Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. [[Rule of Three|Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.]]"''|'''[[Winston Churchill]]'''}}

Other times, the anvil comes across very blatant, which might turn off some viewers, but in the era which the story is told, the message itself is more important than the story or allegory it is presented in.

* ''[[Great Teacher Onizuka]]'': Do your Best, Be Independent, Be A Man (even if you're a woman...) And it's better to try and fail than to refuse to try because of uncertainty.

* ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]'' drops Anvils about animals in general. In general, there were a number of heavy-handed Aesops about human/pet relationships and how people need to see their pets as companions to be loved rather than stupid animals to be exploited or abused, as any animal rescue show can attest.

** ''Pet Shop'' also has a lot to say about humanity, particularly in the final volume of the first series, at the end of which {{spoiler|Leon}} manages to make his way onto {{spoiler|the Count's ship}} only to be told that "humans have not yet earned the right to be {{spoiler|on this ship}}" before {{spoiler|being ''pushed off the side'', only to wake up unharmed}}.

* The ''[[Macross]]'' franchise; [[The Power of Love]] and the beauty of human culture shall overcome all, even the unstoppable marauding alien death fleets that were designed only for war, or at the very least distract them long enough to give humanity an opening to [[Nuke'Em|use reaction weapons]].

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''.

** Also, ordinary people are capable of doing horrible things in the right circumstances, but can also redeem themselves and make up for their mistakes.

** And "redemption is not death": you can always do the right thing, no matter what wrongs you've committed in the past. Scar lives through the series, even though any other series would have killed off a death seeking serial killer out for revenge. Hohenheim's offer to sacrifice his life for Al is turned down, and he gets to die a (more or less) natural death. Mustang both wants to change the country and wants to be tried for war crimes.

== Comic Books ==

* A number of [[EC Comics]] in [[The Fifties|the 1950s]]. In that era, ''doctors'' would appear in cigarette ''TV commercials'' telling people how healthy they were. EC in general (and ''Mad'' magazine more specifically) worked anti-smoking elements into their features quite frequently. Other notable aesops include:

** "[[Comicbook/Master Race|Master Race]]" us about [https://cacb.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/ec-comics-master-race/ a German immigrant to America after WorldWarII who is driven to near-madness because he believes he is being stalked by someone from the war]. As the story unfolds, it is slowly revealed that {{spoiler|the man was a commander at Bergen-Belsen, and the man following him is a Jew he had tortured who had vowed revenge}}. The story is shot through with accurate descriptions and depictions of what occurred in the Nazi concentration camps, and was one of the first pieces in American popular culture to address the Holocaust at all. The complete story is also available online.

* ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', specifically the "Valerie" chapter, about a woman who had been a successful actress before the fascist regime slowly and cruelly destroyed her life, which ended in a concentration camp medical experiment, all because she was a lesbian. The narrative would not be half as effective if Moore had been subtle with it.

{{quote|'''[[Captain America (comics)]]:''' ''Without its [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|ideals]] -- its commitment to the freedom of all men, [[Eagle Land|America]] is a piece of trash!''}}

* Most of [[Grant Morrison]]'s comics (most notably ''[[Final Crisis]]'' and ''[[Flex Mentallo]]'') are tracts speaking against the Dark Age of comics, specifically the idea that comics should mirror [[Real Life]] in their violence and morally ambiguous attitudes. Morrison's takes on [[Superman]] and [[Batman]] are extraordinarily optimistic and straight-forward; [[Superman]] is often shown as a borderline God (especially in ''[[All-Star Superman]]'') who tirelessly works toward the betterment of mankind, while [[Batman]] represents the peak of human ingenuity and intelligence, who can break free from any trap and defeat any villain. The whole thing is a stark and welcome contrast to the Frank Miller ideal of the tortured outcast [[Batman]], and the ultimately ineffectual government puppet [[Superman]].

* In the "Forever" story arc of ''[[Powers]]'', {{spoiler|Christian Walker}} goes to show his abilities to [[Albert Einstein]], to ask what they are and where they came from. In their conversation afterwards, Einstein delivers an astoundingly good speech about the nature of the scientific attitude, and afterwards...

{{quote|{{spoiler|'''Walker'''}}''':''' I thought -- I thought maybe my story would ''upset'' you. I thought that I might be upsetting some of your theories of the--

'''Einstein:''' Listen to me, my new friend. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. Someone who can no longer pause to wonder, and stand rapt in awe, is as good as ''dead.'' }}

* The two issues of ''[[Zot]]!'' in which {{spoiler|Terry comes out to herself and Woody pens an editorial about the attack on a young man presumed gay.}}

* The first story arc of ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' Vol. 2 drops the same anvil as ''[[The Day After]]'', with Diana showing Ares that his plans to start World War III would leave him with nobody to worship him. Later, the "Who Killed Mindi Mayer" issue delves into drug use by revealing that {{spoiler|Mindi technically wasn't murdered; she died from a cocaine overdose before her attempted killer pulled the trigger.}}

* [[Clint Eastwood]] made the same point about the WWII Japanese in ''[[Letters From Iwo Jima]]'', the companion piece to his American-POV movie, ''[[Flags of our Fathers]]''.

* ''[[Blood Diamond]]'' emphasizes that even people who have engaged in evil have the potential to consciously choose good and redeem themselves. This is shown in the film through a real-life home for former child soldiers which, through kind treatment, gives them a chance at a normal life.

