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Going by the page history the Logan Paul and Pewdiepie examples probably don't belong here. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Main.SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped
Yes, they most certainly don't.
There's no "anvil" for either of those. The Logan Paul example might have had an Aesop in there, but honestly it's basically a stealth Aesop and since this is an audience reaction, no one was thinking "well gee, good on him for raising awareness of male suicide. That enriched the project." The only reaction was "what a jerkface."
The PDP isn't even claiming an Aesop. It's ascribing an Accidental Aesop to the meta reaction to some guy being a closet racist, making it a blatant Real Life example if anything... and not even really that, to be frank.
Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
I'll delete that trope as well. Clearly I haven't got the best understanding of how the anvil trope works. Real Life examples don't count.
I can see nothing of value in any entry on the subject.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Clearly I didn't think this through. Subject has been deleted and the story will be deleted because it was clearly not meant to be a subject on suicide. It was mishandled, not serious and too controversial.
It should and will be deleted asap.
Anyone else have a problem with the 'Other' section? It seems very much like a less obvious version of the 'Real Life' section that has already been deleted, to the point where it includes a lot of examples that would count as 'Real Life.' It really doesn't fit the definition of the trope at all in my opinion. If there are no objections, I may use the same course of action as Zabeus above.
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So, yeah.
Some of them have some merit. They're from fiction just inexplicably not in the appropriate folder/page (the first two are a web video and book, respectively. Plus ads and PS As).
The rest? Burn it with fire. Most of them are going by the definition that this is "THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ANVIL, GUYS" on top of being backdoor real life examples.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
I'll move them into the appropriate folders, and I absolutely agree with you on the last paragraph.
Complete Arse(nal)
Is it bad that I disagree with the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory example? Reality isn't a story with you as the protagonist, but rather actual reality. Only those with power can make big things happen, since they have the resources, the ability to control the world, while you are just another drone in the course of life who can barely cover costs.
So you can write a novel. Millions of better novels exist. So you can donate to charity. Millions of people have donated more. So you can start a campaign to pursue what you believe in. Your voice will be lost among the millions of other campaigns for the same thing, none of which were heard by the people who can make a difference.
Yet people continue to believe that they can change the world, shouting "Einstein did it!" and "[INSERT FAMOUS POLITICIAN] got into power with one vote!" How many people are saying this? Millions. How many actually became Einstein? Z-E-R-O. The chance of you actually becoming an important person is far far less than the chance of you dying in a plane crash, so you should by your logic piss yourself whenever you take a flight, because you are almost definitely going to die. That's just the unfortunate truth of the matter, that a thousand "NEVER GIVE UP!" inspirational posters will never change as long as the ones in positions of power do not use their authority for good. Snap out of it.
tl;dr: There is no reason for you to give up your happy life of hedonism, which will not have "disasterous consequences" for you or anyone, to try to do something you simply cannot do.
Edited by 434411423124222344 Why You Shouldn't Eat Meat
I removed "Of course, one should keep in mind that the author of an Anvilicious work almost always believes that his or her particular anvil is one of these." after reading this under Square Peg Round Trope: "•Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped refers to when a story has an Anvilicious message, but the story actually works better because it's so blatant. Due to the misleading title, it's often used to say "any message I agree with that was done in an Anvilicious manner"." Now, that removed part would make sense if it was the latter definition that was the real one, but I don't believe it's true if it claims that all anviliciousness is born from someone trying to make a point by being the opposite of subtle. Surely it can come about because someone is not realising how unsubtle they're being.
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When this trope is used on the rest of the wiki, it's almost always used to mean "any message I agree with that was done in an Anvilicious manner".
This page needs an overhaul, either by changing the Anvilicious page to be more neutral and deleting this one, or cutting out all the examples on both pages and removing their entries elsewhere. Every author thinks their anvil was something that needed to be dropped; whether a work appears here or Anvilicious (or both!) comes down to whether a troper agreed with it.
Edited by 69.204.127.26
Exactly.
I talk with people of massively different politics / beliefs than mine on a regular basis. When they run Anvilicious stuff in RP Gs or stories they write, many of them ring hollow for me, while they are naturally thinking that said anvil must be dropped. This entire idea is purely the result of the beholder and her morality/ethics. It's like Angst Aversion. Anvilicious, on the other hand, works for any moral system.
For science, for honor, and for the adorable
This is a subjective audience reaction. All it basically says is that "even though this Aesop is presented in an Anvilicious way, I don't think that's bad because it's a really important message." It cannot, objectively, be separated from the main trope of Anvilicious because this is "the same thing, only good", and classifying it separately in that way violates the basic principle of Tropes Are Not Bad. In short, this SHOULD NOT BE A TROPE.
