Space Whale Aesop: Difference between revisions

When done right, the improbable consequence will be a close analogy or a sharp metaphor to the probable one - just increased in scale, speed, or concreteness. You know irreparable damage will be done to the earth's ecosystem if the whales go extinct, but not ''what'' irreparable damage; and so, you arrange it so that the absence of whales leads to aliens endangering all life on Earth - ''especially'' the humans.

 

 

Different from the [[Fantastic Aesop]]. The [[Fantastic Aesop]] suggests a fantastic course of action ("don't use black magic to try and resurrect the dead") which can't even be attempted in the real world. The Space Whale Aesop suggests a real, viable course of action ("don't perform nuclear tests") by presenting fantastic consequences ("radiation from the tests will awaken [[Godzilla|a giant monster]] [[Tokyo Fireball|that destroys Tokyo]]") instead of a more realistic but not quite as dramatic example ("[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmvbjcmyKGo it can burn whole buildings if someone is careless]").

* The underlying lesson of ''[[Pretty Cure]]'' seems to be "it's good to have friends who are different from you, so you can defeat monsters from another dimension."

** It gets spelled out in [[Pretty Cure All Stars|the first DX movie]], in which the girls are fighting a monster with [[Instrumentality]] on its mind and give a rousing speech about how their differences make them stronger because everyone brings something different to the table.

* [[xxxHolic]] pretty much runs on these kinds of aesops since it assumes [[All Myths Are True]]: don't lie or you'll get so paralyzed by them that you'll be run over by a car, don't cut your toenails at night or a giant insect will chop your head off, don't kill someone or your act of murder will be reenacted on every photograph and video that has you in it...etc.

* An episode of the [[Hentai]] ''Sex Craft'' demonstrates that you shouldn't break up with the guy you're dating just because he's too shy to make the first move, because... if you do that, his unquenched desire will escape his body in the form of an evil ghost thing and go on a rape spree.

== Film ==

* The [[Trope Namer]]: ''[[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home]]''. The intended aesop is "don't assume you can use up Earth's natural resources without consequence, since someday your survival might depend on them," but an early draft involving a plague in the 24th century whose cure was lost in the destruction of the rain forests was considered unworkable, and director Leonard Nimoy found whales to be majestic, so the much more entertaining aesop of "save the whales or else a gigantic [[Space Whale]] probe will appear out of nowhere to destroy Earth" was born.

* Replace [[Space Whale]] with "Unheard of bacteria" and you basically get [[The Virus|the plot]] of ''[[The Andromeda Strain]]''.

* ''[[The Happening]]''. Preserve the environment, or else {{spoiler|the plants may get pissed and release a deadly neurotoxin that makes you kill yourself [[Department of Redundancy Department|because of the deadly neurotoxin that the plants are releasing into the]] <s> [[Portal (series)|Enrichment Center]]</s> air.}}

* ''[[The Day After Tomorrow]]'': [[Green Aesop|Cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions]] or the Earth will enter a new ice age and New York City will freeze solid. By the ''end of this week''.

** And, in case that wasn't a tangible enough deterrent, said ice age will also cause wolves to escape from a zoo and come after you and your family.

* ''[[The Abyss]]'' (director's cut): Yet again, but with awesome special effects. Also: If you make up with your estranged wife, then [[The Power of Love|you can prevent submarine aliens from killing everyone.]]

* The made-for-television [[Christmas Special|holiday film]] "The Night They [[Saving Christmas|Saved Christmas]]" is not terrible, but it's based on this kind of Aesop: Don't drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge because you might harm Santa's workshop. And then {{spoiler|it goes ahead and [[Broken Aesop|breaks its own Space Whale Aesop!]]}}

* ''[[The Day The Earth Caught Fire]]'' (1961) warns that atomic testing could send the Earth spinning out of orbit towards the Sun. The bad science is somewhat offset by the 'documentary-style' realism of the story.

* ''[[The Crack In The World]]'' warns in the utmost seriousness that atomic testing could literally ''split the Earth in two''.

* ''[[Prophecy (film)|Prophecy]]'' teaches us that if you let papermills pollute the nature, it will create killer mutant bears that will hunt you down.

* [[Eli Roth]] films: stay at home, around people you know, because if you go anywhere on vacation, you will either catch a flesh-eating virus or be dissected alive for sport.

