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Author Tract: Difference between revisions
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** 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|Inheritance]]'' books (''Eragon'', ''Eldest'', ''Brisingr'', and ''Inheritance'') are atheist vegetarians who impart their 'wisdom' to the main character and the reader, by spending quite a bit of time expounding upon how 'stupid' religion is ([[Elves Versus Dwarves|particularly to the dwarves]]). [[Christopher Paolini]] denies that this was a representation of his own beliefs, claiming it was simply an attempt to portray various cultures and viewpoints in the series. [[Author's Saving Throw|This became a lot more plausible after the third book.]] However, in the fourth book Eragon devotes two paragraphs to discussing the stupidity of religion, and in many places it is hinted that religion is scoffed at by all the main characters except Orik (the dwarf king) and Nasuada (the human queen).
* A large part of [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Stranger in
** 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
*** Or vice-versa - ''Stranger'' was well-liked by the hippie movement, for example, while they certainly weren't fans of ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]''.
*** ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' is very pro-military in general, but it was more about Heinein's ideas of how the military should be (as well as the associated political/philosophical ideas being pushed) than being pro military.
*** Weirdly, given that it suffers from such a severe dose of Author Tract, ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' comes closer than any of his other major novels to breaking the main character out of the 'Heinlein hero' mold. The protagonist ''isn't'' an attractive resourceful polymath; he's just a regular Joe (well, Juan) who believes the political line fed to him in school.
*** 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
** Orwell's ''[[Animal Farm]]'' is also a thinly veiled satire of the Russian Revolution, and more generally of the nigh-universal cycle of revolution and corruption.
*** Animal Farm can also come off as a pro-Trotskyist Author Tract given the fact that the one semi-good pig was an idealized version of Trotsky.
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** [[Auto Tune the News]] has plenty of political moments.
* "Long Leather Coat" by Paul McCartney, issued in 1993. If you are not in animal-lib, you will get chills listening to this.
* Several of John Lennon's works from '72 and '73. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World." There is even the Nutopian National Anthem
* Much of [[Green Day]]'s ''[[American Idiot]]'' album contains constant [[Take That]]s against the George W. Bush administration. One song on the album, "Holiday", despite already being an Author Tract manages to still have an [[Author Filibuster]] where the song stops for the singer to [[Strawman Political]] [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] and George Bush directly through spoken word, complete with [[Godwin's Law|pulling a Godwin]]. Only a couple of tracks on the album ("Holiday" and "American Idiot" especially) are explicitly political, though, with the main focus of the album being [[Rock Opera|a narrative]] about disaffected youths. Most assume the entire album is nothing but political ranting because the two most [[Anvilicious]] songs were released as singles and, consequentially, received the most airplay
* ''Diary of an Unborn Child'' is an anti-abortion Author Tract that would possibly have been more effective had the titular protagonist not embodied [[Tastes Like Diabetes|Sickening Sweetness]] and [[Nightmare Fuel]] in equal measure, making its eventual demise [[Broken Aesop|more of a relief than anything]]. [[Narm|And then it starts singing.]]
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{{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 (band)|Chicago]] had a lot of these. If it's penned by Robert Lamm, expect this trope (also, expect a lot of vitriol aimed at the establishment). Exemplified by [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|''A Song for Richard And His Friends.'']]
* [[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.
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* 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
* 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. [[Anthrax]] was the most famous example (the entire ''Persistence of Time'' album is a series of political songs), although [[Metallica]] flirted with it on ''And Justice For All''. Some bands, like Sacred Reich and Toxik (whose second album is a [[Concept Album]] about how television is bad for you) made their entire careers doing this sort of music.
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