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To be clear, I think this means it should either have it's examples list cut off, or be re-filed under the YMMV index rather than the Main index.
These issues should go into the Trope Repair Shop.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Ever since Anvilicious has been moved to the YMMV section, it seems that wherever it's listed as a trope, this trope will accompany it.
I guess it doesn't mean much since it's in the YMMV section, but it can seem quite annoying to find this trope on certain pages. Should there be more strict criteria for adding it, even considering the YMMV tag?
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It does seem absurdly redundant. I almost never see them apart on any major work.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
How does this trope work. Does a show implies the moral, but doesn't say it?
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No, this is the show's moral being incredibly heavy-handed, but someone (anyone, really) has to think that the moral is important and it qualifies for this.
... basically, I think it's pointless because I almost never see Anvilicious without Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped anymore. Obviously someone thinks some anvils need to be dropped or the writers would've have dropped them.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
I agree with other posters that said this topic should be deleted, but at the very least please remove the "Real Life" section. The entire point of the topic is fictional works that themselves were improved and made powerful by a non-subtle anvil being dropped. It's not about works that you think improved society. I also think that they have to be fictional to even fit the definition of an anvillicious. (unless the anvil was only tangential to the main subject of the work) If nobody else responds I will be bold and delete the section.
Edited by Zabeus
I'd like to suggest adding a particular quote from Cute Fuzzy Weasel, who does the Feeding The Trolls set of video. It deals with James the Preacher after his... pretty insane insinuations on what caused a school shooting that happened recently at the time (He delayed doing the video for a month since he felt it was Too Soon after the shooting, as did the fans). At the end of it, where the quote is from, he gives a pretty good speach on people like James the Preacher; people who have this insane world-view in which trying to correct them only serves to solidify their belief in some weird space logic way.
—-
Cute Fuzzy Weasel: So I started thinking that there's always going to be people like James here. The trick is dealing with them (in) the right way. You gotta remember... (Picks up James effigy) he lives in a world where everyone's against him. Where any note of criticism isn't a learning experience; it's an outright attack on him and God! Going on the offensive against James here only solidifies his view that the demons in his head are real. And they talk to him over Youtube comments! You see, people like James and the Westboro Baptist Church; they exist because they're attention whores. They're out to get a rise out of people. The best way to take their thunder away is... just never give it to them in the first place. So if people like James the Preacher want to think that life was better off when women didn't have any rights and Christianity was crammed down everyone's throats, I say 'fine'.
So here you go, James. Here's some rocks... some sticks... and a dead animal. Have fun in the Stone Age.
—-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci1JqNXAIYs
There's the link in question.
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It's not a weird space logic. And it perhaps gets into why I think very few anvils "need" to be dropped. Laughter, ridicule, and isolation (which you and apparently "cute fuzzy weasel" seem to advocate) are not sound arguments.
I could only watch a little bit of your link. I was just thoroughly disgusted — at "cute fuzzy weasel." I think James is wrong about "getting right with god." But when he says that there are people that get their jollies from attacking him, he's right. You look at those comments. Those aren't people who want James to see the error of his beliefs. They are people who want him to die a slow, painful, horrible, death.
I would like you to consider for a moment. Suppose James the preacher and people like him successfully got his viewpoints enshrined in law. Suppose schools had to teach that as reality. And further suppose that, in response to your speaking out against it, you were given some sticks rocks and a dead animal and told to "have fun in the Stone Age." Would it convince you that you were wrong? Would it convince you that you needed to shut up? Why, then, do you think that is the "right" way to deal with someone who disagrees with you?
You claim that he is just trying to get a rise out of people — that is that he doesn't believe what he is saying. On the other hand, you talk about "correcting" him only solidifying his views — which means he does believe what he says. Let's go with him believing what he says. The demons in his head may not be real. But the people wishing death on him are. It is not space logic that wishing death on someone is not going to convince him that he is wrong. Beating someone over the head and telling him to believe your way "or else" is not a good tool for correction.
I think you're missing the big picture.
Weasel actually makes a point in his "50 Shades of Stupid" about just that: he actually calls the people giving death threats to the Troll (or to be more accurate, a related troll) out, says THEY'RE in the wrong for doing so, and tells them to knock it off.
But what he's ultimately saying isn't that death threats are the key: just the opposite. He's saying that the more you argue and debate with James, whether you're civil as can be or a raving maniac, the harder and harder he's going to hold onto his views. He's saying that James sees anyone who disagrees with him as the devil and treats them accordingly, and that arguing with him will just end in headaches on both sides.
