Accidental Aesop: Difference between revisions
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** Likewise, the episode "[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1 E19 A Dog and Pony Show|A Dog and Pony Show]]" is supposed to show the viewers that you shouldn't underestimate your friends, even if they don't seem like they'll be able to handle themselves. However, due to the method that Rarity uses to deal with the Diamond Dogs, the much more prominent Aesop in the episode is "Whining will get people to do what you want."
** "The Mysterious Mare Do-Well" was also problematic in that it came across to some fans as effectively saying, "It's totally okay to go behind your friends' backs, show them up and sabotage them if they act in a way that you don't like," as opposed to, you know, just talking to them about it like friends." The message the episode was supposed to have about how one shouldn't be boastful or a gloryhog is completely lost because, firstly, the Great and Powerful Trixie showed this lesson far more effectively and, secondly, because the other ponies ''do'' boast and brag about how awesome Mare Do-Well is and gladly receive accolades and talk up all their own successes. So, ultimately, the episode just comes across as the ponies being smug and hypocritical and contradicting the friendship message central to the show.
** In ''Winter Wrap-Up'', Twilight searches in vain for a way to help with the town's winter cleanup activities, but only comes into her own when she realizes everyone else needs organization and management (which are her specialties). The obvious aesop is that you should play to your own strengths rather than trying to fill anyone else's shoes, but some interpreted it as saying that the "elite" (Twilight, in this case, being from Canterlot) have to boss around the stupid common folk because they're too pathetic to do it themselves. Much like ''Feeling Pinkie Keen'', the people who saw this aesop didn't do so to agree with it, but apparently just so they could be outraged by it.
* An episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' had [[Granola Girl|Lisa]] taking part in a competition wherein the other team cheated (by using glow sticks, expressly against the rules) and won. She spends the rest of the episode appealing to progressively higher authorities until finally then-President Clinton himself overturns the results. The Aesop in this case is pretty explicitly spelled out: if things don't go your way, you can always whine to someone until they do. Thing is, it was clearly meant to be a [[Spoof Aesop]]; Marge points out that it's not a good moral to take away from this, and Clinton simply replies that he's not a very good president. Be that as it may, "Calmly and logically appeal to authority figures when faced with an injustice" isn't really that bad a moral.
* Parodied in-story in ''[[South Park]]'' episode "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs," the kids decide to write the most offensive book ever written, which to their surprise becomes an instant bestseller, even though people can't stop throwing up when they read it. Almost immediately, people start reading political messages in the story, only for others to angrily insist that the book says ''the exact opposite.'' The kids, who only wanted to be offensive, find this all very annoying.
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