An Aesop: Difference between revisions

* [[Very Special Episode]] - The show takes a more serious tone to tackle a more serious issue.

 

 

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.

* [[Burma-Shave]] posted clever verses on roadside signs from 1928-1963 to promote their shaving cream; some of these verses contained traffic safety messages.

 

* Most episodes in ''[[Mokke]]'' have mild, safe Aesops in the vein of "appreciate your friends," "set goals in life" or "don't cling obsessively to material possessions."

* ''[[Princess Tutu]]'': Don't be afraid of being yourself. {{spoiler|even if you are "only a duck" you don't need to become a "beautiful swan" to be loved. [[Take That]] Hans Chistian Andersen}}!

* ''[[Popotan]]'': Moving away from others is not as hard as it appears because one can still have pleasant memories of old friends, and one should learn to let go of said friends in order to move on in life. It's an overarching theme of the entire series, and Konami (the best friend of Mai, one of the protagonists) puts it into words in both the second and the final episodes.

 

* In one ''[[Strontium Dog]]'' story, Johnny and Wulf search for a target on a planet where the natives, among other things, eat humans. The conditions in which the farmed humans were kept served to illustrate the point that battery farming is bad.

* Many times in the stories of [[Wilhelm Busch]], often against alcohol and mischief. Several stories end with "Und die Moral von der Geschicht..." (and the moral of the story is: ...) There's a reason the German version of this page was named "[[De/Die Moral|Die Moral]]".

 

* This is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in [[Script Fic]] ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series|Calvin and Hobbes The Series]]'':

{{quote|'''Hobbes:''' [[Medium Awareness|"This is gonna be one of those moral shows, isn't it?"]]

'''Calvin:''' "Eh, we gotta have a few of those every once in a while." }}

* In ''[[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]'', there is [[Once Per Episode|at least one in most chapters]].

 

== Film ==

{{quote|If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, l won't look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn't there I never really lost it to begin with.

[and after Dorothy returns to Kansas] There's no place like home! }}

 

== Literature ==

* Every Oompa-Loompa song in ''[[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]]'' and ''Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator'' is An Aesop in rhyming verse.

* 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 moral of the business fable ''[[Who Moved My Cheese?]]'': Watch for signs of change, and be ready to change your actions when change happens around you.

 

* 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.]]

* One episode of ''[[Boy Meets World]]'' played with the notion of the Aesop: Mister Feeny assigns Corey, Topanga, and Shawn a seemingly impossible task. After trying and failing, the [[Genre Savvy]] kids come to the conclusion that Mister Feeney was giving them a [[Secret Test of Character]] to teach them a lesson about teamwork. Unfortunately they were wrong: Mister Feeney was actually trying to teach them a lesson about never giving up, and ''wants'' them to complete their seemingly-impossible task, and so he sends them back out again.

* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' justifies this because a sizable chunk of the premise is Future!Ted lecturing his kids about his mistakes when he was young. However, they're frequently [[Spoof Aesop|spoof]], [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|family unfriendly]], [[Broken Aesop|broken]], [[Space Whale Aesop|space whale]] (i.e., "I won't bother telling you not to fight, but don't fight with Uncle Marshall. He's insane."), [[Lost Aesop|lost]], lampshaded [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing]], or otherwise humorously subverted, usually with Future Ted giving an aesop, but admitting that in real life, back when the events ''actually'' took place, he and his friends didn't learn their lesson right away. However, when one of the characters gives an aesop in the present, it's more often played straight.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

** And after the Snow Goons arc

{{quote|'''Calvin:''' I like lessons that aren't applicable later in life}}

 

== Theatre ==

** ''[[South Pacific]]'' had one in the song "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught."

* ''The Time of Your Life'': The text of the play is prefaced with a moral sermon.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[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.}}

 

* In ''[[A Profile]],'' building on the [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]] of 'Your friends will lie to you directly to your face, so be careful,' it then turns it around and says 'but you should trust them anyway. They're your friends.'

* ''[[Katawa Shoujo]]'': People with disabilities are just that, ''people''. Considering this is a doujin [[Eroge]] [[Visual Novel]] than began on a certain image board this is surprisingly deep.

* At least two are present in ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]].'' The first is that you should always believe in your friends<ref>Though there's an addition this one that says you should believe in your friends, but you don't have to tell them things they don't need to know</ref> and that it's never too late to repent and start over. In fact, this is a pretty striking contrast between the ends of Meakashi and Tsumihoroboshi. In the first the no attempts at amends are made even when the error is realized while Tsumihoroboshi states the aesop outright and has the people involved seeking forgiveness.

 

* 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, [[anvilicious]]y, with links to this AND that page.

* 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.

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Broken Saints]]'' is big on the moral messages, and this is [[Lampshaded]] in the credits of Chapter 19, which has a line reading: "today's lesson: strip clubs are bad"

* Subverted HARD in ''[[Look a Vlog]]''.

 

== Western Animation ==

* The first season of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' was pretty notorious about this. Although some of those were along the lines of "[[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|Stealing is wrong unless it's from pirates]]."

* ''[[South Park]]'' often features an Aesop at the end. Many times Kyle starts a speech by saying, "I've learned something today..." The morals are sometimes humorous - though as often as not - these speeches really are didactic.

** One of the funnier genunine spoofs of this trope was in "Super Fun Time", in which a completely nonsensical, out-of-left-field moral wound up being preached in the end by the episode's ''villain''.

** Cartman is sometimes opposed to the lesson at hand - and seems intent on disrupting the Aesop delivery.

{{quote|"Oh goddamnit, Kyle! You gave him one of your gay little speeches, didn't you?"}}

* ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' also ended most episodes with The Tick turning to Arthur and saying "Arthur, I think we've learned a valuable lesson today," and then expounding semi-incoherently.

* ''[[The Weekenders]]'' loves Aesops. The episode "Listen Up" subverts their convention two-fold by having Carver (instead of the usual Tino) deliver it, and then having him off-center on screen and fading him out, forcing Carver to cut it short.

* 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]].

* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' had an aesop in many episodes in the first season, all of them being important lessons to teach children such as facing the consequences of your actions, not to curse, not to take advantage of your friends and not to touch things that aren't yours when instructed. Later seasons tend to lack these.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Children's Show Tropes]]

[[Category:Fairy Tale Tropes]]

[[Category:Index]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aesop, An}}