a Trotskyist brigade fighting for the Loyalists, they were attacked by another Loyalist brigade aligned with Stalin. Being [[strike: nearly brutally slaughtered]] shot in the ''throat'' gives the author the right to drop at least one anvil, right?
* OscarWilde has many characters who aren't really characters, but are just there so they can say what the author deems to be witty and insightful remarks. Of course, Oscar Wilde tended to view real humans the same way.
** {{Did not do the research}}. Reading some of his letters, especially ''De Profundis'' shows him in an entirely different light. Witty and hedonistic, yes, but also very warm and caring.
* L. Ron Hubbard and his final novels, ''BattlefieldEarth'' and the 10-volume ''MissionEarth''. In ''Battlefield Earth'' psychiatry is what caused the evil space overlords to turn from their generally happy live-and-let-live prior existence, into amoral PlanetLooters who regularly commit planetary genocide just so nobody will get in the way of their mining operations. Psychiatry is also the big-bad in ''Mission Earth'', to the extent that ''every single antagonist'' is either a supporting the profession or a practitioner or exporting it off-world or using it to take over the world. It doesn't help that almost every character is a StrawmanPolitical.
** Let's not forget the evil Psychlos. This isn't a play on "psycho"--it's a reference to ''psychologists'', who are considered evil in Scientology doctrine.
** His earlier work ''Masters of Sleep'' promotes Dianetics and features as a villain a mad psychiatrist, Doctor Dyhard, who persists in rejecting Dianetics after all his abler colleagues have accepted it, and believes in prefrontal lobotomies for everyone.
* MichaelCrichton. ''State of Fear''. In fact, many of his books. Starting with some of it in ''JurassicPark'', and it goes from there.
** And in ''Next'', he used a page in the book as a tract against... someone who wrote an article against Crichton's stance on Global Warming. How did he portray someone who dared disagree with him? As a pedophile with a tiny penis who raped infants, of course! The character [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse appears and then vanishes as suddenly]].
* Marge Piercy's novel ''Woman on the Edge of Time''. The title character travels to a future comprised of two societies: One is a [[MarySuetopia rural utopia]] in which virtually the entire political and social agenda of the late sixties and early seventies radical movements has been fulfilled: free love, no class or gender distinctions, no consumerism. The only exceptions to this are the death penalty and war, which they still practice. The other is a totalitarian regime populated by rich, capitalist technocrats, who frequently make war with the utopians and harvest their organs. The book ends with the main character [[ShootTheDog poisoning a group of scientists to ensure that their experiments don't lead to the dominance of the evil, technocratic faction.]]
* Charlotte Perkins Gilman's ''Herland'' is essentially her tract ''Women and Economics'' rewritten as utopian fiction.
* FyodorDostoevsky hoped to convey a new way to understand religion through exemplifying the themes of guilt and free will in writing ''TheBrothersKaramazov''. This can be seen in what many critics call the pivotal chapters of the book, which include the parable called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Inquisitor "The Grand Inquisitor."]] The way in which events play out conform with the Elder Zosima's idea expressed throughout of "everyone is guilty for all and before all."
* ''WarAndPeace'' was the means by which Leo Tolstoy wanted to share his view of history and historical forces. No no, the title doesn't give it away.
** What gives it away is the 100-page epilogue that drops any pretense of plot, characterization, drama, or interestingnesss. It even critiques the rest of the book directly.
* The ''Bill the Warthog'' series of children's detective stories are meant as biblical metaphors, including a whole book where the author just rips stories from Jesus's parables. Good thing the parables are in the public domain...
* JohnRingo does this [[strike:sometimes]] [[strike:fairly]] increasingly frequently, most noticeably in ''The Last Centurion'' which blames the fall of American civilization due to bird flu on democrats and liberals, and the rest of the world on universal healthcare. Though this is partly mitigated by it being a [[UnreliableNarrator first-person narrative]].
** In ''Through the Looking Glass'', a grandmother ponders why her local Democrats can't be both liberal ''and'' patriotic. Lasts a page, but then there's a DavidLynch-esque sequence that shows that an apparently minor creature that accompanied a little girl is [[spoiler:God. Well, that, and it's part of a race that makes up part of the universe.]] It leads to questioning why science and religion can't co-exist. Then, after that, it turns out the US Government has left some portals that weren't closed after the final battle in the Middle East, just to get rid of all the insurgents. It's a good thing to the characters.