* Many films made during [[World War II]], with ''[[Casablanca]]'' being a good example of a work which is explicitly patriotic yet never stops being entertaining.

* There is nothing at all subtle about the original ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]''. The entire film is an indictment against trigger-happy paranoia; at the conclusion, [[Messianic Archetype]] Klaatu delivers [[An Aesop]] in no uncertain terms. There is no irony, there is no ambiguity, there is only sincere, earnest urgency -- ''and it works''.

* The entire point of ''[[The Deer Hunter]]'' is to drive in the point that [[War Is Hell]].

* The 1988 animated English film ''[[When the Wind Blows]]'', (based on the comic book of the same name by [[Raymond Briggs]], which is similarly effective) about a retired couple living in the country, who survive a nuclear attack. They do everything they've been told to (largely the equivalent of tarps and duct tape) while waiting for someone in authority to come to their aid while they slowly die.

* ''[[Hairspray]]'' (both versions) comes with [[An Aesop]] about racial tolerance and how anyone can achieve their dreams if they're plucky enough to [[Be Yourself]] that's so subtle-as-a-speeding-Mack-truck that it borders on parody. And yet, it comes off as refreshingly optimistic and upbeat and makes the show thoroughly enjoyable.

* The Chinese film ''Wait 'til You're Older'' pretty much hammers home the point that life is a one-way journey and that people should value the time that they already have. This is achieved by having the protagonist take an aging potion as a fast track to adulthood, only to find out that his life span has been reduced to less than a week, and he has an overwhelming need to resolve his family problems before his time runs out.

* Most parents and children are probably glad that ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' dropped the anvil that there's no need to be afraid of your closet.

* Most Disney-Pixar flicks have some sort of underlying, Anvilicious message.

** While being a kickass action-comedy, ''[[The Incredibles]]'' has some major messages on both the strength of family and the individual vs. a homogenizing society.

* Brad Bird's non-Pixar film, ''[[The Iron Giant]]'', drops the anvil that you are who you choose to be. Nobody programmed you to do anything; you choose who you become.

* [[October Sky]]: Knowledge, especially education, plus determination and hard work, can enable you to accomplish any dream, no matter how far-fetched it may seem. (Doesn't hurt that it's a true story, either.)

* ''[[Pollyanna]]'' and the scene about all the Happy Texts in the Bible. It might be [[Tastes Like Diabetes]] to some but in today's society where everyone is taught to [[Accentuate the Negative]] and be cynical because positivity is considered "immature", Pollyanna's line about how there are over 800 texts in the Bible telling mankind to be happy is a very telling lesson.

{{quote|'''River''': People don't like being meddled with.}}

* The point of ''[[Schindler's List]]'' is that the Holocaust was bad. This might hardly seem like a message that needs to be repeated, but it's a lot easier to compartmentalize it in an academic setting as opposed to seeing it played out in front of your eyes.

* ''[[Tangled]]'' makes no secret of its moral about dreams, but damned if it doesn't do it beautifully anyway. And even better, it actually teaches that people go through life with more than one dream, as opposed to the idea that people are defined by one thing. Or, as Flynn puts it, "That's the great thing about dreams. Once you've found one, you get a new one."

* ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]''. Work hard to achieve your goals, and don't go for the quick "too good to be true" route. At the same time though, it's important to not neglect things like friendship or love.

* It's hard to name a [[Charlie Chaplin]] film which doesn't drop one or more. [[The Great Dictator]] is probably one of the oldest films to drop such a colossal anvil. {{spoiler|[[Adolf Hitler|It involves someone else with that same moustache...]]}}

* In [[Stand by Me]], the major moral lessons are the importance of friendship and family and that you should believe in yourself and follow your dreams no matter what anyone else says.

* ''The Ox-Bow Incident'' is one of the first serious Western films made, and it's [[Anvilicious]] in a big way. But its anvil is a critical one, maybe even more now than when it was made. In a time when the words "vigilante" and "hero" are seen as synonyms, even while DNA testing gives us a hint of just how many people might be wrongly accused, ''The Ox-Bow Incident'' tells a simple, inevitable story that movies like ''Death Wish'' and ''The Brave One'' wouldn't dare get into: what happens when the righteously outraged vigilante heroes, claiming that the law's failed and trusting their own instincts instead, kill an innocent man?

* [[Dogma]] says a lot that needs to be said about organized religion, and how it undermines the most important thing of all; that you have faith.

* ''[[Terminator]] 2'': [[Screw Destiny|There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.]]

* The 1947 film ''[[Gentleman's Agreement|Gentlemans Agreement]]'' is a very anvil-heavy attack on anti-Semitism. Watching it nowadays, it's easy to miss just [[wikipedia:Gentleman's Agreement#Production|how controversial this was at the time]].

* Fritz Lang's ''[[Metropolis]]'' says "The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart" about a million times (more in the unabridged version), ending with a shot of Freder (the heart) joining the hands of Joh Frederson (the head) and Grot (the hands). And it's true.

* ''Ferngully'' for its antipollution message and the one of animal testing that's in the uncut "Batty Rap" song. The way the music and Robin Wiliam's narration go, its pretty damn creepy. And [[It Gets Worse|all true.]]

* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' prequels. Or any movie about the zeitgeist before an oppressive regime starts up.

* ''Disclosure'': No, ''[[Double Standard Rape (Female on Male)|rape is not okay when it's a woman on man]]''. Not even if the woman is his ex-flame and the man is a reputed horn dog.

