Lost Aesop: Difference between revisions

Line 16:

To identify the Lost Aesop, ask yourself whether watching two different segments of the same show would result in getting two totally different messages. If you manage to ''find'' a [[Lost Aesop]], please return it to the address listed on its collar and inform the rest of us so we can stop [[Fridge Logic|pondering over the glaring discrepancies that we only noticed upon turning the television off.]]

Some would argue that, if the above definition is to be used as a guide, then ''every'' Aesop should be a Lost Aesop if it's meant to be gracefully presented. Life is so complex that there's rarely, if ever, a single overriding lesson to learn for any scenario, despite what [[Single-Issue Wonk|some people]] think; besides that, [[Anvilicious|nobody likes a really blatant and intelligence-insulting message]]. Furthermore, due to the fickle nature of human reasoning, it is possible for two people to glean two equally valid - or even contradictory - lessons from the same presentation. If you tell a left-winger that a disgruntled person opened fire on a building full of people, you might get the interpretation of "Guns are dangerous"; if you told the same story to a right-winger, you might then be told something like "If everyone else in that building had been carrying a gun, the shooter wouldn't have dared open fire" (i.e., guns save lives).

While it's obviously a more confused (and less subtle) cousin of the [[Broken Aesop]], the Lost Aesop also claims kinship to the [[Yo Yo Plot Point]], since it's the recurring nature of a relatively small "error" that sets up a whole lot of confusion. The fact that the Lost Aesop seems more likely to occur in works that are produced by a group rather than a single person might also suggest the reason for the mangled moral was that the opinions and viewpoints of the writing team varied greatly.

While it's obviously a more confused (and less subtle) cousin of the [[Broken Aesop]], the Lost Aesop also claims kinship to the [[Yo-Yo Plot Point]], since it's the recurring nature of a relatively small "error" that sets up a whole lot of confusion. The fact that the Lost Aesop seems more likely to occur in works that are produced by a group rather than a single person might also suggest the reason for the mangled moral was that the opinions and viewpoints of the writing team varied greatly.

Has nothing to do with the [[ABC]] [[Live Action TV]] show ''[[Lost]]''. (We're [[Mind Screw|still trying to figure out]] [[Gainax Ending|what, if any, Aesops that show had]].)

Line 32:

== Comics ==

* Because the Marvel ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]'' crossover was written by multiple authors, most of whom didn't agree with the direction Marvel was going, the moral behind the story seems to jump from book to book. It's okay to sacrifice liberty for security, especially when dealing with superpowered individuals -- except wait, no it's not. America means freedom and righteousness and all that is good -- wait, it means [[Myspace]] and [[YouTube]]. Allowing the leaders to do their jobs is a perfectly legitimate course of action -- wait, you'll get drafted into a superpowered army and made a slave of the state. Iron Man is cool -- wait, he's a douche!

* ''[[JLA: Act of God]]'' is confusing and written by only one writer. Is the moral of the story that powers leads to arrogance? You're only a real super hero if you don't have super powers? You should work inside the system? Other than "Batman is awesome," it's never really clearly told.

* ''[[Wild Cards the Hard Call]]'' seems to be making a statement on acceptance, beauty, and medical experimentation but what that statement is couldn't be more opaque.

* In "Countdown to Final Crisis" Trickster and Piper went on a Journy that was intended to lead to Trickster overcoming his Homophobia and learning a lesson, but the story deevoled to the point where Trickster received a bullet to the head due to attack unrelated to the intended moral, no lesson was ever apparent from this resolution.

* A very lost aesop happened during [[Peter David]]'s first run on ''[[X Factor]]'' (when it was a government superteam). A scientist had developed a way to test fetuses for the mutant gene, in the womb... and then would offer to abort the baby if it was a mutant. The X-Factor team was, naturally, horrified by this, especially Wolfsbane, who is both mutant and Catholic. ''Except...'' due to [[Executive Meddling]], the "abortion" option was excised, and the doctor instead was offering an in utero ''cure'' for the mutant gene. The team's reactions were not changed; they were still horrified, even Wolfsbane, who has often said she would be much happier if she hadn't been born a mutant. The aesop went from being about abortion to being a vague [[Fantastic Aesop]] about it not being okay to de-mutantify unborn babies.

