History Main / LostAesop

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS03E17Hatchery Hatchery]]" involves Archer stumbling upon a nest of Xindi eggs and trying to help them. Nobody else wants to help and at first, it's because they're [[FantasticRacism prejudiced]] against Xindi, but then it turns into because he's neglecting his work...and then T'Pol and Malcolm try to take over the ship...and then it's revealed that [[spoiler: Archer only wanted to help the Xindi eggs because he was affected by some sap that made him think he was their dad.]] So is the Aesop....''Do'' be prejudiced against aliens? No, that's not like Star Trek. Helping baby animals makes you and everyone else go crazy? No, that doesn't even make sense. We only help animals because we [[spoiler:think we're their parents]]? Who knows.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** Throughout "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds]]", Riker learns he has to be his own man if he wants to become a captain, which he does, succeeding in both saving Picard and beating the Borg, but after this episode, [[SnapBack he goes back to being a Commander and second-in-command]] of the ''Enterprise'', not having his own command again until ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''. And it's even worse when you consider the Expanded Universe which had [[TheRival Commander Shelby]] becoming a captain ''before'' him. Particularly egregious given that Riker had been formally promoted, not merely made an "Acting Captain"... and it had already been established that [[Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier there's no rule against a ship's captain and first officer simultaneously holding the rank of Captain]]. Then again, it's stated many times that Riker can have his choice of command, but he only wants one ship. It's not until ''Nemesis'' that he finally decides that he's never going to get the ''Enterprise'' and should stick with the ''Titan'' instead.
** The premise of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E16Ethics Ethics]]" is about Worf getting paralyzed from an accident in the cargo bay (something falling on him). He wants to be euthanized since culturally, Klingons (his species) euthanize people with serious injuries since they consider being crippled a dishonor. Picard, somewhat unusually, supports this, but Dr. Crusher doesn't; she believes that she can eventually get him to accept life with a disability (Picard explains to her that getting someone like Worf to let go of deeply held beliefs is '''WAY''' harder than she seems to think, but she apparently doesn't listen). A visiting doctor suggests an experimental procedure which could fully cure Worf, but Crusher finds it too risky (the other doctor freely admits to it having a very low success rate in trials on holographic patients). However, the other doctor does the procedure and Worf recovers. It feels like there should be an Aesop (or several) in there somewhere because most ''Star Trek'' episodes that focus on ethical concerns and/or serious topics like euthanasia tend to have them, however, it's unclear who you're meant to side with, or even if none or all of them are right. After all, the viewers clearly don't want Worf to die, but ''Star Trek'' typically does not go by the "ends justify the means" philosophy. It's also possible that there was never meant to be an Aesop as such - that the intent for the episode wasn't to take a side, but simply to make people think.
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E13Obsession Obsession]]" is a monster-hunt story that revolves, for the most part, around Kirk's titular obsession with the monster. When the creature first attacked him and the ship he was serving on, 11 years earlier, he hesitated to fire at it and the creature killed half the ship's crew. In the episode itself, a young security officer on the Enterprise also hesitates when faced with the same creature, and the creature ends up killing several men. Both Kirk and the young officer blame themselves for their crewmates' deaths, and there is plenty of angst over the matter. How is this solved? Turns out that the creature is immune to phasers, and neither of the two men could've stopped it when they had the chance. The Aesop that was being set up is that "humans hesitate by nature, sometimes it can't be helped, and you can't spend your life blaming yourself for it". This is even outright explained by Spock. However it ends up being something like "failure is sometimes okay in hindsight" -- which is no Aesop at all. Needless to say, once the creature is revealed to be nigh-invulnerable, the episode proceeds with the monster-hunt and never touches on any of this in any way.