* ''[[M]]'' gives us two: It's important that you watch your children and don't let them talk to strangers, and that, quoting the lawyer, "No one has the right to kill a man who is incapable of responsibility for his actions! Not even the state!"

* Throughout the film of ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'', Lucy spends her time wishing she had Susan's beauty, and eventually has a dream that she has turned herself into Susan, only to find that she (Lucy) no longer exists and that Edmund and Peter no longer remember Narnia. After she wakes up in a panic, Aslan gently scolds her for her vanity, telling her that by wishing to be someone else, she is underestimating her own worth. Perhaps what makes it work is the dream itself - there's something [[Nightmare Fuel|chilling]] about finding out that your old self never exists and no one remembers it at all.

* [[American History X]]. Racism is '''''bad'''''. End of story, and that's including African-Americans' racism toward Caucasian people, not just Caucasian people's racism toward the African-Americans. If someone is a racist, he's racist, no matter which ethnic group he belongs to, and that's wrong.

* ''[[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'': "All right. I'll ''go'' to hell, then." Called the greatest phrase ever in American literature for a reason.

* ''[[Night]]'' by Elie Wiesel: The Holocaust happened, and we have to come to terms with that. It was a dark mark on human history that should never be repeated. Real human beings with feelings were slaughtered for no reason other than their heritage. Genocide is bad. It cannot happen again.

* ''[[The Rising Of The Moon]]'' by Flynn Connolly, in which an Irish woman returns to Ireland after having spent fifteen years in self-imposed exile so that she could teach actual Irish history instead of [[Politically-Correct History|the redacted version authorized by the government]]. Anvils include, but are not limited to, "Freedom of Religion," "Freedom Isn't Free," "Equal Rights," "Sexism Works Both Ways," "One Person Can Make a Difference," "Those Who Cannot Remember the Past," etc.

* [[Orson Scott Card's Empire|Empire]], by [[Orson Scott Card]], is not the least bit subtle about the problems of the current political system in the United States. The bad guys aren't "the Democrats" or "the Republicans." It's not the right or the left, it's a few people ''at the top'' on both sides, with extremist views, who could pull everyone else along with them into a second civil war. (And the unanswered question posed by the ending is even creepier...)

* [[Charles Dickens]]'s ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' is the book responsible for abolishing workhouses as a placeholder for orphans. Who can forget the iconic "Please, sir, I want some more!" scene?

* [[Ben Elton]]'s ''High Society'' makes some very important points about the harm created by drug prohibition and the power wielded by sensationalist tabloid media, and still manages to be a thoroughly entertaining read.

* ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]] drops anvils about military service.

** "If you want to participate as a citizen, you have to serve your country, up to and including ''being prepared to'' quite literally fight, even die, for the privilege. And it ''is'' a privilege, not a right."

** Lastly, there are two aesops regarding sexism and racism. ''Johnny Rico'' is ''Juan'' Rico and his girlfriend Carmen is an officer and a pilot, trying to demonstrate an integrated service being the ideal.

* ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'' wouldn't have been half as effective if Aldous Huxley had been even the least bit subtle.

* Harper Lee's ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]].'' Enough said.

{{quote|''"Atticus, he was real nice..." His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. "Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them." He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.''}}

** The chief Anvil in both is about individuality versus conformity and the important of holding onto the truth that's right in front of your eyes. As long as you have that, you are still free, no matter what anyone else does to you.

* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s [[Young Adult]] ''[[Discworld]]'' novels drop anvils labeled "take personal responsibility" so often you think you're being attacked by an anvil-wielding 82nd Airborne. But it works.

* Though all of [[Ayn Rand]]'s novels are [[Anvilicious]], the unsubtle political messages in ''We The Living'' come off more acceptably than those in her later works, because it targets Russian Communists rather than generic [[Strawman Political]] equivalents.

** The same qualifies for Howard Roark's [[Author Tract]] at the end of ''The Fountainhead''. Regardless of whether you agree with its content, it's passionately written, very moving, and completely devoid of subtlety. It helps that it appears in a context where one would expect to hear (and to listen respectfully) to a passionate speech appealing to universal principles and a sense of justice: {{spoiler|the end of a criminal trial.}}

* ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' basically consisted of Harriet Beecher Stowe gathering together a whole bunch of stories of actual people who were actually enslaved, then changing the names and adding in a plot to tie it together.

** It drops another on the caring of children - if you expect a child to be wicked and immoral, that's exactly how they'll act.

* ''A Modest Proposal'', also by Jonathan Swift, took on the British policies and attitudes towards the [[The Irish Question|Irish]] by proposing that the Irish sell their children to the aristocracy as [[I'm a Humanitarian|food]] in a [[Refuge in Audacity|marvelously over-the-top]] detailed manifesto.

* ''The Feminine Mystique'' dropped a big fat anvil of "society shouldn't pressure women to be housewives if they'd rather have careers." Seems too obvious to bother mentioning now, but it was quite controversial when it was published in 1963.

** For the series in general: "There is good in the world. There is also bad in the world, but the good is worth fighting for."

** "Never leave your friends behind."

** There's a rather lovely scene at the end of ''[[The Two Towers]]'' when Sam is talking about his very favorite stories, and how things go so bad that you wonder how anything could ever go back to the way it does before, and yet it does. Not only is it a not-so-subtle "This is what's happening right now to the person saying it" moment, but it perfectly encapsulates the anvil mentioned here.

