Okay, the Mary Sue debate, I guess that's old. Now, let's start up another civil discussion: the friendship moral cliche.

We've all heard it, seen it, got annoyed by it in books, cartoons, video games, etc. It is called The Friendship Moral. It has been used so many times in so many ways that it's possibly been dubbed a cliche.

Now, in these days, The Friendship Moral seems to be the same thing of many cartoons and shows and such: friendship is more powerful than hate. Friendship keeps up together. Friendship ayada yada blah blah and so and so. The Friendship Moral also tends to be extremely obvious, to the point where it annoys people to no end; even the kids who watch the cartoon also tend to get irritated.

Now, I'm not going against the whole Friendship Moral; in fact, I agree that friendship IS more powerful than hate, however, sometimes the media just shows a simple way of HOW friendship is more powerful than hate or whatever. In real life, the method of explaining The Friendship Moral cannot be fully used, as friendship tends to be abused. How can you strengthen your friendship so that it is powerful than hate? What are the CONSEQUENCES of friendship? Is friendship really a good advantage?

Another issue with The Friendship Moral is how many times it has been shoved in our faces. We get it; the characters are friends, and they don't need to shove the moral in our face. However, the tendency is that it's the same darn thing throughout each book/cartoon/etc. When a friendship moral is handled differently and more uniquely with, as aforementioned, a consequence, thus it makes things more interesting.

Example: The English version of the anime Naruto. Three characters in a team, wanting to become Ninja, do not have great unity, thus failing one of their exams given by their Sensei (teacher). In their hopes of being the first team to pass this Sensei's exams, their hopes are shattered at first. Their Sensei lectures them and gives them a speech about unity, somewhat like friendship, and gives them one more chance, allowing two of the students to eat their lunches that they couldn't eat until after the exam, but one of the students who tried stealing his lunch before the exam was over cannot eat the food. If one tries feeding the incompetent student food, they are all expelled from becoming ninja. One of the three does feed the student food; thus, the rules are broken and the Sensei is about to punish them, but each argues about the whole unity speech that their Sensei gave them. Thus, it turns out that they actually PASSED the exam. And why?

Sensei quotes, "Those who break the rules are scum, but those who desert their friends are even worse than scum".

Interesting, no? So let's hear your opinions on the overused Friendship Moral, and you may list a few of your fandoms with interesting friendship morals that have not been done commonly.