History Literature / FlashMan

* AdultFear: Surprisingly, Flashman runs into this in ''Flashman and the Tiger'' when he discovers [[spoiler:his granddaughter is being sexually extorted by Sebastian Moran]].

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Flashman will kill ... but he rebels at being told that he's to assassinate [[spoiler:John Brown, and later on, Emperor Theodore of Abyssinia]]; he says "a scoundrel I may be, but I ain't an assassin, and you'll comb my memoirs in vain for a mention of Flashy as First Murderer." The one time he comes close to breaking this rule, he's been driven into a corner ...[[spoiler: and he ends up not having to do the deed, thanks to Sherlock Holmes having set the whole thing up as a way to trap "Tiger Jack" Moran in "The Adventure of the Empty House."]]

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: [[VillainProtagonist Flashman himself]] is a massive racist and misogynist, although he verges into PoliticallyIncorrectHero territory in some of the books.

* ScarpiaUltimatum: Discussed in ''Flashman's Lady''. When Flashman is taken captive by Suleiman (who has abducted Elspeth and wants to force her into marriage), he is terrified that Suleiman will use him as a hostage to force Elspeth to submit to him. Terrified, [[DirtyCoward because of the possibility that Elspeth will act like a romance heroine and refuse to save him at the cost of her virtue.]] He also muses that this is unfair, and that he would happily have sex with a beautiful woman to save his wife if the circumstances were reversed.

* UnskilledButStrong: Outright ''unskilled'' is probably too far, but when faced with s master swordsman like Rudi von Starnberg, Flashman's considerable strength (aided by terror-induced desperation) helps keep him the fight.
* UnreliableNarrator: Fraser occasionally ascribes historical inaccuracies to the poor memory, narrow interests, and severe LackOfEmpathy of an aged, hard-drinking Flashman. Flashy does try hard not to be this, but being a not-particularly-bright [[TheSociopath sociopath]] does rather limit your usefulness as a narrator.

* UnskilledButStrong: Outright ''unskilled'' is probably too far, but when faced with master swordsman like Rudi von Starnberg, Flashman's considerable strength (aided by terror-induced desperation) help keep him the fight.

* TenPacesAndTurn: In ''Flashman'', Flashman is forced into fighting a duel after a brief affair with a fellow officer's lover. Flashman gains a free shot after promising to pay Tommy Bryant (his second) a large sum of money to put blanks in his opponent's gun, but rather than attempt to kill his opponent, Flashy instead delopes and [[AccidentalAimingSkills accidentally shoots the top off a bottle thirty yards away]], an action that gives him instant fame and the respect of Duke of Wellington. Being the cad he is, he doesn't give Bryant a penny, which comes back to bite him in ''Flash for Freedom!''.

* TenPacesAndTurn: In ''Flashman'', Flashman is forced into fighting a duel after a brief affair with a fellow officer's lover. Flashman gains a free shot after promising to pay Tommy Bryant (his second) a large sum of money to put blanks in his opponents gun, but rather than attempt to kill his opponent, Flashy instead delopes and [[AccidentalAimingSkills accidentally shoots the top off a bottle thirty yards away]], an action that gives him instant fame and the respect of Duke of Wellington. Being the cad he is, he doesn't give Bryant a penny, which comes back to bite him in ''Flash for Freedom!''.

** ''Flashman on the March'', the last published novel in the series has an Author's Introduction and Footnotes that's more or less a TakeThat to UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror in general, and Bush and Blair in particular.

* MeaninglessVillainVictory: At first glance it appears that TheBadGuyWins in ''Flashman and the Angel of the Lord'' since Brown's raid goes ahead as the Kuklos planned and strengthens the cause for Southern secession. Then you remember that the South's attempt to secede lead to the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar and the secessionists being decisively crushed.

* LaserGuidedKarma: Harry usually survives with life and reputation intact, but only after his actions have come around to bite him. In particular, every time he does some ''especially'' bad he very swiftly suffers karmic payback (ie. [[spoiler: pushing a woman out of a cart they are escaping in to lighten the load only to fall out ''himself'' moments later]]). [[GenreBlindness He never notices the connection]]

** Flashman himself, whilst always winning in the end, usually receives some form of punishment during the course of the book, such as being tortured by Afghans, being publicly humiliated after [[spoiler:''Tom Brown's School Days'' is published]] or getting shanghai'd.

