Historical Domain Character: Difference between revisions

* [[You Will Be Beethoven]]

 

 

* [[Akechi Mitsuhide]]

* [[Alexander the Great]]

* [[Ralph Bagnold]]

* [[David Ben Gurion]]

* [[Otto von Bismarck]]

* [[Napoleon Bonaparte]]

* [[Maria Theresa]]

* [[Marie Antoinette]]

* [[Christopher Marlowe]]

* [[The Prophet Muhammad]]

* [[Pompey the Great]]

* [[Qin Shi Huangdi]]

* [[Maximilien Robespierre]]

* Saitō Hajime

* [[Samson]]

* Shaka Zulu

 

* [[The 47 Ronin]]

* [[The Pope]]s

*** [[Charles II]]

** [[The House of Hanover]]

** [[The House of Windsor]]

** [[HM The Queen]]

** [[Benjamin Disraeli]]

** [[Winston Churchill]]

* [[The Illuminati]]

* [[The Presidents]]

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** Emperor Gaiseric: The Emperor Gaiseric alluded to in volume 10 was based on the actual King Genseric who ruled the Vandals' kingdom in Europe in the 5th century. He was famed as a brilliant general who was seen as a threat even to the Roman Empire. In the manga, Gaiseric is said to have created a vast empire, similar to the Romans, that was destroyed by God's wrath. He banded together his small tribe and brought them great fame as a kingdom that exercised its authority in the Mediterranean region.

*** {{spoiler|It is hinted that Emperor Gaiseric survived his fallen empire in the form of the Skull Knight, a recurring character who aids Guts and stands in opposition to the God Hand}}.

** Emperor Ganishka: The Emperor Ganishka, working as Griffith's enemy in Berserk, was based on King Kanishka, who ruled over the actual Kushan Empire, a vast empire in India and Central Asia during the 2nd century. He was also a profound Buddhist and adorned his empire with its respective figures and promoted it vigorously. Like his real-life counterpart, Ganishka also decorates his palace with famous Buddhist and Hindu figures, but has demonized them to suit his nature.

** Mozgus appears to be based on Ivan the Terrible, due to his daily routine of slamming his face into the ground during prayer and his biblical methods of execution.

* Most of the cast of ''[[Rose of Versailles]]''.

* Most of the cast of ''[[Le Chevalier d'Eon]]''.

* Many of the characters from ''[[Vinland Saga]]'' are actually historic people, among them Canute and Sweyn, and possibly even the Jomsvikings. There was also an actuall ''Thorkell the Tall'' who fought for the English and joined Canute, but it's not known if he was really a 3 meter giant who could kill a hundred men with his bare hands.

* ''[[Vision of Escaflowne]]'' has {{spoiler|Isaac Newton as the [[Big Bad]]}}.

** A subset of this is [[Shipping]] said historical characters with the nations they rule over. America/Barack Obama, Prussia/[[wikipedia:Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick the Great]], France/Joan of Arc and England/Queen Elizabeth I are... ''quite'' popular among fanworkers.

*** Similarly, there are having them simply interact with the nation-tans. There's even one where [[Benjamin Franklin]] figures out America's true identity.

* From ''[[Seikon no Qwaser]]'', Eva Silver is actually {{spoiler|Eva Braun, the former mistress of [[Adolf Hitler]].}} And even major protagonist Katje is {{spoiler|somehow connected to the last royal family of Russia, though it's not exactly clear if she's merely their descendant, or actually some sort of time-warped/cloned version of Tsaritsa Alexandra Fyodorovna}}.

 

* ''[[The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck]]'', by [[Don Rosa]], sets its main character in various decades from the 1870s to the 1940s, featuring such characters as Murdo Mac Kenzie, Wyatt Earp, and Theodore Roosevelt.

* Jonatan Hickman's ''SHIELD''. Every single scientific genius since Imhotep was a member of the [[Ancient Tradition]] of The Shield. And, as of the 1950s, [[Leonardo da Vinci]], [[Isaac Newton]] and Nostradamus ''still are''.

* Various historic storylines worked into ''[[The Sandman]]'', especially the "Distant Mirrors" arc, which features [[Emperor Augustus]] ("August"); [[Maximilien Robespierre]] ("Thermidor") [[Emperor Norton]] ("Four Septembers and a January") and [[Harun Al Rashid]] ("Ramadan"). [[William Shakespeare]] also appears, cameoing with [[Christopher Marlowe]] in "Men of Good Fortune" and then getting two stories of his own - "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Tempest", the latter being the series epilogue.

 

 

* Again, ''[[Anastasia]]'', which also throws in (an already dead) Grigori Rasputin.

* Most of the characters in ''[[Pocahontas]]'', albeit fictionalised.

* ''[[The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!]]'' includes (heavily fictionalized versions of) [[Charles Darwin]] and [[Queen Victoria]].

* William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Queen Elizabeth I, as well as the rest of the theatre company, in ''[[Shakespeare in Love]]''.

* Grand Duchess Anastasia and her grandmother from the 1950s film ''Anastasia'' and its [[Anastasia|animated remake]].

** And Thubten Gyatso in ''Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years''. (This is referred to in "Empty House", but the pastiche is worth noting because the author is one of the more warlike proponents of a free Tibet, so the thirteenth Dalai Lama is [[Writer on Board|right up his alley.]])

