Discussion Main / FamilyUnfriendlyAesop

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: many examples don't seem appropriate, started by EphemeralToast on Feb 7th 2011 at 5:05:49 AM

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by thecarolinabull01 on Oct 6th 2019 at 1:42:42 AM

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by WarJay77 on Mar 17th 2020 at 3:00:30 AM

Question:

Is there a trope for An Aesop which, while well within the bounds of conventional wisdom, is not actually correct / has dangerous consequences? Not an Aesop opposed to what society believes, but an Aesop that is destructive.

Specifically looking at Wander Over Yonder S 1 E 5 The Bad Guy The Troll, where the Aesop for the second half is "if you ignore a bully, they'll go away." I think anyone who's actually been bullied can tell you that ain't so, not to mention people (who I I won't name) who famously attempted to ignore bullying only to see it fester into bomb threats and death threats.

Thing is, while this is a bad Aesop, it's something that children are still told today, and I was kind of shocked to see it in a cartoon that's usually so good about its messaging. I'd like to add the trope, but the Aesop is typical, there's no Values Dissonance, etc. — it's just bad advice.

I feel like people are split on whether this trope is on "Aesops that are unconventional ,but important" to "horrible Aesops"

Two sub-points under The Cyber-Legend of Marine Todd in the Web Originals examples: <>Another alternate Aesop that could be applied to this story is: if you fight or otherwise work for the freedom of others, you need to realize and accept that there will always be people who exercise that freedom in a way that you won't necessarily like or agree with, but to lash out at them in an abusive way would be the same as denying them their freedom, and that would be just as wrong.</> Isn't that the exact opposite of the tale's lesson? I'd agree that that lesson would be correct, but the story in no way implies it. I move this sub-sub-point be removed.

"In The Bible, there are a few, given that the work is thousands of years old, and there is some Values Dissonance due to culture being much different today. For example: Jesus in at least three of the gospels withers away a fig tree, because it has no fruit (it wasn't even the right season). Rather than showing any real remorse to the poor suffering fig, he talks about how faith can move mountains. I see, so it is okay to kill poor defenseless plants to prove a point that faith is powerful." I don't know anyone who would say killing plants is cruel; this is certainly not a value held by the vast majority. Shouldn't this be moved to YMMV?

Would an accidental Family-Unfriendly Aesop still count as this trope, or would that be something different?

Removed this example from the Justice League Section:

• While some of this episode goes into Fantastic Aesop territory, the Justice League episode Fury has an Aesop that would likely set a number of feminists' teeth on edge; in summary, "Yes, women do need men to keep civilization going." When the world is infected with a virus that kills only men, society is shown falling to pieces. While the women are no damsels in distress as they're shown doing what they can, their best efforts aren't enough to stem the chaotic breakdown of civilization. In the very end, after the very Anvilicious display of treachery by the villain's accomplices to demonstrate the further Aesop that yes, women can be evil too, the villain's former mentor (Queen Hippolyta, It Makes Sense in Context) reveals that were it not for a man literally dying to save her, the misandrist villain wouldn't even be there in the first place. (This itself goes into Unfortunate Implications, since the villain's misandry actually was a valid conclusion to draw from her universally bad experiences with men, having seen no counter-examples; yet she ends up on Themiscaria, which isn't exactly friendly to masculinity for its own valid reasons, and has no opportunity to go any place where she could see the better side of masculinity we're being shown).

The episode didn't really have an Aesop, and even if the Aesop actually was "Women need men for society to function", I'm not sure how that's controversial. Society would break down pretty quickly either way if a virus was killing off an entire gender, male or female. Even in that extended format, borders on space whale aesop.

I'm not sure the TRON: Legacy one belongs on this page. It seems less like an aesop and more like a nuance. Either way I thought bringing it up was more appropriate and would allow people to weigh-in.

Mr Woodcock has a real whopper. The message seems to be "If your mom loves the man who abused you as a child, you should forgive him, and not carry a grudge."

Removed. Forgiveness is a very common moral. I don't see how this one is unorthodox. How this one found it's way on this page is beyond me.

• Crossing Delancey: After your dreamboat turns you down, settling for the nice schlub that your meddling grandmother has tried to pair you with is the key to happiness.
  • Not really. The message is more like, "Your dreamboat could turn out to be an egotistical jerk and the guy you think is a schlub could turn out to be a soulful romantic."

Yep. And a fairly conventional message at that; thus, Not An Example.

I've cut the Star Trek examples from the main page. Some of them seems to be correct, others are clearly misuse, and there were quite a few that I can't decipher. I think it will take a bit of time to clean up, so I'll put this here while I try to slog through it all.

