|
Main Broken Aesop Discussion
Deleted entry about Code Geass.
This aesop wasn’t about killing everybody who kills, only to considering consequences of killing other people.
And every single character that killed anyone got what he deserved in one form or another. Diethard is killed, Suzaku for his own sins sacrifices his own identify, Lelouch sacrifices his own life, Schenizel for planning to kill millions get Geassed, Charles for pulling Instrumentality was erased from existence and Corelia lost her sister, that last happiness was a reward, for her trying to redeem herself and stop Schneizel, and especially for Guilford.
Aesop was played straight, and even if that entry had its own points about what happened to some characters considering what they done – Karma Houdini is elsewhere and bad guys don’t have to act according an aesop.
This page is getting rather large. I believe an example split by genre at this juncture would be prudent. Does anyone else have an opinion on this?
Cut for discussion:
- A PSA, with a rapper, urging viewers to preserve funding for music classes in public schools. After all, he says, when those classes were taken away, public-school students created hip-hop. It Makes Sense In Context, but doesn't that kind of suggest that if the funding hadn't been cut thirty years ago there'd be no hip-hop as we know it?
- That's the point. It's called a Take That. We have a page on them.
- How—against whom—is this a Take That? Are you saying the PSA is aimed at racists and metalheads?
- I suppose he could be saying that "if your school doesn't receive music funding, you'll end up like me," but I doubt he would say that he regrets going into hip-hop.
- That's the point. It's called a Take That. We have a page on them.
Removed this:
- That final successful method became Harsher In Hindsight due to the 2010 BP Oil Disaster.
- In what way? This troper sees the Aesop for that to be "Don't let environmentalists screw with what they don't understand." Most oil companies would much rather drill on LAND or in SHALLOW water for oil, rather than being forced by excessive legislation to drill in a location where a leak is damn near impossible to get to, much less fix. If the BP oil spill had been in ANWR or immediately off the coast in the Gulf it would have been capped in hours or days instead of months. Critical Research and Cognition Failure.
- Oil companies want all the oil they can possibly get. Allowing them to drill in more places leads to more drilling, not relocation of drilling. They CAN build more rigs you know.
- Yes, but the point the other troper is making is that most oil companies do not want to drill in the deep water, and would prefer to drill on land or shallow water, where a leak is much easier to fix. Yes, they can drill in deep water, but, if given the chance, they'd rather drill in other places.
- That final successful method became Harsher In Hindsight due to the 2010 BP Oil Disaster.
The entry about Up. Seriously, what? I am not sure myself what the main message in the movie was, but it most certainly wasn't "boring moments matter more than big adventures".
Noob here doesn't know whether or not her example fits Broken Aesop, so I'm gonna poll the audience on this one.
In Princess and the Frog (Disney version), the main Aesop being thrown around is "Money isn't important; all you need is love and hard work." So, blah blah blah, insert Disney plot here, our lovely prince and princess end up married but are effectively broke, and they somehow manage to set up their own 5-star restaurant in an apparently short amount of time.
WTH, Disney? Tiana only had enough money for the down payment on the building. How could they have afforded to run such a huge restaurant? With crystal chandeliers?? I hope Disney realized that their happy ending requires money, which they just spent an hour and a half blasting.
But now that I look at my example, it could be fridge logic as well; most of this was inference on my part.
Troper vets, what do you think?
Can we remove the Minority Report example? Reasons:
- First, if there's an Aesop there at all (and I must protest that, contrary to most Aesop examples, not everything in fiction is supposed to be instructive) it should go in Fantastic Aesop since precrime doesn't actually exist.
- Second, the reasons listed don't break the Aesop in any way I can determine save for the fact that they (if valid) render the plot nonsensical, and they really (at best) belong in It Just Bugs Me.