* The aesop of Tender is the Flesh is almost 'incomprehensible.' The core conceit of the book is that when people are unable to consume animal meat, [[ImAHumanitarian everyone turns to cannibalism,]] to the point where they raid funerals and autopsy tables just to get some kind of meat. So is it about the dangers of addiction, then? But then it can't be because there's farms that turn women into human cows and billionaires that brag about hunting indebted people for meat. But then all of the cows in the farms are female, so maybe it's a metaphor about how misogyny makes people see women as only objects? That'd make sense with the ending where the protagonist kills one of the cows after it's given a child to him and his wife, but that doesn't explain the amount of 'males' that are also killed for meat or the scene where a group of teenagers murder puppies for no reason other than sadism. Or is it just [[AuthorTract a giant angry rant about how]] [[AndThatsTerrible eating meat makes you an evil monster that loves hurting people for no reason?]]

** The aesop of Tender is the Flesh is almost 'incomprehensible.' The core conceit of the book is that when people are unable to consume animal meat, [[ImAHumanitarian everyone turns to cannibalism,]] to the point where they raid funerals and autopsy tables just to get some kind of meat. So is it about the dangers of addiction, then? But then it can't be because there's farms that turn women into human cows and billionaires that brag about hunting indebted people for meat. But then all of the cows in the farms are female, so maybe it's a metaphor about how misogyny makes people see women as only objects? That'd make sense with the ending where the protagonist kills one of the cows after it's given a child to him and his wife, but that doesn't explain the amount of 'males' that are also killed for meat or the scene where a group of teenagers murder puppies for no reason other than sadism. Or is it just [[AuthorTract a giant angry rant about how]] [[AndThatsTerrible eating meat makes you an evil monster that loves hurting people for no reason?]]

* ''Fanfic/SashaAndTheFrogs'': After Barry rejected Sprig's deal, Sasha became so angry at Barry that she forgot what lesson she learned seconds prior.

** "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E3TheWitch The Witch]]" starts off seeming to be about parental pressure, presenting us with a shy, sympathetic girl who has been bullied by her mother into joining the cheerleading squad and is so desperate not to fail she has been using witchcraft to injure and disfigure the other candidates. Then, it seems that the girl is just psychotic and her mother is actually living in fear of her. ''Then'', it turns out that the mother has actually swapped bodies with her daughter and she's the one who's been off cheerleading and disfiguring while the daughter has been left trapped in her body. Which takes the initial theme of parents reliving their teenage years vicariously through their children to extremes but completely loses the theme of teenagers going to extreme lengths to satisfy overbearing parents.

* Because the Marvel ''ComicBook/CivilWar'' crossover was written by multiple authors, most of whom didn't agree with the direction Marvel was going, the moral behind the story seems to jump from book to book. One of the reasons for it is that while the entire conflict ostensibly hinged around being for and against a broad SuperRegistrationAct, none of the writers were on on board with what said act even entailed (some writers believed it called for mere bureaucratic registration for heroes to tie their identities to the government, but some writers thought it was about {{conscription}} and militarization) which isn't exactly conducive to a stable, comprehensive moral direction.

* ''Fanfic/DumbledoresArmyAndTheYearOfDarkness'' tries to get across a WarIsHell aesop. The problem is that it spends ''massive'' amounts of time playing up the heroes preparing for a suicidal final battle as "the real heroes", contrasting them to the Golden Trio (who, once they show up, are portrayed in an ''incredibly'' vindictive light). When Zacharias Smith points out that the DA is starting to sound increasingly like a matyrdom cult instead of an army, he's treated as though he's insane and thrown out of their number. Apparently, war is hell... unless you know you're going to die going into it, then it's awesome and you're awesome for doing it.

* ''Manga/ACentaursLife'' has strong themes about [[StockAesops how racism is bad]]. Except that it goes so far that the society depicted is restrictive to the point that accidental racism is a crime that will get someone sent to a reeducation center (accidental racism being things like riding on a centaur's back because she picked you up to carry you to get medical aid after you collapsed due to exhaustion). It could also be argued, however, that that would appear to be the point. It's a social satire of Japanese political correctness -- the regime enforcing these standards is clearly depicted as authoritarian and dangerous, with armed guards at police checkpoints, as well as mocking the FiveTokenBand trope (MagicalGirl shows in this universe are forced by law to include one member of each race and switch the protagonist every season), etc. Part of the issue with this Aesop is how PoliticalCorrectnessIsEvil is not a major theme of the manga, instead being more of a background element--which, in turn, makes it difficult for the reader to figure out how far the author thinks political correctness should go.