** Treebeard's comment when Merry and Pippin ask him about what side he's on. Considering that Tolkien wrote this before green anvils were being dropped like the Blitzkrieg, the message is pretty powerful:

* ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' is a [[Deconstruction]] of the Marxist slogan “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. In story, this takes the form of the 20th Century Motor Company which functions as a microcosm of a communist police state, such as the Soviet Union (which Rand fled from after her family’s business was seized by the new communist government).

** In the story, we are also constantly reminded that the government has the privilege of a monopoly on force (something which is ''always'' overlooked in works like [[Jennifer Government]]), which private citizens and corporations lack, and so “political power” is the power to use force while “economic power” is the power to produce.

* ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' on the [[Power of Love]]. Not only is it a message that seems to be lost all too often (seriously, look up how many fanfictions there are about how Harry ought to have been a dark vigilante who beat up the Dursleys and trusted no one), Rowling puts far more emphasis on how important the love of family and friends are instead of love interests. Seriously, how often does ''that'' happen?

** Another one is that just because you made terrible choices in the past does ''not mean you are an inherently horrible person -- you can change if you truly want to.

* The 1977 ABC mini-series ''[[Roots]]''. The biggest dropped anvil in the history of television.

* The Stone/AIDS storyline on [[General Hospital]]. It took risks such as having a prominent character (Robin, who grew up on the show) get diagnosed with HIV. It was also very educational at a time when HIV/AIDS myths were still widespread. Myths such as "only gays get it", "HIV is a death sentence", "you can contract it from casual contact", and "failing an HIV test means you don't have it", just to name a few. It was also one of the most emotional, well-written, and well-acted storylines in television history.

** They also have Karl Rove's ersatz having his eyes gouged out and his head repeatedly slammed on a metal table until he dies. This happens 10 minutes after he says,

{{quote|''Kurt Rand'': The three of us sold a war, dammit! We sold a war based on nothing but horseshit and elbow grease! We are the best in the goddamn game!

** Rod Serling was especially worried about Nazism, and history's gone on to show that he had good reason. ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episode "Deaths-Head Revisited" not only gives a former concentration camp captain his just reward, but also ends with what seems like an [[Anvilicious]] closing statement - but the surge of Holocaust denials since then has proven that this anvil can't possibly be dropped too hard.

{{quote|''There is an answer to the doctor's question. All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes - all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and to remember, not only in the Twilight Zone but wherever men walk God's Earth.''}}

{{quote|''Now the questions that come to mind. Where is this place and when is it? What kind of world where ugliness is the norm and beauty the deviation from that norm? You want an answer? The answer is, it doesn't make any difference. Because the old saying happens to be true. Beauty ''is'' in the eye of the beholder, in this year or a hundred years hence, on this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out amongst the stars. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Lesson to be learned... in the Twilight Zone.''}}

** "A Passage for Trumpet". The main character learns that while life can be a bitch at times, it also has plenty of good moments, if only you know where to look.

* The last episode of ''[[Blackadder]] Goes Forth'' dropped the same who-would-notice-if-you-were-mad-in-war-because-all-generals-are-equally-mad anvil as ''Catch 22'', but because it dropped it on the entire cast, mere minutes after the last joke, it achieved an epic anti-war message with its famed [[Downer Ending]].

* ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'': Olivia Benson's speech in the episode "Babes" about why teenagers shouldn't have babies is as anvilicious as they come. However, since the plot was [[Ripped from the Headlines]] about a club of teen girls who all wanted to get pregnant together, some viewers thought it a ''desperately'' needed anvil. (This was less true after the revelation that those headlines were false, the "pregnancy club" never existed, and the whole thing was made up by an assistant principal with an overactive imagination.) But that doesn't excuse the fact that 20% of all teenage pregnancies are planned.

** Another good anvil was dropped in an SVU episode, "Doubt", where the entirety of the case is a he-said/she-said... the actual verdict was omitted (filled in by a poll conducted among viewers and made canon from that), to highlight just how tricky some cases really are - particularly sexual crimes where the victim and the accused have known each other for a long time.

* ''[[Quatermass and The Pit]]''. "''We'' are the Martians. And if we do not learn how to live together, this will be their second dead world". In the FIFTIES!

** "On My Way" showed exactly what kinds of pain can drive somebody to suicide and how much it hurts everybody around them.

* The ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined|Battlestar Galactica]]'' series is full of anvils. The similarities to the War on Terror are not subtle, but are all the better because of it. The reason is that, while the similarities are not subtle, they are ambiguous in their rightness or wrongness, which leads to some very thought-provoking moments.

** In the 1968 episode [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0565654/ The Big Departure], Friday and Gannon deliver a grand speech to the young anarchists about just how much they have gotten from the society they grew up in, and how much it protects them, and how difficult it would be to recreate what they have from nothing.

{{quote|'''Sergeant Joe Friday:''' I don't know, maybe part of it's the fact that you're in a hurry. You've grown up on instant orange juice. Flip a dial - instant entertainment. Dial seven digits - instant communication. Turn a key - push a pedal - instant transportation. Flash a card - instant money. Shove in a problem - push a few buttons - instant answers. But some problems you can't get quick answers for, no matter how much you want them. We took a little boy into Central Receiving Hospital yesterday; he's four years old. He weighs eight-and-a-half pounds. His parents just hadn't bothered to feed him. Now give me a fast answer to that one; one that'll stop that from ever happening again. And if you can't settle that one, how about the 55,000 Americans who'll die on the highway this year? That's nearly six or seven times the number that'll get killed in Vietnam. Why aren't you up in arms about that? Or is dying in a car somehow moral? Show me how to wipe out prejudice. I'll settle for the prejudices you have inside yourselves. Show me how to get rid of the unlimited capacity for human beings to make themselves believe they're somehow right - and justified - in stealing from somebody, or hurting somebody, and you'll just about put this place here out of business!

* ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'' is fond of these:

** Marco, the friend Spinner initially rejected because he was gay, was the first friend to take him back after the paint and feathers incident.

** Paige's rape. Because it took her months to come forward, Dean was found not guilty.

** Manny's abortion. This was actually banned in America, and [[Gannon Banned|mentioning it on the-n.com was a quick way to get banned.]]

** The track "Beautiful" says in no uncertain terms that you should never let anyone tell you your worth as a human being; everyone is beautiful in his or her own way, and everyone else can go hang.

** ''Stan'' has "Maybe we should act as though everything we do changes someone's life, because maybe it does".

** Also "The Canadian Railroad Trilogy", which is a commentary on how many people died for the sake of "progress" during the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and how many of them were Chinese migrants who were paid much less than their Caucasian counterparts.

** Yet another Gordon Lightfoot song is his 1968 "Black Day In July", about the 1967 Detroit race riots. Radio stations in 30 states banned the song, fearing that it would incite further violence.

* While political punk music basically ''is'' this trope, Propagandhi do it particularly well. They manage to sum up their entire ideology in a couple of lines at the end of the two-minute song ''Resisting Tyrannical Government'':

{{quote|''And yes, I recognise the irony: the system I oppose affords me the luxury of biting the hand that feeds. That's exactly why priveliged fucks like me should feel obliged to whine and kick and scream - until everyone has everything they need.''}}

* Australian band ''The Cat Empire'' has the song ''The Chariot'':

{{quote|"this song is written 'bout my friends

Maybe if the world contain[s] more people like these

The the news would not be telling me 'bout all our warfare endlessly..." }}

* [[Taylor Swift]]'s "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb-K2tXWK4w Fifteen]". When every song on Top 40 radio or Radio [[Disney]] is a [[Silly Love Songs|Silly Love Song]] about finding the boy that you'll be with for the rest of your life (when it's not about [[Intercourse with You|having sex]]), hearing a song telling girls ''not'' to look for love in [[High School]] comes as quite a shock. It's a message that a lot more girls in middle and high school should be paying attention to.

* [[Elvis Presley]]'s song "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ox1Tore9nw In the Ghetto]" is a clear condemnation of the cycle of violence and poverty of the ghettos, and of the apathy the problems of those communities receive.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IctjZXTg7iQ "Young"] by Hollywood Undead. "When adults wage war, children are the ones who pay the most." (Link is to an [[Avatar: The Last Airbender]] AMV because ''that'' series dropped that anvil as well).

* Bomani "D'Mite" Armah [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|forgoes subtlety and metaphor]]: "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlKL_EpnSp8 Read a book/Read a book/Read a Motherfuckin' BOOK!]" Considering the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OiuDKh_pAg controversy] around the airing of the video...

* [[Tori Amos]]' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKzCxi2yf5s "Me and a Gun"], which is about her real-life rape. Many victims came to terms with their rape because of it, and it lead to Tori co-founding RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), the largest anti-sexual assault organization in America.

* [[Kate Bush]]'s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n2VSe_lja4 "Breathing"], which was released during the Cold War. It's about a fetus knowing that a nuclear fallout has happened, but it still wants to live.

* M.I.A.'s new music video for "Born Free" is extremely graphic in its depiction of [[Redheaded Stepchild|young redheaded men]] being rounded up and executed, but it also demonstrates the horror of genocide and the absurdity of the discrimination that's used to justify it.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfz_QtVM-hk "Sex is Not the Enemy"] by Garbage: "Sex isn't bad, and you shouldn't be ashamed of your sex life."

{{quote|God I know that it's wrong

To kill my brother for what he hasn't done

* The [[Bowling for Soup]] song ''I'm Gay'' is essentially the message of the [[Justice League]] episode below: You don't have to be serious. Sometimes all that matters is if you have fun and enjoy doing what you're doing. And no, its not Jarret Reddick coming out of the closet.

** The band themselves also deliver the Anti-homophobia message in many other songs, to the point it becomes a little too anvilicious.

{{quote|Well Johnny is a man

And he's bigger than her

* [[The Yardbirds]]' "Mr. You're A Better Man Than I" is a successful, [[Sarcasm Mode|bitingly sarcastic]] attack on prejudice.

* [[Simon and Garfunkel]]. Several songs, but notably "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BNL9aKf5XE The Sun is Burning]", which is all the more horrifying because it sounds so ''[[Lyrical Dissonance|happy]].''

* According to 30SecondsToMars's "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLqHDhF-O28&ob=av2e Closer to the Edge]", you should never regret anything that happens in your life. Even the bad parts make you the person you are now.

* El Général, who wrote and performed the song Rais Ebled, dropped an anvil that needed dropping. It opened the floodgate and started the Tunisian Revolution.

'Cause they write me, and they told me you're to blame }}

* "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World. Explicit in its theme, it is still something that many a generation of confused and insecure teenagers need repeated back to them. Don't let other people make you question your self-worth, you are worthwhile.

