History Main / SourGrapesTropes

Only tangentially related to SweetAndSourGrapes.

''... [[TheRollingStones But if you try sometimes]]''\\

Stories that don't do this run a risk of becoming mere WishFulfillment fantasies. NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat. Fiction has been providing wish fulfillment for centuries. In fact if the story is loaded with ''other'' kinds of wish fulfillment, but for these, it can seem to be downright hypocritical to suddenly be selective about it. Moreover, {{Sour Grapes Tropes}} [[NotSoDifferent are in of themselves a kind of]] {{Wish Fulfillment}}; they help to assauge the audience's jealousy by showing that a 'good' thing is actually bad in some way so it's not the end of the world if they don't have it. This can create the {{Unfortunate Implication}} that a reader is [[{{Viewers Are Morons}} only able to accept a character better off]] if they're flawed or [[{{Demonization}} demonized in some way]]. Needless to say that is not the case in real life--oftentimes, RL Alice will not only be [[{{TV Genius}} smarter than you]] but also hotter, healthier, and have more friends. Deal with it, Bob.

The other bad side about some of these tropes is that they can be used [[{{Family Unfriendly Aesop}} to teach very harmful lessons to the audience]]. If one of the things the {{Sour Grapes Tropes}} is grousing about is something the viewer can genuinely fix (e.g. dissatisfaction about their undeveloped education as opposed to dealing with the fact that they will die someday), it can encourage them to stay in their bad situation rather than [[{{Dare To Be Badass}} doing something about it]]. Notice that a lot of these tropes have the stealth {{Aesop}} of 'so don't try to better yourself'.

* {{Butterfly Of Doom}}

(The whole thing is sent up in [[http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus13.html this]] ''[[{{ptitlechw7pjpl}} minus]]'' strip... [[IndecisiveDeconstruction then played straight]] in [[http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus14.html the very next comic]].)

''You get what you need!''

* [[{{ptitlekz83hawz}} Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act]]

* [[{{ptitle5w3hc6z54tky}} So Beautiful, It's A Curse]]

''[[WaxingLyrical You might find]]''\\

The trope name is based on a famous [[AesopsFables Aesop fable]] about a fox who tries to seize a bunch of grapes from a vine without success, and then [[GreenEyedMonster declares them sour]] after his failure. This reads more like an observation than AnAesop, though. (Which happens to be the case with quite a few of Aesop's Fables.) If you can't have something, it's easy to say that you don't want it.

''[[TheRollingStones You can't always get what you want]]''.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sour_grapes.jpg
''You can't always get what you want''.

* [[ArtisticLicenseForever Artistic License - Forever]]

''[[TheRollingStones But if you try sometimes]]''\\

''[[TheRollingStones But if you try sometimes]]''

''[[WaxingLyrical You might find]]''

''[[TheRollingStones But if you try sometimes]]''//
''[[WaxingLyrical You might find]]''//

''[[TheRollingStones But if you try sometimes]]''
''[[WaxingLyrical You might find]]''

You can't always get what you want.

* YouFailForeverForever

Stories that don't do this run a risk of becoming mere WishFulfillment fantasies. NotThatTheresAnythingWrongWithThat. Fiction has been providing wish fulfillment for centuries. In fact if the story is loaded with ''other'' kinds of wish fulfillment, but for these, it can seem to be downright hypocritical to suddenly be selective about it.

And of course the whole thing is really a form of Adaptation Decay that is only slightly Older Than Radio. The fox's original comment was, 'The grapes are not yet ripe.' He thought he'd try his luck again later and maybe succeed. And gosh darn it, given the advances in science (including medicine) the fox has been rather close to the mark so far. Somewhat ironic that it was the advance-obsessed Victorians who changed the meaning from 'try try again' to 'FailureIsTheOnlyOption'.

* IJustWantToBeBeautiful

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