*** By itself, the grandmother's pondering could also be [[UnreliableNarrator first-person perspective]], since there are real people who think like that, some of whom are Florida grandmothers. Suffice to say that it isn't at all by itself.
* Every book Ben Elton has ever written is just a plot worked around Ben Elton's whinging about popular culture, The Industry, or whatever's on his mind at the moment. ''Blind Faith'' is practically a poorly written love letter to a form of scientific Humanism, interspersed with some bizarre, [[MoralDissonance morally dissonant]] [[AuthorFilibuster filibusters]] about women and body hair.
** ''High Society'', however, is an [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped anvil that needed to be dropped]].
* [[UrsulaKLeGuin Ursula K. Le Guin's]] ''Tehanu'' is a prize example of this trope. A painfully [[StrawFeminist radical feminist]] rant full of [[TheUnfairSex evil abusive men]] and [[LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek helpless victim women]] which completely disregards continuity with the rest of the Earthsea trilogy.
** ''Changing Planes'' mixes actual stories in with thinly disguised tracts. "Great Joy" in particular has all the subtlety of a rocket-propelled anvil.
* ''The Land of Mist'' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a novel-length tract justifying the author's conversion to Spirtualism, including the massive CharacterDerailment of having ultra-rationalist Professor Challanger convert to Spiritualism. There is a suggestion in chapter two that the deaths of "ten million young men" in World War I was punishment by the Central Intelligence for humanity's laughing at the alleged evidence for life after death.
* Matthew Dickens spends the last hundred pages of the book {{Magnus}} telling the reader about his personal views on religious doctrines, evolution, theology, SupermanReturns, etc.
* PiersAnthony does these occasionally. One story he wrote was basically a TakeThat explaining why the sci-fi publishing business was worthless (Anthony having struggled against it for quite some time before learning the tricks of the trade). One supposes that subjectivity enters in over where the line is drawn between AuthorTract, AuthorFilibuster, and AuthorAppeal where his other books fall, though he's never been very shy about making his ideas on sexuality (and the ages at which people take notice of it), body modesty, and other things an important plot element of his stories.
* In Dean Koontz's more recent books (''Dark Rivers of the Heart, One Door Away From Heaven, By the Light of Moon'') there has been more and more main characters sagely contemplating that medical ethicists/atheists/socialists/sociopaths/"utopianists" are evil and the source of all the world's woes, and that golden retrievers, Libertarianism, close family, autistic people and beer are good things.
* The Arthur Haily novel ''The Moneychangers'' has a recurring character to filibuster about how Gold is Good. Given that he's a pundit with his own popular newsletter, and is married to one of the secondary characters, and the book is about banking, it kinda makes sense. Then, after the "real" ending, the US establishes a gold-backed dollar, and we are treated to the full text of one of said pundit's newsletters. Guess what it's about? The book ends with the lead putting the newsletter down and reflecting how wise said pundit is.
* MarionZimmerBradley's ''The Mists of Avalon'', a best-selling revisionist take on [[KingArthur Arthurian]] legends, arguably can be summarized thus: "Women and paganism good, men and Christianity bad." Fortunately, the film toned it down to a more general "Oppression and war = bad" message.
** A lot of her works can be summarized something like that. Her ''Darkover'' series had, in the far future of humans colonizing other planets, women still being ''forced'' to adopt a man's name when she married him... not just the last one, either, but rather the already outdated "Mrs. Hisfirstname Hislastname", just to [[{{Anvilicious}} make absolutely and totally sure]] that [[ViewersAreMorons her readers couldn't miss the fact]] that straight men are evil sexist bastards. Throw in some scenes of a newly married woman being treated like a newly bought farm animal, some horror stories about the rapacious nature of men, some internal musing on how truly strong, independent women are probably yearning for the true fulfillment of lesbian relationships, and... yeah.
