Discussion Main / BrokenAesop

Or you could argue the correction/rationalization of the problems, which are not presented in the work, is the YMMV (see Alternate Aesop Interpretation) while the Broken Aesop is still objective.

Some people think there's a broken Aesop, while others do not. Here's an example: Suppose there's a show named Bob and the Aesop is that you should not be racist, but a Designated Hero likes to be racist. You could say that it's portrayed as bad and the hero is portrayed as flawed. However, you could also say that Alice was seen as being racist and it was portrayed positively. You then could say that it was a Shoot the Dog moment. I'll try to think of more arguments, but while I'm at it, respond to the arguments I've provided and check out other ones you haven't yet.

Because it's unintentional on the author's part, if I understand. If the work contradicts its own moral, then it might be up to interpretation as to how that contradiction manifests in the work, but the contradiction is obviously there.

Well, I think it should be a YMMV trope because it is kind of negative, and some people are likely to disagree with the entry.

I agree that this, along with Clueless Aesop, should by YMMV. It is ultimately up to the viewer how well the work delivers its Aesop. Having a character use a gun does not inherently ruin an anti-gun message. It's entirely possible to believe that guns are problematic as a whole and still recognize that there are situations where they can be used for good.

True that many other YMMV tropes are obvious to many viewers, like the Complete Monster trope for example, but some people are bound to disagree with a Broken Aesop entry.

Because it can be quite clear. See page quote:

"You can't have an anti-gun message when you clearly used guns to solve your problem! It just doesn't work!"

I personally think "it can be quite clear" can apply to a lot of YMMV tropes, but that isn't always the case. Just because some character's clearly Unintentionally Unsympathetic, for example, doesn't mean that they don't have fans who sympathize with their actions and see them the way they were meant to be seen.

As for this trope, whether an Aesop is "broken" often relies on personal interpretation and opinion, since the entries are written by viewers who are posting their own conclusions of how the Aesop is broken, and sometimes, what the Aesop even is (sometimes, they say that a work breaks an Aesop that it was never explicitly meant to have), and it's possible to disagree with those conclusions. Since, as the trope page points out, this is not a trope that work creators generally do intentionally or consciously, and readers can and will disagree on whether it falls into this trope, Broken Aesop should be a YMMV trope.

When it comes to bare bones it seems pretty clear. All we need is two things:

• An Aesop
• an action going against the aesop that is not treated negatively by the narrative.

Examples Are Not Arguable and if the action doesn't go against the aesop or there was never an aesop to begin with it's shoehorn.

Because Broken Aesop is about the works internal logic, which is objective. YMMV is audience reactions, subjective.

I second the notion that this should be a YMMV trope.

Ferot_Dreadnaught It sounds more like it's about shooting down the works' internal logic, which is clearly derived from audience reactions.

You don't see how "happy dog has a good job and a good home, while miserable wolf dies for his pride" does not fit the lesson "freedom is always better than slavery"?

The Aesop breaks on the "freedom is better" part because the wolf is starving to death and derives absolutely no benefits from being free, while the dog is happy, and most importantly, not a slave. He is clearly well compensated for his work, and he's free to go hang around in the woods with wolves all day if he wants. Yes, he gets chained up at night, but that doesn't make him a slave, any more than it would make you a slave to lock your front door at night.

If the dog was never a slave to begin with then it's Clueless Aesop, not Broken Aesop, as the story failed to adress the matter of slavery. You cannot have "better die free than live in chains" aesop without dying part(If you do then it's Clueless Aesop for different reasons), and as long as wolf didn't regret his choice i don't see how Aesop is broken. Remember, Broken Aesop is lesson contradicted by the story, not just poorly handled.

What are you mean "without dying"? The wolf dies of starvation, that's how the story ends. The collar symbolizes the dog's slavery (and depending on the version, the fur on his neck may have been rubbed away by wearing it), which is what prompts the wolf to run away, but he's still right there chilling with the wolf and offering him a job, which clearly shows he has plenty of freedom. That is the contradiction in the message:

"It is better to die free and starving than to be enslaved and fat". According to the story, no it isn't, for the following reasons:

• The wolf agrees with the dog that he would be better off if he had steady food and steady work.
• The wolf dies a lonely, painful, miserable death.
• The dog is happier with his life than the wolf is with his own, specifically because he is well-fed and well-appreciated at home.
• The dog is compensated for his work, has authority on his farm, and is free to go where he wants, and is therefore not a slave; rather that he is a slave, but only by the most technical of definitions, and for the dog (who doesn't actually want to leave his farm) the only drawback to the job is having to wear a collar, which is a petty, cosmetic change to his appearance. In some versions, the collar chafes his neck, but that's still a very minor complaint compared to dying alone of starvation in the woods.
• The wolf gains no benefit by being free except freedom itself and the pride he takes in being free, but the dog also has plenty of freedom and is proud of his work.

In other words, there is nothing better about being free than being what the story calls a slave. Being what the story defines as a slave (a dog who works in chains) is objectively better than being free, because the wolf's freedom does not give him anything that the dog doesn't have, while the dog has everything the wolf actually wants (steady food and work).

Except that the moral is that Freedom itself is a value. Wolf agrees about the job but only until he learns about collar. for the wolf freedom is more valuable than food and that's the moral. If you don't believe that Freedom is worth more than food or life it's Values Dissonance. If you agree with the dog, rather than the wolf it's Strawman Has a Point. If you disagree with the Aesop itself It's Family-Unfriendly Aesop. If the aesop flew over your head because it failed to properly show the issue it's Clueless Aesop. As long as Wolf is happy with his choice and that he dies free, and story sides with the wolf i don't see how Aesop is broken even if you fell you'd prefer to be dog in this situation. You try to assing your owns subjective values to the situation and call them objective and that's what break the aesop in your eyes. I'll spell it out for you: for the Wolf Freedom is more important than food. You disagree, and i'm ok with that, that's your opinion, you value food more than you value freedom, fine. But You can't have "freedom is better than food" aesop broken by claiming that "dog has food". It's like the story saying "sometimes killing bad guy is nessecary" and claiming it's broken because someone died.

Please pay attention to the entire post.

It's not because the dog has food. It's because the wolf wants food, but sacrifices it for freedom, and gains nothing by doing so.

In this story, there is no benefit to being free, so it objectively cannot be better than what the story calls slavery. The Aesop breaks because it does not show any concrete benefit to freedom, the dog has everything the wolf has, and everything the wolf doesn't have but still wants, while the wolf has nothing except his own freedom and then dies. That would be consistent with the moral, except the part where it is BETTER to be free. There's nothing to show that freedom is better than slavery. The only thing that implies that freedom is better is that the wolf chooses it, but that's why the Aesop breaks: he's choosing to die for something that he could easily have in addition to the thing he values.

The dog has plenty of freedom, so if the wolf were to accept a job on the farm, he wouldn't be compromising his freedom to do so.

A broken aesop is an aesop broken by the actions in the story, and literally everything in this story contradicts the moral unless you take every character's action individually and out of context, which is your entire argument. "The wolf refuses a job, and then dies alone" is the only part of the story that supports it, but the moral invites a direct comparison between the dog's life and the wolf's life and sides with the wolf, but clearly shows that the dog is just as free as the wolf and is happier with his life to boot.

Do you know why we have at least five different tropes for badly handled Aesops? Because one trope does NOT cover every way that moral can be screwed up. There is no Fucked Up Aesop supertrope that covers everything. What you're saying is not the story shows that Freedom is less important than food after all, but that freedom was never at stake in the first place. If the story failed to adress the actual moral at stake then it qualifies for Clueless Aesop. Put it there and you won't hear me complaining.

Back to the actual discussion. Aparently my argument flew over your head if you keep repeating that freedom is not beneficial to the wolf. My point is... it was never meant to be. Point of the aesop was that freedom is valuable in itself, not as a means to an end. For many people there are values like honor, justice, or in this case freedom that are more valuable than the life itself. This is the exact reason why we have tropes like Honor Before Reason or I Die Free. Have you heard the story of The 47 Ronin?They died because they wanted justice and valued it above their own lives. If you interpret the story as An Aesop about justice being important would you claim it's Broken Aesop because their quest for justice ended with all of them dead? It wasn't beneficial for them in any way so according to your logic they shouldn't have tried to kill Kira. Same situation is here only with freedom instead of justice at stake. Wolf choses death over chains. That's the whole point. He could have food and life but at the cost of his freedom(please don't bring up again how much freedom was actually at stake, like i said several times it's a matter for different trope) which was unacceptable price for him. If you read the story as "pride is going to get you killed" then it's perfectly valid Alternate Aesop Interpretation, but that doesn't mean aesop is broken. I took a few seconds and found the fable in question and we don't know for sure if the dog was happy, we only know he was well fed. We know he was willing to be chained at night in exchange for food, but the story presents him as wrong, the mere presence of someone disagreeing in aesop in the story does not break it, otherwise every aesop ever would've been broken. All we have is that wolf was heavily implied to starve to death, which follows the aesop that death is better than chains. No action portrayed as right stays in opposition to the aesop.

