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Lost Aesop: Difference between revisions

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Lost Aesop (view source)

Revision as of 19:45, 25 November 2022

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Another small edit - try to be careful not to break the trope template when "de-clunking", I thought I did it being absent-minded earlier
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m (Another small edit - try to be careful not to break the trope template when "de-clunking", I thought I did it being absent-minded earlier)
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"You know, it's an interesting thing when you consider... The Earth people, who can think, are so frightened by those who cannot: the dead. Well, our ship should be regenerated; we'd better get started."''
|'''Eros''', ''[[Plan 9 from Outer Space]]''}}
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This is when the audience is clearly presented with a lesson, only to have that moral contradicted, then reinstated, then forgotten about, then addressed, then ignored...you get the picture. It gets so messy that it's no longer clear exactly ''which'' Aesop has been broken and which one did the breaking. At some point, certain viewers or readers will begin to have doubts about whether the writer knew what they were doing.
 
The most usual form of this trope is when the audience is [[Anvilicious|whacked over the head]] with the moral-of-the-story, only for the plot to ignore that moral and set off in pursuit of another, moraldifferent entirelyone. It's as if the writer changed their minds halfway through the narrative. Note that there is no debate about this; no character will state "Hey, see that lesson we learned half an hour ago? We were wrong." Also, unlike a [[Broken Aesop]], there is nothing subtle about this: one Aesop is explicitly explained only to be undermined equally as clearly. Eventually, the audience will be buried under a number of conflicting messages, stuck going back and forth between them and unable to tell where the writer was originally going with this.
 
Another common variant is where the '''Lost Aesop''' comes about as a result of a writer going deeper into a subject than they could really afford to. Their characters examine all the angles, discuss possible outcomes and argue with each other, but then the writer realizes that ''they themselves'' don't know the answer to the question being posed... or they realize that they've run out of time and have to wrap things up in a hurry... or the issue is one that's so polarizing that they can't really pick a side without [[Broken Base|getting a lot of people]] [[Flame War|mad at them]], so they pick a random Aesop and stick with it, [[Plot Threads]] be damned. The most successful resolution is usually to opt for a [[Golden Mean Fallacy|"middle road"]] between the two conflicting lessons. However, if the logic of the story has become too confused, or several Aesops are vying for the top spot, the author might simply choose the one that makes for the simplest ending. It might work, or it might come off as a half-hearted [[Ass Pull]].
 
On the other hand, there is a very deliberate employment of this trope, where the writer presents a number of possible lessons or morals to be taken from the events of the story... only to conclude that since they all contradict each other, the answer is that there is no answer. This, however, will probably be spelled out for the viewer rather than quietly ignored.
 
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.]]
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* ''[[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.
* ''[[Camp Nowhere]]'' seems to have ''some'' kind of Aesop at the end, but good luck trying to figure out what the heck it is. It could be that kids shouldn't worry about having potential and growing up, but the film's hero stands up to his father and says that it's "okay to be stupid sometimes." It could also be about how [[Growing Up Sucks]], but the hero ''does'' learn some responsibility during the movie and even looks forward to dating his love interest when they're older. Maybe the lesson is that it's wrong to fool your parents and start a phony summer camp, but that was a borderline [[Fantastic Aesop]] even in 1994, and everyone ends up thanking the hero for the fun summer anyway, so THAT can't be it...
* The [[Wonder Woman (2017 film)|2017 ''Wonder Woman'' movie]] almost ends with the titular character realizing how naive she was to believe that Ares had to be behind the events of WWI and learning from Steve Trevor that [[Humans Are Flawed|humans are inherently faillible]], the causes of large-scale atrocities are more complicated than a single evil mastermind's plan, and you cannot magically fix everything by getting rid of a single person you believe is behind all the events. Then Ares reveals himself minutes later and throws the lesson out the window.
 
== Literature ==
* In his book ''On Writing'', [[Stephen King]] said one of the characters in ''[[The Stand]]'' was going to make an observation about the purpose of the events in one part of the book... only for King to realize he didn't have a convincing message handy. The character eventually ends up saying that he simply doesn't know.
** InAnother King's example: In his nonfiction horror analysis ''Danse Macabre,'', he notes that Mary Shelley in ''[[Frankenstein]]'' never makes clear whether Victor Frankenstein's fatal sin is in presuming to create life, or in refusing to take responsibility for his creation afterwards... neither of which is mutually exclusive. This is one occasion whereTo the [[Death of the Author]] is provably beneficial, as Mary Shelley ''was'' writing for the Romantic movement, so at minimum the former can be taken as implied, and in fact both may be one and the same: When he gained the ability to create life, Victor became obsessed with making an artificial man, but his motive was purely ''self-centered''. Prior to animation, everything he visualized about his creation was in reference to himself, how his creations would think of him, the importance of his role in the history of the future... there was no concept, no recognition, of the reality of his creation as a ''separate'' entity, with a life and nature and role of its own separate from Victorbook's wants and needs. When face-to-face with the ''actuality'' of that separatenessbenefit, as opposed to the fantasy that had obsessed him, Victor was repulsed and abandoned his creation in disgust, but would later come to look back and recognize his own obsession, albeit far too late. Victor was the "parent" that planned every step of their child's life during pregnancy, with no thought whatever for the actuality of the childarguably.
** This is one occasion where the [[Death of the Author]] is probably beneficial. Mary Shelley ''was'' writing for the Romantic movement, so the former can be taken as implied.
* In his novel ''[[Podkayne of Mars]]'', [[Robert A. Heinlein]] was trying for an Aesop about the dangers of [[Hands-Off Parenting]]. However, until the [[Character Filibuster]] at the end, there's really nothing in the novel that suggests that the characters' parents lack of involvement was to blame for their problems - or even that, [[Values Dissonance|by today's standards]], the parents were uninvolved to begin with.▼
** In Victor's case, they are one and the same thing. When he gained the ability to create life, Victor became obsessed with making an artificial man...but his motive was purely ''self-centered''. Prior to animation, everything he visualized about his creation was in reference to himself, how his creations would think of him, the importance of his role in the history of the future, there was no concept, no recognization, of the reality of his creation as a ''separate'' entity, with a life and nature and role of its own separate from Victor's wants and needs. When face-to-face with the ''actuality'' of that separateness, as opposed to the fantasy that had obsessed him, Victor was repulsed and abandoned his creation in digust. In later time Victor comes to look back and recognize his own obsession, but too late. Victor was like a couple that planned every step of their child's life during pregnancy, with no thought whatever for the actuality of the child.
▲* In his novel ''[[Podkayne of Mars]]'', [[Robert A. Heinlein]] was trying for an Aesop about the dangers of [[Hands-Off Parenting]]. However, until the [[Character Filibuster]] at the end, there's really nothing in the novel that suggests that the characters' parents lack of involvement was to blame for their problems - or even that, [[Values Dissonance|by today's standards]], the parents were uninvolved to begin with.
* ''The Gods of the Copybook Headings'' by [[Rudyard Kipling]] is about terminal failures to learn, and notes that for those who ''did'' learn it's rather predictable by now…
{{quote|That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
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