**** Actually, she said in a letter (to me) that she fully supported the Mrs Her Husband usage, and told me that it's actually the law in the USA (I am not in the USA and don't know if that's true). She liked the Mrs Her Husband usage, and so her using it in the novel can't be taken as evidence of any "straight men are all bastards" view at all! Frankly, the whole Mrs HerHusband thing is a bizarre American thing I just don't understand and never have, it's not used in New Zealand and hasn't been since before I was born, ca 1930!
*** [[YourMileageMayVary This is a little more complicated than that]]: The Darkover series had quite a few happy heterosexual couples where the man respected and accepted the woman as his equal, and some of the most admirables characters of her series are straight male. Besides, the Terran Empire is already decadant when the whole "Mrs. Hisfirstname Hislastname" tradition is introduced. Bradley seemed to have thought that [[SomeAnvilNeedsToBeDroped misogyny is either the sign of barbary or the symptom of a declining culture]], not as the proof of some inherent biological perversion of straight males.
* John Steinbeck's ''{{The Grapes of Wrath}}''. Almost every odd-numbered chapter is an Anvilicious AuthorFilibuster which can be summed up in the following way: Collectivism good; free market bad. He doesn't even try to integrate them into the plot, which at times seems to only be there so that Steinbeck could market what is essentially a collection of persuasive essays as fiction.
* Much of Sheri S. Tepper's work reads as thinly disguised, and arguably misandrist, radical feminism and femninist utopianism; particularly ''Gate to Women's Country'' and ''The Revenants''.
* Petrarch's [[AuthorExistenceFailure unpublished final work]], a poem on Scipio Africanus, was full of long {{Author Filibuster}}s on how AncientRome was [[MarySuetopia better than everything ever]]. Technically, this is true of all of Petrarch's work, and indeed, most things written during TheRenaissance, but he took the cultural inferiority complex UpToEleven. There's also apparently a fictitious bit where Scipio goes to see a fortuneteller, who speaks of a dark time when poetry will die out and only a man named [[TedBaxter Petrarch]] will be able to save it. After Petrarch died, some of his fans wanted to publish it. Then they read it, and decided that he never finished it for a reason.
* Cory Doctorow's characters' habit of spouting [[{{Anvilicious}} detailed]] primers on DRM, electronic privacy, free Wifi, or any other axe he'd like to grind. This sometimes degenerates into [[WriterOnBoard 'interesting' choices in characterization]] -- the teen protagonist of ''Little Brother'' invites other kids around for a party, drinks, and PGP Keysigning 101.
* Steven Erikson's ''{{Malazan Book of the Fallen}}'' has always been filled with [[ContemplateOurNavels navel-gazing philosophy]] (usually of the {{Wangst}}y kind), but for the first seven books it was at least the ''characters'' doing it, and sometimes [[CrapsackWorld not without reason]]. But in book eight, ''Toll the Hounds'', we have long ramblings in omniscient voice, and it becomes painfully obvious that Erikson is trying to push his allegedly deep insights regarding the world on the reader. Perhaps the most Anvilicious example is p.617 (hardback version), where Erikson has the audacity to, in omniscient voice, use the phrase: "And this is the lesson here, dear friends."
** The parts of ''Toll the Hounds'' where the readers seem to be directly addressed are actually told by Kruppe (who, as we know since the very first book, just loves the sound of his own voice).
* TheActsOfCaine contain a few. Stover is, for the most part, willing to keep them to under three pages. Which is good because some of those tracts are fucking depressing.
--> '''Deliann''': Sometimes it's hard to tell existentialism apart from a bad mood.
* Even EdgarAllanPoe wasn't immune to this, though to either his credit or his fault, he restricted it to philosophy--''The Imp of the Perverse'' is entirely about his idea of a previously uncredited motivating force behind people's actions.
* [[HPLovecraft H.P. Lovecraft's]] short story ''Silver Key'' consists almost entirely of his AuthorAvatar Randolph Carter, who is exactly like Lovecraft except that his family didn't lose its wealth and prestige musing about all things wrong with the society. He bashes both religion and science for their obsession with order and structure, and declares that dreams are equal to reality, and that the only things worth valuing in a meaningless universe are beauty and harmony. The ending implies a romanticized view of suicide, as Carter abandons the Waking World, ironically in perfect opposite to the {{Aesop}} he was supposed to have learned in ''The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath''.
