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[[Tropes Are Not Bad|This is not always a bad thing]]. For some books, the premise is simply a way of putting a political point across in an interesting and imaginative way. However, when the message come across as [[Glurge|forced]] or [[Black and White Morality|one sided]], it may prevent some readers from enjoying the book.
Note that this only applies when the entire universe and characters have been created to put forward the author's viewpoint. If an existing fictional universe or character has been altered to create a medium for a tract, then it's due to a [[Writer
'''Please do not use this page as an excuse to complain about an author you don't like. 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> When adding examples, please restrict them to explaining what the tract is about and how this is shown. We don't want arguments.'''
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{{quote| ''You soldiers can decide to live and die by any rules you want, commandant. You can play any games you want, but civilians shouldn't have to lose their lives as a result.''}}
** Incidentally, most of this came about of it being based off of [[World War II]].
* [[Osamu Tezuka]] did this occasionally, but he usually managed to pull it off ''well''. For instance, in ''[[
** Tezuka's science fiction book ''[[Apollo's Song
** Some of his stories that focus on nature like ''[[
* ''[[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.
** The issue with the looks is somewhat taken care of in the live-action version, with the antagonists having a fair amount of attractive people, and Dr. Asada being the only one pointed out to be good-looking.
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*** It really doesn't help that most copies of ''V'''s trade paperback come frontloaded with Moore's eighties introduction where he quite thoroughly rails on the then-Conservative government in England.
* Bill Willingham's ''[[Fables (Comic Book)|Fables]]'' definitely counts, considering the main characters having nothing but praise for Israel, [[Good Girls Avoid Abortion|condemnation of abortion]], [[Unfortunate Implications]] in the portrayals of some Middle-Eastern characters, {{spoiler|[[Unfortunate Implications|Snow White going from deputy mayor to stay-at-home mother/housewife]] [[Law of Inverse Fertility|just because Bigby got her pregnant]]}}, etc.
* [[Steve Ditko]]'s comics, which attempted to mix superheroic action of a street-level variety with [[An Aesop|Aesops]] on various principles derived from [[
* [[Reginald Hudlin]]. His primary messages in ''[[Black Panther]]'': Africans (and thus African-Americans) are good and genetically superior, while white people are inferior and evil.
* Lest we forget, [[Jack Chick]] is famous for creating his "[[Exactly What It Says
** "[http://www.fredvanlente.com/cthulhutract/pages/index.html Why We're Here]" is a parody tract in the style of Jack Chick's works, but instead of being based on Christianity, follows the conversion of someone to [[H.P. Lovecraft
** [http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2006/11/galactus_is_com.html This parody] uses the Chick tract format to promote [[Marvel Comics]] instead of Christianity.
** [http://cissie-king.livejournal.com/13838.html "Darkseid IS!"]
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* [[Garth Ennis]] is fond of these -- particularly concerning religion, the Irish and other authors he doesn't like. Above all else, however, he enjoys voicing his dislike of superheroes, beginning early with ''The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe'', continuing on in his run on ''The Punisher'' proper and culminating in his current series ''[[The Boys]]''.
* One of the reasons [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|William Moulton Marston]] created [[Wonder Woman]] was to convince everyone to come under 'loving submission' to a world matriarchy. Oh, and [[Author Appeal|bondage is highly enjoyable]].
* Comically subverted by [[
* Dave Sim's ''[[Cerebus]]'' eventually came to be dominated by Sim's viewpoints on the evils of feminism and his rather unusual take on the Abrahamic religions. An entire story arc was dominated by the title character reinterpreting pretty much the entire Torah.
* David Mack's ''[[Kabuki]]'' started out as action-adventure (though already with some genre savviness and self-reflexivity) and eventually became a meditation on producing independent art (turning the self-reflexivity and self-reference up to 11).
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* Several times in [[Wilhelm Busch]]'s stories. Best example may be "Pater Filucius". Gottlieb Michael (the good guy) is generally seen as a stand-in for the good German people, whom the evil Catholic church wants to harm.
** ''Pater Filucius'' was Busch's contribution to the ''Kulturkampf'', the period of intense conflict between Bismarck's government (supported by the Liberals) on one hand and the Catholic Church and its political arm, the Centre Party after the first Vatican Council declared the Pope to be infallible. Most characters in it are allegorical and have significant names. The German people had long been personified as ''der deutsche Michel'' ("German Mike"), rather like the British one was represented by John Bull, because St. Michael was Germany's patron saint. Father Filucius (from the French ''filou'', "crook") is a Jesuit, Gottlieb Michael's two maiden aunts Petrine and Pauline stand for the established Catholic and Protestant churches (the Pope tracing his authority to St. Peter, while Protestants place greater emphasis on the teachings of St. Paul. In the end, Gottlieb marries Angelica, signifying Wilhelm Busch recommending an "Anglican" solution to the centuries-old Catholic-Protestant divide in Germany.