* ''LightNovel/ReZero'''s main moral is about devoting yourself to others, but it flipflops on whether that is a good or bad thing. Subaru's [[TheDulcineaEffect obsession over Emilia]] is meant to be cringeworthy and shallow and show that he's a narcissist who is playing hero because he believes it will make her return his feelings, and because of this he constantly makes a fool out of himself and causes himself misery. But his love for Emilia and his feelings for Rem and other characters also lead him to go to [[{{Determinator}} insane lengths]] to save the day, which he eventually accomplishes after much suffering. As well as that, Rem's love for Subaru, which causes her to make just as foolish and irrational decisions, is always portrayed positively and considered one of her best qualities.

* Lampshaded at the end of ''Film/BurnAfterReading'' where the CIA director wonders aloud what has been learned from the preceding chain of events. Being the sort of film it is, it's really anyone's guess.

* Music/{{Eminem}}'s "Square Dance" contains a direct passage encouraging his young fans not to get drawn into the War on Terror... buried in the middle of references to Eminem's beef with Canibus ("Canibitch"), death and rape threats directed to nobody in particular, ridiculous boasting about his wealth, Eminem rhyming things with disc scratching noises and singing in various silly accents, and several passages of gibberish. This is a huge part of the song's charm, as it ends up feeling less like he was trying to make a political statement and more like he's just reeling off whatever thoughts he has in his [[AmbiguousDisorder extremely strange]] brain.

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, different one. 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 BrokenAesop, 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.

* ''Literature/TheGivingTree'' is about a boy who likes a tree but then takes its branches and eventually cuts it down as he grows up. At the end, he uses the stump to sit on because he is tired. It gives off a preachy vibe, but it's unclear what the moral is. Is it "don't take nature for granted"? It could also be "this boy/man didn't enjoy life" but that's not an Aesop. Then there's the author's claims that the tree was based on his mom, which just confuses things further. Maybe it isn't meant to have an aesop at all, and is just a heartwarming story about a person who gives and gives until they have nothing left to give?

* In the children's book ''Potty, Poo-Poo, Wee-Wee'', a young dinosaur named Littlesaurus is [[ToiletTrainingPlot learning how to use his potty-chair]] but uses it for anything but pooping and peeing, poops on the floor and won't stop [[TitleDrop shouting the book's title]] in public despite the grown-ups (and his school friend) telling him that it is rude. Then, when his granny tells him that [[SharedFamilyQuirks his dad was just the same]] at Littlesaurus's age, Littlesaurus starts using the potty and accepting that shouting out potty words is rude, but the adults all [[NonSequitur randomly]] shout out the book's title. So, is the moral not to tell children what to do because eventually, they'll learn better? But the adults proved otherwise by shouting the potty words. Is it that it's OK to shout potty words? But they do have a point about it being rude, and Littlesaurus eventually. Is it to use the potty? Then there was no point in Granny Dinosaur saying that Dad was just the same. And if it's not to shout potty words, then the adults shouldn't have ''shouted the potty words at the end''.

* ''Literature/TheUglyDuckling'': A bird spends its life thinking it's an ugly duckling but then it turns out to be a beautiful swan. Is the moral "Don't worry about your appearance since you may turn out beautiful when you're older" or is it "If you think you don't belong, maybe you're just in the wrong group"?

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** "The Rebel Flesh" really feels like it should have a moral. Good luck figuring out what it is, though; [[FantasticRacism bigotry prevents peace]]? [[BrokenAesop You shouldn't kill a new lifeform unless you're the Doctor?]] You're dispensable if there's an identical copy of you around? Don't worry about being different because there's a cure for everything?

