Aesop Cleanup

From Alternate Aesop Interpretation, under the fairy tales and folklore folder.

• The intended message of Beauty and the Beast is to look past appearances and judge someone for who they are on the inside... However, a less romantic version is "Abduction Is Love and kidnapping is romantic!" Another popular darkening of the story is, "It doesn't matter what you look like, beauty is only skin-deep...Unless you're the girl."

This comes across as Warp That Aesop.

Yeah, that's Warp That Aesop. Feel free to cut it.

Reposting from "Is this an example", but this was added to Sponge Bob Square Pants S 2 E 18 Sailor Mouth Artist Unknown.

• Broken Aesop: The episode's message is to teach viewers that using swear words is morally wrong. But the irony behind it is that the actors have actually been swearing during recording, and then the bad words are replaced with dolphin noises, horns, and such. So it would seem that they're teaching children lessons that the actors and writers themselves would never live by.

Does meta/behind the scenes stuff qualify for Broken Aesop, or would it fit better under Undermined By Reality?

Undermined By Reality, I guess. The episode reads more to me about how you shouldn't say those words in polite company but they do kind of generalize it for kids.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I've seen people say that the episode isn't meant to be a serious "swearing is bad" aesop, but more of a satire of how adults tell children not to swear only to swear in front of them anyway, like Mr. Krabs does at the end.

From what I recall of that episode, that sounds about right.

Also: Is there a specific rule for how many entries a work needs to have for a trope before it qualifies for its own subpage? On Hard Truth Aesop, "The Simpsons", "Steven Universe", and "Steven Universe Future" each have quite a few.

Edited by DoctorWTF on Mar 28th 2022 at 5:48:32 AM

Sorry, I wanted to ask about some examples I found in some rugrats pages. Especially about this episode.

It seems like it is reading too much into the episode. And this in particular is broken because they indeed were causing problems, but if they hadn't, they wouldn't have pressed a police alarm accidentaly, which actually lead to some scammers being caught. Most pages have an aesop of this kind. Which in most cases, it seems to trying to force a moral just because it is about babies, maybe.

I definitely don't think "The Bank Trick" has an Aesop.

For every low there is a high.

I think Rugrats has the same problem SpongeBob has, namely people trying to shoehorn An Aesop into every episode.

Spoilers for Saul Gone I guess, but this was a Broken Aesop entry.

Broken Aesop: The idea that Saul Goodman has to face justice in the courtroom to redeem his soul seems like misplaced logic. Saul's state of mind is a separate matter altogether from his legal culpability in aiding Gus and Heisenberg's drug empires. Audience members that find the federal government to be incredibly flawed, and arguably a legalized mafia/cartel in its own right might find their judgement of Saul's guilt to be morally invalid. Even if you view the government to be a valid arbiter of justice, being punished by the law won't immediately resolve all of Jimmy's many internal conflicts, and it would take years of intense soul searching before he resolves those issues. Jimmy needs religion (if he's into that venue) or a good psychologist, not a prison guard, if he wants to really work hard at changing his state of mind. Prisons are a place of punishment, not a place that exists to soothe the conscience of its occupants.

The thing with me is that the prison being a place of punishment (and Jimmy wouldn't be able to keep peace of mind, nor Kim come visit him, but hey Acceptable Breaks Of Reality) has a point when the universe has always been cynical about police/jail/law enforcement. On the other end, I feel like the show kept the two separate, his actual crimes for which he's going to jail, and his actual feelings for which he needs to be a better person for, along with he's not Just Fixed by the end. I hope any of that made sense?

I cut up one dozen new men and you will die somewhat, again and again.

MLP cleanup is asking about these examples.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S8 E26 "School Raze – Part 2"

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Even children can be evil.

It questions if this is too far removed from the episodes Aesop "There's always bound to be one rotten apple in the barrel, but that doesn't mean you should lose sight of the good apples in there" with said evil child being the apple. At least it doesn't explain why this is seen as the more valid/prominent Aesop

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S3 E13 "Magical Mystery Cure":

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: "A True, True Friend" delivers the intended Aesop about helping friends find their true selves in musical. But the confusing/contradictory nature prominence and fantasticness of the cutie marks/destinies swap caused many to see it as "don't blindly follow perceived destiny, especially if you're bad at it/it makes you and others miserable" and/or "you can Screw Destiny and be who you choose/want to be" despite more-or-less contradicting the happenings of the episode.^explanation They were incapable of doing their "incorrect" destinies/cutie marks which wouldn't be the case if it truly was up to choice. And Twilight's destiny to become an alicorn princess is accepted despite her having no choice in nor personal want for it.

AAI requires the alternate Aesop could exist alongside the intended Aesop and the tone/content of the work as opposed to contradict. So if it contradicts the events of the work is Common Knowledge a better fit given many fans wrongly believed this was the Aesop? Or is CK something that should be obvious to those who actually saw the work so doesn't apply if they came off with the incorrect impression despite seeing it? (A lot of this seems to be bias against the fatalistic implications of cutie mark and the episodes at the time extremely controversial change the Aesop related to.) Anything else this fits better?

From Ed, Edd n Eddy S1E3 "Pop Goes The Ed":

An Aesop: Never attack a bee hive as doing so will only cause bees to attack you in self defence.

Whoever put it there missed the point what a true Aesop should be. Do I cut or not?