I don't understand why you're complaining to begin with.

The moral is broken because the moral presents a direct comparison between the wolf's death and the dog's life, but does not show how the wolf's death is preferable to the dog's life. It makes the statement that dying free is better than living as a slave, but shows that the dog has freedom equal to the wolf on top of having everything the wolf lacks. That directly contradicts the moral.

If you can tell me how the story shows that the wolf's death by freedom is better than the dog's life beyond just saying that it is, I will cede the argument.

You still don't get it. I keep telling you that not showing why Aesop should be followed is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TROPE. Quoting Clueless Aesop description: "Not to be confused with a Broken Aesop. While there can be some crossover, Broken Aesops are lessons undermined by the action within the show (e.g., "Be nice to people who are different from you. Now, let's go back to fighting monsters!"). " This is what you're doing right now. You're confusing Clueless Aesop with Broken Aesop. Literally everything you've said points to Clueless Aesop, and yet you use these arguments to fit this into Broken Aesop and when i ask you to point me one specific action, not just a set-up, that would break the aesop you fail to. I'll use comparison to very good example of Broken Aesop: The Lion King. Aesop is about confronting one's past and not letting it define you but it's contradicted when Simba returns to priderock and he has absolutely no support because of his past. We have clear action within the show that contradicts the message: other lions refuse to show him support. In the story in question there is no such action, only set-up. I'm not saying the aesop was handled well, only that when in "freedom vs food" conflict you find your self asking "what freedom? Dog has all the freedom he wants" it's Not That Trope.

I think it's broken, but for a different reason. The wolf doesn't choose anything, he's dying before the dog ever meets him. Yeah, he goes off into the woods knowing that he'll die, but not because he thinks he's too cool for a day job. His reasoning is that he's a starving wolf, and if he sets foot on the dog's farm he's not going to wait patiently for his supper, he's going to help himself to those tasty-ass sheep.

It's broken because he's a wolf and he knows where there's a farm being guarded by a dog so stupid he'll literally invite a wolf onto the property for supper. Wolf-homie didn't have to be a slave to get food, he had to be a slave to be given food, there's a difference.

It means that the breaking of the Aesop is unintentional, not the presence of the Aesop in the work.

An intentional broken aesop is like the one in Wizards where the wizard just shoots the villain dead with a gun after the entire movie condemning the villain's technology and favoring the wizards' natural magic. It sets up a message of tech bad, nature good and then solves the problem with technology because that's the point: the wizard at the end is wise enough to understand that neither one is inherently good or bad and it's up to the individual to decide which is better suited to the situation.

You can tell if an Aesop is intentionally broken or not rather easily: if the work presents other elements in the story that contradict its moral stance, but doesn't acknowledge it, it's most likely unintentional. For instance, from the Video Games page, A Boy and His Blob has an anti-junkfood message, but all the problems in the game are solved by feeding candy to the titular Blob and extra lives are peppermint candies for the Boy. That is an unintentional breaking of the Aesop because the game says candy is bad for you but then makes candy an objectively good thing for the player to seek out and obtain.

This article doesn't need a purge, you just need to re-examine what the word intent means.

I removed the Grinch example that was up because, again, it was not a Broken Aesop. It stated that the Aesop came off as something else than what was intended, which is different from directly going against its intended Aesop, which the film did not (it just applied said Aesop to both the Grinch and the Whos rather than just to the Grinch.)

I'm not sure if there is anything YMMV about it other than there being Aesop itself(sometimes). While this trope cannot be played intentionally all the aspects are within the show, not in the opinion, all you need is An Aesop and an action that contradicts the Aesop.

Part of the problem I see is that people tend to have very different ideas on what the Aesop is, or how central it should be to the work. In many cases, tropers seem to bring up what they assume is the aesop (regardless of whether it's necessarily intentional or central to the work), and then one or two examples that don't quite fit. I've found that a lot of the examples read like someone's opinion, so either they should be removed or this should be designated as a YMMV trope.

quoting fighteer in the discussion in Ask The Tropers about An Aesop being in Omnipresent Tropes: "The concept behind designating something as an omnipresent trope is that it's so much a part of the medium/genre that listing straight examples is superfluous and uninteresting. The Hero is one such. The Hero: Bob. No useful information is conveyed that cannot be handled by potholing Bob to The Hero in the description of the work. Central Theme might be considered omnipresent by this definition. An Aesop is not, because it is always valuable to state what that Aesop is. "

Suzaku, Schneizel, Charles, and Diethard are all true, especially the latter two, who were either erased from existence or died. I was not referring to them, because they paid for their sins. Cornelia's loss of Euphie, however, does not begin to make up for the blood she has on her hands, between the Saitama Ghetto citizens and the establishment of Area 18, not to mention whatever must have happened prior to the series to establish her role as Witch of Britannia. And yet she's seen at the end as one of the people happily living after in the peaceful world. More to the point, she was no longer a villain, yet hadn't taken sufficient action to atone for her violent and racist past. She had only stepped up against Schneizel because he was going too far. And Guilford? He wasn't exactly a saint himself, and Lelouch also had people who would have preferred that he live.

For Lelouch to truly atone would be to live on as a good leader. As demon emperor, he caused more deaths than he did during the rebellion, a lot of which were unavoidable due to the scope of the enemy. He did it because he felt he had nothing more to live for with the Black Knights turned against him and Nunnally apparently dead. To say that the Zero Requiem is atonement is in itself a broken aesop, and could very well be added here.

That's Karma Houdini. No aesop here, just Lelouch's code of honor. Since when did the anti-heroes/protagonist villains deliver aesops? Well Intentioned however he may be, the show's creators have made it clear that they certainly don't consider Lelouch someone we should take lessons in ethics from.
Is that an Ad hominem argument? I don't know.
I'll tell you why "only those should kill who are prepared to be killed" (henceforth referred to as Lelouch's doctrine) isn't an aesop: Because it doesn't act like an aesop. It demonstrates only that Lelouch is an Übermensch and that he will die in the end:
People are not "punished" for not having made their peace with death when they lie dying in their blood - it's a little late for that.
People are not punished for killing others, they are punished for being too weak or unlucky, much like in real war. Cornelia certainly isn't the only Karma Houdini here - Kallen springs to mind as just one of many sympathetic mass murderers in this show. And don't tell me they are "punished with the grief of losing a loved one": You can't punish someone guilty by hurting someone innocent that they happen to care about, not even as a writer. I hope I won't have to explain why.
People are not rewarded for not killing others, just ask Shirley.
Are people punished for not realising the consequences of killing others (as Gamer2002 suggested Lelouch's doctrine was about)? None of the main cast are stupid enough to think it's perfectly okay to kill even for a good cause. Kallen and Lelouch can hardly be faulted for feeling terrible with having killed the father of someone close to them, and yet they still both decide to fight on and kill more fathers.
Q.E.D.

The only people Kallen killed on purpose were war criminals who would have killed her otherwise. How is she a Karma Houdini for that? She no doubt saved more lives than she killed in doing so.

The fact that Zero says "the only ones who should kill are those who are prepared to be killed" does not mean that the show's Aesop is that everyone who kills will end up being killed. (If that was the Aesop, they could've just quoted the Bible and said "them that take the sword shall perish by the sword," although that one probably wasn't intended to convey that every single person who uses violence will end up being killed by it either.) It's more like "if it's worth killing for, it's worth dying for" or "don't be both a killer and a coward" or "be warned that if you kill people you are putting your own safety in danger."

People like Cornelia were certainly willing to risk being killed, it just didn't happen. She was prepared to be killed, but through luck, skill, Plot Armor, etc. it didn't happen. This almost certainly applies to Ohgi and probably to Viletta as well. In fact, a majority of the killers in the show are willing to put their life on the line, so a majority of them pass this particular statement by Zero.

Hell, if you wanted to give an example of someone who killed without being willing to risk being killed, Clovis and V.V. and the High Eunuchs and Charles and Nunnally would be better examples. Of course, since at least one of those people is a possible contender for the title of Big Bad, it hardly breaks the (alleged) Aesop to have them violate it.

It wasn't just about the wording of the aesop itself, but also the application, where it was being used to justify Lelouch being killed, yet the same does not apply to the others.

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Death Note breaks it's aesop that killing criminals is the right thing to do whenKira gets killed for doing it . If protagonist covers fifty shades of morally grey area what the hell makes you think he was ever intended as an example to follow? The story cannot break this aesop since it was never An Aesop to begin with. You just claim it was aesop so you can bash the disliked show by claiming it breaks it. Seeing earlier post you don't even seem to be sure what was supposed to be An Aesop in the first place. First you claim that asop "those who kill should be prepared to be killed" because some people survived when they killed before, then you claim that Lelouch should have lived and tried to make world a better place instead of dying so the guys who kill should or shouldn't die? Once you think about coherent way of presenting Aesop to break we can discuss if it was an aesop at all, and if so if it was actually broken. Right now the only thing in Code Geass that i can consider An Aesop is "Think before you say something dumb". I'm throwing the example out until we come to some sort of agreement.