* The Cinderella adaptation''[[Ever After (film)|Ever After]]'' has Leonardo da Vinci as the eventual fairy godmother figure.

 

* Of course, many [[Alternate History]] stories feature real historical figures, both major and minor.

** The ''[[Temeraire]]'' series has a whole [[wikipedia:List of Temeraire characters#Historical Figures|list]] of them in various supporting roles.

* A fairly large percentage (possibly a fair bit over 50% - this troper hasn't checked everyone) of the characters in the ''[[Flashman]]'' novels are historical personages, as the eponymous character has a knack for getting himself involved in just about every crazy military campaign that happened during the years covered in the books (occasionally on both sides).

* Teddy Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan appear in [[The Alienist]].

* In Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, [[Charles Darwin]] not only creates the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, but also the 'Life threads' or DNA and how to [[Lego Genetics|genetically enhance]] and [[Mix-and-Match Critters|manipulate/combine elements of animals]]. Also, Nora Barlow, {{spoiler|his granddaughter}}, is a major character. Though they have yet to appear, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, then first lord of the admiralty Winston Churchill, and several other major political leaders have had a bearing on the plot.

* [[The Grimnoir Chronicles]] has John Joseph Pershing and John Moses Browning as major characters, and Sullivan has some unpleasant dealings with J. Edgar Hoover near the beginning.

* Hiob von Luzern and Alexander the Great appear in ''[[A Dirge for Prester John]]''.

 

* [[HBO]] has had several dramas in historical settings that make use of this trope. ''[[Deadwood]]'', ''[[Rome]]'', and ''[[Boardwalk Empire]]'' are period dramas with many such characters. [[Showtime]] has also mined this territory with ''[[The Tudors]]'' and ''[[The Borgias]]''.

* Frequently done (with various degrees of historical fidelity) in series involving [[Time Travel]], such as ''[[Doctor Who]]'', ''[[The Time Tunnel]]'' and later seasons of ''[[Quantum Leap]]''.

** The classic ''Doctor Who'' series had a few scattered around as well, particularly in the First Doctor's era-[[The Travels of Marco Polo|Marco Polo]], [[Kublai Khan]], [[Maximilien Robespierre]] and [[Napoleon Bonaparte]], Nero and [[Richard the Lion Heart]], [[Abraham Lincoln]], Catherine de Medici, Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, just to name a few. The Fourth Doctor nearly had a run-in with [[Leonardo da Vinci]]. The Fifth Doctor (kind of) had a run in with King John. The Sixth Doctor also ran into George Stephenson and H.G. Wells, while the Seventh Doctor had to deal with the Rani kidnapping [[Albert Einstein]] and Louis Pasteur. References to other famous figures of history were constantly dropped by each incarnation of the Doctor.

* ''[[Jack of All Trades (TV series)|Jack of All Trades]]'', which portrayed [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] as... ah... a crazy little person foaming at the mouth.

* Numerous prominent figures from mid-19th-century Tokyo appear in ''[[Jin (TV)|Jin]]''; several are majar supporting characters, and at least one, Ryoma Sakamoto, arguably is as much a main character as the show's eponymous time-traveling doctor.

 

* In ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'', Clare Booth Luce puts in an appearance, though she's referred to simply as "Mrs. Luce".

 

* Leonardo da Vinci as a [[Bishonen]], and Lisa del Giocondo as his love interest, in ''[[Elite Beat Agents]]''. The real Lisa was already married, but this is [[Bellisario's Maxim|not the kind of game where that matters]]. And it's not like he ever [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|courted someone to the music of Queen, anyways]].

** In a similar vein, the first ''[[Ouendan]]'' has a fat Cleopatra who decided to have her slaves build a pyramid... to lose weight and impress Mark Antony.

* The indisputable master of this trope has to be ''Martian Dreams'', a Worlds of [[Ultima]] game. It features a plethora of 19th century big names in an adventure on [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|MARS]], including Sigmund Freud, Theodore Roosevelt, Wyatt Earp, Marie Curie, and [[Big Bad|Rasputin]].

* ''[[Sengoku Basara]]''

* A ''lot'' of the characters in ''[[Shadow Hearts]]''. Most famously, Anastasia is a party member in ''Covenant''... with Rasputin as a major enemy. Al Capone shows up in ''From the New World''.

* Although he only appears in flashbacks, Leonardo da Vinci is (as the title suggests) heavily involved with the plot of ''[[Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript]]''. One of the French kings is also a character in the game.

* Both of the ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' games use this trope, particularly ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]'' with the young Leonardo da Vinci.

* It's the findings of famous people that drive the plots of the ''[[Uncharted]]'' games. The first game had Sir Francis Drake (who Nate claims to be a descendant of), the second game had Marco Polo and the third game will have [[Lawrence of Arabia]].

 

* ''[[Dawn of Time]]'' has Gideon Mantell and Richard Owen.

* ''[http://www.thedreamercomic.com The Dreamer]'' has many historical figures in it, including Nathan Hale.

 

* Many bit part and recurring characters in ''[[Liberty's Kids]]''.

* ''[[Princess Sissi]]'' is about Elizabeth of Bavaria.

* ''[[Time Squad]]'' is about a small police unit traveling through time making sure famous people do what they're historically famous for—if Copernicus ever forgets the Sun existed or George Washington Carver manifests an [[Evil Twin]], the Time Squad will be there to fix it.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters]]

[[Category:Alternate History Tropes]]

[[Category:Index]]