So really, just leave James alone in his fantasy "Stone Age": God Himself couldn't drag him out of it. That's what Weasel is saying: the guy who has a webshow dedicated to feeding trolls is saying DON'T FEED THE TROLL. That's the message he's trying to get across: the anvil he drops.
And Weasel makes good on his promise: he's never doing James again.
Edited by 74.70.16.35
In my experience, very few anvils actually need to be dropped. And the biggest problem isn't the lack of subtlety in the message. Anyone can just blatantly write out what his message is and everyone will know what he is saying. There is no subtlety there and it is not a problem. The problem with dropping anvils is that the reasoning for the conclusion often seems contrived and unrealistic. We can agree that stealing is wrong. But if an author creates a world where meteors demolish the homes of thieves, that is not a case of Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.
The worst outcome for a message is not that it is misunderstood. The worst outcome is that it is rejected for being preachy. And the reality is that anvils usually hurt their message.
I really disagree with the position about Last airbender and Trigun. Both series shows that kid's idealism only leads to more struggle and pain. Vash sacrificed to his ideal lives of hundreds of innocent people. He could have saved them instead of the bad guys. He has kid psychological trauma, but that's a bit petty excuse. Aang is even better, he is hypocrite. His beloved teacher might have the biggest bodycount in the entire series. Aang himself isn't particularly accurate fighter that is able to care about his opponent. I am most assured that he left plenty of dead bodies on his trail. People tend to die when they are thrown into a wall at subsonic speed or when somebody drop a 100 kg rock on them. Although i tend to think that nor airbenders, nor avatars held no importance to the world, in universe it stated otherwise. And Aang was risking both of them only to fulfill his idealistic wish. His egoistic wish. True messiah indeed. It worked out for the best? For Aang- maybe. The rest of the world didn't care. Ozai surely disagree with this. But it's okay to torture bad guys.
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Gyatso killed people in selfdefense and not judging people for not holding your beliefs is hardly hypocritical. And people of Avatar world can take huge amount of cartoonish beating without getting hurt (yes, it didn't work for Jet, but that case was inconsistent with rest of the show) so no, he didn't.
Taking away his powers is hardly a torture and if you have to choose between crippling a person and killing him, crippling is the better option.
Edited by 70.33.253.45
It feels like many of the examples here aren't anvilicious, just regular Aesops. Spec Ops: The Line seems like a good idea of an anvil that needed to be dropped; it slapped the message right in your face, basically saying "This is your fault, no one else's." Some of the others are gradual or even subtle. I feel like "anvil" just gets thrown around to easily.
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Yeah. People are getting a little carried away.
This trope means "This work is extremely unsubtle about what it's preaching about, but really, it's warranted and something worth saying."
I really don't think that applies to Scream.
Fanfiction I hate.
It feels like many of the examples here aren't anvilicious, just regular Aesops. Spec Ops: The Line seems like a good idea of an anvil that needed to be dropped; it slapped the message right in your face, basically saying "This is your fault, no one else's." Some of the others are gradual or even subtle. I feel like "anvil" just gets thrown around to easily.
The Sword of Damocles. It's about as subtle as a freight train, but it's an excellent demonstration of the perils of absolute power.
I might be wrong, and as a result are hesitant to remove this without confirmation, but last I checked that's not the aesop of the Sword of Damocles story. The king doesn't and never had absolute power, nor does he give that to the person he has sit under the sword, nor does the sword represent the perils of power itself. It's more about the risks leaders face: folk that provide the feast also know who to blame for failure or for the wrong decisions.
And as good as Sex Education is as a thing, I'm not sure it's an 'anvil'.
PaperMaster
Archived TRS topics:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1336278437044640200&page=1
Eep! I edited the comics folder, and the entire folder structure went wrong! How do I undo the edit?
Darth Wiki pages generally warn you in the description not to make justifying edits. Should there be something like that here, saying not to argue the merit of the Aesops?
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Yes, I'd like to know the answer to that, because some of them give me the shivers. Such as "Killing is wrong. Even when it's necessary, its still wrong." Swans are white... even when they're black, they're still white....
The Trigun example you quoted just seems poorly worded to me; they seemed to be going for "shooting the dog will take a massive toll on you if you do it too often" rather than "be an Actual Pacifist even if it kills you."