* [[
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== Literature ==
* ''The Human Stain'' by ''[[Philip Roth]]'' "Oh how difficult it is to be a rich white man in Academia! No one recognizes your true genius! Surrounded by PC nuts who think you're being racist for ENTIRELY innocuous comments and those women pretending to be smart like men with their twittering and their sensitivity... but they all really just want in your pants." The whole book is a beautifully written whine about how he wishes people would stop calling him a sexist racist jerk who's condescending and mean to everyone.
* ''[[Charlie and
* [[
* The ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series by [[Terry Goodkind]] is often accused by detractors of being nothing more than Objectivist propaganda, particularly the later books. These themes only begin to crop up later in the series: ''Faith of the Fallen'' is two-fifths desperate battles and [[Angst]], and three-fifths [[Anvilicious|clangingly obvious]] pro-[[
* ''[[Orson Scott Cards Empire]]'', where the characters will [[Author Filibuster|pause during the action]] to explain exactly why sweeping demonizations of the views of others are destructive. Part of it comes from the ridiculous premise -- he was hired to write the backstory for [[Shadow Complex|a video game]] about a second American Civil War taking place [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], with the opposing sides being [[Strawman Political|strawman versions]] of the Democrats and Republicans.
** In truth, [[Orson Scott Card]] does this in a lot of his novels, but usually expounding on religion and philosophy instead of politics. He often introduces characters who spend a good deal of time discussing and speculating on the nature of God. Examples include Sister Carlotta in the ''[[Ender's Game
*** A more blatant example: Towards the end, the ''Ender's Shadow'' series also features numerous lectures from widely disparate characters on how the only way to really be a part of the human race is to have babies, culminating in one Battle-school grad stopping her troops in the middle of a battle and telling them to go home and procreate.
* [[Philip Pullman]]'s ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' series. After [[Subtext|bubbling under the surface]] for the first third of the trilogy, the final volume explodes into a massive [[Take That]] against organized religion. Part of Pullman's intention with this series was to set up an atheist response to the fantasy novels of Christian writer C.S. Lewis, whom Pullman loathes.
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* The ''[[Left Behind]]'' series of religious novels are overtly based on the authors' premillennial dispensationalist views on the Rapture. Only Christians with their very specific beliefs are shown to be worthy of going to heaven. Like any didactic religious story, the plot is clearly just a vessel to convert the readers or reinforce their already sympathetic views. Helpfully, the two main characters are both [[Mary Sue|Mary Sues]] of the authors, giving the reader a virtually unfiltered look into the authors' actual beliefs and point of view. [http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html Slacktivist] illuminates many of these beliefs in his page-by-page analysis.
** You know you're dealing with an [[Author Tract]] when you read a women's clinic employee saying that she's sad that all the world's children disappeared... '' because they can't perform any more abortions now''!
* The elves of the ''[[Inheritance Cycle
* A large part of [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]'' revolves around nudism and polyamory, both of which Heinlein practiced in his real life (''[[
** All of Robert A. Heinlein's heroes have the same views as he does. 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 (
*** ''[[Starship Troopers (
*** Or vice-versa - ''Stranger'' was well-liked by the hippie movement, for example, while they certainly weren't fans of ''[[Starship Troopers (
*** ''[[Starship Troopers (
*** Weirdly, given that it suffers from such a severe dose of [[Author Tract]], ''[[Starship Troopers (
*** Heinlein is an unusual author tractist in that his political opinions and issue of choice evolved over time. While he never stopped writing author tracts, has later tracts effectively contradict his middle tracts, which in turn contradict his earlier tracts.
* ''[[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.
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** While it doesn't shy away from criticizing Islam or Islamic terrorists, the series is surprisingly soft towards non-militant Muslim individuals in general, even allowing a group of proto-Muslims to do something heroic in one flashback episode. {{spoiler|Although the Drismabons are still depicted as destroying the Kaaba in one episode, [[Crosses the Line Twice|then laughing about it]].}}
** The series even goes so far as to show the economics of personal and sexual lifestyles, and societal economic consequences of subjective thinking. So really, there's no hot-button issue the series won't touch.