• Star Trek turned the Prime Directive from the moral of "don't mess with cultures far less advanced than you" to "don't save less advanced people about to die even though we can." Whether this is unintentional or a second family-unfriendly aesop about even well-meaning traditions becoming dangerous over successive generations as they turn to dogma is an exercise left to the reader.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series had the episode "City at the Edge of Forever", where the main plot is that an idealistic, visionary young woman in the 1930s must be allowed to die, or else she will found a pacifistic movement that will hinder the USA from entering World War II, meaning that the Nazis will be develop atomic weaponry first and conquer the world unless she dies. While more realistic, "peace is an ideal, but there are times when people must fight" is a lot more cynical than is usually used as the moral. It's especially striking because several episodes in that first season alone are quite staunchly pacifism promoting.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation started this with "Homeward," where Worf's brother was treated as in the wrong for saving a tribe of people whose home planet lost its atmosphere, and that he would only do such a thing because he knocked one of the natives up, not for simply humanitarian reasons.
    • They did a similar plot even earlier in "Pen Pals", when Data communicates with a pre-warp society whose planet is dying and Picard agrees to help her family survive against the guidance of the Prime Directive.
    • It's really a complete reversal from the TOS where they nearly crippled the ship trying to stop an asteroid from destroying a planet and it's American Indian-like inhabitants. It could be an exception since they stated the planet had to have some sort of asteroid deflector given it's location. It did, but the guy who knew how to operate it died before passing on the knowledge to his successor.
    • From TNG's two-part episode "Birthright", "Children should learn about their heritage, and if it includes hatred/animosity towards others, then they should accept that as part of their heritage".
    • In "Hide and Q", Picard actually says that Riker was right for choosing not to use the power of the Q to save a little girl who'd been killed in a mine-collapse. We already knew that Picard hated children, but damn?!
  • Star Trek: Enterprise also did this with no prime directive in "Dear Doctor." SF Debris tore into the episode for not only the bad moral, but the completely wrong notion of evolution that justified it.
    • SF Debris would later do a 15 minute video tearing apart the Prime Directive and comes to the conclusion it's been warped into a pseudo-dogmatic justification for the Federation to act like complete assholes towards alien cultures they believe to be inferior.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: Janeway embraces the Prime Directive almost as though it were an infallible diety that choses those who can and cannot be saved. In "Time And Again", after being thrown back in time, when Paris suggests warning the people they will be destroyed in less than a day, Janeway states they cannot since they don't know what the consequences would be. When Paris points out that the consequences have to be better than destruction, her response... is to pull rank and simply order him not to interfere!
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had several throughout its run:
    • "Improbable Cause": Garak complains that no-one believes him even when he's telling the truth. Bashir tells him the story of The Boy who Cried Wolf to convey the moral that it's because Garak lies all the time. Garak promptly points out that's not the moral of the tale at all: it's actually teaching the lesson "never tell the same lie twice".
    • "For the Uniform": Use terrorist tactics against terrorists if you want to beat them.
    • "The Darkness and the Light": It's perfectly fine to kill civilians to force Occupiers Out Of Your Country.
    • "In the Pale Moonlight": Sisko describes how sometimes the end justifies the means, and how political assassinations, lies, and guilt are all a small price to pay to win a war. Although his delivery show's that he's trying to convince himself they were the right thing to do, not that he's OK with what he did.

I pulled the following examples:

• Spongebob Squarepants has the episode "The Abrasive Side", in which the aesop is that Spongebob should just let himself be pushed around.
  • In the episode "Stuck in the Wringer", Spongebob tells us that "crying can solve our problems."
  • When Patrick accidentally replaces the top of his skull with brain coral, he becomes a smart, stuck up Jerkass. The lesson/aesop revealed is that its better to be an idiot than it is to be smart. Since smart people can't understand other people feelings.
    • That, or "it's better to be nice and dumb than a stuck up Jerkass.
  • Once, there was an ugly barnacle. He was so ugly, that everyone died. The end.

None of these are examples for the following reasons:

• The message given in The Abrasive Side, problematic though it was, was "don't try to be someone you're not".
• Stuck in the Wringer was supposed to be comedic— Patrick rightly says "crying won't solve anything", then in a twist it solves everything.
• Patrick Smart Pants was attempting to say it's better to be dumb and nice.
• what the ugly barnacle wasn't a moral are you serious

What was wrong with Marital AIDS in the Theater section? The meaning of bisexuality may be debatable, but the cheating is pretty valid.

I took this one off. I don't think that it's accurate.

• Season 2 of Once Upon a Time seems to be devoted to showing that, as Blackadder once put it, "bad guys have all the fun." The show keeps trying to portray the moral compromises of the heroes as a bad thing that weighs on them, but it's hard to ignore that those compromises are always a last resort after more acceptable means fail, and they always work.

If anything, it was the opposite. By giving into his impulses, Rumplestilskin lost that chance to reconnect with Bae and only realized it after Neal had been shot.. By the same token, Regina's actions nearly cost her Henry's faith. Cora's actions got her killed by Snow and inadvertently her own daughter. Cora's death has brought Snow nothing but guilt and Regina nothing but pain and misery.. So, no, I don't think the bad guys are having any fun right now.