** Flashy himself has one at the end of ''Flashman in the Great Game'' after [[spoiler:reading ''Tom Brown's School Days'']].

* DumbBlonde: The beautiful, golden-locked Elspeth isn't very bright.

* FirstPersonSmartass: part of the series' appeal lies in Flashman's honest, cutting assessments [[OnlySaneMan of the world around him.]]

** In the first ''Flashman'' book, he [[spoiler:gets an award, personally fitted by the young UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria with UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington standing by, for his work in holding a position during the Siege of Jalalabad. In actual fact, Flashman slept through most of the siege and was forced by his own subordinate Sergeant Hudson at sword-point to fulfill his duty and inspire the troops, and it was Hudson who truly defended the position. But Hudson died, and all he gets is a sentence commemorating his courage while Flashman gets the credit. Flashman notes that even if the truth came out, Hudson would never have gotten high honours since as a sergeant it wouldn't mean that he'd done more than his duty, whereas for an officer like Flashman, who bought his commission, what he supposedly did made him a hero]].
** He's particular delighted with his San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth (4th Class), these two qualities being quite spectacularly absent from Flashman's character.

** In the first ''Flashman'' book, he [[spoiler:gets an award, personally fitted by the young UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria with UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington standing by, for his work in holding a position during the Siege of Jalalabad. In actual fact, Flashman slept through most of the siege, and was forced by his own subordinate Sergeant Hudson at sword-point, to fulfill his duty and inspire the troops, and it was Hudson who truly defended the position, but he died, and all he gets is a sentence comemorating his courage, while Flashman gets the credit. Flashman even notes that even if the truth came out, Hudson would never gotten high honours anyway since as a sergeant it wouldn't mean that he had done more than his duty, whereas for an officer like Flashman, who bought his commission, what he did made him a hero]].

* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: an Arkansas hayseed out west to see the legendary Kit Carson doesn't believe that the small, unassuming, polite man could possibly be a frontiersman hero. Carson happened to be sitting next to Flashy, though, so the man assumes that the six-foot-tall handsome chap with the cavalry whiskers has to be it, despite the mountain men telling him otherwise. They laugh themselves sick when he leaves.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Flashman is an arrogant, womanizing chauvinist, which would not be out of place for his time period. He openly dismisses different cultures he encounters, although Flashman does stand out as an equal-opportunity cynic, though; his opinion of his peers is little better.

** Flashy is able to admit that Indian soldiers are skilled under the righ circumstances. Flashman like most of his fellow officers maintains a warrior-caste sentimentality and romanticism about Sikh and Ghazi troops, but in general he doesn't consider them very highly or see them as having identities beyond being soldiers.

* ''Flashman and the Redskins'' "The Seventy-Sixer" (1875-6): Flashman and his wife Elspeth are holidaying in Washington DC when Flashman encounters old comrade George Armstrong Custer and the beautiful Ms Arthur B. Candy. But not everything is as it seems. An old face from Flashman's past is plotting terrible revenge, and events are in motion that will sweep our reluctant hero inexorably towards the blood-soaked grass of the Little Bighorn.

* ''Flash for Freedom!'': After being framed as a card sharp and almost killing his accuser, Flashman is sent out of the country as supercargo on the illegal slave ship ''Balliol College'' by his father in law until the scandal blows over. Flashman must dodge the Dahomey Amazons, the British laws against slave trading, the American laws against slave-stealing, and ''Balliol College'''s insane Latin-quoting captain, John Charity Spring.
* ''Flashman and the Redskins'', "The Forty-Niner" (1849-50): Ending ''Flash for Freedom!'' still stuck to Spring and wanted for perjury, murder, and impersonating a naval officer, Flashman escapes New Orleans as wagon-captain of Miss Susie Willinck, a brothel madam and old flame who is taking her business to San Francisco to, er, service the needs of the California gold rushers. But the Mimbreno Apache conspire to throw a tomahawk into Flashy's best-laid plans.

