An Aesop: Difference between revisions
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A lot of kids' shows go out of their way for this, especially [[Disney]] animated shows. Writers often call it the "Object Lesson", and write the episode around it. This is particularly noticeable in programs made in the United States during the late 1970s through the early 1990s, as the FCC at the time required that all children's television shows have "educational" content, and this was the simplest way to meet its requirements.
In an American [[Dom Com]], the point where the
For the lesson told or repeated in a separate segment during [[The Tag]], see [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]].
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For times when a lesson is learned through a moral conflict, see [[Moral Dilemma]].
In some quarters
Variations:
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* [[Very Special Episode]] - The show takes a more serious tone to tackle a more serious issue.
By the way, <s>in literary circles</s> [[All the Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary|everywhere outside of this wiki]],
Ironically, Aesop probably doesn't deserve the dubious honor of having this trope named after him. In their original forms these stories likely did ''not'' end with heavy-hitting moral [[Anvilicious|anvils]]. The listeners (for Aesop would have been an oral storyteller) were probably left to sort out the meaning for themselves; the one-liner morals (such as "slow and steady wins the race") were likely tacked on by modern compilers.
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Also see: [[Central Theme]], [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]].
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{{examples}}
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* ''[[Princess Tutu]]'': Don't be afraid of being yourself. {{spoiler|even if you are "only a duck" you don't need to become a "beautifull swan" to be loved. [[Take That]] Hans Chistian Andersen}}!
* ''[[Michiko to Hatchin]]'': Let go of your past.
* The main theme running through the ''[[Aria]]'' series is that you should [[Iyashikei|enjoy life to its fullest and pay attention to little everyday wonders]]. It helps when you live on a [[
* A recurring Aesop in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' is that regardless of how one was born/created one has the ability to choose whether to do good or evil.
* At the end of each volume of ''[[Oishinbo]]'' there are cautionary tales that teach a lesson. At the end of "Japanese Cuisine" there is an Aesop about simple values, at the end of the volume "Sake" there is one about sobriety and at the end of "Ramen and Gyoza" there is one about racism.
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* ''[[Franken Fran]]'': Though there are exceptions, the dominant aesop to be learned is that death is not something to come back from, especially via science.
* ''[[Super Gals]]'' has the ironclad rules for girls which are general aesops, mainly circling around: [[Be Yourself]].
* The entire tenth episode of ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' consists of each of the members of the Bebop giving
* Despite being mostly comprised of Aespoic-moments, the 32nd episode of the original 1969 series of ''Himitsu no Akko-chan'' plays that straight towards the heroine. When the kind-hearted Akko-chan meets a new deaf kid at school, she hurriedly wishes her magic mirror to [[Be Careful What You Wish For|turn her into a deaf-mute version of herself]], enabling her to empathize better with her plea. Her magic mirror [[Literal Genie|takes her literally]], taking her speaking voice again too, and refusing to change her back on the premises that, needing a clearly worded wish to act, it can't understand or obey a deaf-mute mistress. Only when Akko-chan, distraught and terminally scared, is starting to resign to her fate, the mirror changes her back on its own accord, moved by her tears and pointing out how her owner has now learned that a disability is nothing to be wished for, and how her new friend was more brave and resourceful than she could think.
* The English dub of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' often ended with a "Sailor Says" segment.
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== Literature ==
* In [[How Kazir Won His Wife]], a sorcerer in the [[Framing Story]] identifies the moral of the story he tells as being "not to rely on general principles and routine mechanical methods"
* Every Oompa-Loompa song in ''[[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]]'' and ''Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator'' is
* The moral of ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'' is to live life, take the good and take the bad and remain true to yourself. There might be other lessons scattered about the book concerning [[Author Tract|not manipulating others or belief in God,]] but the big message is to take the ups and downs and keep on. It comes off as [[Bittersweet Ending|bittersweet]] mostly because of all the events that had to take place for the protagonist to come to this conclusion.
* The poems "Maxims of Baloo" and "The Law of the Jungle" from [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''original'' ''[[The Jungle Book (novel)|Jungle Books]]'' probably qualify.