Edited by skan123 on Sep 14th 2022 at 9:39:12 AM

Cool Cat Saves the Kids has a dedicated Broken Aesop page. The page has a total of seven examples, but two of them are associated with a different movie, Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus, and should most likely be moved to that page instead. Of the remaining five, there's a few examples that might be removable, but after removing the Fights Coronavirus examples, does the page have enough content to justify a separate page, or should the examples be moved back to Main?

Ever wanted to see the most inexplicably horrifying intro to a game ever?

Yeah I think that can be cut.

Bringing up this from BrokenAesop.The Simpsons:

• Done subtly (and likely intentionally) in "Itchy and Scratchy and Marge". At first it seemed that Marge's crusade against cartoon violence was justified, especially when she was successful, getting the studio to stop doing it after the town supported her, and ultimately getting children to stop watching too much television. Unfortunately, after she refused to support another far more ridiculous protest against Michelangelo's David (claiming, justifiably, that It's Not Porn, It's Art) she was called out on this, claiming she opposed one type of freedom of expression but supported another, and she couldn't defend herself. (In short, Marge was forced to admit she advocated an ugly thing that rigid Moral Guardians are frequently accused of advocating: Censorship. The show may have had a true Aesop, but it was not the one that Marge was trying to convey at all.)
  • Complicating the message further is that the Moral Guardians are actually shown to have a pretty good point. The Itchy & Scratchy Show is a very trashy show that does indeed inspire violence in children (though Bart and Lisa are fine with it); the moment the kids aren't watching the cartoon, they go outside and have an almost Edenic level of fun, and the people who make the show are shown to be Corrupt Corporate Executives who believe that kids only want to see blood and gore and flat-out don't care if their product is bad. Thus, the moral becomes that "Though censorship, even in small amounts, may lead to obnoxious Moral Guardians trying to restrict great art for stupid reasons, no censorship whatsoever leads to hucksters flooding the media with televised junk food -- there isn't an easy solution and all actions have consequences."

I think there might be a valid example in there somewhere, mainly from the second bullet point (Something like, "The Moral Guardians are seen as being in the wrong for trying to change Itchy and Scratchy, but it really is a violent TV series that nobody in real life would want their kids watching?"), but this as it stands is all over the place. I'm not even sure what trope/reaction the first bullet point describes but it does not sound like the story breaking its own message, it just sounds like Marge being called a hypocrite in-universe for having different standards, which isn't Broken Aesop. Any thoughts?

Edit: I indented it properly and cut the bit before the episode title for being Word Cruft but I'm waiting for other thoughts before doing anything else.

Edited by greatpikminfan on Nov 15th 2022 at 6:03:27 AM

I write stupid crap about naked people.

I feel it should be cut. The episode was mostly going for Both Sides Have a Point, where it weighs the pros and cons of both sides of the argument.

Okay, I cut the entry and cited this thread.

I write stupid crap about naked people.

I would like to make sure if this entry from Characters.Ace Attorney Dahlia Hawthorne is shoehorning. (For the record, the original entry isn't spoilered out.)

• Aesop Amnesia: You'd think that after her first set of crimes went wrong and led to her escaping by the skin of her teeth, she'd learn that she isn't cut out for this whole 'criminal' business. Nope, she just keeps trying to solve her crimes with more crimes, until finally justice catches up to her. Justified in that she's all but stated to be a textbook sociopath, who by definition can never learn from their mistakes as they believe nothing is ever their fault.

I think so because the example doesn't involve her forgetting an Aesop, just her not learning/realizing something. What do you all think?

Fuck it, disregard my post here.

Edited by AnotherOnlinePersona on Jan 12th 2023 at 12:07:19 PM

Another SpongeBob one, this one regarding Recap.Sponge Bob Square Pants S 2 E 11 Mermaid Man And Barnacle Boy Squirrel Jokes:

• An Aesop:
  • When you're put in charge of something, be responsible and take care of it per their instructions. Not sure if that was intentional.
  • Don't mess around with things you don't know or understand, as it can be dangerous. Maybe?
  • You can't change people. Except maybe through harassment/torture. Um... no.
  • Similarly, sometimes Violence Really Is the Answer. Man Ray only behaved after being tickled. Tickling isn't really *violence*, though, is it?
  • If you want someone to do as you say, having the power to justify your authority is necessary. ???
  • Don't go blindly trusting a villain who says they are "reformed". Doubt it's intentional.

For every low there is a high.

I think you can cut them all. The episode didn't really have an aesop.

Another thing to note is that an author cannot directly invoke this trope. The whole point is that it's unintentional. The only way to directly invoke this is through other characters criticizing it via Breaking the Fourth Wall or a Show Within a Show format.

This alone must be a good enough reason why the Broken Aesop trope should be a YMMV trope.

Bumping my post here since it seems to be getting buried and several months have passed.

This was recently added to The Cat in the Hat as a subbullet under An Aesop.

• Never talk to strangers. The kids don't know the Cat (nor he them), so their fish has the right idea about not trusting him.

The story didn't really have a stranger-danger message? The Cat is mischievous, but not outright dangerous.

Yeah, that's not a message the book is pushing at all.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

@Random Troper 123 If that's just how she would act as a criminal, it'd fit better under a zig-zagged version of Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere (since the example argues with itself about how that matters in a longer run anyway)

Silver and gold, silver and gold