* [[L. Ron Hubbard]] and his final novels, ''[[Battlefield Earth]]'' and the 10-volume ''Mission Earth''. In ''Battlefield Earth'' psychiatry is what caused the evil space overlords to turn from their generally happy live-and-let-live prior existence, into amoral [[Planet Looters]] who regularly commit planetary genocide just so nobody will get in the way of their mining operations. Psychiatry is also the big-bad in ''Mission Earth'', to the extent that ''every single antagonist'' is either a supporting the profession or a practitioner or exporting it off-world or using it to take over the world. It doesn't help that almost every character is a [[Strawman Political]].
** Let's not forget the evil Psychlos. This isn't a play on 'psycho'--it's a reference to ''psychologists'', who are considered evil in Scientology doctrine.
** His earlier work ''Masters of Sleep'' promotes Dianetics and features as a villain a mad psychiatrist, Doctor Dyhard, who persists in rejecting Dianetics after all his abler colleagues have accepted it, and believes in prefrontal lobotomies for everyone.
** Other common targets for Hubbard's ire include journalists, federal investigators, bankers, elected officials, policemen, doctors, college professors, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and modern art]].
* [[Michael Crichton]]. ''[[State of Fear]]''. In fact, many of his books: starting with ''[[Jurassic Park]]'', and going on from there.
** And in ''[[Next]]'', he used a page in the book as a tract against... someone who wrote an article against Crichton's stance on Global Warming. How did he portray someone who dared disagree with him? As a pedophile with a tiny penis who raped infants, of course! The character [[What Happened to
* [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] hoped to convey a new way to understand religion through exemplifying the themes of guilt and free will in writing ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]''. This can be seen in what many critics call the pivotal chapters of the book, which include the parable called [[wikipedia:The Grand Inquisitor|''The Grand Inquisitor''.]] The way in which events play out conform with the Elder Zosima's idea expressed throughout of "everyone is guilty for all and before all."
** ''[[Notes From Underground]]'' is arguably an Author Tract; it highlights the societal chaos brought about by the then fashionable, and highly depressing, trend towards rational reductivism (often referred to as nihilism).
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*** By itself, the grandmother's pondering could also be [[Unreliable Narrator|first-person perspective]], since there are real people who think like that, some of whom are Florida grandmothers. Suffice to say that it isn't at all by itself.
** He wrote ''Ghost'' as this deliberately. It was a horrible wank-fest that he just had to get out of his head and shove it in a drawer. When fans heard about it they asked for it and loved it, and it got published, much to his chagrin. To give you an idea, the main character pursues kidnapper terrorists to the Middle East, where he kills them all, coaches a group of naked coeds through a siege (while renaming them, because he can't be bothered to learn their names), kills Bin Laden and mails his head to the President in a bucket, buys a yacht with the reward money, has kinky bondage sex with some of the coeds and converts them to Republicanism. In the ''[[Up to Eleven|in the first third of the book]]''.
* ''The Land of Mist'' by Sir [[
* Matthew Dickens spends the last hundred pages of the book ''[[Magnus]]'' telling the reader about his personal views on religious doctrines, evolution, theology, [[Superman Returns]], etc.
* This trope was [[
* [[Piers Anthony]] does these occasionally. One story he wrote was basically a [[Take That]] explaining why the sci-fi publishing business was worthless (Anthony having struggled against it for quite some time before learning the tricks of the trade). One supposes that subjectivity enters in over where the line is drawn between [[Author Tract]], [[Author Filibuster]], and [[Author Appeal]] where his other books fall, though he's never been very shy about making his ideas on sexuality (and the ages at which people take notice of it), body modesty, and other things an important plot element of his stories.
* The Arthur Hailey novel ''The Moneychangers'' has a recurring character to filibuster about how Gold is Good. Given that he's a pundit with his own popular newsletter, and is married to one of the secondary characters, and the book is about banking, it kinda makes sense. Then, after the 'real' ending, the US establishes a gold-backed dollar, and we are treated to the full text of one of said pundit's newsletters. Guess what it's about? The book ends with the lead putting the newsletter down and reflecting how wise said pundit is.
** This makes even less sense in ''Overload'', a novel about a ''power company'', when the President establishes a gold-backed dollar. The protagonist, an power company spokesman, promptly comes up with a perfect comment about the dangers of America's dependence on foreign oil, as requested by the reporter who presented the story to him so she could get a soundbyte. [[Kavorka Man|Then she sleeps with him]].
** Hailey's novels in general often go into [[Author Tract]] territory, as the author has one or another of his character expatiate on a particular failing of the business he is examining in the current book. For instance, ''Airport'' goes into a lot of detail about aviation safety, how people who complain about airport noise are in fact sometimes deluded by real-estate promoters looking to make a buck, and the evils of "flight insurance" (a type of life insurance which, at the time the novel was published, could be purchased by passengers worried about whether they would survive the flight).