Line 49:

* ''[[Terminator]]'': not any individual entry in the series but the franchise as a whole jumps between [[Screw Destiny]] and [[You Can't Fight Fate]] with regard to whether or not the heroes can stop Skynet from being built and initiating [[The End of the World as We Know It|Judgment Day]] in which it kills off most of the human race. The first film has Skynet create a [[Stable Time Loop]] when Cyberdine uses a recovered piece of the Terminator it sent back [[You Already Changed the Past|to build what will become Skynet]]. The second film [[Screw Destiny|cancels this out]], as the heroes have become [[Genre Savvy]] about the [[Stable Time Loop]] and do everything they can to destroy all Terminator/Skynet technology that could be used to build Skynet. The 3rd film <ref>and the beginning of the post-Cameron canon that was intended to end with Terminator 2</ref> has Skynet activate and start Judgement Day later than originally fated but [[You Can't Fight Fate|the message is it will still happen nonetheless]]. ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' fleshes it out even further, showing Skynet using [[Time Travel]] to [[Tricked-Out Time|help create itself in the present day]] and sowing the seeds for Judgment Day to ensure that no matter how many alternate realities/futures are created by the heroes changing things in the present, Skynet is still the [[Big Bad]].

* ''[[The Invention of Lying]]'': A world without lying is a sad place where everyone everyone is bluntly cruel and shallow. In a world ''with'' lying, however, religion becomes the opiate of the masses, tricking people into feeling good about life, but it's all a sham. So are religion and lying good or bad for us?

** Perhaps that there's a time when lying is the better option, but that we should also value the truth, and know when to stop a lie before it goes to far? [[MST3K Mantra|Or maybe we're all just reading too far into it.]]

* Deliberately invoked in ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men: The Last Stand]]'': Is the mutant cure right or wrong, and is it ok to use the cure on [[Person of Mass Destruction|dangerous mutants]] against their will? The X-Men can't agree on whether the cure is just a matter of personal preference that should at least be an option for mutants [[Blessed with Suck|who can't live a normal life otherwise]] or [[Person of Mass Destruction|have powers that are hazardous to others]], or if these justified applications are only the first step as a tool for the government to suppress mutants everywhere. The message is especially muddled when you consider that the series has frequently drawn parallels between discrimination against mutants and discrimination against real minorities such as Jews and homosexuals. Yet Storm, the mutant who insists the loudest that they (as in ''all mutants'') don't need to be "cured" because there's "nothing wrong with them" has neither the [[Power Incontinence]] nor the inhumanly freakish appearance (which Beast even calls her out on) that prevents other mutants from living a comfortable existence among non-mutant humans. In the end, there is no simple answer {{spoiler|Magneto getting depowered is played as good, removing his powers without killing him. However, it is played as a tragedy for Rogue.}}

** The latter is [[Your Mileage May Vary|extremely debateable]]: It's more of a tragedy for {{spoiler|Rogue}} ''[[Adaptation Decay|fans]]'' than {{spoiler|Rogue herself: Although Bobby seems disappointed with her choice, she basically holds her head up and says "I did what was right for me and I'm not going to apologise."}} [[Word of God|Brett Ratner]] indicated the intention was to contrast with Angel refusing the cure earlier in the movie, showing it should be down to the individual and both choices were equally valid. Perhaps likening it more to the abortion debate than ethnic prejudice makes more sense in this case (should it be illegal? should it be left as an individual's choice? should there always be a legal exception for dangerous/medical cases?). Still plenty of [[Unfortunate Implications]] abound and no clear stance is taken in the film

* The movie ''[[Showgirls]]'' seems to be trying to prove ''something'' but neither the viewers or the movie itself seem to grasp just what that message is. At first it may seem like it's trying to say that a person should never compromise their morals, where Nomi is shown refusing to put ice cubes on her breasts to make her nipples stand up and refuses to do something that's implied to be prostitution.... But this would only work if the character were a legitimate [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold|Stripper With A Heart Of Gold]], in that stripping was the worst thing she did. She had no problems pushing the lead dancer down the stairs to injure her, sleeping with her boss to get higher in the position to be said dancer's understudy. She seemed to be very happy with the idea of doing ''extremely'' graphic things on the stage of the old strip club. So "don't compromise your morals" can't work because the character's morals are borderline psychotic. Her interactions with other characters seem to indicate that the message is something about how Nomi really ''is'' a bad person at heart, that Cristal was right and Nomi really was a whore, who while at first denied it, began to accept it willingly or not. But then every other character in the entire movie acts as if Nomi is an absolute saint, no matter what she does. Even the girl she pushed down the stairs calls her a whore as if it were a compliment.

* ''[[Limitless]]'' for awhile seems to aim at a moral of "You don't need drugs to improve your life and if you do it'll collapse", the protagonist's girlfriend refusing to continue using the drug and evidence of people collapsing and dying who use it if they can't continue the addition and obvious side effects seem to work that way. But in the end the protagonist ends up just subverting this and develops a way to keep getting a source of the drug and his life is all the better for it. The real message one seems to take is [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|you can manipulate people to your own means and completely get away with it if you do it right.]]