C-E-O-3, H-N-I-C
- I personally thought there to be two such anvils in the ending. The first was connected to If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!; basically you need to look at your WHY; if you're killing someone out of hate or revenge, then no matter how noble your reasons, you're just like the person you're trying to destroy. That's why I find the whole defeating the villain with the brighter side of humanity to be a Crowning Moment Of Awesome. Then there's my second anvil which is actually in the much-hated epilogue: There is always going to be evil and evil doers in the world...but a few good people fighting to stop it can make the world a better place.
Alright, Dommie222, be a man and tell the class your problem with this.
I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117 Hide / Show Replies
1) First person is prohibited, especially in examples. This is not Troper Tales nor TVT is a forum or blog. 2) If an entry is wrong, you should fix it instead of responding. Conversation In The Main Page is prohibited.
Those two are the main faults of that entry.
Edited by AMNK
So Jordan, You want me to tell you why I continue to delete those anvils. Well no problems, these are the reasons why:
- For the first one, I just can't remember which episode that anvil is supposed to play in. I just remember the necessarity of lethal force in case of deadly sistuations against murderous nutjobs, not that you must have "the right feelings" in doing those hard decisions.
- For the second one, well lets be honest here, the ending sucked, no doubt there. It was obviously rushed, probably because the writers just wanted the series to end already so they killed off the main villain with some BS ways and then putted that anvil afterward because, well it's the norm of kidsseries, right. If the writers had putted some more effort into the last episode (an example like a "Villain near victory, kids pretty beaten up but dont give up, kids uses their close loyalties to each other to figuring out a strategy and then executing it well, the battle become long and brutal but due to their abilities to work, to think, to fight, to die together as one the kids wins, villain dies, happy ending, last message to the kids" kind of ending, you know like the one in Tamers) than it probably would had worked but with the "Villain near victory, kids talks dreams, villain dies, happy ending, last message for the kids" kind of ending it just fall short for the anvil to work.
I hope it were enough explanations for you.
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I'm not familiar with the episode/work in question, I'm just saying that you obviously have a Violence Really Is the Answer viewpoint (indeed, you added an example that advocated that anvil), and I don't think it's a good enough reason to delete an example because you didn't like the work/don't agree with the message.
Hodor
So you tell me and everyone else that you don't have any proofs that those anvils, atleast the first one, actually exist in the series because if you don't than it doesn't matter what kind of personal philophosies I've they shouldn't be in the trope in the first place than. You can't claim you know the message of a fiction work if you arn't familiar with it.
If the anvil isn't one that's present at all, then that's an ok reason to an example. But from the way you describe it, it sounds more like you don't think that someone should get that message from the work, which isn't quite the same thing.
Since it's a Just For Fun page, I'd say that unless it's completely off the wall, people can add any example they want to the page.
Hodor
I didn't say that someone must get the message, I said that you can't claim you know it if you arn't familiar with the story. And you still havn't given your proofs
Besides, if someone would write things down in the trope with your logic than I might write that the anvil in an example like M is "child serial murderers are people too and you should feel sorry for them whatever horrible crimes they did, and only assholes refuses to recognize it, no less putting him in a trial". I haven't seen the movie and so arn't really familiar with it but hey I think that's the anvil so I'm gonna write it down and you can't take it down 'cause anyone can write whatever example they want. Yeah, the logic doesn't really hold there.
Don't they all?
My point is that this entry seems superfluous and inherently bigoted. If not every heavy-handed 'moral' needs to be pushed, who decides which are worthy? Any random wiki editor? (Ever shifting) social consensus?
Nah... Either they are all equal in the market of ideas, or this entry is just an exercise in popular bias.
Strongly suggest merging examples here into the main Anvilicious article.
In addition: I see that the main "Some Anvils..." entry has been edited to clarify that the trope is supposed to reference works that were made better by their heavy-handedness. While I still find that very very subjective, it certainly rules out a lot of the examples cited here. Take your pick, there's a high probability that the example was cited only because the wiki editor agreed (perhaps very strongly) with the Aesop in question, not that the work was necessarily made better, or because there was an inherent "need" — barring inherent bias of the wiki editor.
Edited by Piledriver Hide / Show Replies
Maybe all the examples were put here because they were subjective, keeping natter material away from the main page. Still, something like "YMMV: Anvils That Needed To Be Dropped" would have been better.
They should change the name of it. It isn't about anvils that need to be dropped, it's more about anvilicious works that do it well.
My father totally doesn't get the message in Phil Collins's "Another Day In Paradise".
I don't really have a point, here, I just... needed to tell someone that.
Per TRS, this is being redirected to Anvilicious:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1618960336010446100&page=10#comment-245
You can't always get what you want.