* ''King John of Canada'' by Scott Gardiner, although nominally a political satire, in reality consists of one AuthorFilibuster after another against Natives, Quebec Separatists, environmental activists, Saudi Royals, the Asper family, American-style conservatives...in short, everyone that the author doesn't like, all stuck together by a paper-thin plot and shallow characters. Even for someone who 'agrees' with most of his points, it's painful to read.
* ''The Turner Diaries'', written under a pseudonym by William Pierce, who was leader of the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance until his death in 2002. Largely about ''eeeevil'' [[StrawmanPolitical liberals and Jews]] enslaving America, and the actions of the DesignatedHero terrorist cell "The Order" trying to overthrow said ''eeeevil'' strawmen. For a scary note, a scene in which the Order blow up a federal building probably inspired the actions of one of its biggest fans - Timothy [=McVeigh=], the Oklahoma City Bomber.
* 99% of everything that JohnMilton wrote (including, tautologically, his political tracts).
* Tom Clancy's ''Executive Orders'' has President Jack Ryan remaking the U.S. government.
* Norman Spinrad's ''The Iron Dream''. An AlternateHistory Hitler (who became a writer instead of a politician) writes "Lord Of The Swastika", a pulp SF adventure with a plot that mirrors the real-world rise of the Third Reich. It's followed by a review where a scholar heaps praise on Hitler as a brilliant writer of rollicking good adventure stories, and whose only criticism is that he thinks it was a bit implausible for the protagonist to rise to power by creating a rather silly cult of personality and machismo. Naturally the whole thing is one giant TakeThat at the BrokenAesop morality of pulp SF and fantasy stories.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''TheBoondocks'' (also the animated TV show version). Often expresses the feelings of Aaron [=McGruder=] on race, entertainment, religion, and politics. Be warned however, that some of that is also just Huey being Huey. This is subverted, however, by Huey being the character that often voices [=McGruder's=] beliefs, making it difficult to distinguish what the character thinks, and what the author thinks.
** Ummm... Author Insert?
** And, in fact, [[CloserToEarth Michael Caesar]]'s role insert a bit of realism or LampshadeHanging to make the tract less Anvilicious or provide a more temperate view.
* Bill Watterson admitted that he wrote a lot of his troubles with the syndicate into ''CalvinAndHobbes'', as well as his opinions on comics, film, TV, commercial and other industries, humans' role in nature, art, and general philosophy. Fortunately, he was a good enough author to not let it get in the way of characterization or humour.
** I would imagine that writing a six-year-old would make this easier — despite his vocabulary, Calvin tended to see the world in much the same way as other children his age, with simple black-and-white answers to everything, and the notion that just because you can't prove in a debate that you're right, doesn't make you any less right.
** It also helped that Watterson was also not above making ''himself'' the butt of the jokes - for example, much of Calvin's rambling about art was actually directed at Watterson's own beliefs.
* ''{{Doonesbury}}'' is really just Gary Trudeau telling people what he thinks about politics day-in and day-out, with occasional asides for other things.
** ''Mallard Fillmore'' is the same thing, only with a pro-conservative/Republican position, as opposed to Doonesbury's liberal/Democrat take.
*** Actually, in its later years Doonesbury has become as much about exploring the gigantic cast of characters' lives as it has about politics. About half the strips these days are just about the wacky adventures of Zonker, Uncle Duke, or whoever Trudeau wants to focus on this week. The other half can get quite preachy, though.
**** Mallard, meanwhile, is ALWAYS an author tract, because in contrast to Doonesbury, which has hundreds of recurring characters, Mallard only has two: the duck himself, and his liberal strawman editor. And since both of them are just representatives of opposing viewpoints, there's no real "character" there to explore.
* After its creator's conversion to born-again Christianity, ''{{BC}}'' became notorious for its pro-Christian sermonizing, including one infamous Easter strip showing a menorah transforming into a cross (WordOfGod (ahem) was that this was merely his way of expressing a new religion [[strike:overthrowing replacing obliterating]] coming into its own). Which may seem weird given the apparent setting, but there was a story in around 2000 or so that puts forth the idea that the setting was not prehistoric but rather post-Rapture.
