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Historical Hero Upgrade: Difference between revisions
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* [[Richard the Lion Heart|King Richard I]] of England has entered mythology as Richard the Lionheart, paragon of knighthood, King Arthur come again. The real Richard was a deeply complex individual, warlike, greedy (according to one story, Richard claimed he would ''sell London'' to finance his wars if he could find a buyer), ''probably'' not actually an Anglophone, and not above stabbing someone in the back; this becomes a case of [[Values Dissonance]]. He did have a good sense of humor, being one of the few medieval kings of whom amusing quips are recorded. Not a cardboard villain, but not the cardboard angel of ''[[Ivanhoe]]'' and the ''[[The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)|The Adventures of Robin Hood]]''.
* [[The Caligula|Vlad "the Impaler"]] was a particularly ruthless warlord who usually gets a [[Historical Villain Upgrade]] due to his association with Bram Stoker's novel ''[[Dracula]]''. However, he is also a celebrated national hero in Romania, since most of that ruthlessness was at the expense of their enemy, the Turks.
* Brutus
** While in ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', Dante puts him as a great traitor in the deepest level of hell, [[William Shakespeare]] saw him as a man who died for the Republic's interests. For a long time the prevailing opinion among liberal-minded intellectuals that Brutus was a shining paragon of republicanism and Caesar a grasping tyrant. They probably patterned this off of his ancestor ''Lucius'' Brutus, slayer of the last king of Rome, who (if he actually existed) got a [[Historical Hero Upgrade]] in Roman historiography itself.
** Plutarch wrote in his book of historical biographies, ''Parallel Lives'', that Brutus was the last great republican, so it isn't unambiguously a case of an upgrade.
* ''[[Jeanne D'Arc]]'', of course, does this to Joan of Arc. Another, more peculiar example lies in {{spoiler|Giles de Rais, who was an infamous serial killer in real life, but here he is one of Joan's most steadfast allies.}} By all accounts he WAS a loyal French royalist AND a savage, possibly, Satanic murderer. The two aren't incompatible. That, and there is no small amount of dispute over WHEN his murders started.
** [[Mark Twain]]'s ''Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|by the Sieur Louis de Conte]]'', which Twain called his favorite of all his books, is a rare example of near-total [[Sarcasm Failure]] on Twain's part, being a straight, starry-eyed depiction of a [[Lady of War]] and her noble death at the hands of evil. A lot of people called him out on this, including [[George Bernard Shaw]], who kept Joan the traditional heroine in his play ''Saint Joan'', but felt that her enemies had been the victims of a [[Historical Villain Upgrade]] and opted for [[White and Grey Morality]] in his version of events. Quite incorrectly, however, as regards Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who ''was'' a swine.
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* Date Masamune is played like this in many works. In real life, he may as well be categorized with ''Oushuu's [[Oda Nobunaga]]'', he killed his brother to rise to power (his nagging mother constantly opposed him and promoted his brother for clan leader) and betrayed the alliance with the other clans without much discussion (and conquering them). He also showed little respect to Hideyoshi when he was called to join the attack on Odawara (and late to come to boot!). But in ''[[Samurai Deeper Kyo]],'' he ends up becoming Kyo's ally, though he may be rude and brash (aka Bontenmaru). And in ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'', he becomes the [[Badass]] [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]] hero with a somewhat charming personality and several [[Pet the Dog]] moments (seen with [[Battle Butler|Kojuurou]] and [[Morality Pet|Itsuki]], or [[All There in the Manual|in the Drama CD]], [[The Woobie|Oichi]])
** This one is averted in Koei's Warriors series. In ''[[Samurai Warriors]] 2'', he comes off as a jerk, but hides a lot of ambitions that are beneficial for Japan. But in ''[[Warriors Orochi]]'', he becomes Orochi's henchman and is pretty much loyal to him and has no qualms on bringing chaos into the world. Maybe that's his true nature.
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]: [[The Movie|Conqueror of Shamballa]]'', [[Fritz Lang]] becomes one of Ed's allies in Weimar Berlin, and is depicted as an anti-fascist [[Badass]] who opposes Nazism as early as 1923. His real-life political leanings are less well known and Lang actively obscured them with his creative retellings of his life in Germany. However, he was thrown out of at least a couple German exile parties in Hollywood for making anti-Semitic comments, and was known to be abusive to his cast and crew on set. (Granted, it's hard to expect historical accuracy from a film that {{spoiler|depicts the Beer Hall Putsch as part of a coordinated effort to take over Germany with the help of a group attempting to open a portal into Ed's alchemical universe.}}) Lang putting an entire film crew into mortal danger just to get a shot of a dragon for ''[[Die Nibelungen]]'' seems fairly like him, though.
* ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' turns Saitou Hajime into a [[Badass]] [[Anti-Hero]]. In actual history, he did manage to survive the mess that was the Meiji revolution and became a member of Japan's secret police (pretty much their equivalent of the FBI), but Watsuki freely admits that he pretty much made up all of the other details about Saitou's personality (as a minor note, RuroKen Saitou claims to have given up drinking, while in real life he died of a stomach ulcer as a result of it).
** Saito is sort of an odd example as [[Characterization Marches On|he's initially]] introduced as a vicious [[Blood Knight]] and Watsuki comments on getting angry letters for giving him a ''[[Historical Villain Upgrade]]'', which might explain why soon after his introduction, Kenshin describes him as a morally pure [[Worthy Opponent]], and he becomes an [[Anti-Hero]] from that point onward.
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=== Comic Books ===
* ''[[300]]'' conveniently leaves out any mention of Spartan pederasty and slaveholding, which were major parts of their culture at the time, to keep them acceptably heroic to modern readers. The film also leaves out their homosexuality and extreme devotion to religion in an attempt to appeal to gung-ho masculine audiences, going as far as having the hero criticize the Athenians as "boy lovers" and call out their own clergy as "corrupt."
** Arguably, the film does actually emphasize their extreme devotion to religion, but also has Leonidas himself rejecting the practices as illogical and detrimental to them during a time of war.
* [[Charles Fort]] may be one of the most important figures in paranormal science, but he wasn't much of a hands-on investigator. The only weird event he claimed to be present for was a painting falling off a wall for no apparent reason. In a one-shot comic from [[Dark Horse Comics]], he's not only depicted as being directly involved in the things he investigates, but is upgraded to a badass action hero who saves the world from aliens. A preteen [[H.P. Lovecraft]] gets to be his sidekick. At the end of the comic, [[Theodore Roosevelt]] puts him in charge of a secret [[Doctor Who|UNIT]]-like organization.
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=== Films -- Live-Action ===
* ''[[Braveheart]]'' upgraded William Wallace into the architect of Scottish Independence and downgraded Robert Bruce to little more than a background character. William Wallace raped women and burnt down schools with children and monks still inside. Robert Bruce is one of the great heroes of Scottish history and his guerrilla campaign against the forces of King Edward I and II was much larger, went on for much longer and was far more successful than Wallace's. Plus, it shows Bruce betraying Wallace. He never once betrayed Wallace (Everyone else, sure - but never Wallace).
* ''[[Kingdom of Heaven]]'':
** Balian in the movie is elevated from a knight who made a courageous and humanitarian decision to negotiate with Saladin into an archetypal heroic Everyman knight embodying the best of the chivalric ethos. Balian wasn't as nice as the film made him out to be. Not only was he raised a noble, not a blacksmith as he is in the film, but he betrayed his oath not to fight Saladin on more than one occasion, sold many of the peasants in the siege into slavery and threatened to massacre his Muslim prisoners if Saladin wouldn't accept a surrender.
*** A tad unfair. Balian was ruthless, certainly, but his oathbreaking was forgiven, possibly due to prior excellent relations with Saladin, but he also threatened the destruction of Muslim holy places under the threat of a repeat of the 1099 1st Crusade capture of Jerusalem, when almost every inhabitant of the city was slaughtered. He also paid the ransoms for thousands of the poor out of his own pocket and offered himself as a hostage for the rest.
** Saladin gets a bit of a Heroic Upgrade too in the film. He's been receiving Historical Hero Upgrades from both Muslims and Christian Europeans (to whom he was a [[Worthy Opponent]]) for so long that it's probably harder to represent him badly. Ironically, the modern lionisation of Saladin flows from the ''European'' depiction of him - until the late 19th century he was mostly forgotten in the Muslim world, in large part because the empire he created barely outlived him.
* The real ''[[Rob Roy]]'' was both a murderer and a cattle thief. The movie Rob Roy turns him into a heroic man of impeccable honor, though strangely it still does make passing mention to cattle-thieving.
