History Main / HardTruthAesop

* ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'': After all of the shenanigans of ''[[WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheBloodGulchChronicles The Blood Gulch Chronicles]]'', [[KnightInSourArmor Church]] takes a moment to reflect on how he's learned that it's wrong to hate people based on arbitrary political or military delineations. Instead, you should strive to "despise people on a personal level." Obviously, it's not necessarily a ''great'' moral, but it still rings true to an extent in that one should not mindlessly hate just because they were told to.
-->'''Church:''' You should hate someone because they're an [[{{Jerkass}} asshole]], or a [[CasanovaWannabe pervert]], or [[TheDandy snob]], or they're [[LazyBum lazy]], or [[DrillSergeantNasty arrogant]] or an [[TheDitz idiot]] or a [[InsufferableGenius know-it-all]]. ''Those'' are reasons to dislike somebody. You don't hate a person because someone told you to. You have to learn to [[ItsPersonal despise people on a personal level]]. Not because they're Red, or because they're Blue, but because you know them, and you see them every single day, and you can't stand them because they're a complete and total fucking '''douchebag.'''
* ''{{WebAnimation/RWBY}}'': The series has quite a few of these, especially in the later Volumes when the complex narrative is made clearer:
** The series makes it consistently clear that authority figures are not perfect, and that not everything they say and do is true, or necessarily to the younger generation's benefit. Every major authority figure, from Ozpin to Ironwood, is shown overtime to be deeply flawed people who constantly keep on making terrible decisions based on faulty assumptions or outright falsehoods, and Team RWBY and JNPR find themselves being dragged into the mess of a SecretWar the adults are part of, having to shoulder their mistakes and responsibilities despite being severely underprepared for it. This causes no shortage of problems, since the adults' web of deception poses a very real danger to the younger generation's ability to fight against Salem. Additionally, the flawed parenting of some of these adults have left deep trauma in their children, resulting in those children having to resolve their own problems in addition to the above.
** Being on the "right side" of a cause does not inherently make you a good or just person, or immune to falling into selfish or destructive behavior that could end up harming your own cause far more than your enemies. Adam, Ozpin and Ironwood end up being very notable cases of this. The first portrayed himself as a freedom fighter for the rights of Faunus, Ozpin portrays himself as the leader of a secret society dedicated to opposing the leader of the Grimm, and Ironwood is initially portrayed as a respected general while also being a part of said secret society. The series consistently shows however that this does not make their actions inherently correct or justifiable, with themselves often being as much of an obstacle to their own goals as the enemies they face:
*** [[DrunkWithPower Adam allowed himself to become consumed by his own bloodlust]] and started destroying his own faction out of ego and inability to let go of his entitlement in regards to his ex, Blake. All the while his extremist behavior alienated less militant and more cautious Faunus in the process until the White Fang was nearly reduced to a cult [[HeWhoFightsMonsters hellbent on subjugating their enemies no differently than the humans]], and also endangering the people he claimed to stand for due to the very real risk of his actions backfiring and painting ''all'' Faunus as being terroristic monsters.
*** Ozpin's actions are revealed through sidestories and his backstory to have also played a large part in the many injustices in society, being so fixated on fighting to achieve his god-given mission that he ignored and papered over many of the societal issues in the Kingdoms, while also being too myopic to realize how self-destructive this is and implied to be repeating this course of actions for centuries. In addition, his extreme secrecy, constant tendency to only tell half-truths or leave out vital information that puts other people's lives at risk has alienated many of his potential allies, or unintentionally been the catalyst for them turning on him. [[spoiler: It's also strongly implied that this single-mindedness has left him unable to realize that his grand mission from the God of Light might not be intended to redeem humanity, but rather exists solely to punish the one person who ever dared to oppose the tyranny of the Brother Gods, his ex-wife and BigBad Salem.]]
*** Ironwood is the most egregious case, with his reign over Atlas being intensely authoritarian, and said society being a police state that subjugates and oppresses its own people, leading to the [[StartOfDarkness rise of victim turned villains like Cinder.]] While he tries to portray himself as a benevolent but tough leader, his care is shown very quickly to be extremely conditional and easily revoked, as well as being a massive hypocrite. Combined with his own inability to self-reflect and stubborn paranoia, and he ends up causing just as many problems as the villains, to the point that when he finally faces off against Salem, [[spoiler: he ends up running away and trying to abandon Remnant to the Grimm solely to avoid facing his own fear and the consequences of his incompetence and irrationality. All the while insisting that [[NeverMyFault everyone else failed to be grateful to him for his sacrifices and lack of respect.]]]]