** With the Hart's grandson, Mason Mastroianni, in the writer's seat, the preachiness been dropped and the strip has returned to gag-a-day format. There was a strip ("Hey, I found this paper from 2004...") that implies ''B.C.'' merely takes place AfterTheEnd.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''SaturdayNightLive'' sometimes has this happening, most likely because the host differs from week to week. Christina Aguilera hosted in the midst of her "Dirrty" phase, and about three-quarters of the sketches where she played a central role (either as herself or someone else) had her character lecturing the others on how she chose to express herself as a woman (i.e. don't call me a slut just because of how I dress or dance). Some sketches in this style were {{Anvilicious}}, others were [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped anvilicious but got the point across with a good punchline]].
* ''TheWestWing'' varied a lot over time - the writing staff was mostly Republican in later seasons, leading to things like Arnold Vinick being the better candidate in the Season 7 election, to the point where [[spoiler:he would have won had actor John Spencer not died, forcing a last-minute rewrite]].
** Of course, ''TheWestWing'' looked positively non-partisan when stacked up against Sorkin's follow-up, ''Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'', which took the preachiness and turned it UpToEleven. And then squared it. This was parodied in the early episodes of ''[[{{ptitleolsdue4jfzga}} 30 Rock]]'', with Lemon ranting about something, then getting confused about the statistics before concluding, "I gotta read more."
* ''{{MacGyver}}'' pretty much turned into a show protesting societal wrongs after a couple seasons. The most glaring was probably the one that opened with a warning about a graphic portrayal of a de-horned rhinoceros, then spent about half its running time explaining the poaching in Africa and ended with Richard Dean Anderson as himself narrating about what can be done about it. VerySpecialEpisode, indeed.
* ''BostonLegal'' frequently involved the writers concocting a storyline that would allow James Spader to sue and deliver increasingly lengthy closing arguments. Frequently [[BetterThanABareBulb lampshaded]].
* RussellTDavies is a mild case, for sufficiently flexible values of "mild". While he does tend to harp on about homosexuality and atheism a lot, he does do it well and rarely cops out.
* JossWhedon touches on his existentialist views in the the ''{{Firefly}}'' episode "Objects In Space", through Jubal Early. Joss goes into much deeper detail in the episode commentary.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
-->(Given the large number of {{protest song}}s and other musical agitprop, this probably should only list notable or extreme examples)
* The album ''Firestorm'' by [[FilkSong filk]] musician Leslie Fish is intended as a set of instructions for surviving after a nuclear war. Many of her other songs are author tracts on the subjects of religion, anarchism, and civil liberties.
* System of a Down lost a lot of their fandom after their concerts became political talk-downs instead of politically charged ''music''.
* Rush's RockOpera ''2112'' is essentially a hard-rock adaptation of Ayn Rand's ''Anthem'', and a number of the group's other songs reference Objectivist ideals, such as ''Tom Sawyer'', ''Red Barchetta'', ''The Trees'', and (appropriately enough) ''Anthem''.
** Not for nothing is the track 2112 known as 'the best Objectivist novel ever written'.
** Their much later album, ''Roll the Bones'', particularly the title track, can be seen as an AuthorTract repudiating their earlier Objectivism, or at least softening it greatly; and propounding more of a "life is random, you deal with what you get" attitude, incorporated with a strong anti-religion/superstition message.
* In the 2000s, it has become chic to produce remixes of existing songs (protest songs in particular) containing soundbytes from the creator's political candidate of choice. This editor recalls hearing a version of Buffalo Springfield's ''For What It's Worth'' mashed up with a John Kerry speech in 2004, and 2008 has seen a will.i.am-produced hip-hop remix of several Barack Obama speeches.
* "Long Leather Coat" by Paul [=McCartney=], issued in 1993. If you are not in animal-lib, you will get chills listening to this.
* Several of John Lennon's works from '72 and '73. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World." There is even the Nutopian National Anthem--which is silent...
* The entirety of Green Day's "American Idiot" album was one long TakeThat against the George W. Bush administration. One song on the album, "Holiday", which despite already being an Author Tract manages to still have an AuthorFilibuster where the song stops for the singer to StrawmanPolitical Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Bush directly through spoken word, complete with [[GodwinsLaw pulling a Godwin]]. Kind of a shame, [[YourMileageMayVary depending on one's opinion on politics in music]], because the music itself was enjoyable enough.