Alright, so, this trope is really confused. The description seems to say that it's for morals which are both (arguably) true, but make people a bit uncomfortable. But the actual example are full of things that aren't even really arguably true, and cases where the intended meaning was obviously changed not by intent but by poor execution. Aren't those different tropes? Or am I wrong? If I'm not, this page needs a huge scrubbing. I'll do it myself if I can get confirmation that I'm not missing something.

Before the Super Cider whatever thing turns into an edit war, I just wanna say that I (for one) agree with Taylor on this one. There's nothing wrong with telling kids that adults aren't always right. In fact, I'd argue that if a show's moral was to always, blindly obey your elders despite your own personal feelings, then that would be a Family-Unfriendly Aesop.

Wait, what about TV Tropes Wiki? There are some tropes that teach bad lessons. Take Ambition Is Evil for example. That trope teaches viewers that trying to improve your lot in life is something only bad guys do.

Despite the page saying "Family Unfriendly", there are some example from adult works. I think we should take those examples and move them to a new trope called Cruel And Unusual Aesop. We already did that to Family-Unfriendly Death, so I think we should to that to this page too.

In Spongebob Squarepants episode abrasive side spongebob was a spineless person who couldn't say no to anyone because the plot required it, so he orders a product that (called an abrasive side) that lets him tell people no, unfortunately it makes him a huge jerk. in the end [[Anvilicious he tells us the aesop]], which is that he should just let people take advantage of him because that is just part of who he is. do you guys think this is a family unfriendly aesop?

From the Hey Arnold! entry:

• Happened In-Universe in the episode Eugene, Eugene!, where Mr. Leichliter gives the title play an Alternate Ending where The Bad Guy Wins, the lesson being Nice Guys Finish Last (heck, Arnold's character, the Big Bad, even had a Villain Song called that). The kids take it upon themselves in the end to perform the real, happy ending during the live performance.

Frankly, I'm not convinced there's an Aesop here to begin with, but, given that the performance was reverted to the standard happy ending, the potentially Family-Unfriendly Aesop is completely averted. This leaves the possible Aesop as something having to do with standing up to authority figures when they are in the wrong; protecting an artistic work from being corrupted, vandalized, etc.; simply not being pessimistic; or some similarly conventional message. Consequently, this is not an example. I'm removing it.

Uh, about the Wishful Life example. Wasn't the reveal at the end that Jorden basically made up all the good things that would have happened if Timmy never existed, and that the real point was to teach Timmy a lesson for his earlier Jerkass behevaiour? I mean, yeah, the method was pretty heavy handed, but "try being grateful for once in your life" hardly seems family unfriendly. A Space Whale Aesop, yes, but not family unfriendly.

Apparently the ponies can't agree on this, so sort it out here.

• In Elements of Harmony, the cast, especially Twilight, learns that they must neglect any selfish and otherwise misanthropic attitude towards life in order to overcome their hardships in their journey in order to survive. Alas, as benevolent that sounds; this trope plays out by the fact that Friendship is used in order to defeat someone. In other words, you can use people as a means to an end; Friends are merely a tool one can utilize in order to achieve one's goals.
  • Further more, at the end of the episode, Twilight says : "I wish to stay here in order to study the magic of Friendship."
  • I.E: I want to weaponize friendship.
• In Over a Barrel, the show goes over the history of the Americas and the indigenous residents of the time, the "Indians"; but the moral of "sharing" is concluded with over-the-top lust for luxurious food. Yes, the "Buffalos" gave up on their culture, their land and traditions as a whole because of pastries. Remember kids, greed and violence is always the answer!

I removed all of these, because ALL of them contain natter suggesting it wasn't really like that (with which I pretty much agree myself). Open for further debate, of course, but not on the main page.

• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the Giggle at the Ghosties song has An Aesop about how you're supposed to laugh at your fears... So if a scary looking guy comes up to you you should laugh at him.
  • More accurately, it was about laughing at the scary things kids see in the dark.
  • More recently, Luna Eclipsed, for which Luna spent most of the episode trying to win over the population that was afraid of her (despite her Heel–Face Turn) ends with her instead deciding to instead go along with it and be the pony who scares other ponies to entertain them. A lot of viewers compare this to the concept of a deformed character joining a freak show just to try to get more approval from society.
    • Though to be fair, Luna decided to go to Ponyville on the Pony equivalent of Halloween, named for her. They were expecting to be scared. While many characters seemed genuinely afraid of her, a number of other characters (Pinkie Pie and Applejack from the main cast, amongst others) show that they never WERE afraid of her, and thought that she was just playing up being scary because of the occasion.
  • Even more recently, The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 has the moral of "Sometimes it turns out that you were right all along and the other guys were wrong." Which is entirely true, but also entirely atypical for for a kids' show.
    • The whole episode is somewhere between Broken aesop, Space Whale aesop and idiot plot since the only reason the Apple family could beat the Flim-Flam brother's machine was because they got help from another 5 ponies who worked to exhaustion, the machine would have eventually defeated them if there was no time limit, and the whole town was going to let a couple of strangers to take over the city's main food supply. Not to mention that the whole conflict could have been evaded if someone had the insane idea of negotiating a fair price for both sides.
    • The episode was more or less a jab at corrupt business people, and the actual aesop was a restatement of a lesson Applejack learned much earlier in season 1, that you shouldn't be afraid to ask for help. Plus, it's a nice subversion of how there's usually a new lesson learned per episode, instead applying a previously learned lesson to a different situation. But it's possible to read too deep into a TV Show.
    • The (apparent) "actual" moral was supposed to be along the lines of "It's better to do a job right than to do it fast." Everyone outside of the Apple Family were all for Flim & Flam's cider, until they turned off the quality control so they could churn out more cider. But the only reason they did that was because the rest of the Mane 6 showed up to help the Apple family, thus tripling their work force after the contest started. But they only did THAT because the machine was run by a couple of unicorns who put literally no effort into it aside from pushing a button and magic-floating apples into the hopper. And to top it ALL off, the contest was only started because they started by wanting to drive the Apple family out of business, then simply "compromise" by buying the apples from them and giving them a percentage. Which still would have likely gotten them more money in a season than their old fashioned way would have, but would have gone against their integrity.
  • The episode Dragon Quest has one at the end. At the end of the episode, Spike adopts a phoenix he names "Peewee" after refusing to smash the egg when Teenage Bully Dragons make him go on a raid. This is supposed to parallel how Spike was adopted as an egg and raised by something outside his species (IE: Ponies). One tiny little problem. No one knew who Spike's parents were, and it's explicitly stated that they just found him as an egg, implying his parents either died or abandoned him long before Princess Celestia found him and gave him to Twilight Sparkle. Spike, on the other hand, is well-aware who Peewee's parents are and knows where they live (IE: The Everfree Forest). Plus, he had plenty of time to go after the Phoenixes and return their egg to them. So, erm, kidnapping is fine as long as you intend to raise the child as your own?
    • It is implied that the phoenixes' family left that place forever, after being disturbed by the teenage dragons. Counting the fact phoenix seem to be even more rare than dragons in Equestria, even if Spike wanted to give Peewee back to his family (or even another one) it would've be almost impossible.

Do you think we should split this? It's approaching the 350,000 mark.

Cutting:

• Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham has a perfectly nice Aesop about not deciding you don't like something until you've tried it. However, it delivers said Aesop in the form of a little creature named "Sam I Am," who stalks and harasses the protagonist until he finally breaks down and agrees to try the eponymous meal. An additional Aesop seems to be "Peer pressure can be good for you, as long as it teaches you something positive." This is in fact Truth in Television, as there is a thing called positive peer pressure.

Though there would be endless bickering forever, it seems like we really need a split here between 'family unfriendly' and 'politically incorrect' aesops, as the two are usually mutually opposed.

Removed:

• It's not family-friendly anyways, but the basic moral for Drag Me To Hell is that you'd better be extremely generous and supply a person with an extension to their mortgage, otherwise, that person will curse you to Hell for it. Even if said person has failed enough times to not be trusted with a mortgage extension (failing to pay it off twice, at least).
  • Also, if you piss off a "gypsy", you will be smashed in the face with a curse. Because, y'know, the Roma aren't people, they're walking stereotypes. And somehow this is still an acceptable point of view; thanks a mint, Raimi.

The aesop isn't being accurately described. The main character refused the extension for selfish reasons, not because the gypsy woman didn't deserve another chance. Her boyfriend tries to support her by saying that the bank had given the woman enough chances, but she admits that that wasn't the reason she denied the extension. She just wanted the promotion and went against her morals for her own self-interest.

Removed:

• Star Trek: Insurrection: The intended Aesop is that "Letting the desire for eternal youth consume you can turn you into a monster". But because the Son'a are so over-the-top and Unintentionally Sympathetic with their failure to artificially extend their lives, the Aesop seems more like "Growing old is icky, and turns you into an evil, repulsive, toxin-oozing monster with a garbage-bag face".
  • Lets not forget that they're 'evil' goal is...to help the Federation bring a medicine to countless worlds, saving untold lives and maybe even helping people like Geordi regain natural sight. And That's Terrible?
  • And the more conventional Aesop about the planet's rejuvenating powers: "Finders keepers, losers weepers".

The most basic form of the aesop is: Don't steal something even if you think you deserve it more. A lot of people disagree with the aesop and find it overly simplistic, but it's not family unfriendly at its heart.

