Aesoptinum Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

Discussion leading to rename from Powered By A Forsaken Child:

Kilyle: Not enough time to read thru that whole conversation there, but I did skim it, and I caught the title reference immediately. It's Those Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guinn (which I might have misspelled). So the idea would be Phlebotinum or the like powered by an immoral cost. It's one of the things that perhaps wouldn't occur except for an Aesop, but it doesn't cover all those things, unless you want to expand the definition beyond the original reference, which is fine.

I see that Soylent Green already covers "doesn't work unless you pay a really ghastly price." I wonder how clearly we could draw the line between that any "the ghastly price is here to force an Aesop" so I'm in favor of combining these and moving them to Powered By A Forsaken Child, which as a name I like much better. Soylent Green already overlaps with Im A Humanitarian and with Alien Lunch.

Artifact Of Doom covers Phlebotinum that is itself evil. Powered By A Forsaken Child covers an act that is immoral... and while making use of an evil object could be said to be immoral, I don't think it's the same concept at all.

I do think there's something in here we could dig out... the idea, related to Shoot The Dog, that some good is so necessary that it's acceptable even at the cost of the obviously immoral act that accompanies it. I don't think this is quite covered by The Dark Side, as it can be, at least in fiction, a solitary thing that does not start to "leaven the whole lump," that is, drive you to new and greater acts of evil or depravity. People in Omelas weren't slowly drifting over into evil, they were living their lives as they always had, only with the little nag in their consciences that they tucked down into the corners of their awareness so they didn't think about it too much, or when they did, they accepted it as "necessary".

Also, there's a slight difference, I think, between Omelas and, say, the floating city in Battle Angel Alita, or for that matter any kind of accepted Second Class Citizen arrangement. Like the ostracizing of the "untouchables" in, what, India? Anything that says "Our way of life depends on others having a worse way of life, and that's a necessary evil." I've heard this used (in an article about Omelas) to say Americans are morally obligated to sell all their luxuries and give the money to people in need elsewhere. Taken to this extreme, this says people have no right to luxuries so long as someone somewhere is in greater need. Anyway, there's a distinction between the Anvil of Omelas and the general understanding that you have luxuries while someone else lacks necessities. I'm not sure how to point out the distinction.

Earnest: Well, I'm in favor. It would certainly clarify several tropes and clear up the overlap.

Ununnilium: Well, see, originally, it wasn't necessarily "ghastly price". It was more any phlebotinum that would create An Aesop. The apothesis, I suppose, would be a magic wishing lamp that only worked if you had a pure heart, with "pure heart" being definied as "whatever the writer thought was a good thing". IMHO, the trope needs a rename and an overhaul.

Kilyle: I would like to see this clarified, yes. I don't think that the "be on your best behavior" artifacts necessarily fit in with "choosing to do this is immoral" acts, but I could see a page that talked about both of them (compare and contrast!). I do see the connection with the Aesop, though, and I see that you really want "here for no plausible reason other than causing an Aesop" but I'm not sure that is exactly what this title speaks to. But I do think this title speaks, and I think enough people have read Omelas for it to be useful as the title of the trope Omelas typifies. Perhaps that trope is the Aesop Plot (Aesop Phlebotinum?), and if so, so be it.

Possibly related is a movie I saw part of tonight. From what I caught, the President of the United States (admirably portrayed by Sam Waterston) had lost his memory and a psychiatrist was trying to bring it back; I missed enough to miss the overall plot and motivation, unfortunately, but I did catch the dilemma: My wife and kids are in that area, and I need to bomb that area to protect the country I'm sworn to protect. Here it's a heartrending but necessary sacrifice (though, given the plot elements I missed, perhaps the movie held that it had not been necessary). You can't sacrifice a nation to save a few individuals.

However, the decision to save billions over a few is distinct from the decision to maintain a paradise on the backs of a few less fortunates. The people who lived in Omelas had the option to change their lifestyle, give up bliss, live as normal people, and free the child (and make sure future children weren't made to suffer that way), but they chose as a people to maintain their paradise even at that cost.

Fast Eddie: Grabbed a piece of that, Kilyle, and invented Aesoptinum out of it. That might be a good destination for the non-"ghastly price" items. Right now, it just points back here.

Kilyle: I like it, it's clear, it's obvious, it's funny. My comments on the word itself are on the comment page for Aesoptinum now. Thank you for taking this step!

So object-powered-by-Aesop has a home. And your intention is "non-ghastly-price items" so does that mean the "be on your best behavior" items, or does it cover other things we've been talking about as well? I could see pages that speak of moral Empathic Weapons as "Twiggie has a sword made from Aesoptinum" or the like.

Ununnilium: I'm going to start moving stuff over (as soon as I get back from the store!) Note that some ghastly-price items work. For example, "Pax" is an example of this, but Spice isn't.

Kilyle: Love the choice, much clearer for this piece of the concept. The name annoys me... probably because the stress is on SOP (ee-SOP-tin-um). Would like to see it changed to Aesoptinium (ee-sop-TIN-ee-um) or some similar name that sounds a little better. But thank you for putting it up! The sooner we get this sorted out, the better.

Fast Eddie: Aesoptinium works.