I was referring to the aesop of accepting consequences alluded to by the "Those Who Kill Should Be Prepared To Be Killed" line.

How is that An Aesop in the first place? to qualify as An Aesop the story must be attempting to teach it, personal code of honor of a character that is morally fifty shades of gray clearly isn't it. What else is supposed to be aesop here?siblings are more important than thousands of other people that trust you with their lives? It's okay to decieve others as long as it's for greater good? You can murder anyone on cold blood if you think his bad guy? There is also a case that the way you word the breaking of said aesop it seems to mean "criminals should be punished" as its supposedly broken by those who took life being unpunished, i don't see any example of a person being unwilling to risk life to take it and story being okay with it. If you claim that the Aesop is "Those Who Kill Should Be Prepared To Be Killed" then being Karma Houdini alone doesn't break it. And be so kind and wait with bringing until after we've reached an agreement.

They don't suffer any karmic consequences (still alive, not charged with war crimes, living reasonably happy lives).

The line is all but turned into an aesop by the fact that it's replayed right before Lelouch is given the fatal stabbing as part of the Zero Requiem. That he alone suffers this for what he has caused while the others, many of whom were worse, live instead, constitutes a contradiction of said aesop.

And "be so kind and wait" sounds a little pernicious.

Repeat of said line only signifies that Lelouch folowed his personal code of honor to the very end. But okay let's assume you're right and it is indeed An Aesop. My question is: What were they supposed to suffer karmic consequences for? For evil they did, or for going against the Aesop? It it's the first one then it's Karma Houdini, no need to bring any aesops into this. If it's for breaking An Aesop... then sorry to dissapoint you but your favourite example, Cornelia followed the Aesop just like Lelouch did. She fought on the front lines risking her life alongside her soldiers, knowing perfectly well that casualties will be on both sides and that she might die as well. She straight-up said that on the battlefield soldier risks his life to take life, exacly what you're accusing her of breaking. Charles and Clovis did avoid the Aesop, staying far away while sending soldiers to die and to kill, while staying safely in the back, without will to personally go to war, so war came to them and Zero killed them. If you still insist that An Aesop is Broken then point me person who was willing to take lives without expecting any risks and the story being ok with it.

Also you seem to be under wrong impression that Zero Requiem was form of Laser-Guided Karma for Lelouch. No, it wasn't, it was Thanatos Gambit he planned. It wasn't supposed to punish him, it was supposed to fulfill the goal he set his eyes on.

Moreover, has it ever occurred to any of us that some of these broken aesops might accidental?

It all depends on how specific story presents it. It's definitely not family-unfriendly(in my opinion, family-unfriendly aesops are exteremely subjective) since "accept those who are different" if not taken to extremes is perfectly nice aesop in it's own right. whether it's broken or clueless depends on a story. In your exaple if the story is like "accept the different because their difference might be advantagous" and doesn't touch any other differences then it's clueless, but if in addition someone is different without having those advantages and it's ok being dick to him it's broken.

I thought that someone put that in as a joke

I believe this trope is a real trope. While I don't watch My Little Pony, I can imagine any show that draws so many opinionated viewers would cause differences of opinion.

But a true Broken Aesop is an absolute case.; it just often gets confused with things like similar, not-quite tropes such as Moral Dissonance or Sweet and Sour Grapes. You'll have to break it down to the bare facts; what the episode was supposed to teach and if the characters actions follow that moral correctly.

Where's the issues?

Well, somehow, I just don't feel that any of the MLP entries are eligible to be Broken Aesops, except for the Mare Do Well one. Apparently, somebody on here has been foolish enough (no offense) to think anything was done to even break them. If you watch the episodes carefully enough, you'll see that no actions that were pulled in them explicitly broke the Aesop, especially since they still managed to get their points across in the end, even if any Accidental Aesops or Double Aesops were involved. I say that, except for the Mare Do Well one, they should be removed.

I expect a lot has been happening since this disucssion, but I'll note I removed the following ones:

• "Bats!" has a famously broken Green Aesop, in that Fluttershy's proposed (and eventually agreed upon) "solution" to the infestation of vampire fruit bats actually solves nothing. The vampire fruit bats would continue to eat too many apples and ruin the ones that they don't eat. Keeping them in one place just makes things worse for Sweet Apple Acres, as the vampire bats would be forced to stay until they ruined the entire farm and then either left or starved. The promised long term benefit to the Apples would be unlikely to pan out, either, as they already have more apples than they can deal with, and already survived a vampire fruit bat attack, meaning that they're using trees grown from enhanced seeds.

The episode's aesop is not ecological advice, there are two of them about tolerating those with different needs and not agreeing to things you feel comfortable about.

• "Games Ponies Play" has the team traveling to the Crystal Empire and setting up festivities to impress a games inspector so she'll decide to let the empire host the ponies' version of the Olympics. They end up getting the wrong person, while the actual inspector has a terrible time. At the end, the two meet and the pony mistaken for the inspector talks about how amazing the empire is. The inspector decides that the empire will host the games, because every other place she visited went out of their way to impress her, while she was told of how great the empire was from a regular pony. The problem is, the only reason the other pony has such a glowing impression of the empire is because she experienced all of the things they had been planning to do for the inspector, undercutting any message about being sincere.

What message? There just isn't one. I don't remember there being any aesop in this episode (even though it's supposed to be Once per Episode), and a quick peek at the ending seems to confirm this.

More generally, I've previously noticed people shoehorning tropes to MLP:FIM right and left, and this trope is also of course a magnet for complaining about plots you don't like. I keep seeing that on other pages as well. Adaptation Decay doesn't even mean a bad adaptation, but people keep using it to complain about things because they want to do that in general. And the complainy examples always tend to be wrong because almost all tropes are meant to be value neutral and based on matching a definition or at least archetype.

So yes, the trope is not subjective. It just acts as a trap for people not thinking logically.

I guess that the problem with the trope is that despite not being subjective, this is considered tropeworthy by a similar reason than Game-Breaking Bug is: because this is a notable "error" or "bug" in the narrative.

No he didn't know that, but he should have. A little research could have gone a long way. And again, treating her like she's crazy doesn't have any basis in the film, every kid has an imagination, and neither does making fun of Robb's appearance. It wasn't there to make fun of the film or her performance, it was just being a dick that he even lampshaded the next review.

If the fact that she was real was not mentioned in the review, this not qualifies this as a meta-example(and not qualifies as Broken Aesop in the process)?

Its not a matter of if he had any basis or if it was 'nice', its a matter of it breaking the previous message about treating real life events with respect, which it didn't because he didn't present a real event or person in any manner that wasn't accurate. He made fun of a film for its portrayal and presentation of someone he didn't know was inspired by a real person, that's a lot different than falsely representing a real event.

He's still a complete hypocrite. In his review of "Patch Adams" he's angry that Patch is depicted as stealing from a hospital and practices medicine without a license, when the real Patch didn't do that. He was the one who would be a serial killer, not someone who has an OVER ACTIVE IMAGINATION. Plus, he says the kid who makes fun of Leslie deserves to be punched. He said she would GROW UP TO BE A SERIAL KILLER. The Westboro Baptist Church wouldn't do that! The Critic is the one who needs to grow up and be an adult and care about how real life people are being represented.

Also, saying a man in the military couldn't swim in "Pearl Harbor" (which as this wiki pointed out is false) is nowhere near as bad as presenting someone as a serial killer. This is infinitely worse than when he made fun of Mako. He said, "Reaping's coming for ya, bitches!". That's because it was something that was REAL. He doesn't live in the real world and is just as bit of a monster as Michael Bay.

You want to go and personally ask Doug Walker about this? You think the real life person Jess was based on would like the notion that his friend would have grown up to be a serial killer had she not been STRUCK BY LIGHTNING? I don't even think conspiracy theorists. He says in his review of Pearl Harbor that if it's based on a true story, YOU HAVE TO GET IT RIGHT. YOU HAVE TO KNOW THE REAL STORY BEHIND IT. Look, there's already the fact that he hates both MLP and Pokémon, which have more results on Deviantart than GOD. The fact that he's mocked the two most loved things in fiction, but then goes on to make fun of ACTUAL EVENTS is beyond nihilistic.

This movie has a higher rating than Avatar on Rotten Tomatoes. You know, the movie that people WISHED WAS REAL? It has a higher rating than Sonic The Hedgehog Satam which he mentioned in his Princess Hate editorial. It's better than a show he cried tears of joy over and he says it's HORRIBLE?! And don't tell me the IM Db isn't a reliable place. I remember someone saying, "Remember those guys who gave T Wilight four stars before the thing came out?". The answer is, no, I don't. It had a rating of 6.2 the highest I ever saw it.

His review was one of the most hateful things I've ever seen in my entire life. The movie actually DOWNPLAYED her life as she was struck by lightning. He said "Woah, a woman was murdered? I don't know if I can even make a joke about that" in Patch Adams. But he can call an innocent girl a serial killer. Patch Adams and Pearl Harbor deserve the Nobel Prize compared to the atrocities he's committed. He mentions the Sandlot as being better which has a rating of 63%!