The character Flashman is taken from the Victorian novel, ''Literature/TomBrownsSchooldays'', where he is presented without any redeeming qualities. He has ''almost'' no redeeming qualities in Fraser's books either, except for crystal-clear powers of observation and real affection for his wife Elspeth and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In fact, these last two are the only categories of people in the world he's prepared to risk his own life for. Like his latter-day literary child Literature/CiaphasCain, there is the occasional indication that Flashy doth protest too much and is braver than he thinks he is -- but unlike Cain, even if this is the case, cowardice is only one aspect of the bullying, self-centered, and misogynistic Flashy's awfulness. Of course, given the many military catastrophes and disasters of the nineteenth-century British Empire, frequently in the situations Flashy finds himself in "being a coward" also counts as "being the OnlySaneMan" (certainly, a certain George Armstrong Custer should have retreated when Flashman advised it).

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: It would be easier to list the characters who are ''fictional''. Basically, with the exceptions of the boys from ''Literature/TomBrownsSchooldays'' (Tom Brown, Scud East, Speedicut, Flashman himself), Flashman's father, Elspeth, her father, Tommy Bryant, Gul Shah, Ilderim Khan, Rudi von Starnberg, Duchess Irma of Strackenz, John Charity Spring (and the rest of the crew of the ''Balliol College''), Susie Willinck, Cleonie, Sonsee-Array, Prince William of Celle, Count Pencherjevsky, [[spoiler:Colonel Moran, Literature/SherlockHolmes and Doctor Watson]], most of the characters are real historical figures (even those who you think ''must'' be fictional, like [[spoiler Frank Grouard, although GMF did take considerable liberties with his family background]]) and more details about them can likely be found in the endnotes.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: It would be easier to list the characters who are ''fictional''. Basically, with the exceptions of the boys from ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'' (Tom, Scud East, Speedicut, Flashman himself), Flashman's family, Elspeth, her father, Tommy Bryant, Ilderim Khan, Rudi von Starnberg, Duchess Irma of Strackenz, John Charity Spring (and the rest of the crew of the ''Balliol College''), Susie Willinck, Prince William of Celle, Count Pencherjevsky, [[spoiler:Colonel Moran, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson]], most of the characters are real historical figures, and more details about them can likely be found in the endnotes.

* TenPacesAndTurn: In ''Flashman'', Flashman is forced into fighting a duel after a brief affair with a fellow officer's lover. Flashman gains a free shot after promising a large sum of money to the pistol loader to give his opponent blanks in his gun, but rather than attempt to kill his opponent, instead delopes and [[AccidentalAimingSkills accidentally shoots the top off a bottle thirty yards away]], an action that gives him instant fame and the respect of Duke of Wellington.

* TokenGoodTeammate: Beauchamp Comber to the crew of the slave-ship ''Balliol College''. Unlike the others, he is opposed to slavery and is actually concerned for the wellbeing of the African slaves. It eventually turns out that [[spoiler:he works for the Royal Navy spying on suspected slave-traders in order to gather evidence against them to be used in court]].

-->''I’ve heard it from Afghanistan to Whitehall, from the African veldt to drunken hunting parties in Rutland; heard it sounded on penny whistles by children and roared out by Custer’s 7th on the day of Greasy Grass — and there were survivors of the Light Brigade singing on that day, too — but it always sounds bitter on my ears, because I think of those brave, deluded, pathetic bloody fools in that Russian shed, with their mangled bodies and lost limbs, all for a shilling a day and a pauper’s grave — and yet they thought Cardigan, who’d have flogged ’em for a rusty spur and would see them murdered under the Russian guns because he hadn’t wit and manhood enough to tell Lucan to take his order to hell — they thought he was “a good old commander,” and they even cheered me, who’d have turned tail on ’em at the click of a bolt.''

* UnskilledButStrong: Outright ''unskilled'' is probably too far but when faced with master swordsman like Rudi Starnberg Flashman's considerable strength (aided by terror induced desperation) help keep him the fight.

-->''It isn’t important whether you win or lose so long as you survive. So long as your people survive. And that’s the only good reason for fighting that anyone ever invented. The survival of your people and race and kind. That’s the only victory that matters.''

