History Literature / TheTrueHistoryOfTheConquestOfMexico

** The author denies Bartolomé de las Casas' claims that Pedro de Alvarado caused the Massacre in the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan solely to steal the noblemen's gold jewels, and instead states that Alvarado did it because the noblemen were secretly plotting against him with the festival as an excuse. Certainly, a theft like that seems StupidEvil enough to doubt that Alvarado would have risked a total Mexica revolt for a petty booty he could have obtained by safer means. However, the whole attack still comes across as an utterly suicidal way to counter a plot, which naturally makes Cortés angry at him when he finds out about it.

This chronicle was written as both the memoirs of an OldSoldier and a response to the chronicles by Creator/BartolomeDeLasCasas and Francisco López de Gómara, who Díaz found to be equally unreliable: the former case because De las Casas exaggerated to the moon the real cases of abuses and pillage he found, presumably for the purpose of shocking the reader into sypmpathizing with the natives, and the latter because López treated his chronicle as hagiography, ignored many things, and made up what he ignored. It can also give the impression that Díaz, like Cortés himself and several other conquistadors, felt he never quite got the respect he hoped from his peers - a true Spanish phenomenon, they say.

The work's literary and historical value has earned Díaz the nickname of being "among chroniclers what Creator/DanielDefoe is among novelists" in modern academia. It was translated to English thrice, both abridged and unabridged.

* {{Gasshole}}: A Spanish soldier named Trujillo is flogged when Moctezuma complains that he could heard him doing ''traques'' (read: loudly farting) during his night guard, even after Moctezuma chastised him and gave him gold not to do it again. Amusingly, some versions of the text censor the action and replace it by "dishonest things", which has led some authors to wrongly believe Trujillo was having ADateWithRosiePalms with improper noises instead.

This chronicle was written as both the memoirs of an OldSoldier and a response to the chronicles by Creator/BartolomeDeLasCasas and Francisco López de Gómara, who Díaz found to be equally unreliable: the former case because De las Casas was attempting exaggerating to the moon the real cases of abuse he found, presumably for the purpose of shock and conscientized the reader, and the latter because López treated his chronicle as hagiography, ignored many things, and made up what he ignored. It can also give the impression that Díaz, like Cortés himself and several other conquistadors, felt he never quite got the respect he hoped from his peers - a true Spanish phenomenon, they say.

** Among the women, Díaz give a couple mentions of María de Estrada, the famed Spanish ActionGirl, but only describes her needing to be rescued along with non-combatant women like Marina, which has led authors to speculate her battlefield feats might have been exaggerated. Again, however, she is among the women mentioned in the victory feast, which would be pretty inexplicable if she wasn't as relevant as claimed.

* DissonantSerenity: Marina, whom Díaz and company never find even a bit affected by all the war and fighting.

* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: The confederation of Tlaxcala is composed of four states (Tepeticpac, Ocotelulco, Tizatlan and Cuyahuiztlan), along with a minor fifth, Topeyanco, ruled by Tecapaneca. Ironically, this Tecapaneca seems to be a pretty important dude: out of the four lords of Tlaxcala, only Xicohtencatl and Maxixcatzin appear personally, while Tecapaneca and Chichimecatecuthli (this one seems to be a sort of supreme commander in military affairs) make up for the other two.

* UnknownCharacter: There is a seldom-mentioned Pizarro among Cortés' forces, explicitly said to be part of the Pizarro clan that would become famous with the UsefulNotes/SpanishConquestOfTheIncaEmpire. His age is given as 25, but his first name is not mentioned, so we cannot be sure who he was.