Remember his review of Signs where he was like "I'm sorry, people!" and "Remind me again why people liked this movie?". You have a movie that's ten percent higher (Signs has 74%) than that. Why don't we go and contact Doug Walker and ask him what he thinks of this? Seriously, contact him and ask him about this. Even if he has to say the same thing about Mako, "I can't hate someone I don't know", he deserves to apologize and I will lose faith in this website if it is not put up. I have never heard of any review more hateful in MY WHOLE LIFE.

This entire website is hypocritical. Remember the Cori Falls page and the rant "according to her, mentally ill people are blights upon society that deserve to be mocked". He thinks people with over active imaginations deserve to be mocked and is every bit as sadistic as Cori Falls, if not more. At least Cori's fics weren't BASED ON REAL PEOPLE. Every single entry on Cori Falls page talks about how awful she is for making fun of fat and retarded people. The Critic is not better at all. If you ask why someone would like Cori, just say that she makes fun of people in real life, albeit indirectly, just as the Critic does. Jessie and James' grandparents beat up Ash and are praised for it? This is the website that depicts an innocent girl as a serial killer and gets away with it. CORI FALLS wouldn't do that.

Ericho, I agree that the Terabithia review was nasty, but you should really calm down a bit. Giant rants on how he/this site sucks helps nobody.

I can only chime in on the Shortpacked one, but that would count because while it does get lampshaded for comedy, it's also treated as a proper aesop. As in "Ha ha, yes it's funny that Willis is a member of a fandom... but seriously, knock it off, fandoms."

What specific example are you thinking of?

20 episodes is a long enough time for characters to undergo development and change their attitudes on some things, or for the the show's audience to (mostly) forget earlier details. My understanding of the "broken aesop" was supposed to be a vary heavy-handed version of "do as I say not as I do...because what I do is awesome...and that's terrible". In other words, the trope comes from the apparently conflicting messages in the story.

So I would say that it probably depends on how strongly the original aesop was still in effect; hence why I asked what show you where thinking of.

This: "On "Hearts and Hooves Day", the Cutie Mark Cruisaders are shown to be in the wrong when they use a love potion to ship Big Macintosh and Cherilee. In "A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1", Princess Cadence was shown making two ponies that were breaking up love each other again in a flashback, with no implication about there being anything wrong with this."

And this: "The lesson in Return Of Harmony Part 2 is kind of undercut by a previous episode. It says that friendship isn't always easy, but it's worth fighting for. And yet, Twilight was all for Rainbow Dash severing ties with Gilda in Griffon The Brush Off. Sure, Gilda's behavior was quite bad, but isn't friendship worth fighting for?"

(For the record, that's 8 and 23 episodes in between, respectively.) The point isn't about the characters changing so much as the cross-referencing of every unrelated episode to find contradictions.

The examples for this show have other problems too. I think I'll delete some for other reasons outright.

These have other problems too: The Cutie Mark Crusaders were playing matchmaker, not patching an existing relationship originally entered by choice; and just because the word "always" was used doesn't mean you have to take it so absolutely literally that there can't be exceptions, like if your friend turns out to be a jerk and is making you make a choice between that friendship and others.

Okay, I've just convinced myself to delete them anyway, but I'm still interested in the question about what the effect of the distance between episodes is.

I'm all for cleaning up certain pages, but I'm not familiar with the MLP stories, so I'll leave the specifics to other people. What you describe does sound reasonable though, less "broken aesop" and more "poorly delivered aesop", perhaps.

A broken aesop, as I understand it, should very obviously be the show or book or its characters delivering a message supporting one lesson, while AT THE SAME TIME either doing the opposite or inadvertantly proving their own message false. i.e. The GI Joes spend an entire episode fighting COBRA with guns and tanks and missiles, then stop to deliver an anti-violence message.

I would say that for a show as episodic as the one in question, different episodes should be considered entirely different strories, which makes this much more a case of Aesop Amnesia. It IS (theoretically) a children's show, afterall, and there is going to be some stuff just done for comedy or background action that the writers wheren't anticipating being disected season-by-season by adults.

Yes, these too.

• On "Hearts and Hooves Day", the Cutie Mark Cruisaders are shown to be in the wrong when they use a love potion to ship Big Macintosh and Cherilee. In "A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1", Princess Cadence was shown making two ponies that were breaking up love each other again in a flashback, with no implication about there being anything wrong with this.
  • The argument was about getting a hooficure (Ponies version of a manicure) not breaking up, thought the Aesop is still broken when Cadence puts feuding couples in a romantic psychosis rather than having them solve their own problems or giving advice that would strengthen their relationship and communication skills.

There's a difference between playing matchmaker behind someone's back and fixing an existing relationship (doesn't make the latter a good thing, but it's different all the same), and besides, these episodes were third a season apart. As for the (incorrectly formatted) third bullet point, the argument there proves it a Family-Unfriendly Aesop or something — bad in itself, not contradicting something else — except for the part that it's not the episode's aesop.

• The lesson in Return Of Harmony Part 2 is kind of undercut by a previous episode. It says that friendship isn't always easy, but it's worth fighting for. And yet, Twilight was all for Rainbow Dash severing ties with Gilda in Griffon The Brush Off. Sure, Gilda's behavior was quite bad, but isn't friendship worth fighting for?

That was in the previous season, twenty-three episodes before. And, though this is a weak argument, it was before they ostensibly learnt this lesson. But most importantly, when they said "always worth fighting for," is it really reasonable to take the "always" so literally as to mean "even if your friend turns out to be a jerk and refuses to treat your other friends decently, so that you have to choose your loyalties"? What was actually shown in "The Return of Harmony" was really external hardship, after all, since the characters being jerks were extremely far from being themselves. (I do also think that aesop was kind of tacked on and the story was really just about fighting an awesome villain, but that doesn't automatically qualify it for this trope either.)

Here are the edits that are in dispute.

• Mass Effect 3: The options that the Crucible presents.

  • Controlling the Reapers is presented as an option, despite it being made abundantly clear throughout the entire game*
    Literally right up until this option is presented, even.
    that controlling the Reapers is impossible, and will always, without exception, end in indoctrination.
  • Synthesis is presented as the “final evolution of life”. It involves rewriting everyone’s DNA into a homogenized, organic/mechanical hybrid DNA. This is done without the galaxy’s consent, and completely disregards the omnipresent themes of Free Will, Diversity and the balance of Culture and Technology.

  • Your Mileage Mary Vary on this one. This troper disputes whether this is a Broken Aesop. It would be were the Aesop "don't make fun of people's beliefs" or "don't pick on people who consider themselves part of a religion", but my impression is that the Aesop was "don't think irrationally", in which case one can laud atheism and mock irrational thinking, without hypocrisy.

Fighteer had suggested they can be rewritten. I don't claim to be the font of all knowledge on the series but the topics raised are something I know a little about so this might work.

• Mass Effect 3: The options that the Crucible presents.

  • Controlling the Reapers is presented as an option. Throughout the series we have had several attempts to do so (from Saren and The Illusive Man to the attempts in Overlord with the Geth and Arrival with a Prothean artifact.) Three of the four resulted in indoctrination and the fourth; trying to communicate with the Geth, resulted in a duel Even Evil Has StandardsComplete Monster moment that decidedly showed the mere act of control not worth it.

  • Synthesis is presented as the “final evolution of life”. It involves rewriting everyone’s DNA into a homogenized, organic/mechanical hybrid DNA. This is done without the galaxy’s consent, and completely disregards the omnipresent themes of Free Will, Diversity and the balance of Culture and Technology.

I deleted the YMMV entry because it was YMMV and used This Troper, and I'll quote a section of it just here.

It would be were the Aesop "don't make fun of people's beliefs" or "don't pick on people who consider themselves part of a religion", but my impression is that the Aesop was "don't think irrationally", in which case one can laud atheism and mock irrational thinking, without hypocrisy.

Religion has nothing to do with the endings. One could argue that Legion and the Geth for example is tenement to religion however that is in siding with the old machines rather than choosing whether forced evolution is a more rational choice than controlling the Reapers, destroying them, or simply letting them win. Such a choice does not come across as religious or a case for atheism and rational thinking.

I deleted that entry because, first of all, it isn't shown that controlling Reapers is impossible. Wasn't the Illusive Man was the first one to try?

The synthesis option has a lot of room for interpretation and the entry was assuming facts that just aren't there. How literal or metaphorical is the Catalyst when he claims the DNA of organics and synthetics are combined? How does synthesis affect free will, diversity, culture, and new life? Is the whole thing just a load of garbage from the Catalyst to goad Shepard into screwing humanity over? Well, we don't know. We have no clue. So the entry shouldn't claim to know about how this works out.

@ tsstevens: I agree about deleting the YMMV entry.

Arrival and Project Overlord had nothing to do with controlling the Reapers, so I don't think it should mention those. Saren wasn't trying to control them either, he was actually trying to achieve synthesis.