* Isaac Asimov's ''[[Foundation]]'' Trilogy shows that everything can be solved without resorting to violence in a incredibly clever and fascinating way, after all: "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent".
* ''[[War and Peace]]'': There are no [[Magnificent Bastard
* Subverted in the poem "Twice Times" by [[A. A. Milne|AA Milne]] about two bears, one good and one bad who then, for no apparent reason, swapped places. The poem concludes "There may be a Moral, though some say not; I think there's a moral, though I don't know what."
* ''[[Goblin Market]]'' concludes with a very obvious aesop:
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* Every of ''[[Full House]]'' episode ended with a [[Full House Music|sappy musical score]] while Bob Saget explained the moral of the story to one of the girls.
* Most of the episodes of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' and ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' were morals about human [[Pride|hubris.]]
* For more than three decades starting in the early 1950s, there were a number of Christian anthology dramas populating the airwaves. Each episode was fairly straightforward in formula: An off-screen narrator or on-camera host (always a clergyman, either real or played by an actor) will introduce a story and a situation/dilemma one or more characters are facing, along with a hint of the Christian doctrine that is about to be illustrated. The story unfolds, with the situation reaching its peak as the characters try various ways to resolve the situation; finally out of options, the characters turn to their Bible or a clergyman for advice, and the situation reaches its resolution. The
* ''[[Highway to Heaven]]'', the Christian drama starring Michael Landon and Victor French as itinerant workers who help the people they encounter deal with situations using a (though not explicitly stated) Christian solution. Said
* The intention of the [[Afterschool Special]], usually coming about in the final act.
* Vehemently [[Averted Trope|averted]] in ''[[Seinfeld]]'' where the credo was "No hugging! No lessons! No point!"
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* ''[[The World Ends With You]]'' is all about [[Ineffectual Loner|not closing yourself off from other people.]]
* In-universe example: The Harrowing in the Mage origin of ''[[Dragon Age]]'' is designed to teach apprentices who are ready to become full mages that you should never judge anything in the Fade by appearances alone.
* In the [[Framing Device]] of ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' the Seeker Cassandra is trying to find out who is responsible for starting the conflict between the Mages and Templars that threatens to tear the world apart. The message that Varric is trying to get through to her (and by extension the player) is that no one
** Another major Aesop of the game is that prejudice is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you oppress, harass, or treat a group of people as an enemy by default because of what they ''might'' do, [[Then Let Me Be Evil|they WILL become your enemy in truth]] because you've given them a reason to hate you.
* The teaching of tolerance is a big theme in the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series but nowhere is it more clear than at the end of {{spoiler|"Priority: Rannoch" in ''[[Mass Effect 3]]''}}: a planet is big enough for
* The Aesop of the ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' series is that people should be allowed to choose, and that free will is what makes us human. This is shown with the Assassin's reaction to the Crusades-era Templars plan, and Ezio's speech at the end of Bonfire of the Vanities.
* ''[[The Reconstruction]]'' has one that's never explicitly stated, but it's definitely an important part of the ending and Dehl's [[Character Arc]]. {{spoiler|A single person cannot save the entire world, and if they could, the psychological stress would break them first. So, instead of shooting for over-ambitious goals or lamenting the fact that we can't accomplish them, we should focus on what we ''can'' do to make the world a better place.}}
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== Webcomics ==
* Made into a Super Hero in [http://xninjared.deviantart.com/art/Lysistrata-Gambit-152865735 this comic]
* ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' decide to drop an aesop about [[Be Careful What You Wish For]] in [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2182.html this] strip, [[
* See [[The Rant]] of [http://www.bmoviecomic.com/?cid=333 this] ''[[The B-Movie Comic|The B Movie Comic]]'' strip.
** And [http://www.bmoviecomic.com/?cid=445 these] [http://www.bmoviecomic.com/?cid=446 two] pages.
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* Disney Channel's ''[[Lilo and Stitch: The Series]]'' is another one of those animated kids shows that works by rote, it's usually a [[Stock Aesops|lesson]] about the power of friendship and tolerance and honesty, to the point of being cloyingly cute.