* The [[Dead Kennedys]]' entire career is built of this trope, but "[[Holiday in Cambodia]]" (don't assume you know how the poor suffer if you're not one), "[[Kill the Poor]]"' (the [[Neutron Bomb]] is not a good idea) and "Nazi Punks (F*ck off)" (...actually, the title pretty much says it all) deserve special mention.

* "The Irony Of It All" by UK rap/garage outfit The Streets, which all but hammers its message of marijuana's relative harmlessness, compared with the many serious issues with alcohol abuse. Tim the pothead introduces himself as a criminal in his verses, but is practically harmless to the point of not complaining when the pizza delivery sends him the wrong order. Terry the alcoholic lout describes himself as a "law-abider" throughout his verses, but gets into fights regularly and mentions spitting in the face of a police officer.

* [[Great Big Sea]] used to sing about Canadian east-coast political issues, dropping anvils regarding the loss of a valid, viable fishery due to deregulation and commercialization and subsequent overfishing ("Fisherman's Lament"), election promises leading nowhere ("Someday Soon"), and the grand-scale personal depression that follows on the heels of economic depression ("Nothing Out Of Nothing").

* Ed Sheeran's song ''The A Team'' is, by itself, a touching song about a prostitute who's addicted to illegal drugs. It's not obvious enough to be anvilicious, but the message doesn't take much decoding to understand. ''Little Lady'' is a collaboration using parts of ''The A Team'' with Mikill Pane, who raps about an immigrant whose mother worked to send her to Britain to live with her uncle, in hopes of her having a better life. The girl's uncle is a pimp who brutalises the girl, and when his attacks force her to go to a hospital, she attracts the attention of a nurse who calls the police. The girl refuses to co-operate, and when she goes home she is murdered by her uncle when he sees the number the police gave her to call. Moral:{{spoiler|prostitutes do not deserve to be vilified and punished. They are the victims of their crime, stuck in horrific situations, and they deserve to be helped.}}

{{quote|''Maybe if you'd listen than you'd know what I just said

If you think the words I'm singing are why your kids are dead

== Radio ==

* [[Adventures in Odyssey]] does this every episode rather well. In fact, they've perfected it.

* On the radio show ''[[The Saint]]'', during the episode "Author of Murder", [[Vincent Price]] (the voice of Simon Templar) delivered [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrMCqOmsMB4 an unsubtle yet eloquent message on the evils of prejudice and racism.]

* The Aesop of the entire ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' series basically boils down to "people need to fix their problems today instead of handing them down to the next generation", [[An Aesop]] strengthened by the number of former [[Child Soldiers]] among the characters in the series.

** Nuclear weapons are bad, bad, bad.

** Notice that Snake seems to believe in some sort of existentialism in the end of Metal Gear Solid 2. Great way to summarize some common existentialist beliefs: A person can do anything and are ultimately responsible for everything in life, including its purpose, so you have nobody or no circumstance to blame your flaws on.

** "War is bad", especially in MGS 3. War turns two of the series's biggest heroes into villains mostly because of petty politics. Not to mention the part where every human being and animal you killed comes back from the dead to haunt you.

{{quote|-'''[http://i.imgur.com/9JeSr.jpg A message from Four Leaf Studios]'''}}

* [[Kingdom Hearts]] could not hammer home its message that [[The Power of Friendship|as long as you stay loyal to your friends, you'll always be okay]] any harder, and although it does become [[Narm]] on occasion, it can still be touching, and that anvil should probably be dropped as often as humanly possible, because, yes, good friends do make it possible to survive anything.

* ''[[The World Ends With You]]'' has CAT's "Do what you want, wherever you want, whenever you want."

** By the end, the anvil that keeps getting dropped is "trusting in people is a really, really good thing." Mr. Hanekoma even tells Neku that his world will only extend as far as he wants it to, and if he stays a shut-in his whole life, he'll always be miserable.

{{quote|'''Charles Milton Porter''': Sure, you hear it in Rapture. One of the business types asked me, "Why don't you [[White Like Me|splice white]]? Get ahead!" Well, that's some idiocy! I told him, "First of all, I AM ahead. Second, in Rapture, it's your WORK that's supposed to matter, not your skin!" Too bad for some folks you can't splice in common sense.}}

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]''. The Zeal story arc is as [[Anvilicious]] as they come, but it offers an important metaphor for nuclear warfare.

** The main messages of the game are also completely unsubtle: first, all living things have value. That even includes people who don't look like you, or act like you. In fact, that ''especially'' includes them. Secondly, nothing is decided by fate. One small change could be all it takes to change the future for the better, because nothing is predetermined.

* [[Sonic Battle]] hits us with an anti-war message in a very personal way. The player and characters spend the game bonding to a new character, a robot named Emerl. Emerl was created to be a weapon of war, but for the most part, Sonic and friends put it out of their minds. He's more than a weapon; he's their friend, and like Shadow, he has heart and couldn't willingly kill anyone. When it is acknowledged, Rouge finds codewords that will supposedly free Emerl's mind, disengaging the destructive programming. Then Dr. Eggman unleashes a weapon to overload Emerl with power, making him go crazy and attempt to destroy the Earth. Sonic is able to stop him, but it's too late for Emerl... his final programming was set so if the weapon ever went out of control, it would terminate itself.