* Much of [[Sheri S. Tepper]]'s work reads as thinly disguised, feminist utopianism; particularly [[The Gate to
* Petrarch's [[Author Existence Failure|unpublished final work]], a poem on Scipio Africanus, was full of long [[Author Filibuster|Author Filibusters]] on how [[Ancient Rome]] was [[Mary Suetopia|better than everything ever]]. Technically, this is true of all of Petrarch's work, and indeed, most things written during [[The Renaissance]], but he took the cultural inferiority complex [[Up to Eleven]]. There's also apparently a fictitious bit where Scipio goes to see a fortuneteller, who speaks of a dark time when poetry will die out and only a man named [[Author Avatar|Petrarch]] will be able to save it. After Petrarch died, some of his fans wanted to publish it. Then they read it, and decided that he never finished it for a reason.
* Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' has always been filled with [[Contemplate Our Navels|navel-gazing philosophy]] (usually of the [[Wangst|wangsty]] kind), but for the first seven books it was at least the ''characters'' doing it, and sometimes [[Crapsack World|not without reason]]. But in book eight, ''Toll the Hounds'', we have long ramblings in omniscient voice, and it becomes painfully obvious that Erikson is trying to push his allegedly deep insights regarding the world on the reader. Perhaps the most Anvilicious example is p.617 (hardback version), where Erikson has the audacity to, in omniscient voice, use the phrase: "And this is the lesson here, dear friends."
** The parts of ''Toll the Hounds'' where the readers seem to be directly addressed are actually told by Kruppe (who, as we know since the very first book, just loves the sound of his own voice).
* Even [[Edgar Allan Poe]] wasn't immune to this, though to either his credit or his fault, he restricted it to philosophy--''The Imp of the Perverse'' is entirely about his idea of a previously uncredited motivating force behind people's actions.
* [[H.P. Lovecraft
* ''King John of Canada'' by Scott Gardiner, although nominally a political satire, in reality consists of one [[Author Filibuster]] after another against Natives, Quebec Separatists, environmental activists, Saudi Royals, the Asper family, American-style conservatives...in short, everyone that the author doesn't like, all stuck together by a paper-thin plot and shallow characters. Even for someone who agrees with most of his points, it's painful to read.
* ''[[
** The Order also inspired a real life terrorist organization of the same name that is responsible for numerous deaths.
*** And to which McVeigh may have had ties, according to Mark Juergensmeyer, author of ''Terror in the Mind of God'' - a book about religious terrorism.
* 99% of everything that [[John Milton]] wrote (including, tautologically, his political tracts).
* [[Tom Clancy]]'s ''[[Jack Ryan
* Norman Spinrad's ''[[
** Of course, Spinrad's tract is one of the few actually capable of actually proving its point, since it is about ''fiction'', rather than the real world. His point is "many if not most pulp SF and [[Heroic Fantasy]] stories are characterized by vaguely Nazi/Fascist [[Broken Aesop|Broken Aesops]], to say nothing of machismo that would put [[Freud Was Right|Freud]] in a tizzy," and this is a point he can ''prove'' by going on to write a fairly typical (if exaggerated) pulp Science Fiction/Heroic Fantasy novel that is ''obviously'' Nazi and ''obviously'' and steroidically Freudian. Taking ''The Iron Dream'' as a model, we can then compare it non-Tract pulp and find the salient similarities (which are chillingly many).
* Ernest Callenbach's ''[[Ecotopia]]'', a depiction of an environmentalist utopia.
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* ''[[The Jungle]]'' by Upton Sinclair is perhaps one of the most compelling examples we have of an author tract, or rather two tracts -- first about the hellishness of the meat-packing industry in Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century, and then a defense of socialism. More literal than the usual author tract, because at first he had to self-publish. The meatpacking half (based on Sinclair's undercover observations) was so horrifying that it led to nearly-immediate regulation: the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug Act (which established the FDA). The socialist half made little lasting impact in America, where the burgeoning movement was forcibly shut down by the government, but was part of a sweeping movement that radically transformed the politics of Europe and Asia.
** These were not separate goals, but Sinclair couldn't control readers' reactions. After America panicked about food safety and ignored the plight of the workers he said, "I aimed for their hearts and hit them in their stomachs."