* On ''What It's Like Being Alone'', Aesops are usually provided by one-off characters that are on the verge of death. They then die, violently.
* ''[[Jem]]'' did this in practically any episode about the Starlight
* Parodied in an episode of ''[[Futurama]]''. After Fry and Bender drag the Planet Express headquarters along on their joyride in the Planet Express ship, they exit the ship to find the rest of the Planet Express staff, battered and seriously pissed off, waiting for them. Attempting to divert inevitable trouble, Bender says, "And that's how we learned our lesson."
** From another episode:
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* Lampshaded in ''[[Animaniacs]]'' (repeatedly) with their Wheel of Morality. "Wheel of Morality, turn turn turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn."
* ''[[Gargoyles]]'' had the episode "Deadly Force", in which Broadway finds Elisa's loaded gun and starts playing Cops 'n' Robbers. Elisa walks in, startles him, and she's shot in the arm, showing just how deadly guns can be. Wasn't even healed in the next episode, either. Too bad it turned into the [[Missing Episode]].
* Roughly 1/3 of all ''[[Kim Possible]]'' episodes ended on
* ''[[Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids]]'' had a heavy-handed Aesop in every episode, driven home by a song from the Kids themselves. One example: "Dope is for dopes/Drugs are for dummies/And if you mess around with them/That kind of mess isn't funny."
* Subverted on ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'':
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[["Everybody Laughs" Ending|(Everyone laughs)]] }}
* Lampshaded in ''[[Danny Phantom]]'': when Jazz tries to organize a plan, Danny tells her, with a bored expression on his face, that the plan is to go try and beat up the bad guy, get beaten up yourself, run around for a while trying to fix things, finally beat the bad guy, and go home having learned a lesson about how the world works. Whoopie. This is also a slight breaking of the fourth wall, as it's the basic layout of each show.
* Remember,
* The whole point of ''[[Thundercats]]''. Seriously. This was during the time when cartoons where the scourge of the Earth and were corrupting kids (in the same way that Comic Books did before and Video Games are now ... oh wait!), so the producers sat down and said that every episode must have a moral, and they ''actually hired a child psychologist'' to help them write the stories.
** ''[[Thundercats 2011]]'' continues this out of tradition, with a discernible lesson in most of its episodes.
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* Common among [[Spark Plug Entertainment]]'s CGI [[Mockbuster]] cartoons.
* Played straight but surprisingly subtle in an animated version of ''Flash Gordon'', Flash alludes to men on Earth who "did terrible things in the name of obedience" but does not name names. In the eighties, this was a clear allusion to Nazi Germany and impressively assumes sufficient motivation, intelligence and education of the kids watching that they would either get the point or go find out.
* Before he went to Disney, ''[[Doug]]'' had
* Although the ''[[Fairly Oddparents]]'' doesn't have many episodes strictly made to teach a moral, there's one where the moral is thrown in the viewers' faces with a case of breaking the fourth wall: "And sometimes the best weapon of all is to say you're sorry." Que screen where the phrase MORAL OF THE STORY pops up.
* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' has one of these about friendship at the end of each episode, given in the form of a letter from Twilight Sparkle to Princess Celestia.
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** The aesop becomes a [[MacGuffin]] in [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2 E3 Lesson Zero|"Lesson Zero"]], where Twlight panics because she doesn't have an Aesop of the Week to report to the Princess.
** Subverted in ''The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000''. The usual "letter to the princess" aesop-delivery is set up... and then Applejack points out that she knew the aesop already, and didn't need to learn a thing.
* ''[[Adventures from the Book of Virtues]]'' had a valuable virtue in every
* Played straight with ''[[Birdz]]'', although they're not heavy-handed since they're often skewed to the avian universe (e.g. {{spoiler|Eddie learning the hard way that he should study the map and pack properly during migration season}}).
* Happened quite often in the early episodes of ''[[Recess]]'', though they were ''never'' in-your-face about it. Then morals came from time to time later on, and season six became [[Anvilicious]].
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[[Category:Index Index]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
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[[Category:An Aesop]]
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