Removed:

• Twilight is rather infamous for these.
  • If your boyfriend knows better, he should be allowed to do whatever he believes is necessary for your protection.
  • Sometimes, you just have to take matters into your own hands when the object of your affections refuses to realize that you're better for her than her significant other is.
  • Self-destructive behavior is a reasonable way to express grief.
  • True love knows no barriers. Twelve days is all the time in the world to decide that you can throw away everything else in the world to be with your significant other, since it's true love.
  • It's all right if a stranger stalks you and climbs into your bedroom without your knowledge or consent while you're asleep. It just means that he's trying to protect you. The same for if he sabotages your car, constantly spies on you, and has you essentially kidnapped by his family while he's away and unable to continue to spy on you. After all, it's just for your own protection.
  • If your boyfriend dumps you, it's completely fine to engage in dangerous activity that could potentially kill you. In fact, engaging in said activity will bring your boyfriend back for good.
  • Only those in your personal inner circle matter. The deaths of people you don't know - even if they are completely innocent, and even if the inner circle's actions directly contributed to the person's demise - are unremarkable and need not distract you from endlessly pondering your relationship, and of course there is no expectation that you might make any actual effort to save them. And yes, this is the "good" guys. (Examples: human tourists killed by the Volturi in New Moon whom Edward and Bella don't even try to warn, poor Bree Tanner who no one even tries to save after promising to help her in Eclipse, Irina, and the humans who are killed off-screen by the vampire allies who are given permission to borrow Cullen cars so they can go people-hunting in Breaking Dawn.)
  • Possibly one of the biggest - finding and being with your soul mate completely justifies any shitty behavior you engage in in the process.
  • The main point of the Twilight series is either just sit there and two of the best looking boys in school will suddenly pine after the new girl no one else likes or HOW GREAT IT IS TO HAVE A BOYFRIEND but what do you expect from a book where the main character is a Mary Sue of a girl who dreamed of having a boyfriend in high school.
  • If your boyfriend breaks up with you, don't decide that it was for the best and get over it in a healthy, mature way. Threaten to kill yourself so that he'll be forced back into a relationship with you, because your true love justifies it! It's also okay if you manipulate well-meaning people along the way, because true love justifies everything!
  • And it's OK to hunt and drink the blood of endangered wildlife, because it's immoral to hunt humans.
  • Also, most children's or YA books and movies about Fish out of Water moving to rustic locales show those characters learning to overcome their snobbery and to value the local citizens they initially misjudged (Lightning Mc Queen in Cars, Mary in The Secret Garden, etc., etc.). Twilight essentially says, "You're right, Bella. Those people who have been falling all over themselves to be kind and welcoming to you as a new student in Forks ARE total losers. I mean, they try and include you? They ask you to PROM? You are too special for this, and only need to be considerate of equally special people. Like vampires."

I've never read the Twilight books, but this giant section smacks of bitching about a series you don't like. Some of these examples just sound like plot points rather than aesops that the books are trying to convey. Someone with a better understanding of the books should go through a pick out the actual aesops that the books make and re-add them.

I removed the How I Met Your Mother entry. For one thing, it was a Lost Aesop example and not a Family-Unfriendly Aesop, since it involved 2 episodes where Marshall makes opposite choices. But for another, "Understand that not everything needs or has an Aesop. A depiction is not an endorsement.", it really didn't provide opposite Aesops anyway - it just had Marshall change his mind.

I think this should be deleted:

The Aesop behind the Phineas and Ferb episode The Wizard of Odd is that you should ignore the explicit directions of trust-worthy, responsible people and instead take the more interesting route.

It's completely false. Isabella was not responsible, given that she was telling everybody to take the yellow brick road. In fact, the road led to some incredibly dangerous places. The Aesop was more along the lines of "It's okay to have fun every now and then" or "Don't limit yourself to one path just because one person told you to, especially if it leads you to creepy forests".

• The Disney version of The Little Mermaid is full of such gems as "It's prefectly all right to run away from home at age sixteen to get married, especially if this person is someone you barely know" and "The best way to get a man is to have a beautiful singing voice, but barring that, you must be extremely beautiful. Actually getting to know the person and having a conversation is completely un-necessary."

Neither of these is An Aesop. Ariel gets in trouble because she runs off stupid, and the Prince gets in trouble because he only pays attention to humanmode-Ursula's voice.

I edited out some natter from the Rumpelstiltzkin bit, the text of which is here:

• So, the only reason we need to take a child away from its mother is that there is no actual proof that the person kidnapping it will cause it harm? After he got the promise from her when she was in danger of her life? Given that he had accepted a ring and a necklace earlier, the price is exorbitant. At law, this is called an "unconscionable adhesion contract" and the court can refuse to enforce it on that grounds.
  (Note that in The Three Spinners, where the women who save the heroine get what they asked for: to be treated at the wedding as relatives of hers. They aren't trying to cut her off from her child.)