* In ''[[Valkyrie]]'' apparently the [http://www.verbrechen-der-wehrmacht.de/docs/home_e.htm German officer corps actually cared about Jewish people, was disgusted by their slaughter], and masterminded a plot to assassinate Hitler that would include the closing of KZs. [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/GENOCIDE/reviewstr12.htm Never mind Stauffenberg's views of the Poles as "an unbelievable rabble" best under the whip, and their country as one filled with "a lot of Jews and a lot of cross-breeds"].
** The movie is wrong in his portraing of Stauffenberg and Co. as democrats, but despite their Anti-Semitic, racist views they did despise the industrialized murder of the Jews and their planned cabinet consisted mainly of Social-Democrats and Liberals, some of whom actually were in KZs at the time of the coup. So the Upgrade is not from [[A Lighter Shade of Grey]] to Heroes, but from the historical [[Anti-Hero|Anti-Heroes]] to [[Knights in Shining Armor]].
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** He's a bit more sympathetic in Brian Michael Bendis's comic ''Torso''. As Cleveland's head of Public Safety, he tries to prevent pedestrian traffic deaths (about 400 people a year) while the public is more concerned with a serial killer who's stalking prostitutes and immigrants in a tent city on the outskirts of the city that most of the population didn't care about anyway.
* Lucilla, sister of the Roman Emperor Commodus has been given a [[Historical Hero Upgrade]] in both ''[[Gladiator (film)|Gladiator]]'' and the 1964 epic ''The Fall of the Roman Empire'' (where she was played by Sophia Loren). The real life Lucilla ''was'' indeed involved in a plot to assassinate her brother... but according to contemporary historian Herodian it was because of her own jealousy and desire for power (in fact he even blames her attempt to have Commodus killed as what made him so paranoid in the first place).
* Early in the USA's history, General Custer was often depicted as [[The Messiah]], a brave hero who fought against the Indians and died alongside his men. This myth extended to both literature and eventually, film. This is most notable in 1941's ''They Died with Their Boots On''. More modern sympathies with the Indians have caused him to no longer be portrayed this way, however. Custer's heroic myths are due to his wife, who outlived him (she died in 1933, a little under 50 years after him). She wrote ''three'' books depicting her late husband as a folk hero. She was afraid he would be blamed for the humiliating defeat and slaughter his troop suffered, and thus spent the rest of her life lobbying extensively to make her husband look a hero.
** ''They Died with Their Boots On'' also manages to [[You Fail History Forever|fail history forever]] by portraying him as a champion of Indians' rights.
*** By the standards of the 1870s, he was better than average when it came to Indian rights. He didn't want to kill ''all'' of them, which actually sets him apart from most of his contemporaries.
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* ''[[The Tudors]]'' does this with Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. Anne in fiction is usually portrayed as a scheming whore, while Cromwell is often made pure evil. The show portrays Anne as being honestly in love with Henry and a devoted mother. Cromwell, while still rather ruthless, is seen as very human, and quite sympathetic.
** To be fair, Anne is also depicted as intending (at least at first) to manipulate Henry using both lust and love, and to maneuver him into serving the schemes of her father, a notable member of Henry's court, long before she begins to legitimately care for him. Both depictions are much more morally gray than normal, and as such, probably a more accurate depiction of real people, at least morally if not historically.
*** She is also portrayed as having slept with Sir Thomas Wyatt before her marriage with Henry VIII. There are indications Wyatt may have had romantic feelings for her, though there is no proof that Anne reciprocated, and certainly not that they had sex, as it would have gravely endangered any future marriage of Anne's if she were found to not be a virgin. Wyatt ''was'' arrested for adultery with Anne, writing a poem about witnessing the beheadings of Anne and her co-defendants from his cell window in the Tower of London, but released a year later.
**** If anything, Anne was more fairly depicted in The Tudors--though her sex life is probably exaggerated--while Cromwell is, for once, treated as a human being. He's usually given a [[Historical Villain Upgrade]] due to the exultation of Thomas More. (Who, while in actuality being quite judgmental and sometimes extreme, was given his typical [[Historical Hero Upgrade]] in [[The Tudors]].