** People will believe what they want to believe. Even when confronted with the truth, someone might just [[IRejectYourReality reject the clear truth to continue living a comfortable lie]]. And it's all too easy for people in power to manipulate the truth for their own ends. Vicious, in particular, is dubbed "the Great Transgressor" and labeled to the public as some kind of monster from the moment he's born. So Vicious figures that [[ThenLetMeBeEvil he'll just give the people what they want]], because nobody's willing to hear his side of the story. And that being the case, Vicious doesn't see the point of having a moral high ground when nobody's willing to listen to him. Even IdealHero Kanata has to admit that as harsh as Vicious can be about the world and its people, [[JerkassHasAPoint he's not entirely wrong about the way he views the world]].
** You can feel as guilty as you want about mistakes that you've made in the past. But that doesn't magically absolve you of sin, nor does it change what you've done. You can't just suffer and hate yourself for your sins, then pretend like that suffering somehow makes everything okay. You need to actively try to make the world better, embrace that the past is the past, and move on with your life. Exemplified by the CharacterCatchphrase of Vicious: "Are you gonna own your sin, or are you gonna let it own you?"

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfCrestoria'': People will believe what they want to believe. Even when confronted with the truth, someone might just [[IRejectYourReality reject the clear truth to continue living a comfortable lie]]. And it's all too easy for people in power to manipulate the truth for their own ends. Vicious, in particular, is dubbed "the Great Transgressor" and labeled to the public as some kind of monster from the moment he's born. So Vicious figures that [[ThenLetMeBeEvil he'll just give the people what they want]], because nobody's willing to hear his side of the story. And that being the case, Vicious doesn't see the point of having a moral high ground when nobody's willing to listen to him. Even IdealHero Kanata has to admit that as harsh as Vicious can be about the world and its people, [[JerkassHasAPoint he's not entirely wrong about the way he views the world]].

** One of the major Aesops is about knowing when to quit, and that sticking to your beliefs isn't always a good thing. Lloyd and the BigBad act as basically a {{Deconstruction}} of the {{Determinator}} trope, with Lloyd eventually learning that he needs to change his outlook on the world and becoming a better person as a result, while the BigBad stubbornly refuses to change to the bitter end, even when [[spoiler: his sister, who he was enacting his schemes for, to begin with]] tells him that what he's doing is wrong and he needs to stop.

** During one cutscene, it is revealed that Exspheres[[spoiler: are essentially the hardened essence of a dead human being]] and Lloyd becomes enraged at the prospect and tries to destroy his own, only to be quickly stopped by Kratos who points out that these objects are one of the few reasons they're even alive. It's not a particularly happy idea, but in a bad situation, sometimes the best tools you have can come from the worst possible places. Regardless of whether Lloyd agrees or not, he ultimately doesn't destroy his Exsphere, and eventually moves on from the revelation to use it in the best way possible. What we use may not always be a good thing , but it can still be used for good, especially if it already exists and thus can be put to good use. Of course, this is assuming that such a thing is in hands willing to do "good" with it, which ultimately is subjective [[spoiler:given the people who made them, the Desians, see themselves as the chosen people carrying on the will of Cruxis against the humans that shunned and harmed them]].

* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': Powerful people abuse their power, (and that not much can be done about that). GrowingUpSucks at least a little bit. And while adults want to deny it, [[HormoneAddledTeenager teenagers WILL have sex]], not always [[{{Ephebophile}} with other teenagers]], and [[RapeAsDrama not always willingly]]. [[spoiler: The most powerful of these comes at the end: that [[UsefulNotes/{{Abuse}} an abuse survivor cannot be saved from her abuser by a third party and must instead choose to save herself]]. And while it may puzzle the average onlooker, this obvious decision requires INCREDIBLE bravery and willpower to break away.]]

** The same moral is taken to the next level in Sinnoh, where Ash is forced to admit after many failures that no, he will not beat his {{Jerkass}} SocialDarwinist rival Paul just by believing in his Pokémon. At the end of the day, faith alone is simply not a match for cold, calculated strategy, and insisting that it is will only end in more failure. Luckily, it's [[{{Reconstruction}} reconstructed]] near the end when Ash realizes ThePowerOfFriendship ''can'' still make a difference; he just needs to stop relying ''exclusively'' on it, which pays off at the Sinnoh League when he's able to beat Paul by combining legitimate tactics with friendship and willpower.

* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': Oh where to even start? ''Utena'' is a ComingOfAgeStory that exists uniquely within a limbo between the logic of fairytales and the sordid facts of reality, [[MindScrew as brain-meltingly screwy as that sounds]], but is not remotely subtle about the points it makes about how powerful people abuse their power (and that nothing can be done about that), how GrowingUpSucks at least a little bit, and that while adults want to deny it, [[HormoneAddledTeenager teenagers WILL have sex]], not always [[{{Ephebophile}} with other teenagers]] and [[RapeAsDrama not always willingly]]. [[spoiler: The most powerful of these comes at the end: that [[UsefulNotes/{{Abuse}} an abuse survivor cannot be saved from her abuser by a third party and must instead choose to save herself. And while it may puzzle the average onlooker, this obvious decision requires INCREDIBLE bravery and willpower]].]]

** The Kanto season had "no, simply [[{{Determinator}} trying hard enough]] doesn't always guarantee you success in life." Misty sums it up early on in the third episode, and it remains a theme throughout Kanto, ultimately coming to a head in the Pokémon League where Ash's laxness in actually training his Pokémon and relying on pure luck and scrappy pragmatism ends up running out and costing him the league. Though this does lead to the more Family Friendly Aesop of "[[AndTheAdventureContinues failure is not the end of the world]]." However, a large part of Ash's loss was due to Team Rocket being unusually persistent and tiring out Ash's team and the referee being a major {{Jerkass}}.

** There is also a much broader aesop that also applies: Namely, that those who offer or grant power to you are not always the kinds of people you should trust, especially if you're young and impressionable. [[spoiler: Kyuubei takes the archetypical role of the being who grants magical girls their power, but it becomes increasingly evident that he's only manipulating them for his own selfish interests. While [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist he frames it as being a necessary evil, any degree of examination of what he's saying makes it plainly clear that he's at best twisting the truth]] to make his actions seem more palatable to the young impressionable girls he's tricking, or at worst outright lying because he doesn't care who suffers the price of his machinations so long as he and his kind get what they want. Out of nearly the entire cast, only Homura is consistently aware of just how malignant Kyuubei is due to her special power allowing her to fully understand [[TheDogWasTheMastermind his real nature, and to try to stop him from corrupting Madoka.]]]]

* ''Manga/FlyMeToTheMoon'': As Kaname tells Aya, if you don't dare to tell your crush about your feelings, you deserve the heartbreak that will ensue when that crush inevitably chooses someone else. Aya never confessed to Nasa while they were in school together, so once she realizes that he and Tsukasa(whom he met after Aya) are married, she's heartbroken, but has to accept that she's missed her chance. In short, if you CannotSpitItOut, don't expect your crush to reciprocate--or even ''realize''.

** There is also a much broader aesop that also applies: Namely, that those who offer or grant power to you are not always the kinds of people you should trust, especially if you're young and impressionable. [[spoiler: Kyuubei takes the archetypical role of the being who grants magical girls their power, but it becomes increasingly evident that he's only manipulating them for his own selfish interests. While he frames it as being a necessary evil, any degree of examination of what he's saying makes it plainly clear that he's at best twisting the truth to make his actions seem more palatable to the young impressionable girls he's tricking, or at worst outright lying because he doesn't care who suffers the price of his machinations so long as he and his kind get what they want. Out of nearly the entire cast, only Homura is consistently aware of just how malignant Kyuubei is due to her special power allowing her to fully understand [[TheDogWasTheMastermind his real nature, and to try to stop him from corrupting Madoka.]]

** The Kanto season had "no, simply [[{{Determinator}} trying hard enough]] doesn't always guarantee you success in life." Misty sums it up early on in the third episode, and it remains a theme throughout Kanto, ultimately coming to a head in the Pokemon League where Ash's laxness in actually training his Pokémon and relying on pure luck and scrappy pragmatism ends up running out and costing him the league. Though this does lead to the more Family Friendly Aesop of "[[AndTheAdventureContinues failure is not the end of the world]]."

*** In "The Joy of Water Pokemon" the trio meets Nurse Joy, who because of a traumatic incident in her childhood, was afraid of Water-type Pokemon. While she doesn't hate Water-Type Pokemon, she can't touch them without a special suit or her Chansey assistants. At the end of the episode, she encounters a situation where she must calm a Gyrados without her suit, and manages to do so, [[{{Fainting}} but faints later]]. Misty praises her for overcoming her fear, but Joy makes the point that she is still afraid of Water-type Pokemon, and likely will be for the rest of her life, but she won't let that stop her from carrying out her duties.
*** Ironically Misty herself fell to this moral in the third episode of the original series, due to her bug phobia making her an enormous jerk towards Ash's Caterpie. While she does acknowledge Caterpie after it stops Team Rocket, she's still too terrified to hug it and her phobia remains in all her future appearances, just she generally avoids using her fear of bug Pokemon as an excuse to be an asshole to them.
*** In Unova, we have Iris, who has a [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes known fear of Ice-type Pokemon.]] However, she eventually ends up in a situation where she is trapped with Georgia's Vanilluxe. She manages to put her fear aside and give Vanilluxe commands. However, the episode ends with Iris still afraid of Ice-type Pokemon but has made progress in conquering her fear.

