History StrawmanHasAPoint / Literature

* ''Literature/TheFountainhead''
** Roark designs a building project that's intended to serve as housing for the underprivileged and is so outraged when the design is changed without his consent that he blows it up once it's built. Ellsworth Toohey writes an editorial decrying Roark's actions and calling for him to be punished. Rand portrays Toohey as a talentless hack who capitalizes on lowest-common-denominator yellow journalism for pointing out that anyone who is willing to destroy the homes of thousands of people because his design was changed is colossally egotistical at the very best, and a considerable danger to the public at worst, considering his first response to being upset was explosives.

** [[FantasticRacism Anti-werewolf prejudice]] in general is treated as cruel, misguided, and irrational: the creation of werewolf watchlists, the poverty that most werewolves live in due to nobody being willing to hire them (legitimate businesses who are willing to hire them have to keep their status as a closely-guarded secret), and school curriculum treats them as dark creatures to learn how to battle. However, [[TokenHeroicOrc the only remotely sympathetic werewolf in the series who's ever even mentioned is Remus Lupin]]. Meanwhile, [[PsychoForHire Fenrir Greyback]], the most famous and influential member of the werewolf community, is a psychotic cannibal who deliberately targets children to forcibly turn them into werewolves, [[DarkAndTroubledPast which is how Lupin became one in the first place]]. It's noted that most of the werewolves sided with Voldemort--ironically, this means the same people who so disliked werewolf discrimination were probably killing them in battle or sending them to prison by the hundreds at the end of the series. While a lot of the issues werewolves face originate from the aforementioned prejudice, no one ever actually suggests a reasonable way of dealing with the core problem of being around werewolves: even a kind and gentle werewolf is extremely dangerous when transformed, likely to kill or turn anyone they come across until they return to their human form again. The only existing way a werewolf can retain their human mind during transformation is a potion that must be taken regularly, is both expensive and time consuming to produce, tastes so nasty that only the strong-willed can drink it, and requires a very skilled potion maker to create (and any mistake will instead render the potion poisonous). Even Lupin nearly attacks his friends when he is forcibly turned because he forgot to take his potion at a critical moment, and the next day he admits to Harry that he badly screwed up and that it's a miracle nobody died or got infected. Treating them as second class citizens may be unfair, but without a better solution it does make a good deal of sense that people are inclined to avoid werewolves around the time of the full moon and want to learn how to defend themselves from a fully-transformed werewolf in case they find themselves in that situation.

** Zacharias Smith is skeptical about Harry's version of events after ''Goblet of Fire'' and is portrayed as a {{jerkass}} for not immediately believing Harry. But Zacharias points out that all everyone know was what they had been told by Dumbledore, who had gotten the information from Harry, thus nobody was given actual proof that [[spoiler: [[BigBad Voldemort]] was back and active]]. The Ministry of Magic was also running a very effective disinformation campaign burying proof of [[spoiler: Voldemort's return]] and discredit Harry's word due to his [[ShellShockedVeteran compromised mental state]], which was compounded by his ([[TraumaButton understandable]]) reluctance to give his side [[note]]In fact, when Harry does share his side of the story through the Quibbler, many more people begin to believe him[[/note]] Later books show that he does tend to be a snobbish asshole, such as providing a more biased commentary for a Quidditch match than even Lee Jordan and being the first to [[DirtyCoward bail before the Battle of Hogwarts begins]], but that doesn't change that without the privileged viewpoint of the readership Zacharias has fair reason to doubt Harry based on word alone.

* ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' draws major parallels between the bigotry experienced by the drow (dark elf) Drizzt Do'Urden because of his dark skin and the bigotry people of color frequently encounter in real life. We're meant to sympathize with Drizzt when people react with hate and fear when they first meet him, simply because of his skin color. The analogy becomes a lot more awkward though, when you consider that 99.9% of all drow really ''do'' live up (down?) to their race's stereotype of being hateful, murderous, demon-worshiping sociopaths. People who meet Drizzt and don't know him don't necessarily have any reason to believe that he's any different than any other drow, particularly if they've already been threatened by the drow at some point.

* ''Literature/TheShipWhoSearched'' starts with a DepartmentOfChildDisservices strawman insisting that seven-year-old Tia should have the company of other people, both adults and children, rather than being left alone most of the time with her archaeologist parents working. She shuts him down by talking about [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior how smart she is]], how she doesn't like other children, and how her parents planned out her existence to cause minimal disruption to their lives, working for months at a time at dig sites on airless planets with no one else around. We then see that if anything she's neglected worse than the strawman even believed - her parents frequently abandon her for weeks with no easy way to contact them and threaten to cancel the rare days she spends entirely in their company if she bothers them at all. The medical AI they leave with her tells her any unusual problems she has [[{{Gaslighting}} are entirely in her imagination]] or made up to get attention. By the time her parents remember they have a daughter, she's severely ill. When they take her to a hospital and get a message telling them to continue excavation or be fired, ''they abandon her''. And yet everyone but that strawman regards them as good parents, and Tia is fond of the institution they work for.

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'': Anyone who disagrees with or doesn't like Bella is automatically wrong, no matter how right they are.
** In the novel ''New Moon'', Bella is annoyed that Jessica won't talk to her, and thinks that Jessica is being petty and evil. This is after Bella has ignored everyone for four months, used Jessica to get Charlie off her back, ditched her shortly into the movie to pine over Edward, and then nearly frightened Jessica to death by walking up to a very dangerous-looking biker in a bad part of town that Jessica clearly wanted to avoid, all because Bella thought it may be the same one that Edward rescued her from before.
** In ''Breaking Dawn'', Leah calls Bella out on some of her more selfish actions in trying to manipulate and keep Jacob with her despite knowing full well how much it hurts Jacob to be around her knowing that she's chosen to die and become an undead monstrosity with Edward over a life with him. Even Bella admits that she's being selfish, but [[IgnoredEpiphany chooses to keep doing it anyway]]. Everyone else gets angry at Leah for upsetting Bella, [[UngratefulBastard including the guy Leah was trying to stand up for]]. And any point Leah made is completely forgotten.