Ununnilium: There, that should do it. Will Cut List Powered By A Forsaken Child.

Scientivore: I like the sound of Aesoptinum so I checked with some dictionaries. Apparently, some people pronounce the -sop in Aesop with an unstressed schwa (as in gallop) instead of with a secondary stress on a short "o" (as in mop or pot). I pronounce Aesop the latter way, so Aesoptinum has more assonance with Phlebotinum and doesn't have to shift the stress as far. That could explain some of the difference in its appeal.

Morgan Wick: And I pronounce the "Ae" part "A" instead of "E".

Kilyle: So you pronounce it more "AY-sup"? I've always said "EE-sop". Bearing in mind that I'm American and the "short" O sound and the Roman A /ah/ sound are identical to me. Definitely not a lax O like in the British "cot". So in rough IPA it would be /i:sap/ and you would say /e:s&p/ or whatever is used in ASCII for that schwa? Um, does this mean that you would stress the first syllable of this trope name (AY-sup-tin-um or EE-sop-tin-um)? Hrm... I'd still vote for the -INIUM ending, but I won't make too big of a fuss. Either way, it's still clear and obvious, so great move.

Ununnilium: I've always said it "AY-sop", and I'm American too.

HeartBurn Kid: I'm with Uni here. I've heard two pronunciations: "AY-sup" and "AY-sop". I've never really heard the "EE-sop" pronunciation. Besides which, I think Aesoptinum fits better with our other pages (such as the many Phlebotinum pages).

Morgan Wick: Hmm. Trying to show the pronunciation as "AY-sop" leaves me wondering if you mean "I-sop" or "A-sop" (the latter is what I mean).

Ununnilium: "A-sop", definitely.

Fast Eddie: Was the idea of a separate trope for the "ghastly price" instances abandoned? I missed it, if it was.

Ununnilium: That's weird, I knew I left a comment on this last night.

Anyway: Wether or not it has a ghastly price doesn't really matter to the trope; splitting those examples out would result in two much weaker tropes.

Fast Eddie: Some natter:

This troper thinks this is not quite correct. The Giving Plague makes quite heavy references to the idea that a lot of junk DNA in the human genome is the result of viruses incorporating themselves into the human genetic makeup. ALAS is supposed to make people more altruistic and cooperative in general by modifying their genes, with the donation of blood just being the vector by which the disease propagates.
- This troper has also read the story in question, and recalls David Brin quite explicitly following the protagonist's line of reasoning in determining the cause of the altruism - in which line of reasoning, the above mentioned human proclivity for justifying one's actions to oneself and others was a key link in the chain. This is perhaps the nearest Vonnegut a Brin story has yet come.

Quillain: I'd like to cut that string of jokes (the "you get your wish but person-you-hate gets it double" ones) but I admit I may not be seeing the inherent Aesop. Are they examples of the trope?

Ununnilium: Yeah, I don't get it either. Cutting:

A few of Aesop's original fables could be described this way. Probably the best example is the story of the man who was granted a wish on the condition that his greatest rival would get the same thing, doubled. For instance, if he wished for a hundred kilos of gold, his rival would get two hundred. So what did he wish for? To be blind in one eye.
- Another version has the two people getting wishes at the same time. The first person immediately wishes for double whatever the other person wishes for. Then, after a moment of thought, the other person wishes to be blind in one eye.
- This has evolved into a common bar joke: A man finds a genie who, for whatever reason, will give the man three wishes... and his hated boss double what he got. The man wishes in turn for one million dollars, a Rolls-Royce, and to be beaten half to death. Another version occurs with lawyers, where a genie pops up, and will grant three wishes, but all the lawyers in the world get double that. The man wishes for a million dollars, a house, and to donate one of his kidneys.
- The Same To You Doubled by Robert Sheckley, in which the man asks for a lover who will almost kill him with ecstasy.
- Another variation had a recently-divorced woman whose wishes would come true, but would also be granted to her ex-husband severalfold. Her last wish was to be pregnant with triplets.
- Yet another variation has the man hating his former mother-in-law or his ex-wife, and asking for riches, to be young and beautiful, and for a 20-inch penis...
- A version has the character in the story (whose worst enemy was the person he'd considered his best friend) wish for a hundred thousand dollars, a brand-new Porsche ... and his ideal lover, whom he described in exacting detail, ending with the phrase "... and insanely jealous of any other women in my life."

Ununnilium: More Natter:

FWIW, the stuff could've been made from poor white people too; Spinrad may have been dropping an anvil about the tendency for non-white Americans to be disproportionately poorer, or just wanted to make the villain extra hatable.

Also: Video Games

The Crusader games sport a variant of the trope. The second game features a new element called "di-correllium", which is revealed to be a sort of super-uranium in that it's used to meet almost all of the world's energy supply. This results, of course, in over-dependence on one source of energy. Further, the cartel that controls the main source of di-correllium sabotages attempts at alternative energy research — and by "sabotage", they mean "kill everyone but the lead scientists and steal their accumulated research". Finally, at the end of the game, about half the world's supply of the element comes under the control of terrorists.

This isn't because of anything having to do with di-correllium itself, though, so it's not this trope.

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