Needs Help: Unfortunate Implications

I would treat Family-Unfriendly Aesop a bit more loosely.

Requiring that it have an explicit moral is taking the trope description too literally. There are many works which technically speaking aren't meant to teach a moral—but they do assume a moral. If the writer thinks that all Jews are greedy, and he writes a story with a Jew in it, that story is bound to depict the Jew as greedy, even though he's not technically trying to teach that Jews are greedy, or indeed teach anything at all.

I would say that a story which makes a moral assumption that is very unusual should count as a Family-Unfriendly Aesop.

Someone who just puts a greedy Jew in his story because the greedy person just happens to be a Jew, is neither assuming nor teaching anything about Jews, and still won't qualify for Family-Unfriendly Aesop. But if it strongly implied that Jews are evil, it could be Unfortunate Implications.

I disagree with that. Facts aren't aesops. Advice is. A greedy Jew alone can't be an aesop, nor can the statement that all Jews are greedy. If a character does business with a Jew, gets cheated and vows never again to repeat the error, that might qualify as the offensive aesop Never Trust A Jew, but if he just meets a bunch of greedy Jews and acts disgusted, that's not an aesop.

I agree.

Isn't all that glitters is not gold a Stock Aesop? That's a factual claim.

It's phrased as a fact, but people use the expression for the aesop "Don't judge things by their appearance because some things that appear valuable are not so." I can think of many heist stories where people discover their jewels or gold have been exchanged with a fake copy. These are examples in which "all that glitters isn't gold," but they offer no larger aesop, such as the stock "All that glitters isn't gold" one.

edited 28th Jun '12 12:55:21 PM by Routerie

If a character does business with a Jew, gets cheated and vows never again to repeat the error, that might qualify as the offensive aesop Never Trust A Jew, but if he just meets a bunch of greedy Jews and acts disgusted, that's not an aesop.

Okay, you don't disagree with me, I just phrased it poorly.

In your example, the author is not trying to teach that Jews can't be trusted, because he's not trying to teach anything at all. He didn't sit down and say "there are some people who don't believe that Jews can't be trusted and so I will write this story in order to make them better informed". It's just that he "knows" that Jews can't be trusted and this point of view so permeates his story that the story reads like an Author Tract.

I would count this sort of thing as an Aesop for the purposes of tropes about Aesops. (Although I wouldn't call this specific example Family Unfriendly because among works in general—which includes works made in older times—this Aesop isn't that unusual.)

Pre-weekend votes bump (and alerting people that this thread is about repairing Unfortunate Implications and not about aesops and their tropes), current options in green:

• Add a verifiability/citation standard so as to prevent shoehorned/Troper Tales/personal examples. (29-9)
• Regardless of what else happens, make Unfortunate Implications into an index of tropes about them and add a verifiability/citation standard for the non-In-Universe items so that it doesn't turn into Handle This Index With Care #2 (optional: redirect Handle This Index With Care to Unfortunate Implications for its 180 inbounds) (23-6)
• Cut examples (15-10)
• Regardless of what else happens, make Unfortunate Implications Flame Bait. (12-11)

I don't think we need to cut examples (I am going to volunteer for curation if we make citations).

We need to make this Flame Bait, as I explained before: I was suggesting it because it is often misused to complain about works you don't like, because most of the wicks I have seen are no better than the on-page examples and because at least two people got banned over edit wars surrounding wicks to Unfortunate Implications.

Yes, but I think we need to know how this is different than Family-Unfriendly Aesop before we can really decide what to do with it.

Do not like the idea of making this Flame Bait. Is it such a egregious misuse we're talking about here or protecting works from justified criticism?

Family-Unfriendly Aesop is "work intentionally conveys a message that wouldn't normally be considered family friendly"

Unfortunate Implications is "work unintentionally implies something offensive"

arromdee seems to disagree. Half the example on Family-Unfriendly Aesop also disagree. I'm not sure we have consensus.

Half the examples on Family-Unfriendly Aesop are incorrect, most likely. The descriptions on both tropes is clear, however. From Unfortunate Implications:

and from Family-Unfriendly Aesop:

It states that to be a Family-Unfriendly Aesop, it has to be an intentional aesop in the story. Thus, Unfortunate Implications is unintentional. Family-Unfriendly Aesop is intentional.

edited 30th Jun '12 2:43:55 AM by battosaijoe

OK, concerning Family-Unfriendly Aesop:

1. "Offensive" and "Family Unfriendly" aren't the same thing. Nor is "aesop" and "implication". An Aesop, even Family-Unfriendly Aesop, needs the "aesop" bit and that it pretty objective.
2. Methinks that Family-Unfriendly Aesop can under certain circumstances be a subtrope of Unfortunate Implications
3. If the examples on Family-Unfriendly Aesop are a problem, then that trope needs its own TRS thread. Don't derail this thread unless it's creating problems on Unfortunate Implications

Mega J: See the other thread I linked in the crowner.

I was in that thread back when it happened, and I still feel the same and I don't see where anyone linked to specific misuse. I think the citation thing will help when Unfortunate Implications is linked on a work's page, however.

I mean yeah, I understand the no negativity rule, but we also aren't a fan site for this works and if they do mess up occasionally, it should be pointed out.

It's not a matter of negativity, it's a matter of these pages being full of nonsense. Three women fuse to create a demon = sexist. What the hell is that?

I think we definitely need to make this trope require citations. Otherwise, it will devolve into people inventing personal opinions in order to "justify" potholing it into works they don't like.

and it's definitely something that should be marked as flame bait.

a Family-Unfriendly Aesop is, by its definition, intentional. Unfortunate Implications is, by definition, unintentional. The former probably needs its own TRS thread to fix its examples as well. That doesn't mean the distinction doesn't exist.

Then clean the example, don't make the entire trope as Flame Bait.

Flame Bait is pretty much just for This Sucks tropes (and character alignment, for an interesting reason. This should definitely not join that list.

It's a little difficult when entire pages are full of this nonsense.

What entire pages? I looked through the thread that was linked and saw no examples of flame wars and entire pages being filled with Unfortunate Implications.

Have you looked at the subpages of this trope? It's random jargon-natter-craft-completely distorted nonsense someone might find offensive if they squint hard enough. Not even kidding.

Argh, am I going to have to go and cite the entire works of bell hooks? Do we have to use APA style?

Routerie: What do you mean by "This sucks"? To me Unfortunate Implications seems to be such a trope, at least if misused.

I mean "This is of low quality." Unfortunate Implications is, at worst, "this is of low quality because it has themes that should offend modern audiences," which demands enough content that even misuse is better than Flama Bait.

Yes, I've poked around a few pages. I even picked a few by random:

• Love Never Dies: Correct usage.
• Sailor Moon: Incorrect usage for first page I don't even know what the second paragraph is getting at.
• Saw: Correct usage.
• Jennifer Blood: Correct.
• Jerry Lawler: Correct.
• Kamen Rider Fourze: Incorrect.
• Kitty Norville: Correct.
• Lost: Correct.
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: Kinda reaching.
• Aida: Correct.
• Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog: Correct.
• Eureka: Correct, but needs to be cleaned due to some arguing in the page.
• Family Matters: Correct.

So yeah, I'm not really seeing this supposed arguing and using Unfortunate Implications to bash a work. And in any case, even someone looking really hard to find U Is and posting their opinions (like the Sonic example) isn't even using the trope to bash. I think the citation thing can really help with the work pages but I'm not seeing a widespread problem.

edited 30th Jun '12 6:07:07 PM by MegaJ