** Thumb-sucking summons up a scissor-wielding tailor who snips of the offending digits; fussy eating habits result in death by starvation; and going out in a rainstorm to play leads to being hurled away to your doom by a sudden gust of wind. There is also a girl who ends up as a pile of ashes after playing with matches despite admonitions from her parents and her two pet cats. And many similar.

** [[Deconstructed Trope|Deconstructed]] in Jasper Fforde's ''The Fourth Bear'', a spin off of the [[Thursday Next]] series, with "Cautionary Valley." The series takes place [[In a World]] where fictional characters come to life; the valley is a favourite haunt of Aesop-delivering Space Whales, led by the aforementioned scissor-wielding tailor. Children raised in this neighborhood are well-behaved to a [[Stepford Smiler|downright creepy level]]. Prior to the events of the book, the parents ''[[Utopia Justifies the Means|were perfectly fine with it]]''.

* [[AI Is a Crapshoot]]: a lot of stories that use this trope as their premise basically end with "AI research is dangerous, since AIs will invariably become homicidal tyrants determined to enslave or destroy the human race." Parodied in [[John Sladek]]'s [[Roderick At Random]], which is told from the point of view of the world's one artificially intelligent robot. One conversation he has goes (roughly):

{{quote|'''Scientist''': Well, we of course we can't risk researching AI. We've run simulations, and it could turn out they get so smart that they realize they don't need humans and decide to wipe us out.

* ''[[Un Lun Dun]]'': Don't pollute, or else the smog will become sapient and take control of people's minds, making them destroy a fantasy world and then ours.

* ''[[State of Fear]]'': Don't give in to people believing in global warming, or ecologists will destroy the planet with their weather-control machines. And do not blame the civilization for all evil or you will be eaten by Papua-New-Guinean cannibals.

* The moral of Coleridge's ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]'' is "be compassionate towards all creatures and don't go around murdering innocent seabirds, or else you'll wind up stranded in the middle of the ocean, all your friends will die, their corpses will torment you, and when you eventually make it to land you'll be forced to constantly wander the world telling your story instead of being able to live a normal life." [[Bruce Dickinson]] put it best. "And the moral of this story is: This is what not to do if a bird shits on you."

* Some of [[Enid Blyton]]'s stories for younger children. For example, ''The Magic Lemonade'': "Don't torment insects, or you might get shrunk by magic so that [[Nightmare Fuel|insects can]] [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|torment you]]".

* ''[[Logan's Run]]'' the book: Don't become a hippie. Hippies want to get everyone stoned, destroy the family, raise children in creches, revoke age-of-sexual-consent laws, and kill off everyone over twenty-one.

* Pretty much any and all [[Be Careful What You Wish For]] stories end this way, most notably ''[[The Monkey's Paw]]''. Among other examples, wishing to have money resulted in the family {{spoiler|having their son die in a terrible industrial accident, followed by them receiving tons of money in compensation from the factory}}. Wishing you had more money is not wrong or dangerous just because a cursed artifact interpreted the wish to negative results. If anything the real Aesop is "[[Jackass Genie|Genies are jerks]]." In the case of ''[[The Monkey's Paw]]'', the Aesop intended by the character who created the paw was [[You Can't Fight Fate|"those who defy fate do so to their sorrow."]] Because apparently fate is a [[Jerkass]].

* ''[[Captain Underpants]] and the Perilous Plot of [[Unfortunate Name|Professor Poopypants]]'': Don't make fun of people's names, or else they'll shrink you to the size of a bug and make you change ''your'' name to something absurd to make themselves feel better. Although this could just be a way of saying, "Don't make fun of people, because what goes around comes around."

** This in Lampshaded by the characters at the end their only current example of a moral, though the ending then points out the [[Fantastic Aesop]] driving the entire story: never hypnotize your principal.

** [[Fridge Logic|Given that the child of said union grew up to be a powerful wizard who was responsible for putting the legendary king on the throne, it makes one wonder why it was considered bad.]]

** Well, she was ''raped'', so yeah. Bad.

* Babette Cole's ''[[Winni Allfours]]'' has quite a bad one for parents. The heroine's mother and father won't buy her a pony and make her eat lots of vegetables. Except that Winni works out that by eating all her greens, she'll turn ''into'' a pony! Once that's done, she's no longer dependent on her parents. So what kind of moral can we learn from that? "Don't try imposing limits on your kids, because they'll still succeed and it'll be all the worse for you?"