* ''[[Live a Live]]'': ''Anyone'' can become evil if they have enough hatred inside of them. {{spoiler|And ''boy'', does [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|Oersted]] embody this message a hundredfold.}}

* ''Pokémon'', especially ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver]]'', can get pretty [[Anvilicious]] about taking care of your Pokémon and treating them like friends, rather than tools, but it's a message that people need to learn, whether you are talking about people or animals.

** [[Pokémon Black and White]] mentions that you should get along with people who have different views from yourself. Take ''one'' look at ''any'' political debate, ''especially'' those around major political parties and those [[GIFT|on the internet]], and you'd know how much that anvil really ''needed'' to be dropped.

* The ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series drops this one: There comes a time where you have to acknowledge that you can't save everyone and you won't be able to make it through unscarred. You can't win them all. [[The Chains of Commanding|Doing so]] [[Sadistic Choice|will come at great sacrifice.]]

* All of the ''[[Oddworld]]'' games focus on horrifying effects of people putting personal gain, capitalism, and social status before morality, as all the [[Player Characters]] are on the losing end of that compromise. They typically have a [[Green Aesop]] complimenting this theme, as well.

* The ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' add-ons ''all'' revolve around moving on and accepting the past.

** ''Honest Hearts'' takes this from the point of view of well-intentioned meddlers trying to influence a new civilization based on their past experiences. Joshua Graham, an ex-Legion soldier looking to atone for his past by protecting an innocent group of literate tribals, Daniel, a preacher trying to preserve his culture by peacefully converting those innocents to his faith, and Randall Clark, a long-dead soldier who founded the tribe in order to replace his lost family. Aiding Graham fully turns the tribe into a vicious warband, aiding Daniel fully drives the tribe from their fertile home into the harsh wastes. The best solution is to aid Graham in defeating the bloodthirsty usurpers, then persuade him to show mercy to the defeated leader - this leads the tribe to understand how justice must be tempered with mercy, creating a new civilization.

** The add-on "Lonesome Road" is a guided tour through a series of Old World military installations, frozen in the act of setting off the apocalypse, and culminating in a chance to destroy the New California Republic and/or Caesar's Legion with a ''nuclear weapon''. The best ending is to abandon the WMD insanity of the past and solve the problems of the wasteland yourself. While this makes sense in a post-Apocalyptic world, it is still true in [[Real Life]], particularly in the global landscape America currently finds itself in.

* ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' has about a million messages that aren't subtle at all, but need to be told:

** Every life is worth something; designating certain people as sacrificial lambs is worthless.

** Blindly following one course of action without thought of alternatives or how many people you'll need to step on to get there is detrimental to your psyche, and will probably hurt a lot of people too.

* ''[[Grandia II]]'' places a lot of emphasis on the importance of making one's own decisions. Throughout the game, Roan learns that following authority is not a way of living, Mareg teaches Tio to learn to be her own master instead of following orders, and Ryudo hammers it into Elena that even though they were playing into Pope Zera's hand the whole second half the quest, she is not a servant to anyone, not even the dead God of Light Granas or the returning [[God of Evil|Valmar]]. And since that game was made in a country were the interests of the group is emphasized over those of the individual, this is one anvil that especially needed to be dropped ''there''.

* Your mileage may vary on this one: [[Galaxy Angel (video game)|Galaxy Angel]], the whole trilogy, is admittedly an idealistic metaphor for how to make truly loving relationships work. The first game in the trilogy is the "passionate falling in love" phase: Tact and his chosen Angel, whoever it is, fall in love and dang, don't they have ''so much'' in common? Tact's such a great guy, he's so understanding, the Angel's never met anyone like him before! The Angel in question is so beautiful and nice and helpful, a true ''Angel'' for Tact! Then in the second game, Moonlit Lovers, the relationship moves to the phase where the partners start to discover each other's little annoyances that make them not so perfect: Ranpha habitually jumps to conclusions, Mint has trouble relating to Tact in situations where she can't rely on mind-reading, Tact himself slacks off too much and notices beauty in others too much, etc., and so on. Finally in the third game, Eternal Lovers, the relationship is put through such enormous strain that it will break unless Tact is really and truly serious about how much he loves his girlfriend. In every route in the final game, Tact's girlfriend is driven by circumstances beyond her control to become ''inconvenient'' to love instead of a source of endless support: Milfeulle loses her memory of Tact and treats him like her commander, Ranpha develops an uncontrollable reflex to attack Tact whenever he touches her, Mint's mind-reading powers become their inverse broadcasting all of Mint's thoughts and feelings ''including the bad ones'', Forte develops an uncontrollable fear of picking up a gun and thus loses the quality that makes her stand out the most (her love of guns and serious dedication to the military), Vanilla's nanomachine pet malfunctions turning into a monster and attacking Tact on sight, and Chitose falls under a delusion that she's in love with Lester instead. The only way Tact manages to clear up any of this is to learn what really makes a loving relationship ''mature'' instead of teenage love: you have to accept that you and your partner will eventually be in conflict, and work hard to deal with that when it happens, since love means you're more concerned with your partner's well-being than you are with your own pride. After the problem is cleared up and the enemy is finished, they eventually get happily married and show up in Galaxy Angel II, with a marriage like most of you Tropers' parents where they're still close even as mature adults.

== Western Animation ==

* The ''[[American Dad]]'' episode about gay people adopting. Sure, the episode isn't as sentimental as the other episodes listed here but it's nice.