* ''[[
* Joanna Russ's sci fi novel ''The Female Man'' is partly about [[Alternate Universe]] versions of the same woman meeting up and getting to know each others' cultures<ref>one is from the world as we know it, one is from a world where [[The Great Depression]] never ended, one is a warrior from a world where men and women are on opposite sides of a war, and the last one is a utopia where men were wiped out by a vaguely defined 'plague' in the distant past</ref>, and it's about equally about Russ [[Author Filibuster|taking every opportunity]] to espouse how men are keeping her down. It's telling that one of the most detailed passages is that warrior woman literally tearing a man apart with her reinforced steel teeth and claws. It's also implied that the [[Lady Land]] utopia is the direct result not of a plague, but of the aforementioned [[Gendercide|gendercidal]] war.
* Gustav Meyrink started out with a fairly decent, atmospheric novel, ''The Golem''. The author's occultist views and rampant antisemitism were obvious, but still... then came ''The Green Face'', and it was an [[Author Tract]] plus a bit of plot. Then, [[It Got Worse|It Got Even Worse]].
* ''[[Uncle
* ''Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded'' by Samuel Richardson was a very popular didactic novel to teach young women the importance of feminine virtues, including piety, domesticity, and most importantly chastity. The main character is basically a [[Mary Sue]] of the feminine ideal who repeatedly asserts her virtue against the advances of a rakish suitor.
** Even at the time the book was published, some were disgusted by the classification of "virtue" as "virginity". One author wrote a parody, ''Shamela'', that ridiculed the concept by having long conversations over the heroine's "vartue", pointing out just how meaningless the word "virtue" is when used in the original.
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* [[Kurt Vonnegut]] does this a lot. ''[[Cats Cradle]]'' not only talks about how the invention of nuclear weapons was a bad thing, but pretty much says that if we insist on inventing things without thinking first about what they might be used for after we invent them, then we're all doomed (one character has given up science altogether, since he's come to believe that anything he invents will probably be turned into a weapon somehow). The parts of ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]'' set in Germany during WWII are unquestionably anti-war. The message of ''God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater'' seems to be that society will not fall apart if the wealthy share their money with the poor. The very first page of ''[[Breakfast of Champions]]'' begins describing the country in which the characters live (the United States) and all the ways in which it is fucked up. And so on...
* The ''[[Maximum Ride]]'' novels are one big [[Green Aesop]] after book three.
* ''[[
* ''Noir'' by K.W. Jeter is a [[Doorstopper]] [[Cliché Storm|set in a]] [[Dystopia|Dystopian]] [[Cyberpunk]] [[Crapsack World]]. After a couple hundred pages of mediocre plot setup, the entire story shifts to the main character being nothing more than a [[Marty Stu]] "Copyright Cop" who spends the rest of the book [[Author Filibuster|discussing how people who infringe copyrights]] should be ''[[Disproportionate Retribution|dismembered and tortured]]'' because, in the Information Age setting of the book, [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|copyright theft is worse]] than ''all'' other crimes. Jeter's personal website indicates that he firmly believes this. (Adding insult to injury, there are a few interesting concepts [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|that are almost entirely discarded]] in favor of ranting on copyright.)
* The [[Jakub Wedrowycz]] stories are written by a conservative author, and it shows sometimes; in one of the stories, the bad guys are radical left-wing ecologists, and in another the heroes chase away an European Union official.
* In ''[[Does My Head Look Big in This]]?'' by Randa Abdel-Fattah, about a Muslim girl living in Australia who decides to wear a hijab regularly, this occurs a lot. The main character often has speeches about the fact that non-Muslims should just see it as a piece of cloth and not as her whole personality. While this is a worthwhile message, this is expressed through contrived situations.
* ''[[
* "August" by Bernard Beckett is a philosophic idea about free will (or the lack of) with a two main characters and storyline plastered on top.
* Apparently, in ''[[The Nutcracker
* ''[[
* ''[[
* [[John Grisham]]'s books often feature this trope, targeting big business and/or conservative views. ''The Confession'' is an egregious example: the book attacks the death penalty by constructing a miscarriage of justice where the pro-death penalty side are all grossly negligent and unlikeable, in contrast to the anti-death penalty side. To top it off, once the message is thoroughly beaten through you, Grisham decides to dedicate a few pages to having a character rail against the death penalty.
* Self-proclaimed libertarian PJ O'Rourke's ''Don't Vote - It Just Encourages The Bastards'' is a bit hammery with its fundamental message of "All politicians suck, but left-wing ones suck worse than right-wing ones".
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* ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sometimes has this happening, most likely because the host differs from week to week. Christina Aguilera hosted in the midst of her ''Dirrty'' phase, and about three-quarters of the sketches where she played a central role (either as herself or someone else) had her character lecturing the others on how she chose to express herself as a woman. Some sketches in this style were [[Anvilicious]], others were [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|anvilicious but got the point across with a good punchline]].
