Make an unintended aesop from your favorite media

[CharlesPhipps]

[The Legend of Korra]

What Mako should have learned

If you have two awesome beautiful gals who like you, choose one, because trying for both will screw you.

[FaxModem1]

The Dark Knight Trilogy

It's better to keep the poor in their place, otherwise the rich might suffer.

[TGLS]

Phoenix Wright
A crusading lawyer who fights for truth is all well and good, but you're probably better off with a lawyer who only wants to win.

Ghost in the Shell
Pants are for squares.

Mega Man
If the world is filled with morons who will believe you reformed when you really haven't, you might as well take advantage of the situation.

Madoka Magica
Japanese schoolgirls are too dumb to wish for more wishes/compound wishes.

Foundation
If you're writing a multi-generational plan, you really ought to account for your immortal robot acquaintance, especially when you know his side hustle is manipulating history.

Mass Effect
It turns out emphasizing how your decisions affect things and old save bonuses really don't work together.

Raid Gaza
Israel clearly isn't trying hard enough at oppressing the Palestinians.

Super Mario Bros.
If you're a short, you can get a girl; just eat a mushroom to grow taller first.

Super Mario Odyssey
Ha! I lied.

The Beginner's Guide
Don't even try to be subtle if someone is annoying you.

The Legend of Zelda
Being the title character sucks.

Metroid
Being the title character really sucks.

Minecraft
The poor should pull themselves up by the bootstraps; first by punching trees until they have enough wood to build tools, and then by digging until they gather gold.

Better Call Saul
Being a lawyer who only wants to win is all well and good, but you're probably better off being a crusading lawyer who fights for truth. Well, maybe not, but you'll end up drinking less piss and facing fewer death threats.

Mega Man ZX
The solution to the Man-Machine Wars is to mix the two together until it's really difficult to tell the difference.

The Beginner's Guide
Art interpretation is meaningless.

Capitalism Lab
Buying someone else's company is easier than building one yourself.

The Stanley Parable
Listening in on other people's conversations in the office can be really awkward.

Virgin Queen
Some people aren't suited for marriage.

Pax Renaissance
Bankers are power-hungry maniacs who care more about advancing their own agenda than anything.

Pax Emancipation
The US hadn't really abolished slavery until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Cataclysm: A Second World War
The Pacific Theatre was a distraction; the US should have focused on defeating Germany.

Churchill
The British would have been better off taking a conditional Axis surrender.

A Distant Plain/Pax Pamir
"Winning" in Afghanistan means going home.

[SSJGodGoku]

Independence Day: Don't forget to regularly update your antivirus software.

[Kinky Vorlon]

Malazan Book of the Fallen: Compassion is for wimps. Also Potsherds.

[Captain Crimson]

Women have no body autonomy. Exhibit A: SG. Exhibit B: DS9.

[Fianna]

Marvel's The Avengers: Nuclear weapons fix everything!

[TGLS]

Marvel's The Avengers: Nuclear weapons fix everything!

Strange; that's the moral of Stargate too.

[clearspira]

Harry Potter:

You can abuse your students for 7 years, up to and including making them cry, but as long as you were doing it in the name of a cause, the main target of your bullying will forgive you to the point he will name his son after you. Yes, i hate Snape.

Also, love (read: rape, read: magic roofie) potions are hilarious and using them will not get you in trouble as long as no one takes it as far as Voldemort's mum and it is a girl using them. Even if the Head Girl has foreknowledge that one of Harry's fangirls spiked some cakes that eventually ended up in the mouth of your future husband nothing will happen.

Also, permenantly scarring a girl with acne that reads "Sneak" is both hilarious and justified because she... tattled on an illegal dueling club.

[Captain Crimson]

Harry Potter:

You can abuse your students for 7 years, up to and including making them cry, but as long as you were doing it in the name of a cause, the main target of your bullying will forgive you to the point he will name his son after you. Yes, i hate Snape.

Also, love (read: rape, read: magic roofie) potions are hilarious and using them will not get you in trouble as long as no one takes it as far as Voldemort's mum and it is a girl using them. Even if the Head Girl has foreknowledge that one of Harry's fangirls spiked some cakes that eventually ended up in the mouth of your future husband nothing will happen.

Also, permenantly scarring a girl with acne that reads "Sneak" is both hilarious and justified because she... tattled on an illegal dueling club.

That's something that also got under my skin too. It's like the message is that it's okay to abuse boys if girls are doing it. Now, I don't think the series itself was endorsing that - directly. But indirectly, well... it is everything that's left unsaid upon which ideas are built. And... yeah. That's bad mojo.