There is a good point being made here, and some good information, but it belongs HERE, not there.

• The primary message in the 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz is "Never dream of a better life. Just accept things as they are, even when your life is full of suck."

...what? Um, no. At what point does anyone dream of a better life - or explicitly not do so? At what point do people get punished for doing so, or rewarded for not?

• Any Coming of Age/High School comedy or drama where the lead is an outcast fringe-dweller who just wants to be accepted and popular, date the shallow Jerk Jock (who often then becomes the Jerk with a Heart of Gold) or The Libby, and/or get chosen as best in a popularity contest (Homecoming royalty, study body president, etc.); and manages to achieve it by dropping his or her "weirdness" or nerdiness, turning away from the "freak" crowd he or she is hanging out with, and becoming a conformist and adopting the looks and/or attitudes of the popular crowd. Which is the vast majority of them, especially those aimed at a younger crowd. Often combined with an Unnecessary Makeover; it's usually a failed attempt at a Coming Out of the Shell plot.

First of all, I've hardly ever seen this; rather, I've seen this happen a hundred times... ninety-nine times ending in it all going wrong and the actual Aesop being Be Yourself. Second, if it's "any", it's probably a conventional Aesop.

Removed the Avatar example because that was not an example. It only counts as an example if it was blatantly trying to teach that lying was good, not just showing a character lying without facing consequences

I'm going to advocate that the 'Zatch Bell' example be included in here, because it really irked me when it happened in that the series and I think it narrowly fits.

Sherry after going to such desperate measures to 'free' Koko from any mind-control or manipulation so she could be true to herself, just goes ahead and forces Zofis to manipulate her anyway? How is that NOT hypocritical? Well Koko's unconscious and has no say in it, before or after she's brainwashed the 2nd time?

Just like the digimon example, it's teaching that manipulating and (in that case) lying to people is ok as long as they don't hurt themselves. So forgetting your troubles and being oblivious is preferable to dealing, striving with your problems like a regular human being? (Sans those who aren't intoxicated in mind-numbing drugs and alcohol)

It's detrimental to Sherry because she's holding back Koko's potential for development by over-coming or coming to terms with such a thing, and thus better allowing her to appreciate what Sherry did for her. It's detrimental to Koko because it's not having her face reality, it's just keeping her ignorant of what happened to her instead of just realizing that it wasn't her fault and it could have gone a million different ways. And it's detrimental to the entire cast because they all just watched and went along with it rather than anyone questioning whether re-brainwashing Koko would be right or not.

Did anyone even consider that Koko well being controlled, was technically still human and not some doll or puppet, (Like the others) and could probably be reasoned or talked to once her book/power was stripped from her? That even under mind control, she still had emotions, (abit warped) and was still capable of feeling love or anguish? (Which she did express with her misinformed view earlier) She was shown eating in one episode, so she still needed food didn't she? That wasn't something that stopped happening. So obviously she still needed the things any other human being would. And Sherry/Zofis stripped her of many of those things when they decided to choose the outcome of her life for her. I have thought and dismayed over this particular topic for so long, and at the very core of it, it's so wrong ,even it it's not a black and white issue. It's essentially negative character-development which people accept for a character that barely got any in the first place. (Despite being the prime motivator of one of the main characters which only served to make her motive all the more shallow)

Should any of the Fairy Tales be in here? It seems more like Values Dissonance, since these are long-ago cultures.

have we got anything better? it doesn't ever make sense.

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is hilarious, but it has to be admitted that from the destruction of Arthur's house at the start of the first book, to the Vogons destroying all possible Earths at the end, that overriding theme, the overriding message, if any to be found, is that bureaucracy is absurd, stupid, and not minutely evil... but always wins. Indeed, it is perhaps the most consistent theme of Douglas Adams' oeuvre.

  • Probably a very British theme. It's basically also the message of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.

  • Perhaps the message is more "Good/Smart doesn't always win", basically disproving the converse of "Might makes Right". At one point during the series, one of the character remarks about "the incompetent malevolence of the universe." That little phrase seems to sum up the world of Hitchhiker's Guide perfectly.

I'd say that anything based on the final book can't really serve as An Aesop for the series; it intentionally broke the rest of it, and bureaucracy is defeated many times through the series.