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS03E17Hatchery Hatchery]]" involves Archer stumbling upon a nest of Xindi eggs and trying to help them. Nobody else wants to help and at first, it's because they're [[FantasticRacism prejudiced]] against Xindi, but then it turns into because he's neglecting his work...and then T'Pol and Malcolm try to take over the ship...and then it's revealed that [[spoiler: Archer only wanted to help the Xindi eggs because he was affected by some sap that made him think he was their dad.]] So is the Aesop....''Do'' be prejudiced against aliens? No, that's not like Star Trek. Helping baby animals makes you and everyone else go crazy? We only help animals because we think we're their parents? Who knows.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'': "Buster's Dino Dilemma" sees Buster randomly having a one-episode obsession with dinosaurs. When the class goes to a dig site to look for fossils, they are explicitly told that they can't take anything with them. Buster is offended (he angrily thinks, "I can't believe they would do this to me!" as if it was a specific attack on him rather than a general rule) and smuggles the fossil under his hat. However, this does bother Buster, as he feels guilty about stealing. When he caves in and gives it back, he gets ''rewarded'' with the park ranger calling him a "genius" and displaying his fossil with a nameplate saying he discovered it. Effectively, he faces no consequences for disobeying park rules.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', it's part of the premise that each story has an aesop stated outright at the end. The writers can usually handle this pretty well, even though the episodes can be about anything, but they can't all be gems. Sometimes, perhaps, the story would work better without the obligatory aesop, and it shows. ("Lesson Zero" even has a plot revolving around Twilight Sparkle going crazy over not having found any aesop to report to her mentor like she's supposed to.)
** In "Feeling Pinkie Keen", [[TheSmartGuy Twilight Sparkle]] is repeatedly skeptical and repeatedly surprised at correlations between [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Pinkie Pie's]] physiology and imminent future events; depending on the series of nerve sensations and muscle spasms, seemingly unconnected events can be predicted. After trying and failing to get concrete data on Pinkie's predictions, Twilight defaults to being an AgentScully for most of the episode, until at the end she's forced to accept the phenomenon she's actually been seeing all the time with her own eyes "on faith". The point is actually stated as being that you can accept some things even if you don't understand them, but Twilight wasn't even ''trying'' to understand anything for most of the time, just to deny it. After people noted the apparent message that science can't explain everything and therefore you should believe in some paranormal things or something similar, WordOfGod admitted that the aesop had got lost along the way. Then again, the comment by Creator/LaurenFaust about what it was really supposed to be about[[note]]There are some things where the evidence is inconclusive, so you have to either remain agnostic or take it on faith one way or another. ...Okay?[[/note]] still sounded like a lost aesop and hardly made the matter much clearer. Perhaps more to the point was her saying that it was supposed to be a funny episode about the characters' personalities interacting.
** "Over a Barrel" is about a conflict between settler ponies and Native American themed buffalo. The historical treatment of Native Americans certainly can't be discussed in it, so the conflict is one of misunderstanding and conflict of interest between equally powerful parties. But really it just seems like an excuse to put the ponies in a WildWest setting for some reason. Pinkie Pie tries to solve the situation by singing an extremely naïve song about how "You gotta share, you gotta care" that only escalates the conflict. However, the parties are actually quite willing to compromise as soon as they figure out how. The conflict is solved mainly because it wasn't that bad to begin with. The official aesop at the end, then, is pretty vacuous, and ends with "You've got to share; you've got to care." (Pinkie Pie: "Hey! That's what I said!") If it's not a stealth SpoofAesop, it's kind of confusing as to whether or not it's good to assume that everyone can just be nice and get along. The aesop could be taken as "Everyone can be nice and get along, but only if they actually work out the details of whatever they're arguing about. Vapid slogans alone won't do the trick."
** "A Friend in Deed" spends 90% of its runtime setting the morals that "you can't force someone to be your friend" and "some people just need their personal space, and that's okay", as shown by Pinkie [[{{Determinator}} stopping at nothing]] to get Cranky to be her friend and refusing to leave him alone until he does. Then in the last five minutes she ''succeeds'' in becoming his friend through sheer force of will by realizing that another character [[AssPull introduced only in this episode]] was Cranky's long lost love. It takes the previous moral and tacks a sort of "except when you do something really nice for them!" onto it, muddling the intent somewhat.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': "A Place for Pets" isn't sure what message it wants to communicate. Mr. Krabs allows pets to dine in at the Krusty Krab so he can earn more money. Legitimate concerns are brought up with the health inspector, who points out how unsanitary this is, and Squidward, who suffers allergic reactions from the pets. Due to this, Krabs bans people from buying food there, making it exclusively a pet restaurant. The customers are forced to eat at the Chum Bucket (why they can't just go to any other restaurant or buy food from the grocery store is unexplained). Eventually, the health inspector turns out to be a {{hypocrite}} who snuck in disguised as a pet to eat there. Everyone calls him out for this, to which he wins them over with a song called "Pets Are People Too"; the lyrics describe that pets should be treated as equal to humans, and many of the customers adopt pets during the song due to their common interests. This fails to address any of the initial problems that were brought up, and it's clear that Krabs only did it for money rather than genuinely caring about pets.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E8HomerSimpsonInKidneyTrouble Homer Simpson in: 'Kidney Trouble']]", Grandpa Simpson's kidneys explode, so Homer has to donate a kidney but wusses out, so they perform the surgery against his will. Is the moral about empathy? Well, no, because Homer runs away and leaves his father to die (twice, and never feels remorse about doing so). Is it about the comeuppance of an AssholeVictim? Well, not really, since nonconsensual surgery is hardly better than what Homer did. Is it a serious exploration of declining health? Probably not, because the entire impetus for Grandpa's kidney failure is [[PottyEmergency Homer wouldn't let him go to the bathroom]][[note]]which isn't even medically accurate: [[ArtisticLicenseMedicine holding in urine can't cause your kidneys to explode]][[/note]]. So is it just absurd BlackComedy in a WorldOfJerkass? Most likely, but the episode treats the fact that Grandpa is suffering and probably going to die in a 100% serious fashion. It seems like the only purpose of the episode is to establish Homer as a [[{{Jerkass}} terrible person]].