{{quote|'''Goliath:''' No! Killing her (Demona) won't solve anything! Death never does!

'''Luna:''' He is right, Macbeth. Duncan was afraid that your father would make you king. [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|Did your father's death stop you from becoming king?]]<br />

** Also, the episode focused on HIV. It wasn't even remotely subtle, but the message that AIDS victims ''aren't'' subhuman diseased maggots who spread their plague by existing and are still human beings who need love and support was an anvil that needed to be dropped from as many roofs as possible in the early 90s.

** The episode about animal testing. After some of the overblown Aesops delivered by the show, the subdued message of "animal testing is sometimes necessary, but can often be minimized or avoided entirely and should never be used unnecessarily" is a breath of fresh air.

** The two-parter ''Cartoon Wars'' with the message that using the threat of potential terrorism to get people to do what you want is also terrorism. This needs to be repeated time and time again.

** The episode "Trapped In The Closet," and the views of the destructiveness and nonsensicalness of Scientology. They were willing to alienate a long-time cast member and fan favorite to get the message out. Although Isaac Hayes didn't want to leave the cast; he was pressured into it by Scientology and was in tears when he went to Matt and Trey to break the news. He had enough of a sense of humour to say "they've done that to every religion"; Scientology did not.

* While tracking down Norman's nemesis via his trail of destruction in ''[[Mighty Max]]'', they arrive at a house whose occupants were slaughtered. Norman was the only one to see the carnage and absolutely refused to allow Max to enter. Max tried to reason that he has plenty of experience with violence on television. Virgil overrules Norman, Max actually does enter the house... and proceeds to run out and lose his lunch. When Max asks why it hit him so hard, Virgil responds simply, "Real violence has real consequences." It makes it clear that there is a difference between entertaining action shows and how it would actually affect the real world.

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' has two notable ones: No one can give you honour or self-worth except yourself. (Zuko) "Power and perfection are overrated." (Iroh)

** Another anvil is dropped in "The Avatar and The Firelord," by Aang (they did a lot of these in the third season). What's interesting is that it brought all the random, seemingly unconnected plots of the previous episodes, where the Gaang had been laying low in the Fire Nation and interacting with the locals in disguise, and united them under a common theme, simultaneously subverting the [[Bad Powers, Bad People]] viewpoint that had been prominent in the other two seasons:

{{quote|'''Aang''': Roku was just as much Fire Nation as Sozin was, right?? If anything, their story proves anyone's capable of great good ''and'' great evil. Everyone, even the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation, have to be treated like they're worth giving a chance.}}

{{quote|'''Zuko''': ''Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history and somehow, the war was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was! The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation! They don’t see our greatness - they hate us! And we deserve it. We’ve created an era of fear in the world. And if we don’t want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.''}}

** Also, the show isn't a one-shot Anvilicious allegory that's tailor made to hammer in a bunch of talking points about the current political situation, The Fire Nation is Britain, Rome, Nazi Germany, and (especially) Imperial Japan. ATLA is believable precisely because it follows broad themes that run throughout history rather than the current zeitgeist.

* [[Phineas and Ferb]]: The episodes "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted" and "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo" dish out some Anvils about how children shouldn't have their creativity and imagination restricted, and how they should pursue what they want. While the Anvil-dropping itself isn't particularly subtle (in fact, the dropping of the Anvils incorporates some bleak themes, a lot of [[Tear Jerker]] for the characters, and even some [[And I Must Scream]] elements for a show directed to 6-11 year-olds), the Aesop is notably important (in a society where parents are keen on having their children follow in their footsteps, stifling their kids' imagination and having their true identity obliterated.)

** ''Phineas and Ferb'' also gives us one of the few bearable health food aesops that have been slipped into kids shows since ever: the episode "Candace's Big Day". [[Harmless Villain|Dr. Doofenshmirtz]] decides to feed everyone junk food and turn them into fat, despicable slobs. When he's finally ready to do it, he's surprised to find out that [[Crowning Moment of Funny|all the junk food is gone.]]

*** It also shows how making up lies about someone on news can be very ''damaging'' to one's reputation.

** From "Putting your hoof down", the aesop of "No means no". Given that a ''lot'' of people just assume "No, I'm not interested" to mean "Keep pressing and bugging me more - maybe I'll demonstrate interest", this is a ''VERY'' solid Aesop.

* [[Lauren Faust]] ''really'' stresses the importance of [[Girls Need Role Models|girls needing good role models]], and pointing out that things don't have to be [[Tastes Like Diabetes|overly cute or cuddly]] to appeal to girls, this mindset shows up in some of her material, and for very good reason.

* [[Walt Disney|Disney's]] ''[[Education for Death]]'', as a [[Wartime Cartoon]], seems like it'd be an unlikely candidate for this. However, it hammers in the point that [[Those Wacky Nazis]] are people just like you, and most of the soldiers aren't [[Pure Evil|Complete Monsters]] - they're victims of propaganda and a cult of personality around the REAL monsters, like Hitler, Goebbels and Goering, and they're just as afraid of Hitler as you are.

== [[Real Life]] ==

* The "It Gets Better" series of [[YouTube]] videos to prevent gay teen suicide.

* [[Tv Tropes Will Enhance Your Life|Some person]] was [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|kind enough]] to post a great [[Patrick Stewart Speech]] in the [[Real Life]] section [[You Are Not Alone|here]].

* Anything dealing with proper [[Gun Safety]].