• Starship Troopers in the film section, above? Okay, now imagine it's not a satire. The book actually is a love letter to militarization. Unless you serve in the military, you are a second class citizen in the eyes of the government. What's more, not only does no one find this abhorrent, it's presented as some kind of great cultural achievement by the characters. Of course the movie flipped the aesop by taking away the power-armor, super-mechs, and tanks, and turning the MI into cannon fodder.
  • The internal political organization of the human Federation is an utterly trivial matter compared to the REAL Family Unfriendly Aesop of the book: "Racial survival is the only universal morality." In other words, life in the universe is essentially a zero-sum struggle for Lebensraum, and when that is at stake, no species has any rights that any other is bound to respect. Peaceful coexistence is not an option. This is actually part of the doctrine that Federation officer-candidates are taught at the Academy. It cannot be stressed enough that the book, unlike the movie, presents this without the slightest trace of irony or satire. It is plain, pure Author Tract on Heinlein's part.
    • Whereas the Starship Troopers military was well in advance of the 1950s in admitting people of all races, and well in advance of the 2000s in allowing women to serve as combat pilots.
    • Indeed. At worst Starship Troopers in book form could be accused of being anthropocentric in that it made clear that mankind's survival was of greater importance to the body politic than "good relations with aliens." But the book also made very, very clear that absolutely nobody could be denied entry into public service (note: it is public service, not the military, the book states clearly that only a small minority of those who enlist for service do military duty), the protagonist is apparently Filipino (named Juan Rico, speaks Tagalog, so maybe Spanish/Filipino?), and women are not only permitted to do service, but eagerly sought after as pilots. The only conclusion is that Your Mileage May Vary on whether this is really a family unfriendly aesop; after all, being dutiful, patriotic, and egalitarian, and working for the good of humanity, aren't exactly considered family unfriendly morals in most circles.
      • It is disputed as to whether "Federal Service" is "Military Service" or just "Public Service". Word of God, as stated many years after the publication of the book, states that it is more like civil service, but it has been argued that there is little support in the text for that position, implying the Heinlein changed his mind on the issue sometime after publication.
    • To be more fair, the book does not portray the bugs as evil or the humans as good. They are described as being unable think the same way at a species level due to the differences in their biology. Note that both the humans and the bugs ally with the skinnies, who can apparently understand the thought processes of both. And the humans have planet killing bombs that they rarely use, because they want the bugs to capitulate instead of wiping them out. Humans aren't the good guys but this isn't exactly Warhammer40000.
  • Not that any of this is new, of course; it's just the concept of the citizen-soldier, one which dates backs to Classical Greece, with the relationship between service and citizenship altered somewhat. Traditionally, citizenship comes first and military service is a duty resulting from citizenship, while in Starship Troopers citizenship is a reward, of sorts, for entirely vountary military service. Given that much of Europe made us obligatory military service in the post-war period, that Israel continues to do so today, and that even fairly progressive states like Sweden and Norway make use of an obligatory form which includes non-military service, it's not quite as hellish as it sounds.
    • As of July 1st 2010, Sweden no longer has obligatory military/civil service for either gender, and even before that, the end of the Cold War brought about a severe decline in the number of draftees, to the point where military service was essentially voluntary, though the physical and mental tests were not.

Pulling out this mess of Natter and trying to make something readable out of it.

• Since the Un-Man wasn't going to quit until he'd won, God ordered Ransome to be The Combat Pragmatist and destroy Weston's corpse before that happened. The point was that when defeat is unacceptable and the enemy doesn't play fair, sometimes you've got to screw the rules. (YMMV, of course.)

You guys know you don't have to justify the stuff here, right? Tropes Are Not Bad. Similarly, from the Robert Silverberg entry: "Not necessarily a bad Aesop, mind you, but rather an unconventional one."

• The perennial picture-book favorite If You Give a Mouse a Cookie seems to teach that you should never give anything to anyone, because if you do, they'll just keep freeloading off you until you stop giving them things. It's like Ayn Rand for kindergartners.
  • This was parodied in an incredibly over-the-top manner in Robot Chicken, where a mother tells her kid a version of the story where giving the mouse a cookie ended up cases a nuclear apocalypse. She then tells him she killed his dad for giving mouse a cookie.
  • The point may be to discourage kids from feeding mice and other stray animals, which can be fairly dangerous for a kid.
    • It's fairly dangerous for the wildlife, too. At best, it leads the animal to lose its ability to fend for itself and what is, overall, a healthy fear of humans if the animal is not going to be domesticated. In its usual form? Well, they're having to kill wildlife for being really dangerous when a human does not cough up the obligatory handout/tribute—which they'd never have been demanding if somebody hadn't started feeding them. You thought those "Don't Feed The Bears" signs were just because the Park Guards were "Stop Having Fun" Guys?

Apart from the long tangent, this seems to fall under "Just because it happens in a story doesn't mean it's An Aesop".

• The Dr. Seuss story "Daisy Head Maisy", which was never published until after his death and was subsequently made into a direct to video cartoon, was about a little girl with a daisy growing out of the top of her head. She becomes a minor celebrity for this, but eventually faces a good amount of hostility from her parents, teachers, peers, and even the local government to remove the flower since it is "unnatural" and strange. After the flower is gone, everything goes back to normal for her. This could be interpreted as "celebrity/notoriety isn't all it's cracked up to be", but it seems more like if you're different, you might get some superficial attention for being "exotic", but you are ultimately unacceptable as an actual person within your community and you must conform. This is probably why the story wasn't initially published, even though it was written several years before Dr. Seuss's death.
  • It might also be that Authority Figures will never let you be who you are and will oppress you into thinking that Status Quo Is God.