@ David7204: Attempting to control the Reapers and winding up indoctrinated is actually a very prominent plot point. It happens to TIM, it happens to the Batarians, and it happened to the Protheans. The Prothean VI mentions that it happens in every cycle. There's also the fact that every single time someone tries to study any Reaper tech, they always wind up either indoctrinated or turned into husks. This extends into the novels as well, particularly Retribution.

And I fail to see how there's any room for interpretation in synthesis. There's nothing metaphorical about it, we see it happen: Joker, the formerly organic squad-mates, and even the plant life all have circuitry all over them in that ending.

• It affects free will because it is forced upon the galaxy without even so much as an announcement that it's going to happen.
• It affects diversity because everything is now homogenized into this new hybrid DNA.
• It affects the balance of culture and technology because Mordin made it very clear in Mass Effect 2 that instant technological advancement always leads to disaster. If synthesis is the final evolution of life, then it needs to happen gradually, not instantaneously.

"Is the whole thing just a load of garbage from the Catalyst to goad Shepard into screwing humanity over?"

That's speculation, and belongs on a WMG page or Alternate Character Interpretation entry.

"Well, we don't know. We have no clue. So the entry shouldn't claim to know about how this works out."

This entry is using the information given in the game, taking it at face value, and nothing else. Just like every other entry on this page.

Even if that was true, how is it an Aesop? Neither Control or Synthesis are presented as particularly better than Destroy.

With Overlord, Gavin Archer was trying to communicate with and control the Geth. In doing so he crossed the Moral Event Horizon so badly there is no sympathy for his actions, none. It could be argued that as an argument against control it works well.

Or let's take a couple of other Complete Monster types. Morinth is all about control and domination of her prey, a case against control if ever there was one. And Ronald Taylor took command, forced his crew to eat poisoned food, exiled and killed the men and made the women sex slaves. Even Legion anticipates him being torn apart if you choose to abandon him.

So if we were to go down the road of control is bad then control as a potential ending could be a Broken Aesop. It could place Shepard in a And I Must Scream situation, like David, or it might make Shepard just as bad as a space vampire or Wesley from Island.

None of those are 'control is bad' Aesops. If we're going to interpret that controlling in general is bad, we need to decide if that's because controlling is inherently wrong, or if it's because of the methods people use for control.

Archer wasn't bad because he tried to control the geth. He was bad because of what he did to his brother to do it. Likewise, Shepard is opposed to the Illusive Man because he's fighting the Alliance, killing civilians, and interfering with the Crucible, not because controlling the Reapers is inherently immoral or doomed to fail. Let's remember that overwriting the geth instead of destroying them is ultimately the good option.

Neither Morinth nor Taylor are examples. Just because Taylor is a bad guy who happens to be controlling doesn't say anything about the nature of controlling itself. You can't look at a bad leader and say 'control is bad' and then look at a good leader and say 'control is good.' It's the leader who makes the difference, not the inherent act of leadership. Likewise for Morinth. She's evil because she kills people, not because she seduces them.

"Even if that was true, how is it an Aesop?"

The Broken Aesop comes from everything preceding it (synthetic life is not inherently evil; control is bad; synthesis is an abomination), then completely contradicting it at the end (synthetic life is inherently evil; control is totally fine; synthesis is the best thing that could ever happen).

"Neither Control or Synthesis are presented as particularly better than Destroy."

Wrong. Control and Synthesis are presented in a better light than Destroy:

• Like I said, The Catalyst reprimands Shepard for choosing Destroy, saying it's ultimately pointless and harmful in the long run.
• He doesn't say anything about Control, outside of presenting it as a option.
• He calls Synthesis the "final evolution of life", saying it's better for everyone in the long run and needs to happen to end the cycle of destruction.

"It could be argued that as an argument against control it works well."

Works as an argument against synthesis as well, what with the VI/human interface thing.

"If we're going to interpret that controlling in general is bad, we need to decide if that's because controlling is inherently wrong,"

I fail to see how robbing someone of their free will can ever be a good thing.

No, really, how is that a good thing?

"Likewise, Shepard is opposed to the Illusive Man because he's fighting the Alliance, killing civilians, and interfering with the Crucible..."

Shepard's also disgusted at what TIM's subjected his soldiers too: willful indoctrination to gain complete control over them. And the whole Sanctuary debacle, an even bigger example of how horrible control and synthesis are.

"not because controlling the Reapers is inherently immoral or doomed to fail."

It is doomed to fail. Every single time someone tries it they wind up indoctrinated. Every. Single. Time. There are no exceptions.

Come to think of it, Indoctrination is the prime example of "control is bad". No one is being tortured or killed, it just happens by being in close proximity to a Reaper. Even a dead Reaper. Try and find the good in that.

"Let's remember that overwriting the geth instead of destroying them is ultimately the good option. "

The only thing that makes rewriting the Geth the "good" choice is that you get Paragon points. Some of your other squadmates yell at you for this choice, especially Jack. Rewriting the heretics also makes it harder to achieve peace between the Quarians and the Geth.

Pretty much the entire Geth subplot is all about the Geth just wanting to live their own life, no longer slaves to the Quarians. This goes across all three games: it's briefly implied in Mass Effect 1, outright demonstrated in Mass Effect 2, and comes to a conclusion in Mass Effect 3, where the Geth are undeniably presented in a more sympathetic light than the Quarians.

Remember what Legion said: "All species should self-determinate."

"You can't look at a bad leader and say 'control is bad' and then look at a good leader and say 'control is good.' It's the leader who makes the difference, not the inherent act of leadership."

Leadership is not the same as completely controlling a person. Not even remotely close.

"Likewise for Morinth. She's evil because she kills people, not because she seduces them."

She kills people by seducing them.

"synthetic life is inherently evil; control is totally fine; synthesis is the best thing that could ever happen"

That's your interpretations of the endings. Nothing about the ending gave me the impression that the game was trying to say that synthetics are evil. Regardless, neither of these are technically an Aesop because it is up to the player to decide which choice they prefer.

One could possibly interpret Destroy as "victory through sacrifice", a very prominent theme in ME3.

"I fail to see how robbing someone of their free will can ever be a good thing. No, really, how is that a good thing?"

Putting away people who have no qualms about harming or killing others?

It's exactly the same idea as jail. Taking away the free will of those who would use it to destroy and kill.

"Control and Synthesis are presented in a better light than Destroy:"

That's merely the Catalyst's opinion. The Catalyst is a sentient being with its own beliefs and morals. You aren't obligated in any way to agree with the Catalyst's opinion.

"Shepard's also disgusted at what TIM's subjected his soldiers too: willful indoctrination to gain complete control over them. And the whole Sanctuary debacle, an even bigger example of how horrible control and synthesis are."

The Illusive Man took innocent people and his own men and forcibly controlled them so that they would cause destruction on his behalf. Shepard taking control of the Reapers in order to stop their cycle of destruction is a completely different thing.

"It is doomed to fail. Every single time someone tries it they wind up indoctrinated. Every. Single. Time. There are no exceptions."

Can you provide a case where someone who used the Crucible to take control of the Reapers ended up indoctrinated?

It's hard to argue that something that's never been done before will have the same result as something different that's been done before.

The Catalyst is not a narrator. Just because he says something does not make it Word of God. Doesn't Shepard surviving Destroy prove that he isn't accurate?

And the geth fleet is stronger if you rewrite the heretics instead of destroy them.

"That's your interpretations of the endings. Nothing about the ending gave me the impression that the game was trying to say that synthetics are evil."

Inherently evil is the wrong term, I was just paraphrasing. What I meant was that the whole series shows that synthetics will not inevitably destroy their creators, then the ending suddenly saying "Yes, they will. No, the Geth and EDI don't count for anything."

"Regardless, neither of these are technically an Aesop because it is up to the player to decide which choice they prefer."

Each choice is broken in its own way, choosing which one you like best doesn't change that.

"One could possibly interpret Destroy as "victory through sacrifice", a very prominent theme in ME3."

True, but it does render Legion's sacrifice entirely pointless. Might as well have just killed the Geth back on Rannoch.

"Putting away people who have no qualms about harming or killing others? It's exactly the same idea as jail. Taking away the free will of those who would use it to destroy and kill."

Putting someone in a cell, and literally destroying their free will are not the same. And you're forgetting those that choose to atone for their crimes after they've served their sentence, which they can't do without free will. Redemption is another important theme in the series.

These are Shepard's final words to Saren in the Paragon path: "It's not over yet, you can still redeem yourself." Which Saren does by choosing to kill himself rather than letting Sovereign take control of him.

"That's merely the Catalyst's opinion. The Catalyst is a sentient being with its own beliefs and morals. You aren't obligated in any way to agree with the Catalyst's opinion."

"The Catalyst is not a narrator. Just because he says something does not make it Word of God."

This is the only context given for the scene. Even if the player themselves disagree with the Catalyst, at no point are you allowed to argue with him, you still have to choose one of his woefully misguided solutions.

"The Illusive Man took innocent people and his own men and forcibly controlled them so that they would cause destruction on his behalf. Shepard taking control of the Reapers in order to stop their cycle of destruction is a completely different thing."

It's still the death of free will.

"Every sapient being has the right to make their own decisions. The heretics chose a path that prohibits coexistence." That applies to the Reapers just as much as it does the heretic Geth.