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=== Theatre ===
* ''[[Henry V]]'' ignores several inconvenient aspects of the historical king, probably because he was a [[Badass]] warrior King of England at a time when English nationalism was on the rise after hundreds of years of domination by French overlords. Still, he could easily have been seen as a villain, even by the Elizabethans. He executed captured enemy knights, presided over some horrible bloodbaths, doomed both sides to keep fighting a pointless war, burned "Protestant" heretics<ref>strictly speaking, Lollards, but these were seen as Protestant forerunners by many Elizabethans</ref> alive -- including Sir John Oldcastle, the original of Shakespeare's Falstaff -- [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and]] [[Good Scars, Evil Scars|had a nasty scar across his face]].
* ''[[Henry VIII (
* Thomas More's portrayal in ''[[A Man for All Seasons]]'' tends to focus on his bravery in maintaining his principles even when he knew this would result in his gruesome death, presenting him as a champion of the freedom of the individual conscience. Even apart, however, from the [[Values Dissonance]] that led him (like nearly everyone in his own time) to approve the burning of heretics, More was fully convinced that the state ''had a perfect right'' to suppress any '''open''' dissent; his entire defense was based upon the plea that he had not made his personal opinions known. He was definitely no advocate of free speech, as the play seems to suggest he was.
* [[Oda Nobunaga]] is typically portrayed as villainous, but from [[Samurai Warriors]] 2 onwards he gets treated as a pragmatic [[Anti-Hero]]. Historically, he was much closer to the game's portrayal of Hashiba Hideyoshi as an eccentric yet highly general and administrator. He was not only a ruthless commander, but embraced Western culture and technology before most other Daimyos and implemented several important policies that are still used or directly influence current policy today. Embracing the use of guns allowed him to rout his opponents in battle.
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* Taking a leaf from ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'', ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' promotes Liu Bei to a man concerned primarily with virtue and honourable behaviour.
** To a lesser degree, his son Liu Shan is also portrayed as, while far from the warrior his father was, a man of virtue.
* ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' has this and its [[Historical Villain Upgrade|counterpart]] '''as its entire plot'''. The series's main draw is how the developers use the [[Rule of Cool]] to combine [[Shown Their Work|exquisite research]] with Historical Upgrades. [[In the Past Everyone Will Be Famous|Everybody of note in the past]] belonged to one of two [[Ancient Conspiracy|Ancient Conspiracies]]; the [[Black and Gray Morality|Templars and the Assassins]]. The [http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Templars Templars] work to [[The Evils of Free Will|eradicate free will in the name of peace]]. The [http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Assassins Assassins] hunt and kill [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Evil Aristocrats]] wherever and whenever possible "[[The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified|to safeguard Mankind's evolution]]"(and peace). If somebody in the past was awesome, he's in the series somewhere with his life examined in detail - with [[Hidden Depths]] because history was [[Written by the Winners|Written By The Templars]].
** For starters, the Hashshashin themselves. IRL(as far as we know), they were Hassan-I-Sabah's private army, and brainwashed with drugs to boot. They built a reputation at the time as his enemies were [[Asshole Victim|Asshole Victims]] who they eliminated with a minimum of collateral damage.
*** There is no [[Real Life]] proof of their supposed drug-use, only hearsay from their foes. But they definately were ruthless religious fanatic, not entirely unlike the modern Islamic terrorists.
** [[Richard the Lion Heart|King Richard I]] of England, however, got a fairly realistic representation: he went by the title "Lionhearted" even in his own day, and it did not refer to heroism but a love of combat. So, though he's driven to conquer Jerusalem, he [[I Gave My Word|keeps his promise]] to listen to [[Player Character|Altaïr]] finally after he beats [[Big Bad|Robert De Sable]] in single combat, and lets Altair go free afterwards. He's undeniably a jerkass, but he's still portrayed in a relatively positive manner - basically a [[Noble Demon]].
** Lorenzo de'Medici is portrayed as being a devout republican and a benevolent ruler. In reality, like all the noble families in the Italian city-states, the Medicis were Machiavellian schemers who committed all sorts of immoral acts to maintain their power. At least it's shown in ''Lineage'' short how Lorenzo brutally tortures an agent of his enemies for information, and in ''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood|Brotherhood]]'' Lucrezia Borgia claims, probably truthfully that he quashes the families of his rivals utterly, even those who had nothing to do with the plots against him.