* ''[[Fly By Night]]'' is a film that doesn't know whether to praise hip-hop or condemn it. It tends to flip flop when it comes to criticizing [[Hardcore Hip Hop]], but it also seem to chastise [[Conscious Hip Hop]], and [[Political Rap]] as well.

Line 85:

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "Blood Feud" deliberately invoked a [[Lost Aesop]], when the family considered various morals to the story, and then realised that no, something happened that didn't fit, before eventually concluding "It was just a bunch of stuff that happened."

** Another ''Simpsons'' episode with a [[Lost Aesop]] can be the 10th season episode "Lisa Gets an 'A'". This episode was about Lisa getting sick from having Homer shove her into a supermarket's ice cream freezer a little too long. Marge makes her stay home from school and she does so with Marge's advice that she forget about trying to learn and play some of Bart's video games. Lisa does so playing a ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]'' spoof to the point she is hooked. In the process she gets a homework reading assignment: her class started reading ''[[The Wind in the Willows]]''. She spends the duration of her sick leave playing the game. When she goes back to the class, she had not read the book and her class is now being tested on it. Finally with some urging from Bart and Nelson Muntz, Lisa takes a cheat sheet and attains a very high grade. Later Principal Skinner calls her to the office to discuss the test: her lone test grade brought the entire school's GPA up to its minimum standard and the school now qualifies for a grant. Even after Lisa deliberately confesses to having cheated, Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers try to have her stay quiet long enough so the school can get the grant money, feeling it would do a lot of good for the school. In the end Lisa fixes her grade in the privacy of her own home, while the school staff gets the grant money and they cash it at a liquor store. What... exactly is the message of this episode? [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|It's okay to cheat as long as it helps?]] No, that's not right. Could it be "[[Space Whale Aesop|Don't worry about your grades Lisa, you're surrounded by idiots]]"? No, measuring intelligence on nothing but academic achievements is rather asinine. Maybe it's [[Captain Obvious Aesop|Do your homework and don't abuse your sick leave?]] Eh, too blatant. Maybe it's... you know what, forget it. I'll just say the message truly lies in the subplot with Homer and his pet lobster Pinchy: If you adopt a lobster as a pet, don't give it a hot bath for too long or you'll accidentally cook it. There, satisfied.

** Yet another example in ''Itchy and Scratchy The Movie'':

{{quote|'''Homer''': You know, when I was a boy I really wanted a catcher's mitt, but my dad wouldn't get it for me. So I held my breath until I passed out and banged my head on the coffee table. The doctor thought I might have brain damage.

Line 100:

* The ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' episode "Walk on the Wild Side" seems to start out with a "girl power" message, as the female mutants form a crime-fighting team after they get fed up of not being apreciated after Scott's [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]] causes him to act like a shining knight and unthinkingly ruins the Aesop Jean was trying to teach Amara. Towards the ending, Cyclops and Nightcrawler decide to spy on the girls as they track down and confront a gang. The girls finally call it quits when a female police officer tells them that what they're doing is wrong... But after they leave, the policewoman turns out to be Mystique in disguise.

* A ''[[The Weekenders]]'' episode opens with Tish distraught that her report card has a negative comment about her being too much of a perfectionist. Later, the other guys ask her to paint a seaweed statue for an auction. She paints the statue, saying, "It's not perfect, but it's good enough..." but then she decides that a different kind of seaweed would work better for the statue, and she ends up returning the statue unpainted because she didn't have time to paint the rebuilt statue. After the auction, Tish is disappointed at her perfectionism streak screwing up the job... and then one of the teachers buys up the statue. The ep ends with her [[Medium Awareness|straightening up the shot]] before the usual "Later days!" So... is perfectionism supposed to be good or not?

** It could be taken as saying not to get too hung up on being perfect, because the finished product is still good. That would be a better message to send than just "don't try too hard to be perfect", I think, because some perfectionists try so hard because they think they'll outright fail otherwise. If Tish's statue hadn't sold, it would have confirmed that not being perfect made it a failure, but as it is, it shows that Tish still succeeded while managing to let it go.

* ''[[Recess]]'' had quite a few of these in its time:

** One episode had the children stuck inside for Recess because it was raining outside. Miss Finster is delighted about this, hoping that keeping the children off the playground will turn them into mindless zombies as it did with a previous class of hers. TJ eventually gives an impassioned speech about how it's just water and can't hurt them before veering off into how adults are using the rain as an excuse to tell them what to do. He and the gang go outside to play in the rain and the sun comes out. At the end of the episode they are implied to have gotten sick from playing in the rain. So was the lesson "don't be afraid of water", "don't let adults tell you what to do", "staying indoors for too long will turn you into a zombie", "playing in the rain will make the sun come out"...you'll get a headache if you try to figure it out.