** As if the album itself wasn't heavy-handed enough, Armstrong once talked about '''adapting it into a movie.''' No kidding.
* Much of Sinead O'Connor's early work, particularly in concert, consisted of [[{{Narm}} "think of the children" laments worthy of Sally Struthers]], and anti-Catholic tirades, culminating in her [[CreatorBreakdown career-derailing]] destruction of Pope John Paul II's photo on SaturdayNightLive.
** Although given what we now know about the Catholic Church's abuse of children [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_to_Inquire_into_Child_Abuse]](which was the main point of her protests) she was (a) right on the money and (b) raised the issue long before it was widely known. SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped?
* "Diary of an Unborn Child" is an anti-abortion AuthorTract that would possibly have been more effective had the titular protagonist not embodied [[TastesLikeDiabetes Sickening Sweetness]] and NightmareFuel in equal measure, making its eventual demise [[BrokenAesop more of a relief than anything.]] [[{{Narm}} And then it starts singing.]]
** Not to mention that in trying to be strawmannishly {{Anvilicious}}, the creator portrays the mother as literally quaking in fear at the very concept of her child, implying that she hates it and despises it. Of course, if your unborn fetus was chirping at you about every stage of its development in a Chipmunk-esque voice, it might scare you, too.
* Subverted by Alice Cooper. Despite being a Republican and Christian, he is vehemently against mixing his beliefs with his songs, both because he feels that rock is the antithesis of politics and because he doesn't think people should be looking to musicians for guidance on who to vote for.
--> "So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick. If you`re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you`re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we`re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."
** Likewise, this editor gained a whole new sense of respect for Elvis Presley after hearing about a reporter who asked for his opinion on the Vietnam War; The King politely replied with "Ma'am, I'm just an entertainer," and he ''left it at that''.
* Neal Morse left his Prog Rock band Spock's Beard after becoming a Christian. His "Testimony" album is pretty much the story of his conversion, although he tends not to be didactic and simply calls it "my story."
* Early Music/{{Chicago}} had a lot of these. If it's penned by Robert Lamm, expect this trope (also, expect a lot of vitriol aimed at the establishment). Exemplified by [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "A Song for Richard And His Friends."]]
* Toby Keith's early albums were a mix of fun or melancholy country tunes, of above-average quality. Now they are mostly raucous instructions on blind patriotism, bible-thumping and how he's better than everyone.
* Just about all the music of Canadian far-left band Propaghandi is like this, although it's gotten to the point where they spend so much time at their concerts ranting to the audience instead of actually playing music, that their fans have been known to yell at them to shut up and play.
* [[DeconstructiveParody Parodied with a hint of deconstruction]] by TenaciousD in the song ''City Hall'', where the duo take over the world - first, they legalise pot, then they try to reduce pollution with an absurd and impractical tube system, then they start to lose steam, showing that rock stars aren't really the type of people who you should take political advice from.
* Most of the work of the Cranberries is about their political views stemming from TheTroubles. Even their international hit song "Zombie" ("It's been the same old theme since 1916") is a cry to PleaseThinkOfTheChildren and stop the fighting.
* While normally BobDylan puts enough subtlety in his protest songs that you could naively assume they were made purely for the artistic merit, he didn't even try with "Neighborhood Bully". ThisTroper clicked on it on YouTube, heard the lyrics, and immediately knew exactly what point Dylan wanted to make ''thirty freaking years ago''. UGH.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Hideo Kojima's ''MetalGearSolid'' series has a tendency to pause the action for ''long'' cutscenes proclaiming the danger of Nukes. [[http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/index.php/Site/ThumbnailMetalGearSolid1-01 Metal Gear Solid Thumbnail Theatre]] mocks this by occasionally substituting the name of the nuclear expert with that of Kojima:
-->'''Hideo Kojima''': NUKES ARE VEDDY, VEDDY BAD. GRRR NUKES.
** It's pretty curious that said character [[BrotherChuck disappeared completely from the series]] after MGS 1.
*** With the game being produced by the only country that was ever actually [[strike:bombed]] attacked with the things, this [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo may be excusable]].
