Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped

"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack."
—Winston Churchill

An Anvilicious work is one that has a moral message and makes it as subtle as an anvil dropped on the viewer's head. But sometimes, a work can be Anvilicious without suffering in the process. Some works not only pull it off gracefully, but are effective because of the Anvil—and not in a So Bad It's Good way, either. Often seen in Reconstructions.

Other times, the anvil comes across very blatant, which might turn off some viewers, but in the era which the story is told, the message itself is more important than the story or allegory it is presented in.

A reminder that An Aesop is Not Bad. And don't let the fact that the anvils of one work are often incompatible or in direct opposition to another's get in the way either.

When an anvil needed to be dropped, but it wasn't, you have Lost Aesop. If they just dropped the wrong one, it's a Broken Aesop.

Remember, this is not whether or not you agree with the moral, it's about how a story is improved because the message is so blatant. A genuinely anvilicious Aesop is not automatically excused by being an agreeable one.

Has nothing to do with Anvil on Head.

Examples of Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped are listed on these subpages:

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