Um, yeah; considering the oppressors aren't treated as in the right at any point, methinks it's the first one.

• The Marquis de Sade wrote two books, Justine and Juliette, which are practically made of this trope. The message is, to an extent, "morality and virtue are overrated." Given that this is the man from whose name we get the word "sadism", it isn't that surprising.
  • The Marquis de Sade was a libertine. He saw no use in morality. Also, ever heard of The 120 Days of Sodom?
  • De Sade was much better person than he is given credit. He deliberately delivered Broken Aesops that represented what he actually saw around him: ruthless exploitation of the weak by the strong, and near-masochistic submission by which the weak reacted to this state most of the time. He didn't write about how things should be, but how they are. In his letters he among other things demanded a full range of rights for all women in the 18th century! He didn't hate morality itself, but how the conventional morality serves the strong and keeps the weak in their place.
  • During the French Revolution, De Sade was appointed an official of the revolutionary government (since he'd been in the Bastille, he must have been a political prisoner, right?) He quickly resigned in protest against the inhumane and unconscionable crimes of the revolutionaries.

If these are intentionally Broken Aesops, then this is Not An Example.

• Ice Princess falls prey to Disney's infamous issue with the moral of obeying your parents because your fifteen years of life has given you far more knowledge and experience than their forty-something. In this one it's okay to give up a place in a really good college and a chance to use your brilliant mind in a well-paying job! Who cares that in a few years after you're too old to look good in an ice skating outfit you'll be left jobless and potentially broke, at least you did what you really loved.
  • Thankfully there's at least a partial subversion at the end when its revealed that not only will the girl be going back to college she will still be able to ice skate. It does mean that at least the next four years, and maybe 8, will be ungodly difficult since she will pursue a math degree and attempt professional ice skating.

Again, "do what you love" is a conventional Aesop, even if it's not done well in this case. This trope is not Complaining About Shows You Dont Like.

• The Pagemaster apparently is meant to give small children the impression that being interested in math instead of sports is bad and that if a father wants his son (who has a fear of heights) to go into a tree house then the son should go into the tree house. Also it's apparently alright for creepy old men to put children in serious danger as long as they learn to love fiction.

No, it's that you shouldn't be scared to experience things, living your life based on dry, mathematical second-hand accounts. And I'm not even addressing that last sentence; it's a Completely Missing The Point for the entire kids' fantasy genre.

• Nightmare Before Christmas has "Going against your nature/set place in life will result to destruction."
  • The monsters DID start to understand what "real" Christmas was like when Santa gave them snow for the first time, but we never hang around long enough to find out if they managed to see past their own Halloween-myopia.
  • Talk about Completely Missing The Point. Wasn't the reason Jack caused destruction is because he give gifts that attacked the kids?! So the moral is more "going against your nature/set place in life without knowing what the hell you are doing will result to destruction", which is a pretty Family Friendly Aesop.

Yeah, Not An Example.

From the Frog Prince example:

• All things considered, the 'inadvertently' part might have been a condition of the curse, and the Prince's actions Batman Gambit. After all, wouldn't it have been easier for everybody if he'd simply asked her to do just that, politely?

Interesting WMG, but doesn't belong here.

• Bunta Fujiwara's parenting style in Initial D, if not his whole character, is a delivery vehicle for Family Unfriendly Aesops about skill and honor in illegal street racing.

I don't know - Aesops about skill and honor seem pretty conventional, even if they are in a family unfriendly setting.

Cutting this:

• The Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In gives some unfriendly (but effective) advice on how to deal with schoolyard bullies: "Hit back. Hard." To ends, tear them to bits.

The aesop only "works" because of the fantastic element, but even so it's missing the point. When Oskar follows Eli's advice, he does get some time off the bullies, but it's only temporary. If she didn't appear at the right time, he'd be either drowned or with an eye less(which is the reason he asked "but what if" after she gave him that advice).

In short, the real aesop here would be much family friendlier: don't answer violence with violence. Or maybe the less friendly "bad people will be always bad".

Doktor von Eurotrash: Cut this from the Music section:

• The whole Chris Brown/Rihanna domestic violence situation is full of this, suprisingly. Because Rihanna was the initial aggressor in the incident (hitting him first), many people feel she doesn't deserve much sympathy because "you shouldn't start fights in the first place, so you being beaten is your consequnce." The aftermath saw a lot of people also forgiving Chris Brown (who actually had a very good reputation before the incident) saying "You should always give people second chances no matter what they've done," which is on the Idealism side of the sliding scale.

Real Life events don't have An Aesop.