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E8HomerSimpsonInKidneyTrouble Homer Simpson in: 'Kidney Trouble']]", Grandpa Simpson's kidneys explode, so Homer has to donate a kidney but wusses out, so they perform the surgery against his will. Is the moral about empathy? Well, no, because Homer runs away and leaves his father to die (twice, and never feels remorse about doing so). Is it about the comeuppance of an AssholeVictim? Well, not really, since nonconsensual surgery is hardly better than what Homer did. Is it a serious exploration of declining health? Probably not, because the entire impetus for Grandpa's kidney failure is [[PottyEmergency Homer wouldn't let him go to the bathroom]]. So is it just absurd BlackComedy in a WorldOfJerkass? Most likely, but the episode treat sthe fact that Grandpa is suffering and probably going to die in a 100% serious fashion. It seems like the only purpose of the episode is to establish Homer as a [[{{Jerkass}} terrible person]].

* ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce 2'' forgets its own aesop ''when it's being told to the player'' and changes to the first game's, which only barely applies in this game. Thankfully, the writers get their act together and know what they're doing in the third game.

* ''The Sands of Time''. Setting aside the absolute failure that it is at depicting [[TorosYFlamenco Spanish culture]], history and politics ([[DanBrowned claims of research]] notwithstanding), it is clear that Creator/SidneySheldon wanted this to be more epic and meaningful than his other novels (e.g. the prologue expands the title to a statement about "leaving our prints in the sands of time", a.k.a. having a personal impact in History). Unfortunately the plot makes no sense, and the constant [[FollowTheLeader clueless references]] to Creator/JohnDonne and Creator/ErnestHemingway don't help.