- Third, they're not actually valid, and in places Completely Miss The Point. The fact that the police don't understand how the precogs work (with respect to not only Minority Reports, but the ability of the perpetrator to Screw Destiny) is a pretty major plot point, and taking them at their word that You Cant Fight Fate is just silly. The point about the balls may be a Plot Hole, but it's not an Aesop breaker.
Spider-Man 3 example:
"The aesop of Spider Man 3 has been summed up by some detractors as "Two wrongs don't make a right, because one wrong does." The film argues that getting revenge is wrong, and should never be confused with justice—by showing that the man who causes the death of Uncle Ben actually is a nice guy and had a somewhat sympathetic backstory. How often is that going to be the case with people who killed your loved ones in real life? Because if that sort of rare circumstance is all they use to prove that revenge is wrong, then We Havent Learned Anything Yet. By that logic, either termination with extreme prejudice is still justified every time a villain doesn't meet those criteria, or else every villain is implied to be that way, and in turn, implied to deserve more tolerance. Neither conclusion is very appealing."
This isn't really a broken Aesop; just because the film used an extreme example that someone didn't think fully proved the message doesn't make it broken. If the film had said, "don't try to do anything about it if someone kills your family," it might be a Family Unfriendly Aesop, but it's not broken unless the characters and/or work in question violate it. I will most likely be removing this example soon if no one has an objection.
There seems to be alot of Family Guy hate on this page. I'm going to tone it down, and remove examples that don't fit the trope, so it isn't so much of a rant.
There seems to be a problem with assuming Aesops in the first place. I'm reading this page just for fun and noticing a few people claiming that aesops are being broken in things that either do not have that aesop (Fallout3, Lost Odyssey come readily to mind) or do not have real, non-joke aesops in the first place (Family Guy much). The thing is, since people tend to assume that there's some sort of moral lesson involved in a work unless beaten over the head with the idea that there isn't (and in the case of Family Guy, it seems not even then) I don't see much of a way of halting this. Any thoughts?
Regarding the explanations of the Karma system in Fallout 3, this is all well and good in the context of the game if Karma wants to be relative based on how slavers/townspeople/etc. like you, but if that's what the Karma system is for, why are these subjective and relative tallies summed up and measured objectively, and why do certain actions slide your Karma so far in one direction if everything you do will be praised by some people and condemned by others, unless this is just to say, "More people thought this was good/bad than those who thought the opposite?" As for Caesar in Fallout New Vegas, maybe his Karma is just Story And Gameplay Segregation?
I cut out a hell of a lot of natter and discussion on this page! I mentioned it in the edit reason, but I will say it here again, the correct way to contest an example you don't agree with or you think doesn't belong here is editing the entry. This is a wiki not a forum with a funny layout. The page is supposed to collect examples, so if you think that an entry here is not an example of a broken Aesop, just delete it. If you aren't sure or just want other people's input, make a topic here, on the discussion page.
Should we cut the Taylor Swift example? It sounds more like a Family Unfriendly Aesop to me.
I think Shoot Em Up is a bad example. Wordof God aside, nothing in the film suggests that it's an anti-gun message, or that "everyone with a gun has a tiny penis". The actual message given in the film is that there is a difference between a genuinely brave individual who happens to use a gun, and someone whose bravery only comes from having a gun and who becomes a coward without his weapon.
At least three of the twelve "Common methods of breaking An Aesop" are YMMV:
- Miscommunication with the audience, such as where the audience reads a character differently than the author did.
- Setting up an "evil viewpoint" to then let the "good guys" argue against and defeat, but the opposing viewpoint ends up seeming more valid or "right" to the reader/viewer.
- Teaching a lesson about looks such as "You're beautiful just the way you are" or "It's what's on the inside that counts" using Hollywood Homely characters. (Hollywood Homely is YMMV)
The Merlin (TV) example is a spoiler for the ep. I'm not pleased that has been ruined for me, can someone cast the spoiler wand over it (as I don't know how to create the hidden text) so this doesn't happen to someone else. I don't know if anything beyond the first sentence gives anything away, as I stopped reading it after that spoiler.