Author Tract: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Writers, whatever else you do, resist the urge to put yourself into your story, because what we care about is your creation, and the last thing we want is to find we've been lured into a wonderful and instructive analogous world, only to find you've kidnapped us here to tell us to [[A Christmas Story|drink our Ovaltine]]."''|[http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=18499 Viewer reaction] to ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined|Battlestar Galactica]]''}}

'''Please do not use this page as an excuse to [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Like|complain about an author you don't like or a message you disagree with]].<ref>Especially since disagreeing with the message is hardly a requirement for this trope.</ref> Keep in mind that the minimal requirement for a work to qualify here is that the message has to be obvious and heavy handed. Don't use this page to [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Like|Complain About Messages You Disagree With]].<ref>Especially since disagreeing with the message is hardly a requirement for this trope.</ref>; Whenwhen adding examples, please restrict them to explaining what the tract is about and how this is shown. [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|We don't want arguments.]]'''

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]''. [[War Is Hell|War is bad, m'kay?]] But then, it IS based off of [[World War II]].

** Some of his stories that focus on nature, like ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'', tend to have a [[Green Aesop]], but Tezuka tends to make it play back-burner to other aesops about family and sacrifice.

* ''[[Team Medical Dragon]]'' was written by Akira Nagai, a practicing doctor -, and the manga basically centres around a maverick (but exceedingly skilled) cardiac surgeon and his team fighting against bureaucracy and corruption in the Japanese health services. It's particularly jarring when you realise that all the protagonists are incredibly good-looking compared to most of the antagonists, who are practically caricatures.

** Interestingly enough, Miyazaki often protests that he does not make films with the intent of sending messages, he just makes them to entertain and [[Money, Dear Boy|for profit]]. Fans have a hard time believing that, given that his [https://web.archive.org/web/20081206090310/http://www.ghibliworld.com/news.html#3103_02 criticisms about capitalism and globalization] seemingly put a lie to that notion.

* The works of [[Alan Moore]] frequently stray into Author Tract territory, most notably ''Promethea'', which was a 32-issue series explaining Moore's views on the nature of magic, and ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', which was very much a vehicle for his political views.

** PossibleThe latter case is something of a subversion: Moore has stated that he wanted to let the reader decide for themselves whether V is a noble freedom fighter or a psychotic terrorist, and portrays V's antagonist, a leader of a fascist party, as sympathetic. IfUnfortunately, it werereally andoesn't Authorhelp Tractthat most copies of ''V'''s trade paperback come frontloaded with Moore's 80s introduction, thewhere moralityhe wouldquite bethoroughly morerails blackon andthe then-Conservative government in whiteEngland.

* Lest we forget, [[Jack Chick]] is famous for creating his "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Chick Tracts]]", which have thin stories whose only purpose is to provide a framing story for an illustrated extract from [[The Bible]] and/or rant about how [[The Pope]] [[Conspiracy Theory|secretly rules the world]] and ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'' is a Satanic indoctrination tool.

** [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20130816154754/http://yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2006/11/galactus_is_com.html This parody] uses the Chick tract format to promote [[Marvel Comics]] instead of Christianity.

* Most of [[Warren Ellis]]'s comics seem to have characters declaring their sociopolitical views, which always are along the same lines, and close to the author's own opinions. Warren has specifically stated that ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'' is basically him venting about his various opinions on politics and consumerism, with the main character being a sort of author surrogate. This is particularly notable in the issue where Spider Jerusalem takes on religion, which doesn't even end properly—the issue concludes with him dressed up as Jesus, tearing up a sort of [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|religious convention in a mall]] (while giving [[Author Filibuster|a long speech]] about why religion sucks, of course) and getting tackled by security. [[BigNon LippedSequitur Alligator MomentScene|No mention is made of it afterward]].''

** That said, ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'' actually does this right, as Spider is just unsympathetic enough to avoid being a [[Mary Sue]] 'I am right, you are wrong' type of character. You are left free to disagree with his individual likes and dislikes while sympathizing with his basic humanity, as many characters within the comic itself do. Many of the characters close to Spider constantly complain about what a [[Jerkass|horrible and unpleasant person]] he is, frequently abusing and taking advantage of him when he's blitzed on whatever drugs he's managed to come up with. At one point, one of the characters closest to him gets sick of his crap and leaves; but later returns and comments that the worst part of working with such a [[Magnificent Bastard|bastard]] is that he's the good guy, and actually making a difference.

* Comically subverted by [[Grant Morrison]] when he literally shows up in ''[[Animal Man]]'' to mention (among other things) mention that he feels, his own, writing for the book has become too preachy and contrived.

* [[JLA: Act of God]] is entirely devoted to saying that Batman is right and the only way to fight crime is by being a normal vigilante with no special abilities. And also that superheroes are arrogant because only God should have power, it even goes so far as to have Wonder Woman {{spoiler|convert to Catholicism, in spite of her being an Amazon, who has met Greek gods before.}}

== [[Fan Fiction]]Works ==

* ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Methods of Rationality]]'' is, in part, its author's attempt to teach lessons in rational thinking through the medium of ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' fanfiction.

* "''Harry Potter Turns to the Lord"'' is a fanfiction about a [[Gary Stu]] teaching Harry Potter that witchcraft is evil.

