History Main / FreakierThanFiction

** The film also neglects to mention that the Spartans were just as much of a genocidal, perverse faction as the Nazis. Some sources even claim they were *worse*. Of course, the ending reveals the whole thing was in-universe propaganda with an UnreliableNarrator for the Spartan's own benefit.

** The film also neglects to mention that the Spartans were just as much of a genocidal, perverse faction as the Nazis. Some sources even claim they were *worse*.

->'''Judd Winner:''' "What did you think? TV turned an entire generation of girls into sleazy whores? That we normalized promiscuous behavior to the point where college chicks would get naked for millions of masturbating men for the price of a trucker's hat? C'mon guys! Of course it's hypnosis!"
-->-- ''StrokerAndHoop''

* ''LawAndOrder'' gets its plots from somewhere. Such as the case of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleen_Stan Colleen Stan]].

->Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
-->-- '''MarkTwain'''

No matter how weird, freaky, or {{squick}}y fiction gets, there will be something in RealLife that is even weirder, freakier, or {{squick}}ier.

* In ''[[SingingInTheRain Singin' in the Rain]]'', Cosmo says of film star Lina Lamont: "She can't act, she can't sing, she can't dance. A triple threat." Now, who in RealLife would build a musical around a Hollywood star who couldn't sing, dance or act? That would be the producers of a musical revue titled ''Two's Company'', which opened on Broadway the same year ''Singin' in the Rain'' was released. What critics had to write about Bette Davis's leading performance resembled the movie's put-down of its fictional actress.

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* "The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade", by EdgarAllanPoe, runs on this trope, getting the titular princess beheaded after [[ArabianNights her canonical reprieve]]. Most of the examples listed are [[ScienceMarchesOn either common knowledge now or disproven.]]
* You sometimes see people with superpowers make a single stand against an army. You never see normal people do it. And yet, that is what one Viking did to an English army. He stood on a bridge with his axe and held off the entire army, [[BadAss on his own.]] It got to the point that they sent someone out in a boat to attack him from below the bridge, because ''they couldn't kill him.'' This is not something you will ever see in a movie--a single, normal person fighting an ''army'' to a standstill.
** That should be the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge Battle of Stamford Bridge]], at least, according to a folk story. But since it's an extremely awesome story, then it must be true. May the internet be pleased.
** The Romans did it first. Behold the tale of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatius_Cocles Horatius Cocles]].
** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Fei Zhang Fei]] at the Battle of Chang Ban. Well, not quite, as he had a bit of help in real life, but the RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms / DynastyWarriors version has him single-handedly defending the Chang Ban Bridge from 10,000 men, as well as literally scaring a general to death.
** And Zhang Liao's defending a castle aginast 100,000 enemy troops with only 8000 men.

** CSIMiami also based an episode around this story, with an added twist: [[spoiler: the spiteful mother of the "dead" girl smothered the survivor before the switch was discovered, ultimately getting her arrested for murdering her own daughter.]]

*** That should be the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge Battle of Stamford Bridge]], at least, according to a folk story. But since it's an extremely awesome story, then it must be true. May the internet be pleased.
*** The Romans did it first. Behold the tale of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatius_Cocles Horatius Cocles]].
*** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Fei Zhang Fei]] at the Battle of Chang Ban. Well, not quite, as he had a bit of help in real life, but the RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms / DynastyWarriors version has him single-handedly defending the Chang Ban Bridge from 10,000 men, as well as literally scaring a general to death.

** This was also used [[spoiler:(with sisters)]] in one of the PhoenixWright games.

** Similarly, descriptions of Jørgen Haagen Schmith's last stand (also his first stand, since he was the driver) are considerably more amazing than the version of events shown in ''Flammen og Citronen''.

* In the real world, right now, there is a blind man who uses echolocation and good sense to ride a mountain bike cross-country. There is a woman without legs who had a prosthetic mermaid tail constructed to allow her to swim. There is a compressed air-based system which allows a bold pilot fifteen minutes of solitary flight, a working powered exoskeleton which allows a person to lift 100 pounds more than they could normally, multiple entire fleets of remote-controlled, flying killer robots, thousands of consumer products which use nanotechnology, and a civilian space program. I dare you to find a work of fiction set in the present, or event TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, where even half of those things wouldn't seem outrageous.
** The Marvel universe?

** As does ''[[http://www.viruscomix.com/page440.html Subnormality]]'', with a somewhat less rigorous, but [[WallOfText more elaborate]], version of the same proof.

** If it was a thin enough bridge, then to paraphrase the ''{{Vagabond}}'' manga it wasn't one man taking on an army, it was forced MookChivalry... though, it was still that Viking's CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
*** The internet wants a name.

* The actual events that inspired the film ''{{300}}'' were much worse than displayed. Rather than just kick the messenger into a well, the Spartans dressed up pre-pubescent boys as girls and gave them to the messengers for entertainment. The boys then proceeded to kill the messengers when one of them molested one of the boys...

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* The actual events that inspired the film 300 were much worse than displayed. Rather than just kick the messenger into a well, the Spartans dressed up pre-pubescent boys as girls and gave them to the messengers for entertainment. The boys then proceeded to kill the messengers when one of them molested one of the boys...

* Cracked.com is practically in love with this trope as much as boobs, writing humorous articles on true stories and facts that seem utterly ridiculous half the time even though it's real.

* [[SerialKiller BTK]] Dennis Rader, of Wichita, Kansas, has probably been the basis for several fictional serial killers. He would have gotten away scott-free, right under everyone's nose, too, if he hadn't [[ManipulativeBastard decided to get himself caught]] twenty years after the fact by [[StalkerWithACrush stalking]] the local newspaper and the detective who was head of his case way back when. His crimes were HighOctaneNightmareFuel, but his [[OrSoIHeard reported]] beliefs about the afterlife were [[ItGotWorse worse]]: he thought his victims would be his eternal slaves. His pastor, who sat through the trial up to this point in demonstration of the belief that even killers could be achieve salvation if properly repentant, [[MoralEventHorizon stood up and walked out]].

** Noone in the Apollo program at the time would have believed it either had it not actually happened.

* The actually events that inspired the film 300 were much worse than displayed. Rather than just kick the messenger into a well, the Spartans dressed up pre-pubescent boys as girls and gave them to the messengers for entertainment. The boys then proceeded to kill the messengers when one of them molested one of the boys...