-->''The car was lost to sight as it turned through the gates and made towards the Palace, even as the lights on the balcony came up again and royalty reappeared. The singing swelled to a triumphant climax; Mr Franklin could imagine the monarch glimpsing the car with its eccentric occupant as it sped across the open space before the Palace — what in God’s name was the old villain going to say when he got inside and the Palace minions discovered he was an entirely unauthorised visitor bent only on relieving himself? Mr Franklin could not guess — but he had no doubt Sir Harry would think of something. He’d had a lot of practice.''

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: It would be easier to list the characters who are ''fictional''. Basically, with the exceptions of the boys from ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'' (Tom, Scud East, Speedicut, Flashman himself), Flashman's family, Elspeth, her father, Tommy Bryant, Ilderim Khan, Rudi von Starnberg, Duchess Irma of Strackenz, John Charity Spring, Susie Willinck, Prince William of Celle, Count Pencherjevsky, [[spoiler:Colonel Moran, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson]], most of the characters are real historical figures, and more details about them can likely be found in the endnotes.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: It would be easier to list the characters who are ''fictional''. Basically, with the exceptions of the boys from ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'' (Tom, Scud East, Speedicut, Flashman himself), Flashman's family, Elspeth, her father, Tommy Bryant, Rudi von Starnberg, Duchess Irma of Strackenz, John Charity Spring, Susie Willinck, Prince William of Celle, Count Pencherjevsky, [[spoiler:Colonel Moran, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson]], most of the characters are real historical figures, and more details about them can likely be found in the endnotes.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: It would be easier to list the characters who are ''fictional''. Basically, with the exceptions of the boys from ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'' (Tom, Scud East, Speedicut, Flashman himself), Flashman's family, Elspeth, her father, Tommy Bryant, Rudi von Starnberg, Duchess Irma of Strackenz, John Charity Spring, Susie Willinck, [[spoiler:Colonel Moran, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson]], most of the characters are real historical figures, and more details about them can likely be found in the endnotes.

* AuthorAvatar: George Mac Donald Fraser was perfectly aware his conservative political views and as the century grew older, his non-politically correct social opinions were making him more and more of a dinosaur in a Britain that he felt was losing touch with him ([[WordOfGod and expressly not the other way around]]). It is very possible the fictional reactionary Victorian Flashman was the perfect vehicle for his being able to present personal opinions he knew he'd be castigated for, if he expressed them in any other context.

* BedroomAdulteryScene: In one of the novels, Flashman catches Lord Cardigan with his wife, though it is never made clear whether it was a prearranged tryst, or Cardigan intending to rape Elspeth.

* TheCameo: An antiquated Flashman appears briefly in Fraser's ''Mr. American'' (1980), set in TheEdwardianEra. Though pushing 90 years old, Flashy's as randy and cynical as ever.

* DoubleStandard: Surprisingly averted. Flashman's wife is as lecherous as he is, and Flashman is remarkably tolerant of this - objecting only when her conquests are a little too obvious (and he makes an equal amount of effort to keep his affairs from her knowledge) or if it's with someone he hates.

* ForegoneConclusion: Flashman couldn't have written the memoirs if he'd died at any point, could he? Likewise the framing story makes it clear his reputation remained intact meaning anyone who discovers the truth and threatens to expose him like [[spoiler: Hudson]] in ''Flashman'' or [[spoiler: Nolan]] in ''Flashman and the Dragon'' is DoomedByCanon.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: With the exceptions of the characters from ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'': Tom, Flashman, 'Scud' East, Flashman's family, and his wife, and [[spoiler:Sherlock Holmes for some reason]], most of the characters are historical figures, even ones, such as Sir Colin Campbell, Elspeth's Uncle, who might seem fictional.

** The HistoricalDomainCharacter Henri Stefan Blowitz is portrayed as this as far as journalists are concerned in "The Road to Charing Cross" (in ''Flashman and the Tiger''); he ''really did'' get the Treaty of Berlin (1878) published in full (including the preambles) in ''The Times'' on the morning of the day it was signed.