* A large part of [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Stranger in Aa Strange Land]]'' revolves around nudism and polyamory, both of which Heinlein practiced in his real life (''[[For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs]]'', a [[Missing Episode|lost early Heinlein manuscript]] which was first published in 2003, contains similar themes). Indeed, his works can largely be divided into pre-''Stranger'' and post-''Stranger'', with the latter showing far more evidence of this. There's also a greater-than-average amount of incest, including a mention that in his distant future it's genetically safer in some cases for a woman to bear her brother's children than an unrelated man's -- a couple's decision to have children together (or not) is based purely on their gene scans, not on consanguinity. Not that that necessarily stops them from ''marrying''; there's a reference to a happily married couple who are raising seven children, "four his, three hers, none theirs," (possibly a blended family and possibly using donor sperm for hers and donor eggs for his -- the text doesn't say which) because the genetic risks of having children together were too great. Apparently [[Hollywood Evolution]] leads to a world where [[Mary Suetopia|whatever the creator thinks is hottest happens]]. Heinlein was probably unaware of the [[wikipedia:Westermarck effect#Westermarck effect|Westermarck Effect]], or he would have been less sanguine about the possibility of genetic scans completely replacing the incest taboo as society's method of minimizing pregnancies and births marred by reinforced harmful recessive genes.

** All of Robert A. Heinlein's heroes have the same views as he does.{{verify}} Some of his early writing was made solely for the purpose of Author Tract. However, even his stories that weren't solely designed for it still have plenty of it in there. It is just that he was such a good writer with good ideas that he could get away with it. He also does get you to think about the issues, as well. ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' is the most popular story of his that has been accused of being an Author Tract, with critics basically saying it is just about worshiping the military.

*** ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' is an Author Tract, all right. He wrote it in protest of America signing a nuclear treaty with Russia—whomRussia — whom he did not believe would keep nuclear treaties. [[Unfortunate Implications]] in that [[Reality Subtext]], but this novel is good in itself. And it ''doesn't'' have the [[Squick]] that ''[[Stranger in Aa Strange Land]]'' does, which makes a difference: there are probably a lot of people who appreciate Heinlein's military politics, but not his sexual politics.

* ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'', by George Orwell, is nothing but an extremely [[Anvilicious]] Author Tract based on his vision of how Stalinist revision of history might be taken to its logical extremes.

* This trope was [[Charles Dickens]]' stock in trade. All of his works are morality plays meant to drive home his socialist ideals. In ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'', Ebeneezer Scrooge rails that the poor are lazy and inferior and deserve to die, on scientific principle, and then an innocent child almost does. In ''[[David Copperfield (novel)|David Copperfield]]'', ''[[Nicholas Nickleby]]'', and ''[[Oliver Twist]]'', more innocent children are mercilessly abused, either by predators that society chooses to do nothing about, or by the very institutions of that society. In ''[[Little Dorrit]]'', citizens are reduced to professional beggars by the debtors' prison system. And the list goes on.

* Norman Spinrad's ''[[The Iron Dream]]''. An [[Alternate History]] [[Adolf Hitler]] (who became a writer instead of a politician) writes ''Lord Of The Swastika'', a pulp SF adventure with a plot that mirrors the real-world rise of the Third Reich. It's followed by a review where a scholar heaps praise on Hitler as a brilliant writer of rollicking good adventure stories, and whose only criticism is that he thinks it was a bit implausible for the protagonist to rise to power by creating a rather silly cult[[Cult of personalityPersonality]] and machismo. Naturally the whole thing is one giant [[Take That]] at the [[Broken Aesop]] morality of pulp SF and fantasy stories.

* Sorkin's follow-up, ''[[Studio 60 Onon the Sunset Strip]]'' took the preachiness and turned it [[Up to Eleven]]. And then squared it. This was parodied in the early episodes of ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'', with Lemon ranting about something, then getting confused about the statistics before concluding, "I gotta read more."

* An [[In-Universe]] application of this trope occurs in the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'' episode "Author, Author", in which [[Hologram|the Doctor]] writes a holo-novel which is essentially a screed against the oppression of intelligent holograms, with [[Captain Ersatz|thinly-disguised]] versions of the crew as the villains. However, the end of the episode implies that maybe the novel [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|is in fact necessary]].

* ''[[Penn and& Teller: Bullshit!]]'' is completely blatant about its skeptical and Libertarian agendas from the very first episode. Teller has said (aloud, with his voice) that he likes the show being totally biased, but still fair.

* Is it coincidence that the soapboxing quotient on ''[[Quincy]]'' increased as [[Jack Klugman]] got more script control? Er... no.

{{quote|(Given the large number of [[Protest Song|protest songs]]s and other musical agitprop, this probably should only list notable or extreme examples)}}.

* Several of John Lennon's works from '72 and '73. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World." There is even the Nutopian National Anthem-... which is silent...

* Neal Morse left his Prog Rock band [[Spock's Beard]] after becoming a Christian. His ''Testimony'' album is pretty much the story of his conversion, although he tends not to be didactic and simply calls it "my story."

* [[Ministry]] did an entire TRILOGY''trilogy'' of a full-length albums specifically against George W. Bush.

* ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'' occasionally delved into this territory, although it was generally done well and in a manner that could educate kids on issues they might not otherwise learn about until they were older. Some episodes dealt with themes such as capitalism vs organized labor (showing the importance of responsible management, without totally demonizing, when Uncle Scrooge lost his memory).

[[Category:Religion Tropes{{PAGENAME}}]]

[[Category:BernardReligion WerberTropes]]

[[Category:AuthorWish TractFulfillment]]