* ''[[The Adventures of Pinocchio]]'': "Don't skip school and have endless fun, or else you'll change into a donkey".

* The tale of King Midas has the message "If you desire gold too much, you'll turn your loved ones into statues."

* Some [[Values Dissonance]] might be at play here, but most fairy tales (in their original form, that is) might come across as this to modern-day audiences. How often do birds peck peoples' eyes out in the real world?

* Intentionally used in [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s short story "Never Bet The Devil Your Head", as part of the [[Spoof Aesop]]. The reason it provides for the eponymous moral is that the devil might one day come to collect.

* There's a picture book called ''You'll Be Sorry'' by Josh Schneider in which the parents of a girl named Samantha tell her to stop hitting her little brother or she'll be sorry. She ignores them and his little brother cries so much that he floods the entire town.

* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episode "Stopover in a Quiet Town" has [[Rod Serling]] delivering one of the most hilarious space whale aesops ever, in the smirking, self-aware tone that only he can. The episode deals with a married couple who awaken after a drunken car crash and gradually realize that {{spoiler|they've been abducted from Earth and are now being kept as pets inside a giant alien child's model town...}}

{{quote|'''Rod Serling''': [[Blatant Lies|The moral of what you've just seen is clear.]] If you drink, don't drive. And if your wife has had a couple, she shouldn't drive either. You might both just wake up with a whale of a headache in a deserted village... in the Twilight Zone.}}

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'':

** "The Beast Below": {{spoiler|Sentient alien life isn't always a threat. Made more amusing in this case because the thing involved is an ''actual'' space whale}}

There might come a day when he's treading on you! }}

* ''Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer'' reminds us not to trust "[[Santa Claus|a man]] who flies a sleigh and plays with elves." Okay, then.

 

 

* Parents sometimes use these to [[Scare'Em Straight|scare their kids straight]]. "Don't misbehave or the bogeyman will get you," and "Don't make that face or it'll stick like that," are famous ones.

** The residents of "Cautionary Valley" (under literature above) come from these scare-tales. Fforde's interpretation of the Scissor Man is fairly tame; he's a pussycat compared to the one that appears in [[Discworld/Hogfather|Hogfather]], who is an emu-like being composed entirely of scissors.

* [[The Protomen]] has the moral 'be a hero, or else Megaman won't save you from evil robots'.

* According to some corners of the internet, every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten.

 

== Video Games ==

* The moral of ''[http://www.kongregate.com/games/larsiusprime/super-energy-apocalypse-recycled Super Energy Apocalypse]'' is: Don't pollute, and do conserve energy, ''or else you'll be attacked by [[Our Zombies Are Different|giant eyeballs]].''

* ''[[Super Mario Sunshine]]'': "Always remember to brush your teeth!" Said straight after cleaning the teeth of a giant eel boss with a water filled jetpack because it was polluting an entire bay with purple poison.

* [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|Dear Princess Celestia]], no matter how strong and smart you may be, there are some things you just can't do alone. Friends have a special bond that has more meaning than you can find in any book. So cherish your friends, nurture your relationships with them, and always hold them near and dear to your heart, because together you can {{spoiler|smite evil with a badass Goddamn rainbow [[Wave Motion Gun]]. Because [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|friendship... is magic]]}}.

** Note: Most of the Aesops in the show are rather more realistic, but the first episodes of each season are there to justify the title and basically serve as [[Attract Mode]].

** Also, you'd better get along with people different from you or evil ice elementals will cause starvation in the land.

* Lampshaded in the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz."

** A literal one in ''Mobius Dick''- {{spoiler|don't fly through the Bermuda Tetrahedron or you'll get eaten by a four-dimensional space whale and infinitely digested. Or maybe it'll feed upon your obsession. Or maybe you'll take control of it.}}

* The [[Phineas and Ferb]] episode "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo" had the lesson of "Don't bust your brothers using a time machine, or all childhood creativity will be destroyed, creating a [[Bad Future]]."

*** So, then: Don't quash children's creativity, or a villain will make you wear a labcoat and change your name to Joe.

** What about bust your brothers and they get sent to a military school where they'll be lobotomized to the point of being mindless zombies.