Historical Hero Upgrade: Difference between revisions
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* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther| Martin Luther] gets this a lot. Everyone knows the old story: [[From Nobody to Nightmare| An obscure, low-ranking monk]] in the small German town of Wittenberg became embittered and distrustful of a Church he felt had lost its way. His faith faltered as he saw greed and corruption consume the leaders of his once-proud religion. So on All-Hallows Eve of 1517, [[Sudden Principled Stand| he had enough]], and in broad daylight, boldly marched up the door of his church and nailed a document detailing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses 95 grievances], accusing his own superiors of acts he found inexcusable, most involving sales of indulgences, which was basically exchanging divine forgiveness for money. While it initially led to his excommunication and exile, [[You Cannot Kill an Idea| his small voice struck a small spark in the congregation that became a roaring fire]], leading to the Protestant Reformation that would change the world. Only problem is, as heroic and dramatic as it sounds, that’s likely not how it happened. For starters, the key event - Luther nailing the grievances to the church door - was first reported by someone who could not possibly have witnessed it, and was not made public until after Luther died. And speaking of which, even on his deathbed, Luther never expressed true disdain for his faith, and considered himself a loyal Catholic to the end; he was not known to have mentioned or wrote of the key event personally. While he did indeed write the document detailing the 95 thesis, they were likely presented in the form of a polite letter to his superiors with his concerns included.
* Matthias Corvinus ruled Hungary with an iron fist. He was known for imprisoning the nobles who crowned him king, and instituting high taxes to maintain his army of [[Elite Mooks]]. Despite this, he is known as Hungary's greatest and most iconic folk hero, for his sense of justice and his rumoured habit of mingling with the common folk. The fact that the kingdom of Hungary was living it's golden age during his rule, and practically died with him, also helps his case.
* [[Franklin D Roosevelt]] was a massive racist (not even remotely [[Fair for Its Day]], as several prior presidents had spoken out against exactly what he pushed for) that extended the great depression by terrible monetary policy, disarmed law abiding citizens, imprisoned US citizens indefinitely without trial for being the wrong race (hiding exonerating evidence from multiple intelligence agencies showing his own claims were baseless to accomplish it), nominated an actual proven KKK member to the Supreme Court (later elevating him to Chief Justice), abused the espionage act to shut down those critical of him, rigged the supreme court, outlawed farmers from growing food to feed their family (to the point of burning crops in a poorly thought out plan to raise food prices in the dust bowl), gave the federal government unlimited power and kept [[Harry Truman]] in the dark about everything despite know how he could (and did) die soon. Yet because his cabinet and generals won [[World War II]] you'll ([[The Grimnoir Chronicles|almost]]) never find a piece of fiction that dares show him as anything but a saint.
** In ''[[The Winds of War and War and Remembrance]]'' this is subverted; he is generally portrayed well but he is not "a saint" except in the sense that real saints are often recorded as having rather curious lives. FDR is something of a [[Manipulative Bastard]] who plays with Victor by alternately offering a combat command which he keeps postponing, and appealing to Victor's idealism to do the job FDR says is most important. Aside from that [[The Government]] is miserly about giving passports to refugees, and strands evidence of atrocities in red tape. And while it is not clear who is to blame for that, FDR ''is'' the President...
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* Think the real [[Jackie Robinson]] was a badass athlete and a civil rights pioneer? In ''[[Lovecraft Country]]'', he ''literally'' [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|punches out Cthulhu!]] With [[Batter Up|a baseball bat]], naturally.
** This may have, in fact, been an analogy, as the episode was loaded with them. [[Word of God|leading actor Jonathan Majors]] claimed that Robinson was supposed to be "the manifestation of Black heroism at the time".
* In the Netflix [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story|loose]] Pablo Escobar [[Biopic]] ''[[Narcos]]'' the historical Bolivian police leader Hugo Martínez is split into the fictional Horacio Carrillo, who participates in some events Martínez was part of historically, and is willing to authorize torture and summary execution of narcos in the Colombian Drug War (an act Martínez was accused of with strong but non-definitive evidence, and believed to be the case by sources the series otherwise took at their word), and Hugo Martínez, who is shown as a pure [[By-The-Book Cop]] preaching inflexible morality even during a conflict that resembles open warfare more than normal criminality. This was presumably done because Martínez was still alive at the time the series aired and to do otherwise would have been asking for a lawsuit.
=== Theatre ===
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