*** Technically, she doesn't entirely disappear... She is the one who provides the book, ''In the Darkness of Shadow Moses'', which may or may not represent the sum total of public knowledge of Solid Snake. It is, however, pretty blatantly stated that she disappeared (in a more literal and in-universe sense) after its publication.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* The online flash series ''BrokenSaints'' is deeply immersed in AuthorTract, all taken Brooke Burgess' new-found (as of the original writing) philosophical outlook on life. He also makes no secret of his political views, particularly as regards the relationship between the U.S. and Iraq post-Gulf War I. One of the main protagonists is an Iraqi "freedom fighter" who is struggling to balance his desire for justice against the Western invaders and the peaceful teachings of his religion. It is worth noting that the series was well under way before 9/11, and was almost completed before the second Gulf War.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
*''{{Fans}}!'' is a little too vehement in its defense of fanboys. Claim that they're valuable, intelligent and worthwhile human beings, fine. Claim that fanboys have the [[EigenPlot specific combination of strengths]] that makes them the only ones capable of defending Earth, and that the biggest, geekiest fanboys alive will be revered by future generations as heroes who made all of society possible... that's taking things a bit too far.
** ''{{Shortpacked}}'' seems to take the opposite tack in its satire and often portrays fans with complaints of any sort as self-entitled morons. Not surprisingly, what is considered unfair and what is considered perfectly okay seems to coincide with the author's tastes...
*** Willis often acknowledges that obsessiveness fanishness, ''even his own'', is Not Okay. This was parodied when he shows up at the store and gets in an armed fight with Ethan over an EditWar. The arc ends with him and his girlfriend sneaking into Ethan's apartment--[[RuleThirtyFour Maggie in a Transformers costume]]--and smashing up his computer so he wouldn't be able to edit the wiki. Then there was the time he made fun of people who said that the second {{Transformers}} movie sold out because of all the marketing. In case you don't get it, Transformers is probably the most popular and transparently MerchandiseDriven franchise ever.
* ''BetterDays'' started out as an author tract largely for conservatism and mild misogyny, but has gradually grown into an author tract for Objectivism as Jay Naylor discovered that particular philosophy and became a huge AynRand fan. The most recent chapter of the comic is basically a long rant against abstract art or any art that "[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible doesn't look like something]]", culminating with the "good" artist whose paintings "look like what they're of" being given validation first in the form of a big check from a businessman, and then discarding her own search for fulfillment to move in with the male main character, whom she expects nothing of (not even fidelity).
** Don't forget the guns. Guns are good. [[FetishFuel Very very good]].
** ''Better Days'' is a [[FurryComic 'furry' comic]], and they do tend towards AuthorTract. Jack, anyone?
*** True, but take a good furry webcomic, like 2kinds. It's a statement against racism with loveable characters overcoming differences and becoming friends. Better days basically turned from a mild Author Tract about conservatism (actually pretty interesting) into a massively wanky self-inserted-fantasy-persona.
* ''UnicornJelly'' and ''PastelDefenderHeliotrope'', both by Jennifer Diane Reitz, both start out as (respectively) amusing and cute fantasy and science fiction stories, but the Author's soapboxes about religion, homosexuality, and transgenderism quickly [[{{Anvilicious}} overwhelm the plot]].
** To say nothing of the fact that it's revealed at the end of PastelDefenderHeliotrope that it was about anti-piracy legislation as well (which seems like an AssPull to boot since it only comes up in the last page or two).
* ''OzyAndMillie'' tends to sometimes veer into Simpson's liberal viewpoints, usually with geoglobal politics boiled down to playground puppets, and famously [[GenkiGirl Millie's Mr. W sockpuppet]]. This faded when she decided to launch her political cartoon "I Drew This". Her opinions on the Public Education system still is a strong part of the strip.
* With ''TheLastDaysOfFoxhound'', this is bound to happen when a biochemistry student writes a comic about Metal Gear Solid, but it's noticeable how he still makes it funny. Mantis is the typical mouthpiece. [[http://gigaville.com/comic.php?id=272 Dr. Naomi Hunter supplements Mantis' rants with more reasonable but obviously frustrated objections]].
** Also played with when the plot stops so that Mantis can rant against banning gay marriage. The best part is that it is ''entirely'' in-character - he isn't so much arguing ''for'' gay marriage as he is saying that having sex with reproduction is just as gross as having sex without reproducing.
