BrokenAesop and YMMV/Audience Reaction

This is coming out of this ATT about whether or not a Broken Aesop example is valid. It's specifically about Naruto but the overall point for this thread to consider is should Broken Aesop be an Audience Reaction / YMMV trope?

Difficulties in determining whether or not an aesop is present aside, deciding when an aesop gets broken and how seems up to interpretation. Did audiences catch the specific aesop in question? Did they determine there to be inconsistencies in the aesop's portrayal enough to undermine the aesop? Etc.

Opening up for discussion.

Edited by amathieu13 on Jan 14th 2023 at 12:46:20 PM

I've always seen it as subjective, because believing a work undermined itself might use evidence from the work but isn't something that can be determined without audience analysis. And, like, it can't be a trope because it's not there intentionally and it requires people to engage with the work and say "they screwed up the moral" — something that not everyone will agree with.

I mentioned this in the ATT thread, for some reason I thought it already had been declared YMMV. It apparently hasn't, but I think it probably should be: a work intending An Aesop is objective, but failing at it seems like it's patently an Audience Reaction.

It's already on a bunch of YMMV pages, though it's broadly popular enough that it's nowhere near the majority.

I’ve wanted to TRS this for a while, arguing for a YMMV move.

Some things to consider.

• Broken Aesop is like Informed Attribute (seems like a sub-trope "Informed Aesop"), it's supposed to be "work claims X but fails to show X" that would be objective regardless of the negative audience reaction, hence non-YMMV. Should IA and sub-tropes also be YMMV as it's also usually used as a complaint and if a work failing to adequately show X, of if it a problem it didn't (there's a list of tropes for when such is acceptable), comes down to audience subjectivity? (BA should definitely be YMMV if so.) If not what about BA is making it be subjective but not IA?
• This ATT brings up the issue of BA being applies to things that are not the intended/actual Aesops of the work, which is unfair bashing/complaining. If we make BA YMMV will that not lead to more misuse/complaining? We should discuss what to do about such before moving to YMMV.
• Should Clueless Aesop also be moved to YMMV as well? It seems in the same boat, complaint that the Aesop is too ill a fit for the work which also seems to come down to subjective seen as (times a work does what would seem like a poor fit well are uncontroversial so that seems to argue for only applying when seen as failure as opposed to objective).

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jan 15th 2023 at 12:15:18 PM

Does it count as Broken Aesop if the stated Aesop is contradicted by some events in the story, but that was done deliberately by the authors to add nuance and complexity (even if the characters delivering the Aesop still think it's quite simple)?

I don't think that'd even count as An Aesop. Undermining your own moral doesn't add complexity, it just proves the characters wrong; if anything it'd just lead to a Hard Truth Aesop or a different, more nuanced lesson.

The core idea of Broken Aesop is when a moral is given but the story and resolution has something contradictory. Basically a Sheathe Your Sword moral tagged on before a Violence Really Is the Answer climax.

A lot of issues comes from a very narrow definition of the moral contradicting a narrow definition of the resolution. It's just too easy to rationalize a particular interpretation of events as being opposed to each other.

Clueless Aesop falls into a similar issue, though is a little stronger due to genre and audience limitations.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Jan 15th 2023 at 3:00:42 AM

@Ferot_Dreadnaught but part of the issue with that ATT you brought up (and I was a part of ) is the whole "was not intended" bit. In that specific case, there's evidence that the aesop in question is there, enough so that it's the majority interpretation of the work (apparently), at least widely accepted enough that discussions and debates about it being a Broken Aesop are fairly common.

That ATT includes this line: "It is generally agreed upon that this aesop doesn't actually exist in the series and was made up by detractors." "Agreed upon" by who? As I said in that thread, if it doesn't include Word of God (and not even then 100% of the time), an aesop is as "present" as how it is being communicated to and interpreted by the audience. Yes, it has to be "in the work" to the extent that you need to be able to point out multiple instances that can realistically be said to be in support of that reading, but literary analysis is an interpretive thing. There's a difference between "This non-violent, pacifist character who wears red is an example of Red Is Violent" which is objectively not "in the work" because the necessary association isn't there; straight Aesops, which are far more dependent on audience interpretation as they are based on multiple instances over time; and Broken Aesop, which is about early examples of a possible aesop being inconsistent and undermined over time, i.e. at some point the indicators for that aesop need to stop being so clearly communicated or are outright contradicted.

Edited by amathieu13 on Jan 15th 2023 at 9:30:34 AM

As for the Informed Attribute stuff, the difference with this trope isn't that it's just "something that is claimed to be present but isn't", it's "something that the writing actively did wrong".