* ''[[The West Wing]]'' varied a lot over time - the writing staff was mostly Republican in later seasons, leading to things like Arnold Vinick being the better candidate in the Season 7 election, to the point where {{spoiler|he would have won had actor John Spencer not died, forcing a last-minute rewrite}}.
* Sorkin's follow-up, ''[[Studio 60 On 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
* ''[[MacGyver]]'' pretty much turned into a show protesting societal wrongs after a couple seasons. The most glaring was probably the one that opened with a warning about a graphic portrayal of a de-horned rhinoceros, then spent about half its running time explaining the poaching in Africa and ended with Richard Dean Anderson as himself narrating about what can be done about it. [[Very Special Episode]], indeed.
* ''[[Boston Legal]]'' frequently involved the writers concocting a storyline that would allow James Spader to sue and deliver increasingly lengthy closing arguments. Frequently [[Better Than a Bare Bulb|lampshaded]].
** ''Harry'sLaw'' seems to be another David E. Kelley example, utilizing the characters of Harry and Thomas Jefferson as soap box preachers in court room scenes.
* [[Russell T. Davies]] is a mild case, for sufficiently flexible values of 'mild'. While he does tend to harp on about homosexuality and atheism a lot, he rarely cops out.
* [[Joss Whedon]] touches on his existentialist(-ish) views in the the ''[[Firefly]]'' episode ''Objects In Space'', through Jubal Early. Joss goes into much deeper detail in the episode commentary.
* Speaking of things produced by Joss... "Smashed" and "Wrecked" from Season 6 of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' felt to some a lot like a great big 'just say NO to drugs' thing. ''Especially'' "Wrecked", which was written by Marti Noxon.
** Season four's "Beer Bad" is not exactly pro-boozing either. It was written specifically to get reward money being offered to shows that dealt with the consequences of alcohol and drug abuse. This failed because the episode failed to deal with alcohol consumption realistically, instead having a magical potion in the beer turn drinkers into cavemen.
* An [[In
* ''[[
** He later expanded in his blog that he was in fact just mocking ship to ship combat and not shipping itself.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has had several cases over the years, including "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S10 E5 The Green Death|The Green Death]]" ([[Green Aesop]]), "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S22 E4 The Two Doctors|The Two Doctors]]" (vegetarian), "[[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/S1 E4 Aliens of London|Aliens of London]]"/"[[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/S1 E5 World War Three|World War III]]", "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S15 E4 The Sun Makers|The Sunmakers]]" (anti-tax), "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S9 E2 The Curse of Peladon|The Curse of Peladon]]" (pro-EEC), "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S11 E4 The Monster of Peladon|The Monster of Peladon]]", [[Doctor Who/Recap/S26 E1 Battlefield|Battlefield]] (Nuclear weapons).
* ''[[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.
* Gene Roddenberry, the creator of ''[[
* Is it coincidence that the soapboxing quotient on ''[[Quincy]]'' increased as Jack Klugman got more script control? Er... no.
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* The album ''Firestorm'' by [[Filk Song|filk]] musician Leslie Fish is intended as a set of instructions for surviving after a nuclear war. Many of her other songs are author tracts on the subjects of religion, anarchism, and civil liberties.
* System of a Down lost a lot of their fandom after their concerts became political talk-downs instead of politically charged ''music''.
* [[Rush]]'s [[Rock Opera]] ''2112'' is essentially a hard-rock adaptation of [[
** Not for nothing is the track "2112" known as 'the best Objectivist novel ever written'.
** Their much later album, ''Roll the Bones'', particularly the title track, can be seen as an [[Author Tract]] repudiating their earlier Objectivism, or at least softening it greatly; and propounding more of a 'life is random, you deal with what you get' attitude, incorporated with a strong anti-religion/superstition message.
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** Not to mention that in trying to be strawmannishly [[Anvilicious]], the creator portrays the mother as literally quaking in fear at the very concept of her child, implying that she hates it and despises it. Of course, if your unborn fetus was chirping at you about every stage of its development in a Chipmunk-esque voice, it might scare you, too.
** There's also the fact that the stages of development are completely inaccurate. [[Did Not Do the Research]] indeed.
* Subverted by [[
{{quote| "So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick. If you`re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you`re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we`re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."}}
** Likewise, [[Elvis Presley]] is known for his comment to a reporter who asked for his opinion on the Vietnam War; The King politely replied with "Ma'am, I'm just an entertainer," and he ''left it at that''.
* 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."