** And who can forget how [[Leonardo da Vinci]] got an upgrade in heroism, despite only being the sort-of deuteragonist? Notable changes include that his inventions work, are ''completely functional'' and can be used at nearly any time. Plus he's the main character's BFF.
** According to some fan-theories, the events of the games are filtered through Altair and Ezio's impressions of them. Such as the way beggars in AC 1 would bother Altair and ''only'' Altair.
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=== Other ===
* [[wikipedia:Lei Feng|Lei Feng]] was an ordinary but not particularly notable soldier in the People's Liberation Army. Then he died, and, amazingly, it turned out he ''just happened'' to have written a big diary in which he had recorded his dutiful life devoted to Chairman Mao. Most historians are pretty sure that the entire thing was a result of the Communist Party's [[Propaganda Machine]].
* Similar upgrades were done for the USSR's [[wikipedia:Pavlik Morozov|Pavlik Morozov]] and Nazi Germany's [[wikipedia:Horst Wessel|Horst Wessel]].
* Similarly, [[wikipedia:Nicolas Chauvin|Nicolas Chauvin]], if he really existed, got this treatment from French Bonapartists. Ironically, today he would generally get a [[Historical Villain Upgrade]] due to being the origin of the word "chauvinism".
* As at least one entry above notes, Abraham Lincoln is already considered to be one of America's greatest heroes, usually portrayed as a staunch abolitionist and believer in complete and utter equality, as well as a competent and upstanding example of everything a President should be. Statements and actions that would be condemned in others (such as his suspension of freedom of the press, his statements that he believed black people to be innately inferior to white people, and other such examples) are either outright ignored or given halfhearted excuses by those who cherish the idea of an utterly heroic Lincoln.
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* [[Ciaphas Cain]], '''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM'''! Pretty much the poster boy for this trope: a cowardly, manipulative political officer who gets thrown into death and destruction at every turn, and comes out as a hero for the [[The Empire|Imperium]], even revered as an aspect of the [[God-Emperor|god-emperor of mankind]] in some circles. He doesn't believe all the hype, though.
** A recurring theme in the books is Cain using his memoirs (compiled into the books we read) to give himself a [[Historical Villain Upgrade]] instead. By his actions, Cain is a hero. By his own claims he's a self-serving coward. Those tropes get played with a lot, and Sandy Mitchell says [[Shrug of God|he's not sure.]]
* Within the ''[[Dragaera]]'' series, the Dumas-[[Recycled in Space|recycling]] novels Brust [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|attributes to Paarfi]] are an example of this (and probably [[Historical Villain Upgrade]] as well) in universe. Paari presents a rose-colored, [[Good Old Ways]] view of Dragaeran history and tends to present historical figures in a flattering light, although in some cases, you can read between the lines and sense the real person was much less pleasant.
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=== Videogames ===
* In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', the official history records Delita as a hero, even though {{spoiler|he left quite a body count on the way to the throne.}}
* The protagonist of ''[[MediEvil (1998 video game)|Medievil]]'', Sir Daniel Fortesque, became a friend of the king through various exaggerated tales of his exploits. When an actual battle occurred, Daniel ended up getting killed by arrows minutes into it. However, due to being the King's friend, he went down in history as a hero. When the evil sorceror he fought against tries to take over the world again, Sir Dan gets a chance to finally prove himself as the hero history remembers him as.
* Pilineal Whitestrake in ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' series is known as the Divine Crusader, and held in high regard by Imperials for freeing Tamriel from the Ayleids. Nevermind he was a racist berserker who would often go into psychopathic episodes, which were said to have damaged the lands themself. He nearly single-handedly wiped ''an entire race'' from the face of the planet, and even attacked another race called the Khajiit, ''simply because they didn't look human''.
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=== Western Animation ===
* Parodied on a ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' sketch that shows [[Benjamin Franklin]] practicing with a bo staff and declares "For America!" at the very end.
** A different, but similar, sketch had [[The American Revolution]] done in the style of the film ''[[300]]''.
{{quote|"1776! It ain't accurate, but it'll blow your fucking mind!"}}
* Jebediah Springfield on ''[[The Simpsons]]''. Touted as an archetypal pioneer who killed bears with his bare hands, {{spoiler|he was in fact a German pirate who once tried to off George Washington but got his ass kicked.}}
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