I do see where people are coming from with Informed Attribute: it's basically a violation of Show, Don't Tell where frequently what we're shown contradicts what we were told, e.g. characters saying that Zola from Cross Ange was a good leader when the only thing she did on screen was try to rape the title character and then throw her into combat with zero training and get herself killed as a direct consequence.

And certain other Informed X tropes already are YMMV, e.g. Informed Wrongness.

Sounds like we agree that Broken Aesop should only apply to intentional Aesops. Just want check if what that ATT was about, if that particular Aesop was intentional or not, is otherwise outside the scope of this discussion if BA should be YMMV?

Is there a dedicated place for discussing if something should be (made) YMMV? If so what I get for my Informed Attribute question might be helpful for determining if/how BA should be made YMMV.

I had a thought for a new trope that may cover misuse/shoehorns of BA; "Neglected Aesop" which is when later installments ignore/contradict the Aesop as opposed to BA where it is contradicted in the installment giving the Aesop. Different than Aesop Amnesia which is them re-learning/portrayed as wrong for forgetting the Aesop. Is this a relevant place to discuss this?

"Sounds like we agree that Broken Aesop should only apply to intentional Aesops"

Well, yes and no. In theory, sure, but the situation in that ATT is one in which the majority of the fanbase is saying "hard work can trump natural talent" was an intentional Aesop in the beginning that was broken and a Vocal Minority is saying that was never intended to be an aesop and it's just a misreading of the text, so there's nothing to break.

Without Word of God, who's more correct? The majority or the minority? And is this kind of lack of consensus particular to this issue or a broader issue with Aesop tropes as a whole?

That's where my head's at.

Edited by amathieu13 on Jan 22nd 2023 at 10:42:28 AM

My belief is that Aesop requires that it be outright spelled out such that you can point to the specific scenes where it's stated, so the Naruto example doesn't apply unless it can state exactly where in the work the Aesop was stated. Otherwise that's Accidental Aesop which doesn't count or Central Theme which prior cleanup said BA doesn't apply to and likely doesn't apply here if not unambiguously/without moments to prove it's intentional.

"Neglected Aesop" would cover that misuse of later moments that contradict the Central Theme.

Thoughts about my other questions, like where to ask if Informed Attribute should be YMMV (as if so BA should be as well)?

Again, see the thread. I did point out the numerous occasions where the show uses its characters, both main and side, to send the message of "hard work trumps talent" (and doing some googling, others seem to point to the same scenes / characters as well). But again, for this particular trope, the Aesop needs to be undermined later for it to be considered "broken" and it's this later information that others use to argue that the "hard work trumps talent" aesop was never an aesop to begin with.

Also not all Aesops are Anvilicious and do require some interpretation. This seems to be part of the issue; how much people are interpreting the writer's aesop from the given text versus those that aren't.

Edited by amathieu13 on Jan 23rd 2023 at 7:29:38 AM

That argument neglects that the kyuubi were huge deals from the first chapter on; ditto the kekkei genkai starting from the Land of Mists arc. The manga was never about hard work always trumping talent; if anything it's hilariously monarchistic in the amount of importance that circumstances of birth have for characters' power levels.

At best the idea of hard work trumping talent was an Accidental Aesop of the early chapters. Realistically what it was actually saying was "hard work helps, but being born powerful helps more".

Edited by StarSword on Jan 23rd 2023 at 9:21:18 AM

Now, I put that all in a folder because I don't really want this to devolve into a debate about Naruto as that's kind of missing the forest for the trees. To me, what's more important is the nature of the disagreement and what it says about Broken Aesop (and aesop tropes in general) as a trope:

1. a portion (according to Aegis it's the majority, but since I can't confirm or deny that myself, let's just go with a portion) of the audience has interpreted a particular aesop in a work
2. they also interpret said aesop to be later undermined by the work
3. another portion disagrees the first aesop was ever an aesop to begin with

Whose side are we treating as the "correct" reading and why/how? If it's based on what the text says, again, in this case the debate has been and is still going on with both sides pointing to legitimate examples from the text. If it's based on the majority, then how are we determining majority? If it's based on intentionality of the author, then why isn't Word of God mandatory for examples?

(Not terribly interested in the Naruto argument so I'm just going to ignore it.)

I agree there's a bit of an inherent problem with inferring An Aesop in works that aren't blatantly pushing a particular position. Reading between the lines like that is always going to be a little fraught.

There is also a difference between a contradictory moral and an imperfect moral. Hard Truth Aesop is filled with imperfect or unappealing morals that remains valid because alternatives are worse or too idealistic. Don't Shoot the Message is also when a good moral is undermined by bad presentation.

Bumping because this TRS thread mentioned that there are clarity issues, so those need to be sorted out here.