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 [[CosmicDeadline 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 [[BrokenBase getting a lot of people]] [[FlameWar mad at them]], so they pick a random Aesop and stick with it, PlotThreads be damned. The most successful resolution is usually to opt for a [[GoldenMeanFallacy "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 AssPull.

* ''The Sands of Time''. Setting aside the [[CriticalResearchFailure absolute failure]] that it is at depicting [[TorosYFlamenco Spanish culture]], history and politics ([[DanBrowned claims of research]] notwithstanding), it is clear that Creator/SidneySheldon wanted this to be more epic and meaningful than his other novels (e.g. the prologue expands the title to a statement about "leaving our prints in the sands of time", a.k.a. having a personal impact in History). Unfortunately [[IdiotPlot the plot makes no sense]], and the constant [[FollowTheLeader clueless references]] to Creator/JohnDonne and Creator/ErnestHemingway don't help.

* ''Manga/{{Chobits}}'' lost its Aesop as it navigated the issue of human-Persocom relationships. Hideki begins the series with the belief that Persocoms are machines, and a relationship with such an object is no substitute for human interaction. We meet Yumi, who suffers from an inferiority complex because she feels that she, as a human girl, can't compete with "perfect" persocoms, and Takako, who exemplifies Yumi's worst fears: her husband ''completely forgot her'' because he was so obsessed with their Persocom. We also meet Minoru, who has built a persocom as a {{replacement|Goldfish}} for his dead older sister. This is presented as understandable... but also unhealthy. So far, so good, since everything lines up with the original message. As the series progresses, however, Hideki falls in love with his own Persocom, Chi, and the "robots can't replace humans" sentiment goes flying out the window. At the end of the story, all the moral and social implications of a society that finds companionship in machines rather than other people are either abandoned or quickly swept under the carpet in favour of the message "it's okay to love an object, [[CircularReasoning because the fact that you love it makes it worthy of love.]]"

While it's obviously a more confused (and less subtle) cousin of the BrokenAesop, the Lost Aesop also claims kinship to the YoYoPlotPoint, since it's the recurring nature of a relatively small "error" that sets up a whole lot of confusion. The fact that the Lost Aesop seems more likely to occur in works that are produced by a group rather than a single person might also suggest the reason for the mangled moral was that the opinions and viewpoints of the writing team varied greatly. Meanwhile, it is the polar opposite of the CaptainObviousAesop and {{Anvilicious}}. This is not to be confused with AesopAmnesia, where a moral is set up but suddenly forgotten a few works later. Also compare the DissonantAesop, in which a fairly clear message is trying to be sent, but it falls flat when viewed in the context of the story's setting and worldbuilding.

While it's obviously a more confused (and less subtle) cousin of the BrokenAesop, the Lost Aesop also claims kinship to the YoYoPlotPoint, since it's the recurring nature of a relatively small "error" that sets up a whole lot of confusion. The fact that the Lost Aesop seems more likely to occur in works that are produced by a group rather than a single person might also suggest the reason for the mangled moral was that the opinions and viewpoints of the writing team varied greatly. Meanwhile, it is the polar opposite of the CaptainObviousAesop and {{Anvilicious}}. This is not to be confused with AesopAmnesia, where a moral is set up but suddenly forgotten a few works later.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' "Imaginary Fiend." The episode was about a boy who [[spoiler: made an imaginary friend, only the imaginary friend turned out to be real. He was still imaginary, but he could move things without being seen. In the end, the Powerpuff girls invented their own imaginary friend to fight him.]] In the beginning, the moral appeared to be "Don't invent an imaginary friend to blame on your actions," but [[spoiler: even Bubbles said it "Wasn't (Mike's) fault, he was evil to begin with."]] In the end, the message seemed to be [[spoiler: when you can't battle an imaginary-realistic friend, invent your own.]]

** "Everything should be balanced" for first two games. It's that simple. The third goes with "[[SpaceWhaleAesop Don't get overconfident if you are part of a]] SecretCircleOfSecrets". The fourth... well, we have no idea.
** What about the fact that [[TheHorseshoeEffect no ideology is safe from extremists]]?