"Can you provide a case where someone who used the Crucible to take control of the Reapers ended up indoctrinated? It's hard to argue that something that's never been done before will have the same result as something different that's been done before."

I've already said how this entry is taking the info given in the game at face value, and there is nothing in the game to suggest that the Crucible is anything special or different. It's still made with Reaper tech, and requires Reaper tech to activate it.

"Doesn't Shepard surviving Destroy prove that he isn't accurate?"

About what?

"And the geth fleet is stronger if you rewrite the heretics instead of destroy them. "

Yeah, that's because there's more of them, doesn't really mean anything one way or another. The Quarian fleet is also decimated if you rewrite the heretics.

The Catalyst heavily implies Shepard will die if s/he picks Destroy. So if Shepard survives, the Catalyst can't be completely right.

Yeah, and apparently EDI can also survive the destroy option.

The point is that not liking the way the ending is presented does not make it a Broken Aesop. People need to stop shoehorning their dislike of this game into every single negative or perceived negative trope on the wiki.

It only counts as a Broken Aesop if the intent was to present An Aesop in the first place, and that is never ambiguous.

"People need to stop shoehorning their dislike of this game into every single negative or perceived negative trope on the wiki. "

I haven't shoehorned anything into random negative tropes because I dislike Mass Effect 3.*

If other people have been annoying and edit warring over ME3, than I'm sorry. But that shouldn't lead to legitimate criticism being deleted. These contradictions exist, plain and simple, you only need to pay attention to what preceded the ending to see that.

And by the way, I love Mass Effect 3, it's a fantastic game. The ending doesn't ruin that.

"It only counts as a Broken Aesop if the intent was to present An Aesop in the first place."

You're right in that the ending alone is not presented as an Aesop, but taking into account the many, many Aesops that precede it, the ending completely disregards them. That's where the Broken Aesop comes from.

Look, let's start from scratch. What, precisely, is the Aesop or Aesops that the ending presents to the player?

Personally, I'd say that the ending doesn't actually give an aesop. Some would argue that the Catalyst is telling the aesop, but there's nothing that gives any reason for the player to feel that it is right or that they're meant to agree with it.

I also feel that the endings don't break the other aesops of the game, as different people have many different interpretations of each ending and you're never obligated to have Shepard follow possible aesops that the games present.

@tsstevens 1. My Your Mileage May Vary entry was in reference to Family Guy's "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven" episode, not the show you seem to think it was about. 2. If there's something wrong with the "this troper" format, where can I find an explanation of what it is, please?

Well, you shouldn't use first person in general.

The case can be made that "this troper" means "the troper who said this" and is thus third person.

There's a few reasons why 'this troper' is bad. First of all, it focuses the reader's attention on a person instead of the information itself. Secondly, it interferes with consistency. We try to make pages look like they were written by a single person, and 'this troper' upsets that. Thirdly, it makes it sounds like the entry is unsure, and is trying to justify or apologize for itself.

The page This Troper (it exists, just click it despite the redlink) makes it pretty clear that it's not to be used. One redirect is First Person. Articles are meant to read as if written continuously by one person, and having "this troper" or "I" interrupts that.

"Look, let's start from scratch. What, precisely, is the Aesop or Aesops that the ending presents to the player?"

The Catalyst makes it pretty clear that synthetics are the reason the Reapers exist, due to their 'nature of inevitably destroying their creators'. Dangers of Artificial Intelligence, of creating life, are pretty common tropes in the more pessimistic/anvilicious sci-fi.

"Some would argue that the Catalyst is telling the aesop, but there's nothing that gives any reason for the player to feel that it is right or that they're meant to agree with it."

If it were possible to argue with the Catalyst, or not choose one of his "solutions", then I'd agree. However that's not the case; you have to agree with him on some level. The fact that Shepard just blindly accepts everything The Catalyst says confirms this.

"You're never obligated to have Shepard follow possible aesops that the games present. "

True for some, but for those that do follow those Aesops? Are us Paragon players just out of luck?

The Catalyst pushes that the cycle and Reapers are a necessity, and that war between synthetics and organics is inevitable.

Choosing Destroy ends the cycle, destroys the Reapers, and presumably ends with Shepard and the player putting faith in future generations not to destroy themselves. It also presumably kills the Catalyst.

How is that not disagreeing with the Catalyst?

The Catalyst believes that synthetics would wipe out all organics. Its belief motivated it to create the Reapers, but that does not mean that the Catalyst is meant to be portrayed as "right" in any way.

"If it were possible to argue with the Catalyst, or not choose one of his 'solutions', then I'd agree."

Destroy and Control are not the Catalyst's solutions. Vendetta establishes that the Crucible was meant to destroy the Reapers, but also states that some Protheans felt that they could use the Crucible to control the Reapers. The Illusive Man also seeks to find a way to control the Reapers using the Crucible. Destroy and Control are not the Catalyst's solutions; it merely tells you that those are possible options you may choose. The Catalyst does present to you a solution of its own: Synthesis.

"True for some, but for those that do follow those Aesops? Are us Paragon players just out of luck?"

If you feel that wiping out all synthetics along with the Reapers is too great a cost and you don't want to trust the Catalyst, then you can choose Control. All life remains as it is, the Reapers are stopped, and the Mass Relays don't get completely destroyed. Heck, the colour that corresponds to the Control choice is even blue.

And besides, I don't remember "taking control of a race of genocidal spaceships to stop them from committing genocide is a bad thing" to be an aesop of the series.

"Choosing Destroy ends the cycle, destroys the Reapers, and presumably ends with Shepard and the player putting faith in future generations not to destroy themselves. It also presumably kills the Catalyst. How is that not disagreeing with the Catalyst? "

You're forgetting the part about killing all synthetics. His exact goal.

Let me and try and put this into perspective: Put the Asari, or the Turians or even the Humans in the Geth's place: Requiring to kill them all to destroy the Reapers, for no discernible reason whatsoever. Still seem like an acceptable idea?

Choosing to kill the Geth basically says: "Yeah, the Geth are expendable, their fate is irrelevant. They're just machines, after all." The Geth risk everything for a chance to survive, to reconcile with their creators and become accepted in galactic society. And what do they get for that? Extermination. By the one person they considered a friend, even. And (potentially) no one will even know why.

And all that for no real reason. We're never given any justification for why a machine that is powerful enough to rewrite the entire galaxy's DNA, or that is precise enough to send out a mind-control wave across an entire species, can't tell the difference between this◊ and this◊.

If that doesn't make you realize why it's a complete betrayal of themes present in game, then I don't think anything is going to.

"That does not mean that the Catalyst is meant to be portrayed as "right" in any way."

I've already answered this.

• It's the only context given for the scene.
• You're never given the chance to argue with the Catalyst.
• You still have to choose one of the three solutions.
• Shepard just blindly accepts all this.

"Destroy and Control are not the Catalyst's solutions. "

Maybe not, but he is the one that makes Shepard aware of those options. If he wasn't okay with either of those, then the smart thing would've been to not even mention them.

Actually, listen again to what he says: it's not the Crucible that's presenting those options, it's the Catalyst using the energy of the Crucible to "make these possible". So yeah, those are his solutions.

In any case, if it weren't for the Catalyst, Shepard would've bled out by the control panel, before they even had a chance to do anything.

"Vendetta establishes that the Crucible was meant to destroy the Reapers, but also states that some Protheans felt that they could use the Crucible to control the Reapers. The Illusive Man also seeks to find a way to control the Reapers using the Crucible."

You're leaving out the part where it says that those who want Control were/are indoctrinated. It is literally the next thing it says.

"If you feel that wiping out all synthetics along with the Reapers is too great a cost and you don't want to trust the Catalyst, then you can choose Control. And besides, I don't remember "taking control of a race of genocidal spaceships to stop them from committing genocide is a bad thing" to be an aesop of the series."

"Every sapient being has the right to make their own decisions."

This is reiterated again, and again, and again throughout the entire trilogy. It applies to everyone, good or bad.

That is ridiculous. The destruction of the geth does not equate to a 'synthetic life is bad' Aesop any more than the destruction of the Mass Relays equates to a 'Mass Relays are bad' Aesop. Or for that matter, a 'Shepard is bad' Aesop since Shepard may have died.

1. My Your Mileage May Vary entry was in reference to Family Guy's "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven" episode, not the show you seem to think it was about.

You mean Mass Effect 3? How we can look at the second game and Leegion's loyalty mission where we can compare the Geth and the old machines to religion?

2. If there's something wrong with the "this troper" format, where can I find an explanation of what it is, please?

As explained above speaking in first person or projecting your views on the main page of an article is bad form. There's nothing stopping you from expressing your views or writing style, or to impress on points of view that may be different to others on YMMV pages. The very fact we have YMMV pages should be an indicator that tropes and issues that you may or may not agree with and others disagree belong there. See also this.

"That is ridiculous. The destruction of the geth does not equate to a 'synthetic life is bad' Aesop any more than the destruction of the Mass Relays equates to a 'Mass Relays are bad' Aesop. Or for that matter, a 'Shepard is bad' Aesop since Shepard may have died."