Er, well, the TRS shut down as I edited my last post to argue in favor of keeping it open. Specifically because the reason for closing was to hash out what Broken Aesop is, but I'm not sure if that has ever really been in question — the question is what makes An Aesop to begin with.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 14th 2023 at 10:46:24 AM

Right, so defining An Aesop. I did a few wick checks already for Broken Aesop and Clueless Aesop (here and here) both aesop tropes that suffer issues of inherent subjectivity as well as being complaint/pothole magnets.

The most common flaw I found are issues of relevance to a work, with the most broadly common category of problems being that whatever moral issue being supposedly "broken" isn't actually something that the work is itself pushing as a "lesson" to begin with, and that I think is itself representative of a broader issue of conflating "the moral the story is trying to convey" with "literally any kind of implication I can derive from this work" — in much shorter terms, not seeing a difference between "depiction" and "advocacy".

Speaking a bit anecdotally, I went through many pages of SpongeBob SquarePants recaps and there's An Aesop entries appearing on almost every episode, and I can guarantee you at least 95% of those entries are not lessons the scriptwriters actually sought out to convey as part of the episodes, but just whatever the writer of the entry noticed is a lesson, including nonsensical ones like Spoof Aesop or Space Whale Aesop.

For example, the episode "Ripped Pants": as described by the whole narrative recap, the episode is about Spongebob trying to be funny by contriving a dumb joke at his own expense and struggling until it stops being funny, and it's not until he just opts to be himself that he wins them back. The listed aesop entry of "you don't have to act funny to be funny, just be yourself" is relevant (hell, it's even directly said by one of the characters out loud because kid's show), but the other entries feel especially shoehorned in — "don’t pretend to die for the sake of comedy" is based on something that happens in the episode, but that's not what the actual holistic message of the work is about.

I don't have a strict line in the sand to draw on what constitutes a proper "aesop", let-alone a flawed/broken/clueless one, but if I can put down a codifier for what's An Aesop that's good enough to put down is its tangible relevance to the "whole" narrative of a work (whether it be an individual episode or the series at large), not merely a particular aspect of one. I know that it is very much itself a subjective issue, as well as that There Is No Such Thing as Notability, but there absolutely is natter, and I think in general, posting that kind of YMMV analysis on the wiki does require a level of scrutiny and enforced moderation, lest we relegate such moral analyses to dedicated Analysis pages or just Flame Bait because the risk of constant complaints are too high. This isn't a perfect qualifier, but it's what I think is a good place to start at.

Edited by number9robotic on Apr 14th 2023 at 8:52:50 AM

re:An Aesop, I was going to write something long about the nature of literary analysis being inherently interpretive but I think all of these Aesop subtropes are cases of expanding the scope of An Aesop far beyond what it was supposed to be and creating issues.

An Aesop is not something that exists in literary analysis outside of the site, so all we have for understanding what it is is our page about it. And from the description it defines itself like so:

So this kinda goes back to Ferot's point[1] that they need to be outright spelled out or obviously pointed to at the end of the work to count as an aesop. If the message doesn't happen at the end of the story and isn't basically spelled out to you by the work itself, it isn't An Aesop to begin with, so it also can't be one of the many subtropes.

This would make the vast majority of examples on all Aesop tropes misuse.

I pushed back on Ferot's point at the time because we were talking about discounting a specific example and it didn't make sense to discount that example when there were plenty of examples on these pages that were similar, i.e. they relied on interpreting the work at different points and weren't explicitly spelled out for the audience. But it's another story if we're saying that all of those examples are also not examples of the tropes, which I agree with. Having a potential message is not the same as being an Aesop as defined above. A work can feature a lot of things that point to Underdogs Never Lose without the work being an aesopic tale of Underdogs Never Lose. An aesop is a kind of narrative framework in which the creator communicates a particular message in a clear, pedagogic/moralizing way at the end of the story so that the audience (usually kids) can easily understand/know what to take away from the story they just heard. It's not "a message the work is communicating".

If we go with that interpretation, then a lot of this becomes much easier to deal with since we'd be taking a giant axe to most of the examples. But definitionally, I actually don't think there's an issue. Rather, the issue is that somewhere down the line the meaning of An Aesop was interpreted to be much broader than what it actually was and that problem was only multiplied by the subtropes.

Edited by amathieu13 on Apr 15th 2023 at 4:08:16 AM

Copying what I said in the TRS thread:

If the definition/scope issue is tied to the definition An Aesop, what if we tweak this trope's definition/categorization so it's no longer a subtrope of An Aesop (possibly with a rename) and thus doesn't have to conform to An Aesop's meaning 100%, and then we can focus on what fits into this without having to worry about An Aesop? This wouldn't be mutually exclusive with making it YMMV.