History Series / Hernan

* GutturalGrowler: Alvarado has few lines that aren't grunts.

* AxCrazy: Alvarado seems to never have enough blood. Xicohtencatl the Younger doesn't look much more stable either.

* AxCrazy: Alvarado seems not to have enough blood. Xicohtencatl the Younger doesn't look much more stable either.

* DeathOfAChild: Alvarado stops a child sacrifice, only to have latter the children murdered and thrown to his feet for extra drama. It isn't the death of the child itself what subsequently angers Alvarado, though, but the act of disobedience; previously to that, Alvarado gleefully murderered the local boy whom Díaz del Castillo had befriended (and only after having tried to get Díaz to do the deed himself ForTheEvulz).

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Compared to all chronicles and accounts we have of them, be it from Spanish, mestizo or indigenous sources, this portrayal of Cortés and the Spaniards is densely unflattering, versioning most of them as petty, incompetent, racist, mentally unstable, accomplice of all the previous, or some combination of them (including scenes, such as Alvarado abandoning Luisa, that seem tailor made to nullify what would be natural PetTheDog moments), and re-contextualizing real life events to further make them unsympathetic even in those cases where the viewer might get tempted to side with them. Even their Tlaxcaltec allies get their own part, being portrayed as bloodthirsty, decrepit and substantially less civilized than the Mexicas, not to mention being led by a war chief with incestuous impulses.
* HumanSacrifice: Practiced by the Mexicas and all the rest of indigenous peoples, although seldom seen onscreen. A sacrificial victim even turns out to be a self-sacrificing religious zealout.

** Pedro de Alvarado tries to prevent child sacrifice in Tenochtitlan and goes ballistic when the Mexicas throw to his face the corpses of the children he tried to save. All fine and dandy, except that Alvarado himself is shown gratuitously killing children in Cholula and trying to get Díaz del Castillo to do it himself. It's implied that Alvarado is merely angry because Cortés decreed orders against human sacrifice, not that Alvarado is personally offended at the ritual murder itself, but given that Pedro in general seems to be a veritable nutcase, maybe it doesn't need an explanation.
** It's not commented upon, but Moctezuma's lines against imperial domination of other people sound really weird coming from an emperor, especially having in mind that his own Totonac vassals brought Cortés in so he could free them in the first place.

* SanitySlippage: Cortés' increasingly emotional state during the siege in the Axayacatl palace implies the events are taking their toll on him. It's the stolid Alvarado who has to snap him out of it.

* UnholyMatrimony: The racist Alvarado suddenly changes his mind upon being married to Luisa/Tecuelhuetzin, who turns out to be just as psycho as him.

** Juana arms herself and forms part of an expedition. The character is fictional, but the premise of a conquistadora is TruthInTelevision, though.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Cortés and his men leave Veracruz in an inland expedition through the jungle, eventually walking into a Totonac embassy that guides them to Cempoal, and later seemingly walk all the same road back to their village. In real life, Cempoal was a coastal city like Veracruz and was located relatively nearby, meaning both the Spaniards and the Totonacs of the series took a huge, bizarre detour each. Unless this Cempoal is in land, it's not explained why couldn't Cortés and company take the shorter way home coastside.

* AxCrazy: Alvarado seems not to have enough blood.

* BrotherSisterIncest: Xicohtencatl the Younger has the hots for his sister Tecuelhuetzin (possibly only half-sister, it's not clarified) and forces himself upon her once, and is heartbroken at seeing her tauntingly taking Alvarado's side.
* DeathOfAChild: Alvarado stops a child sacrifice, only to have latter the children murdered and thrown to his feet for extra drama. Previously, and oddly enough, he gleefully murders the boy whom Díaz del Castillo had befriended, but only after having tried to get Díaz to do the deed himself.
* ForgotAboutHisPowers: A single Mexica slinger is able to torment the Cortesians from a rooftop Stalingrado-style, to the point they cannot move a falconet because he kills everybody in sight, despite they have shields and mantlets in plenty and other scenes show them successfully fending off sling stones.

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: The story takes great pains to portray the Mexica Empire as a clean, dignified state with the higher moral ground, to the point their Totonac tributaries essentially complain of OffstageVillainy when they denounce them to Cortés. This version of Moctezuma takes no responsability for the ambush of the Massacre of Cholula nor secretly strike deals with Pánfilo de Narváez behind Cortés' back, and in the entire series we barely see traces onscreen of human sacrifice (only seen with a couple of war captives, not much compared to the 10.000 people or so Mexicas used to sacrifice every year in real life), cannibalism (though only in vessels that might be offerings) and imperialism (with Moctezuma even getting a few lines against it, this coming from the emperor of a brutal, predatorial slaveholding society).
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Compared to all chronicles and accounts we have of them, be it from Spanish, mestizo or indigenous sources, this portrayal of Cortés and the Spaniards is densely unflattering, versioning most of them as petty, incompetent, racist, mentally unstable, accomplice of all the previous, or some combination of them (including scenes, such as Alvarado abandoning Luisa, that seem tailor made to nullify what would be PetTheDog moments), and re-contextualizing real life events to further make them unsympathetic even in those where the viewer might get tempted to side with them. Even their Tlaxcaltec allies get their own part, being portrayed as bloodthirsty, decrepit and substantially less civilized than the Mexicas, not to mention being led by a war chief with incestuous impulses.
* HumanSacrifice: Practiced by the Mexicas and all the rest of indigenous peoples, although seldom seen onscreen. A sacrificial victim turns out to be a self-sacrificing zealout, though.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Alvarado tries to prevent child sacrifice in Tenochtitlan and goes ballistic when the Mexicas throw to his face the corpses of the children he tried to save. All fine and dandy, except that Alvarado himself is shown gratuitously killing children in Cholula and trying to get Díaz del Castillo to do it himself. The oddity is not commented upon, but given that Alvarado in general seems a veritable nutcase, maybe it doesn't need an explanation.