* Early [[Chicago (
* [[Toby Keith]]'s early albums were a mix of fun or melancholy country tunes, of above-average quality. For a while, they are mostly raucous instructions on blind patriotism, bible-thumping and how he's better than everyone.
** Possibly subverted, in that he's a registered Democrat who has said that he personally never really supported the politics of going to war in Iraq, that he's in favor of timelines for troop removal in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and has been generally supportive of Barack Obama's campaign and administration. And then subverted again in that, "American Ride" aside, he seems to be largely reverting to his 1990s sound.
* Just about all the music of Canadian far-left band Propaghandi is like this, although it's gotten to the point where they spend so much time at their concerts ranting to the audience instead of actually playing music, that their fans have been known to yell at them to shut up and play.
* [[Deconstructive Parody|Parodied with a hint of deconstruction]] by [[Tenacious D]] in the song "City Hall", where the duo take over the world - first, they legalise pot, then they try to reduce pollution with an absurd and impractical tube system, then they start to lose steam, showing that rock stars aren't really the type of people who you should take political advice from. After they've settled down, the band tries to kill each other - and succeeds.
* Most of the work of [[
* While normally [[Bob Dylan]] puts enough subtlety in his protest songs that you could naively assume they were made purely for the artistic merit, he didn't even try with "Neighborhood Bully".
** His 1964 song "Ballad in Plain D" is a fairly straightforward rant about the end of his relationship with Suze Rotolo (the woman with him on the cover of ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan''), blaming her 'parasite sister' for breaking them up.
* [[Ministry]] did an entire TRILOGY of a full-length albums specifically against George W. Bush.
* A Perfect Circle's album ''Emotive'', which could probably be renamed 'take this album to an anti-war protest.'
* Many thrash metal bands moved in this direction during classic metal's [[Gotterdammerung]] between 1988 and 1991, trading sex and violence for left-wing politics and anti-war messages, and beer-fueled fury for punkish societal indignation. The lyrical style became derisively known as 'CNN thrash' by some fans, although some classics did arise out of this. [[
* Not the album specifically, but the music video ''Interstella5555'' is basically a gigantic middle finger to the celebrity system and the corporate world's exploitation of artists, which fits [[
* Nerina Pallot's "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKTCScoUFWk Everybody's Gone to War]" was even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] on the radio, with DJs saying she had a slight problem with Iraq.
* [[
* [[Dixie Chicks]] did this so much in 'Not Ready To Make Nice.' They basically come to terms with their now-dwindling fan-base (due to a disdainful comment by lead singer Natalie Maines after President Bush was re-elected). They even recognize the death threats they received on their tour that year.
* [[Stan Rogers]] sang unabashedly about many social issues, but really only dabbled tractfully into politics by taking on the subject of [[The Troubles]] with his song "House of Orange" - this despite being Canadian, not Irish. The song's still good, despite the occasional heavy-handedness of the lyric:
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== Web Comics ==
* [[
* ''[[Fans]]!'' is a little too vehement in its defense of fanboys. Claim that they're valuable, intelligent and worthwhile human beings, fine. Claim that fanboys have the [[Plot Tailored to
** ''[[
*** Willis often acknowledges that obsessiveness fanishness, ''even his own'', is Not Okay. This was parodied when he shows up at the store and gets in an armed fight with Ethan over an [[Edit War]]. The arc ends with him and his girlfriend sneaking into Ethan's apartment--[[Rule 34|Maggie in a Transformers costume]]--and smashing up his computer so he wouldn't be able to edit the wiki. Then there was the time he made fun of people who said that the second [[Transformers]] movie sold out because of all the marketing. In case you don't get it, Transformers is probably the most popular and transparently [[Merchandise-Driven]] franchise ever.
*** Willis isn't afraid to take shots at himself, but also loves slamming people who disagree with his opinion on various message boards. One storyline in the comic in particular is a major Author Tract- it's a poorly-disguised attempt by Willis to get Dinobot to win an online poll that will enter him into the Transformers Hall Of Fame. One character from the strip is campaigning for Congress by also campaigning for Dinobot's entry.
** ''[[
*** To be fair, this is a common complaint against D&D paladins. Many good players make it a personal challenge to create a likable paladin simply because so many people have been burned by them.
* ''[[Unicorn Jelly]]'' and ''Pastel Defender Heliotrope'', both by Jennifer Diane Reitz, both start out as (respectively) amusing and cute fantasy and science fiction stories, but the Author's soapboxes about religion, homosexuality, and transgenderism [[Anvilicious|overwhelm the plot]] more than once. It is revealed at the end of ''Pastel Defender Heliotrope'' that it was about anti-piracy legislation as well (which seems like an [[Ass Pull]] to boot since it only comes up in the last page or two).