** The postgame Eevee sidequest in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Sun and Moon]]'' provides some stunningly harsh and sober lessons about [[GrowingUpSucks getting older]] that the game makes very little attempt to sugarcoat. In summation: you ''will'' get old someday, and as you do you'll likely have to give up on your interests and dreams from when you were younger and settle for a boring, mundane career as your priorities change to adult things like getting the bills paid (especially if you have a family) as shown by about half of the old trainers involved. There's a good chance your mind (the Jolteon trainer) and body (the Umbreon and Leafeon trainers) will simply start giving out on you as you age, and even if you manage to stave off aging on the outside with cosmetics, your body will continue to age on the inside (as shown by the Leafeon trainer). And finally, you will ''die'' someday (the Sylveon trainer already died and the one you battle instead is her granddaughter). The whole sidequest carries the somber implication that as the times go by and new generations take over, it's most likely that your accomplishments from when you were younger will be forgotten and will end up meaning nothing in the long run.

* ''Peach Milk Crown'' carries the message that your dreams, grit, and determination [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption can only take you so far]]. The protagonist Youichi Kouda is the captain of a small track club who has little talent but [[{{Determinator}} never gives up]]; after a student named Momo Tange who was formerly a champion high-jumper transfers into the school, he reignites her passion for track and field and the whole club makes a promise to go to nationals while a romance appears to blossom between them. However, the team ends up getting smacked around by reality as Youichi suffers a GameBreakingInjury due to [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome not knowing when to quit]] and only Momo and one other team member even make it past the first qualifying round. In the end, the team is reduced to sitting in the stands cheering on Momo during nationals, and [[spoiler:Youichi ends up rejecting Momo after realizing that his feelings for her were nothing but superficial infatuation, and he didn't fall in love with her as a person]]. So the moral of the story is that your adolescent dreams will probably not come true, but [[ComingOfAgeStory that doesn't mean you can't learn anything from the experiences]].

->'''Moroboshi''': Well, to be real with you guys, it's not like your elementary school friends are gonna become your lifelong friends, anyway. Whether they moved away to another school or not, I didn't keep in touch with a single one of my friends from back then.\\
''(both girls go into a StunnedSilence, then start to cry)''\\
'''Nozomi''': Moroboshi-sensei!\\
'''Moroboshi''': What? I'm spitting facts!

--> '''Dante''': Consider the state alchemy exam that you passed with flying colors. How many others took the test that day? Spent months, years preparing, some working much harder than you. Yet you were the only one who passed. Where was their reward? Is it their fault they lacked your natural talent?

--> '''Yui''': Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live. After all, you are alive, so you will always have the chance to be happy. As long as the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth exist, everything will be all right.

--> '''Kizaru:''' Willpower isn't enough. You have to have more than courage. Straw hat, without strength, you cannot save anyone, no matter how hard you try.

--> '''Ataru:''' The moral of the story is, "Even if you work like a dog... you can only rise so far in this lousy world!"

---> '''Blanca''': Kindness is an irreplaceable virtue to have, but showing it to people who have only ever been cruel towards you will only be a detriment to you rather than a boon. You shouldn't feel obligated to extend a helping hand to someone who will only repay it with hatred and cruelty.

--> '''Stoick:''' Men who kill without reason cannot be reasoned with.

-->'''Ignis''': "Do not follow. Trust yourself." Sound advice.\\
'''Gladio''': Reasonable enough, if a bit obvious.\\
'''Prompto''': Though you could say that's what led Kimya to start a family feud.\\
'''Noctis''': How can you trust yourself to always be right?\\
'''Ignis''': Not as sound as I thought, perhaps.

--> '''Shelob''': How much are you willing to sacrifice?