So the Geth being exterminated so that everyone else can survive is okay? And no, it's not a sacrifice; a sacrifice implies that they chose that route. From everyone else's perspective, the Geth are just going to drop dead.

It was also a completely unnecessary "sacrifice". There is literally no reason why the Geth have to die to stop the Reapers. Compare the scenario to Arrival: it wasn't a requirement to have 300,000 Batarians die to stop the Reapers, it was just an unfortunate consequence from destroying the Alpha Relay.

Killing the Geth is for some reason required to destroy the Reapers, and we are never given a reason why it is required.

@Primus:

At this point, the Geth are part-Reaper from the code. Presumably, whatever lets the Catalyst kill Reapers also kills the Geth (you might be able to return them to their original state, but all the self-aware Geth Platforms that arose from the Reaper code are dead from it and they have to go back to being gestalt entities). The Geth are more collateral damage from your "Kill Reaper" choice.

"At this point, the Geth are part-Reaper from the code. Presumably, whatever lets the Catalyst kill Reapers also kills the Geth"

The problem though is that the Catalyst doesn't say "destroy all Reaper tech", he says "destroy all synthetic life, including the Geth". That's a very deliberate choice of words.

EDI similarly has Reaper-based code in her programming, and the Normandy itself has Reaper tech salvaged from Sovereign, but she can survive the Destroy ending.

And if it is caused by targeting all Reaper tech, then why doesn't Control extend to controlling the Geth? It's the same mechanism.

"You might be able to return them to their original state, but all the self-aware Geth Platforms that arose from the Reaper code are dead from it and they have to go back to being gestalt entities."

Taking away the Reaper code and reverting the Geth means Legion died for nothing.

"The Geth are more collateral damage from your "Kill Reaper" choice."

One of the overarching themes of Mass Effect 3 is survival. There will be sacrifices, but it will be worth it as long as they survive. That doesn't extend to the Geth, I guess.

"We're never given any justification for why a machine that is powerful enough to rewrite the entire galaxy's DNA, or that is precise enough to send out a mind-control wave across an entire species, can't tell the difference between this◊ and this◊."

Practically all technology in the universe is based on Reaper technology. In fact, in any situation where the geth are alive in the end, they have upgraded themselves with Reaper technology.

"If that doesn't make you realize why it's a complete betrayal of themes present in game, then I don't think anything is going to."

So every ending should have to adhere to the themes in a series where your character's behaviour doesn't have to?

Actually, correct that: every ending should have to adhere to your interpretations of the series' themes?

"It's the only context given for the scene."

Then do explain how the scene screams "THE CATALYST IS RIGHT, AGREE WITH IT!!!"

"it's not the Crucible that's presenting those options, it's the Catalyst using the energy of the Crucible to 'make these possible'."

This ignores the fact that the Crucible was designed to use the Catalyst to activate. They may not have known its true form, but the Catalyst you see in the game is aware that there are those who seek to both destroy and control the Reapers. The Catalyst merely tells you that both of those are options you can consider.

"In any case, if it weren't for the Catalyst, Shepard would've bled out by the control panel, before they even had a chance to do anything."

Yes, because Shepard's actions and presence convinced the Catalyst that its "solution" was faulty.

" 'Every sapient being has the right to make their own decisions.' This is reiterated again, and again, and again throughout the entire trilogy. It applies to everyone, good or bad."

Countless sapient beings throughout the series are prevented from making their own decisions or carrying out their plans. A "good" Shepard personally does so many times because their decisions would cause the suffering of others. If a being is trying to make or has made a decision that is harmful to others, a Paragon Shepard stops them.

The problem with your stance is that you feel as if every ending should abide by the aesops the series presents (or more accurately, the aesops you feel the series presents). It would be completely stupid if Shepard could go through the entire series spitting in the face of every aesop, but then is forced to submit to the anvils that the developers felt they needed to drop on everyone's heads at the last second.

"Practically all technology in the universe is based on Reaper technology. In fact, in any situation where the geth are alive in the end, they have upgraded themselves with Reaper technology."

So why isn't everything destroyed then? Why just the Reapers and the Geth? I already explained why this makes no sense, please read my last post.

"So every ending should have to adhere to the themes in a series where your character's behaviour doesn't have to? Actually, correct that: every ending should have to adhere to your interpretations of the series' themes?"

My "interpretation" consists of nothing more than actually paying attention to what was said in the game. I'm not twisting words, or taking things out of context, or rampantly speculating. Is that really a bad thing?

You cannot possibly play through the Rannoch missions, especially the Geth Consensus mission, and still say the Geth are bad, or deserve death.

"Then do explain how the scene screams "THE CATALYST IS RIGHT, AGREE WITH IT!!!""

Explain to me how it doesn't. I've already said numerous times why it does: Because you have to agree with him, you're never given a chance not to.

"This ignores the fact that the Crucible was designed to use the Catalyst to activate. They may not have known its true form, but the Catalyst you see in the game is aware that there are those who seek to both destroy and control the Reapers. The Catalyst merely tells you that both of those are options you can consider."

The Crucible is built to use the Citadel, "Catalyst" is just a placeholder term. The Master Reaper A.I. randomly declaring itself to be the Catalyst really changes nothing. The Crucible still fires using the Citadel Relay.

"Yes, because Shepard's actions and presence convinced the Catalyst that its "solution" was faulty."

Okay...? I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

"Countless sapient beings throughout the series are prevented from making their own decisions or carrying out their plans. A "good" Shepard personally does so many times because their decisions would cause the suffering of others. If a being is trying to make or has made a decision that is harmful to others, a Paragon Shepard stops them."

They're still making their own choices. Outside of rewriting the Heretics, Shepard never takes away anyone's free will. Every sapient being has the right to make their own decisions, but that doesn't mean there won't be consequences, or that someone won't try to stop them.

"The problem with your stance is that you feel as if every ending should abide by the aesops the series presents"

Yes, I think every story should be consistent, how horrible of me...

And I have never said that all the endings should follow those themes. I have only said that it should be an option to, rather than being forced into abandoning them.

"(or more accurately, the aesops you feel the series presents)"

No, not what "I feel", what is blatantly said and demonstrated throughout the series.

"It would be completely stupid if Shepard could go through the entire series spitting in the face of every aesop, but then is forced to submit to the anvils that the developers felt they needed to drop on everyone's heads at the last second."

But it's completely acceptable for a Shepard who does follow those values to be forced to abandon them at the last second.

"You cannot possibly play through the Rannoch missions, especially the Geth Consensus mission, and still say the Geth are bad, or deserve death."

But Shepard can think differently. Shepard can decide that the geth deserve death. You're trying to take your opinions of the games' morals and say that all players should be forced through them.

"Because you have to agree with him, you're never given a chance not to."

Oh, then choose Destroy, and then watch the Catalyst, as you pointed out, disapprove of your choice. Destroy and Control aren't even its choices; it merely tells you that those are options.

"Shepard never takes away anyone's free will."

What about killing? That hurts free will pretty badly.

"But it's completely acceptable for a Shepard who does follow those values to be forced to abandon them at the last second."

And I've already stated how different people can interpret different themes from the same thing. I've already stated how some can view Control and Synthesis as "positive" choices.

The problem is that you aren't acknowledging that different people may do the exact same thing for completely different reasons.

"But Shepard can think differently. Shepard can decide that the geth deserve death."

Actually if you let the Geth die, the only thing that Shepard does is say "I'm sorry". They don't do anything else until Legion attacks, and even then Shepard is hesitant to shoot him. That doesn't sound like what would happen if they decided the Geth deserved death.

Shepard's put into a situation where they can't save everyone, so it all comes down to whichever they consider to be a more valuable asset, not whichever deserves death. In both outcomes Shepard shows regret for writing off the other group.

"You're trying to take your opinions of the games' morals and say that all players should be forced through them."

How?! How am I doing that?! All I have ever done is take the information given in the game and explain why it's incompatible with the ending, and so far all I've gotten in return is being yelled at because "it's just my interpretation" even though interpretation has nothing to do with this.

There is nothing interpretive and nothing metaphorical about the themes present in the games. They are blatantly said and demonstrated a million times throughout the entire series. Even Renegade Shepard follows these values to some extent, they just accomplish them through intimidation instead of diplomacy.

"Interpreting" it so that these messages are irrelevant just weakens the entire story. This is like reading Dune and saying all the Aesops about politics and religion don't matter.

I don't have time to read through all these posts, but I did discuss it in our forum thread with lilyxlightning yesterday. Themes are not something subjective as some of you are implying.

"There are many ideas that can be viewed as themes of the series. Every ending has themes that can be seen as supporting the choice and themes which the choice goes against"

This demonstrates lack of information regarding what a theme is, regarding storytelling.

"he entire point of it is that there is no perfect choice, there is no "golden" "good" choice."

This is a bad excuse. Why? Because the 3 choices at the end are solutions to the organics vs synthetic "problem". Problem that was portrayed differently through the series (specifically, from ME 2 onwards). 'Tis also an affront to the Strength Through Diversity theme that existed there since Mass Effect 1.