* While the comic has become incredibly more reasonable about this, earlier strips of TalesOfTheQuestor were suffused with a certain subset of Christian theology, culminating when the author updated with rants about other belief systems. Those rants have since been moved elsewhere, but the author still provides nods towards Christianity now and again.
** Every other comic by the author, on the other hand, is still chock-full of pro-Christian, American (especially Southern), libertarian soapboxing and anti-pretty much everything else.
* Parodied in ''TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' when the AltText claimed that:
--> This whole comic has been a setup for me to push my views on you that man should not fly.
* Critics of ''YuMeDream'' have branded it an author tract, saying that all straight characters are portrayed as evil, especially in the first section. Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] because [[spoiler: it's all Fiona's dream, and since she's newly out, possibly somewhat biased.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''SouthPark'' often devotes episodes to be heavy handed over the top AuthorTract, with StrawmanPolitical.
** And then [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] it in Cartoon Wars. Repeatedly. Let it never be said that, whatever their views, Parker and Stone are not self-aware.
--->"And if you ask me, your show has become so preachy and full of morals that you have forgotten how to be funny!"
*** That in real life they sometimes forget to acknowledge their own show is not necessarily all that deep either, despite their trying, when they are even harsher on FamilyGuy can make it seem more like a sop to make their TakeThat seem less mean spirited and more reasonable (see! we know we have flaws too!) and thus effective than a real awareness. If they were that aware they'd tone it down a notch.
* ''{{Ducktales}}'' occasionally delved into this territory, although it was generally done well and in a manner that could educate kids on issues they might not otherwise learn about until they were older. Some episodes dealt with themes such as capitalism vs organized labor (showing the importance of responsible management, without totally demonizing, when Uncle Scrooge lost his memory).
* Seth [=MacFarlane=] has bluntly stated that ''AmericanDad'', a show about an [[StrawmanPolitical extremely stupid conservative CIA agent]] and his family, was created primarily out of his frustration at George W. Bush's re-election in 2004. However, despite its overtly political premise, it has generally been far less preachy than the ''FamilyGuy'' episodes that have aired during the same years. An episode focused around Bush, while showing him to be pretty stupid, actually had him portrayed as a pretty decent guy who ends up delivering a heartfelt message to help Stan be more forgiving and supportive of his daughter.
** It probably helps American Dad that the [[StrawmanPolitical extremely stupid conservative CIA agent's]] daughter is pretty much an [[StrawmanPolitical equally stuid liberal college student]]. It's just more fun to point out the absurdities of both sides.
** On the topic of ''FamilyGuy'', Brian ("Well, we're off to a good start.") has become more of a way for the writers to preach their values and take jabs at ones they don't like, though Brian himself has been shown in show to be an arrogant, possibly racist alcoholic hypocrite (see his selling out his values to get his terrible book published) while still at least not an idiot.
* Similarly to the Family Guy/Brian example, a writer for ''TheSimpsons'' admitted that the creative team has deliberately made Ned Flanders, in recent seasons, less of a "turn the other cheek" Christian and more of an intolerant [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardian]], as a protest against the growing influence of, well, MoralGuardians in Bush's America... nevermind the MoralGuardians were led by Al Gore's wife (and just as virulent) around the time the show started. Much of this has been viewed as CharacterDerailment. Flanders was de-[[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] in TheMovie, though, being portrayed as a genuinely caring guy who just has some annoying quirks.
** A more annoying cause of Author Tracts is Lisa who, as the show has gone on, has become the focus of plots that are basically an excuse to have her take on some new world view (Buddhism, veganism, environmentalism, etc.). While the causes she supports are generally worthwhile, the fact that the plot seems to require all the other characters to become total jerkasses before eventually apologizing to her makes it harder to like them in other episodes. An obvious example is the disgusting behavior of Homer and Marge when Lisa became a Buddhist, acting as though she'd converted to Satanism. They never acted this way about Buddhism again and it barely gets a mention in other episodes. There's even a later episode in which everyone is shocked that Bart becomes a Catholic. He never thinks to remind anyone that his sister left the family church as well.
[[/folder]]
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