-->'''Caballero''': I heard these beautiful words from [my] therapist: "When someone wants to hit bottom, there's nothing you can do to stop them." When someone is self-destructive or destructive of others and you want to stop them, there's nothing you can do. They're looking for something there. They're getting something out of that destruction, and if you stay with them, you're gonna get destroyed. So the only thing you can do is let them go, and it is the most painful thing you can do in your life.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' has a few of these:
** General: There's no such thing as a perfect, flawless hero. They just don't exist. If someone is a LivingLegend or TheAce, odds are [[BrokenAce they had to sacrifice an awful lot in order to become that person]]. The story also pulls no punches in showing that just because someone was seen as a hero in their time doesn't mean they will be now, with Gilgamesh being portrayed just as [[PsychopathicManchild cruel, callous, selfish and childish]] as he would be viewed as in real life.
** ''Unlimited Blade Works'': [[ForHappiness Dedicating your life to the benefit of others, and helping people out a sense of obligation rather than desire]], makes you little more than a machine who feeds off the happiness of other people. However it may sound, life ''does'' require a degree of selfishness every now and then. If you want to help others, you should do it because it makes ''you'' happy, not because it makes others happy.
** ''Heaven's Feel:'' Sometimes, to protect what's most important to you, you have to abandon what you once believed in (or at least, what you ''thought'' you believed in).
* ''VisualNovel/SaveTheDatePaperDino'': Sometimes, FailureIsTheOnlyOption. If Felicia goes on a date with you, [[spoiler:she dies no matter what]]. The only ending in which she lives, barring [[spoiler:hacking the game]], is [[spoiler:the one were you two never go on the date]].
* ''VisualNovel/SayaNoUta'': Pursuing your love and disregarding what society says isn't always a good thing. Even if a romantic relationship is mutually and deeply loving, if it is also [[DestructiveRomance toxic]] and makes worse people of both partners while harming everyone around them, then the best thing to do for everyone involved is to [[DidNotGetTheGirl break it off]], for [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy your partner's sake as well as your own]], no matter how much it hurts. [[spoiler:Fuminori and Saya are each other's light in a dark world, and will do anything to make each other happy, but Saya is a man-eating EldritchAbomination who, as far as Fuminori knows, is an ''underage child''. Fuminori explicitly disregards society's standards that condemn their relationship, but said relationship leads them to do things like kill innocent people and potentially dooms humanity. The "happiest" ending, in so far as it is the ending where most characters live, is the one where Saya leaves Fuminori for his own sake.]]
* ''VisualNovel/ZeroEscape'': Junpei's subplot in ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'' basically goes 'Trusting people might fatally backfire on you, but trusting nobody will ''definitely'' kill you'. Even when the group he's in starts to actually work together, they do so not out of trust (or even mutual respect) but because they'll die if they don't and nobody has the time to think up a better plan.
[[/folder]]

--> '''Android 16''': [[AC:Cell was right, you think you're better than everyone else. But there you stand, the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs, and your rigid pacifism crumbles into bloodstained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns. You were a coward to your last whimper.]]

-->'''Church''': You should hate someone because they're an [[{{Jerkass}} asshole]], or a [[CasanovaWannabe pervert]], or [[TheDandy snob]], or they're [[LazyBum lazy]], or [[DrillSergeantNasty arrogant]] or an [[TheDitz idiot]] or a [[InsufferableGenius know-it-all]]. ''Those'' are reasons to dislike somebody. You don't hate a person because someone told you to. You have to learn to [[ItsPersonal despise people on a personal level]]. Not because they're Red, or because they're Blue, but because you know them, and you see them every single day, and you can't stand them because they're a complete and total fucking '''douchebag.'''

*** Ironwood is the most egregious case, with his reign over Atlas being intensely authoritarian, and said society being a police state that subjugates and oppresses its own people, leading to the [[StartOfDarkness rise of victim turned villains like Cinder.]] Combined with his own inability to self-reflect and stubborn paranoia, and he ends up causing just as many problems as the villains, to the point that when he finally faces off against Salem, [[spoiler: he ends up running away and trying to abandon Remnant to the Grimm solely to avoid facing his own fear and the consequences of his incompetence and irrationality. All the while insisting that [[NeverMyFault everyone else failed to be grateful to him for his sacrifices and lack of respect.]]]]

*** Ironwood is the most egregious case, with his reign over Atlas being intensely authoritarian, and said society being a police state that subjugates and oppresses its own people, leading to the [[StartOfDarkness rise of victim turned villains like Cinder.]] Combined with his own inability to self-reflect and stubborn paranoia, and he ends up causing just as many problems as the villains, to the point that when he finally faces off against Salem, [[spoiler: he ends up running away and trying to abandon Remnant to the Grimm solely to avoid facing his own fear and incompetence.]]