* [[
* With ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]'', this is bound to happen when a biochemistry student writes a comic about Metal Gear Solid, but it's noticeable how he still makes it funny. Mantis is the typical mouthpiece. [http://gigaville.com/comic.php?id=272 Dr. Naomi Hunter supplements Mantis' rants with more reasonable but obviously frustrated objections].
** Also played with when the plot stops so that Mantis can rant against banning gay marriage. The best part is that it is ''entirely'' in-character - he isn't so much arguing ''for'' gay marriage as he is saying that having sex with reproduction is just as gross as having sex without reproducing.
* ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'' - While the comic has become incredibly more reasonable about this, earlier strips were suffused with a certain subset of Christian theology, culminating when the author updated with rants about other belief systems. Those rants have since been moved elsewhere, but the author still provides nods towards Christianity now and again.<br /><br />Every other comic by the author, on the other hand, is still chock-full of pro-Christian, American (especially Southern), libertarian soapboxing and anti-pretty much everything else.
* Parodied in ''[[
{{quote| This whole comic has been a setup for me to push my views on you that man should not fly.}}
* Critics of ''[[
* ''[[Kit N Kay Boodle]]'' is entirely a vehicle for Richard Katellis' views on free love, yiffing, and the plight of the furry community. The world outside of idyllic, nudist Yiffburg is full of monstrous dictatorships and ruthless capitalist states that criticize Yiffburg for being horny layabouts. Any character who ''doesn't'' constantly want sex with total strangers is either an evil fascist or an oppressed soul, and the answer is invariably anonymous sex, either to defeat or convert them to the yiffy way of life. It doesn't help matters that the story is occasionally interrupted by the author describing the sexual exploits he and his wife have with their parents.
* The ''[[Flobots]]'' webcomic has varying levels of [[Anvilicious|Anviliciousness]], depending on the issue, but ''Chapter 1: Vote for Change'' was far enough over the edge to be [[Narm]]. ''Chapter 2: Iraq'', though, was a significant improvement (since it was an amalgamation of story's told by actual soldiers, it can be disturbing and touching at the same time).
* ''[[Better Days]]'' started out as an author tract largely for conservatism and mild misogyny, but has gradually grown into an author tract for Objectivism as Jay Naylor discovered that particular philosophy and became a huge [[
* ''[[Jesus and Mo]]'' is an unabashed Author Tract ridiculing religion. The comment box is headed with the note "This comments section is provided as a safe place for readers of J&M to talk, to exchange jokes and ideas, to engage in profound philosophical discussion, and to ridicule the sincerely held beliefs of millions. As such, comments of a racist, sexist or homophobic nature will not be tolerated."
* ''[[General Protection Fault]]'' briefly delved into this in the 'Providence' arc in 2005, showing Akhilesh (a [[Friend to All Living Things|kindly doctor]] bordering on Ned Flanders-like religious outlook) witnessing to Trudy, with verse upon verse of scripture, accompanied by author commentary.
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** And then [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] it in ''Cartoon Wars''. Repeatedly. Let it never be said that, whatever their views, Parker and Stone are not self-aware.
{{quote| "And if you ask me, your show has become so preachy and full of morals that you have forgotten how to be funny!"}}
* ''[[
** This was also a recurring theme in the original comics - making money by being stingy is OK. Making money by being totally unfair to consumers, the environment, or employees isn't.
* Seth MacFarlane has bluntly stated that ''[[
* A writer for ''[[The Simpsons]]'' admitted that the creative team has deliberately made Ned Flanders, in recent seasons, less of a 'turn the other cheek' Christian and more of an intolerant [[Moral Guardians|Moral Guardian]], as a protest against the growing influence of [[Moral Guardians]] in Bush's America. Much of this has been viewed as being massively out of character compared with earlier seasons. Flanders was de-[[Flanderization|Flanderized]] in [[The Movie]], though, being portrayed as a genuinely caring guy who just has some annoying quirks.
== [[Fan Fiction]] ==
* ''[[Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality]]'' is, in part, its author's attempt to teach lessons in rational thinking through the medium of ''[[Harry Potter (
* Similar to and inspired by the above, ''[[
* "Harry Potter Turns to the Lord" is a fanfiction about a Gary Stu teaching Harry Potter that witchcraft is evil.
* In ''[[Chrono Trigger Crimson Echoes]]'', {{spoiler|King Zeal [[What the Hell, Hero?|calling out Crono and the party]] near the end}} could qualify as this, given the context.
* Pretty much any time any fanfiction creates a [[Designated Villain
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