** Hernán and Gonzalo quite the line "no queda sino batirse" ("there's no choice left but to fight") made famous by ''Literature/{{Alatriste}}''.
** The battle cry "que corra la sangre protegiendo el reino" ("may the blood run to protect the kingdom") seems to be a reference to the fictional anthem of the ''tercios'' featured in ''Series/AguilaRoja''.

''Hernán'' is a 2019 Spanish-Mexican HistoricalFiction series loosely based on the UsefulNotes/SpanishConquestOfTheAztecEmpire. It stars Creator/OscarJaenada as the [[UsefulNotes/HernanCortez title character himself]] and Ishbel Bautista as UsefulNotes/LaMalinche, along with Dagoberto Gama as Emperor Moctezuma and an assorted cast of secondary characters, often seen from the point of view of [[Literature/TheTrueHistoryOfTheConquestOfMexico Bernal Díaz del Castillo]] played by Miguel Ángel Amor.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Cortés and his men leave Veracruz in an inland expedition through the jungle, eventually walking upon a Totonac embassy that guides them to Cempoal, and later seemingly walk all the way back to their village the same road. In real life, Cempoal was a coastal city like Veracruz and was located relatively nearby, meaning both the Spaniards and the Totonacs of the series took a huge, bizarre detour each. Unless this Cempoal is in land, it's not explained why couldn't Cortés and company take the shorter way home coastside.

* ForgotAboutHisPowers: A single Mexica slinger is able to torment the Cortesians from a rooftop Stalingrado-style, to the point they cannot remove a falconet because he kills everybody in sight, despite they have shields and mantlets in plenty and other scenes show them successfully fending off sling stones.

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: The story takes great pains to portray the Mexica Empire as a clean, dignified state with the higher moral ground, to the point their Totonac tributaries essentially complain of OffstageVillainy when they denounce them to Cortés. This version of Moctezuma takes no responsability for the ambush of the Massacre of Cholula nor secretly strike deals with Pánfilo de Narváez behind Cortés' back, and in the entire series we barely see traces onscreen of human sacrifice (only seen with a single war captive and some children, not much compared to the 10.000 people or so Mexicas used to sacrifice every year in real life), cannibalism (though only in vessels that might be offerings) and imperialism (with Moctezuma even getting a few lines against it, this coming from the emperor of a brutal, predatorial slaveholding society).
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Compared to all chronicles and accounts we have of them, be it from Spanish, mestizo or indigenous sources, this portrayal of Cortés and the Spaniards is densely unflattering, versioning most of them as petty, psychotic, racist, incompetent, indifferent, or a combination of some (including scenes, such as Alvarado abandoning Luisa, that seem tailor made to nullify inevitable PetTheDog moments), and re-contextualizing real life events to further make them unsympathetic even in those where the viewer might get tempted to side with them. Even their Tlaxcaltec allies get their own part, being portrayed as bloodthirsty, decrepit and substantially less civilized than the Mexicas, not to mention being led by a war chief with incestuous impulses.
* HumanSacrifice: Practiced by the Mexicas, although seldom seen onscreen.

The series ran for two six-episode seasons on Creator/PrimeVideo. Oddly, it was produced at the same time as another Amazon historical series about the same exact topic, a miniseries named ''Cortés'' starring Javier Bardem and Creator/TenochHuerta as the antagonic characters, which was ultimately cancelled.

** María Luisa also grabs a ''macuahuitl'' and gets some hits during the Sad Night.
* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Cortés and his men leave Veracruz in an inland expedition through the jungle, eventually finding a Totonac embassy that guides them to Cempoal, and later seemingly walk all the way back to their village. In real life, Cempoal was a coastal city like Veracruz and was located relatively nearby, meaning both the Spaniards and the Totonacs of the series took a huge, bizarre detour each. Unless this Cempoal is in land, it's not explained why couldn't Cortés and company take the shorter way home coastside.

* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Cortés takes a sip from an entheogenic given by Moctezuma and starts hallucinating at the very second he tastes it. In real life, even the trippiest potion usually takes at least several minutes to be absorbed and take action.

* GrayAndGrayMorality: The work doesn't clearly have heroic or villainous characters, pitting the brutal, racist Spaniards against the sacrifice-happy Aztecs and the opportunistic Tlaxcaltecs in the middle. Only Marina seems to have the higher moral ground, and not by much.

* LadyMacbeth: Tecuelhuetzin tries to convince Alvarado to murder Moctezuma.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Enough for [[ArtisticLicenseHistory/{{Hernan}}]] its own page.