Now one of you will say "no, but that's just the Catalyst's point of view!". Yes, it is the Catalyst's point of view, but its effect on the plot is enormous: the whole motivation of the Reapers -what sets the whole plot going- is based around this altered theme. Does the game establish a subtle comparison between how the Catalyst talks and what has been portrayed in the rest of the series? No. Does Shepard say anything about it, even a passing comment? No.

As for the issue in question, I don't think the mere presence of Control is a Broken Aesop. It makes sense for a Shepard that agrees with TIM's line of thought. The main issue, which is objective and beyond how you roleplay your Shepard, is that the Organics vs Synthetics and Strength Through Diversity themes are altered by the ending. These things do belong in our Broken Aesop article.

Also Mothra, if you want us to take your posts seriously, then don't vandalize the wiki. You are just a sockpuppet. Edit: Nevermind, seems the user was banned and his posts dissapeared.

"There is nothing interpretive and nothing metaphorical about the themes present in the games."

Nothing I've seen in the series would suggest that Shepard taking control of the Reapers for the purpose of stopping them from destroying all life is a bad thing.

" 'Tis also an affront to the Strength Through Diversity theme that existed there since Mass Effect 1."

'Tis ignoring that Control does nothing to alter the diversity of galatic life. One could argue that Synthesis doesn't impair diversity also. All Synthesis does is alter all life to be a blend of organic and synthetic life. Geth are still geth, asari are still asari, humans are still humans, turians are still turians, yahg are still butt-ugly, etc. One may choose it not because they believe that organics and synthetics can't get along, but because they feel that it would improve both organics' and synthetics' standard of living.

As I've already stated, different people can do the exact same thing for completely different reasons. The Catalyst may want to find a "solution" to its problem, but that doesn't mean that Shepard makes their decision based on what the Catalyst wants.

No, I'm not ignoring Control, and we had this same argument yesterday. You don't have to eliminate all diversity in order to alter the theme, you are rushing to incorrect conclusions. The fact that apparently synthetics will end up wiping out organic life unless

1) Synthetics get killed in Destroy

2) An organic (Shepard) commands the incredibly powerful Reaper Armada

3) Both groups are blended until the differences between them dissapear

is enough to alter it. All these things are clearly stated by the plot of the game, unlike the things you are invoking:

The rest of your arguments are incorrect because you are using headcanon and roleplaying instead of things found in the actual story. This isn't a tabletop RPG, and we judge things that appear in the actual story. The player could have any reason for picking one of the 3 endings, it's irrelevant.

To be precise, let's take this sentence of yours:

"As I've already stated, different people can do the exact same thing for completely different reasons. The Catalyst may want to find a "solution" to its problem, but that doesn't mean that Shepard makes their decision based on what the Catalyst wants. "

The Catalyst and by extension the Reapers want to find a solution to the problem of synthetics wiping out all organic life. They give Shepard 3 choices that fixes (or attempt to fix) this problem. Shepard has no substantial comment about this, apart from saying that if organics are robbed of hope/choice, they "may as well be machines." Forgetting, apparently, that EDI and the geth also have hopes, despite being machines. Shepard then chooses one of the options and the game ends. There is no time to dwell on the issue, you don't have a dialogue option for questioning anything, and the game doesn't acknowledge how this section compares to the portrayal of synthetics through the series. We can find all of this in the story. This "that doesn't mean that Shepard makes their decision based on what the Catalyst says" is roleplaying. You are judging thoughts of the main character that are not expressed in the game, not even through optional dialogue. Shepard chooses one of the Catalyst's solutions with no ado whatsoever. This we can see in the game, if we watch the scene.

Edit:

I think your claims are rendered moot by this misconception of yours that I pointed out in our Mass Effect 3 forum thread, since it serves as the foundation for the arguments you provided; you believe that the Catalyst changed his mind about organics vs synthetics and such.

This forum post provides another point of view of why the endings contradict the themes of the series.

"The fact that apparently synthetics will end up wiping out organic life..."

The Catalyst's belief that that is so does not make it objective fact or imply that you're meant to agree with it.

"They give Shepard 3 choices that fixes (or attempt to fix) this problem."

No, the Catalyst does not. The Catalyst even tells Shepard that Destroy would not be a lasting solution. It introduces the choice by saying that it knows Shepard sought to destroy the Reapers. Control has no impact on the balance of organic and synthetic life.

"You are judging thoughts of the main character that are not expressed in the game, not even through optional dialogue."

Then how do you know that Shepard is agreeing with the Catalyst? The only thing Shepard voices concern for is peace, stopping the Reapers.

"This 'that doesn't mean that Shepard makes their decision based on what the Catalyst says' is roleplaying."

Ah yes, how silly of me to "roleplay" in an RPG.

"The Catalyst's belief that that is so does not make it objective fact or imply that you're meant to agree with it. "

You agreeing with it or not has nothing to do with the issue. Shepard makes no comment about the Catalyst's motivations, and the game does not say anything (not even subtle) about it. This is enough to shift the themes, otherwise the game would have lampshaded the dissonance between the Catalyst's motivation and what happened before, but the endings do not even give you time to dwell on the issues..

"No, the Catalyst does not. The Catalyst even tells Shepard that Destroy would not be a lasting solution. It introduces the choice by saying that it knows Shepard sought to destroy the Reapers. Control has no impact on the balance of organic and synthetic life. "

I invite you to reread this

This is not subjective, you are simply wrong on this. I proved you wrong using the dialogue of the game as a source. Why do you keep bringing this up again and again, in the forums, in the comment sections of the reviews, here, everywhere, when the game is clearly proving you wrong?

"Then how do you know that Shepard is agreeing with the Catalyst? The only thing Shepard voices concern for is peace, stopping the Reapers. "

Shepard is just not complaining about it. He just goes, makes a choice, and the game ends. The game does not dwell on the issue. When did I say Shepard agrees with the Catalyst? I'm speaking about themes in the storytelling, not about Shepard's ideals.

"Ah yes, how silly of me to "roleplay" in an RPG. "

You misunderstand. Again. Yes, you are roleplaying, and we do not trope your roleplaying. We trope the storytelling of the game, that means, the game itself, independent of your roleplaying. We can only judge Shepard for all the different dialogue options and such.

"There's another angle that should be considered (a person I was discussing the endings with in a multiplayer match had this opinion). You may not view any of the options you're given as perfect solutions to the Reapers, but you just don't have any other options. You can choose Destroy, Control, Synthesis... or you can forfeit everything that you've worked for, making all of the work on the Crucible a complete waste and throwing away an opportunity to stop the Reapers once and for all. Thinking that the only options you have don't fit the themes does not make the ending a Broken Aesop. If anything, it reinforces the theme of victory through sacrifice: what price is salvation of organic life worth?"

You are commiting the mistake of placing the story above the storytelling. The writers of the game wrote the scene to be that way. Shepard has no other choice because the writers wanted him not to have any, and this does not have anything to do with the themes of the series. And yes, victory through sacrifice was one of the main themes, and the only one the ending left intact.

I agree with the Farron fangirl. I was under no impression that Shep was in a "What can you tell me about X?/I should go." state of mind.

Just one thing though: "The writers of the game wrote the scene to be that way. Shepard has no other choice because the writers wanted him not to have any"

Why should there be a perfect, strings-free choice anyway?

I shall ignore the vandal-post.

Anyways the Extended Cut contains EDI saying "we are taking our first steps into a new future where organics and synthetics can coexist" in the Synthesis epilogue. That's even more evidence in favor of the thematic shift I was describing in my previous post.

So... now what? This has come to a stand-still, and I think there's even more evidence in favor of ME3's Broken Aesop status now than there was to begin with.

I would like to throw my thoughts into this. I can't add much that isn't already here, but the Levianthan DLC includes the eponymous Leviathan saying that the created will always rebel against their creators, and that the Catalyst was created to stop it. The Catalyst rebelled against the Leviathans (fancy that!) and forced them into hiding. So that makes the whole "that's only an interpretation" thing wrong, and the Catalyst more than a little ironic. Not to mention that with Control, you even kill The Illusive Man (or convince him to pull a Saren and shoot himself) because he's wrong, and then five minutes later you get the chance to control the Reapers. I'm in favor of adding the examples back as long as it's written objectively, if that means anything at this point.

I haven't seen the movie, but I'd say: not a Broken Aesop, mostly because of your duly-admitted inference. The movie itself isn't suddenly contradicting the Aesop - just your (probably spot-on) inference is.

Still, it's definitely a heck of a Fridge Logic moment! Makes sense to add it there.

From a more idealistic point of view, yes. From a more cynical one, luck is not a skill and if the circumstances had not played in it's favor...well. Nonetheless, your point is valid and much more fitting given the nature of the series.

I think if there's a reason no one has responded to this one yet, it's because we're all too lazy to look at it. But yeah, it's a pretty long list. Please do make split sections for the largest subsections. "Newspaper Comics" and "Stand-Up Comedy" and the other small ones can stay on this one.