Real Life?: Historical Hero Upgrade

Okay, I just excised this, from a troper called "Leogarg," from Historical Hero Upgrade:

"Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Theresa gets this a lot. She's viewed by most people as a real saint, full of sweet goodness. In reality, she had many flaws. Beside other things, she regularly withheld narcotica from people who needed it because pain was just a gift from god and she used the money raised to rally against abortion and building 150 convents around the world instead of using it for the poor or building an hospital with it."

I tend to think I am not the only one who would find this offensive, though I may, of course, be mistaken. (I tend to be very leery of any potential Flame Bait, possibly overly so.) This leads to the question, though — should any Real Life examples be allowed on this page? There are all kinds of historical controversies that really have little or nothing to do with fiction (FDR, Hero against Hitler or Stooge of Stalin?), that — it seems to me — could use a good leavin' alone.

So, what do you guys think? Excise Real Life? Just add a Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment message? Or am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

edited 11th Dec '10 8:32:32 PM by Tannhaeuser

I can see Real Life upgrades being a bit of a problem, but I must investigate further.

Well, if anyone, Mother Theresa sure has this, her name is used as a synonym of goodness, even though obviously she was just a human.

edited 10th Dec '10 3:41:25 AM by EternalSeptember

The question is not about Mother Theresa in particular, though I may well say the particular grounds on which the troper in question chose to question her positions are highly controversial (and savor, rather, of a Take That! against Roman Catholics). The question is whether any Real Life figures, particularly those with only the most marginal connections to fiction, should be allowed, especially when such figures are objects of reverence to others. I see no reason to say something (to take an example at random) like "Kemal Atatürk wasn't all that great" and thereby give offense to many Turkish people — especially when Atatürk is not exactly one of the most common Historical Domain Characters. Some consideration ought to be given to the sensibilities of others.

edited 10th Dec '10 2:51:46 AM by Tannhaeuser

Well, if anything the last bit, about the 150 convents, should be deleted. I mean, I don't find it particularly 'good' either, but it is not like it is 'evil'. By that logic every money not spend in food for poor is 'wasted'.

Despite of this, I think Madre Theresa is a particularly good example. As said, she is treated as the paragon of goodness, when she probably was just a human.

Nah, I think Mother Theresa is a perfect example of why it should be removed. "Hero Upgrade" is semantical, as it relies upon A) establishing that most people consider the person to be good or blessed and B) discrediting their work enough to show their actions were either heroic by corollary or deliberately staged to look thus.

Mother Theresa may have had flaws, but did anything she did happen by accident or falsehood? What about Martin Luther King, Jr? It's been revealed lately that he was a plagiarist and cheating spouse, but how does that in any way lessen his overall accomplishments?

You see, I was not saying that whatever her, Martin Luther King, Jr, or anyone, did of 'bad' invalidate whatever good deeds they had done in the past. Or that they don't count as 'hero' because of it.

However, Theresa is considered the paragon of goodness. People call other 'Mother Theresa' (in a ironic way or not) when the other is acting to 'goody'. She received an 'upgrade' in her 'heroness' at some point of the story, as far I can see.

Mind you, I can say the same about Hittler and Stalin for Historical Villain Upgrade. They were not nice person, but neither were they the reincarnation of Satan as they are frequently painted.

PS: I do support deleting the Real Life section on the ground of avoiding edit wars, however. It may be touchy subject and I don't see what we are gaining with this sections.

PPS: Maybe we should handle the Real Life section similar to Historical Villain Upgrade 'Several Media' folder.

edited 10th Dec '10 4:04:43 AM by Heatth

Hitler and Stalin were responsible for millions of deaths. I'm not sure whether or not the trope is specifically about exaggerating a historical villain, but the atrocities committed by both men were condemned in their own era as well as the modern era and fiction. They're not really "upgraded".

Now, in a fictional context, where Hitler is shown conspiring with Satan, or Theresa is given angel wings or something, I can agree...but in real life? This would be stretched to the point of redundancy, as every significant person ever would be pushed into one of the two camps, from Abe Lincoln to Michael Jackson to Attila to Cleopatra to Jesus Christ himself.

I'm in favor of removing the section entirely, if only because it's a huge pile of natter.

I don't see more natter in the Real Life example than in the others.

Renaming the folder to "Several Media" would be fine, after all, these well known figures tend to appear in various media, even if as a quick reference.

edited 10th Dec '10 6:51:30 AM by EternalSeptember

this trope is about someone who was not necessarily heroic/a leader or his/her deeds were not as astounding in real life, getting turned into a hero in fiction. i don't think there should be a Real Life section; this trope should be restricted to media use.

if mother theresa, whom we all know was just human and had many, many flaws, is depicted as the paragon of goodness and perfection in a fictional work, then that's an example. if she is depicted as the paragon of goodness and perfection by people in general, that's just people oversimplifying things or putting her in a pedestal. if that's a trope, at the very least it should be a different trope.

and keep in mind that this is all very YMMV— i don't particularly see anything that's been mentioned about her as excluding her from a possible "heroic" status, for one. fictional heroes have flaws, too. and i can see how someone could be offended by her inclusion on the list.

(this actually makes me leery of the in-universe examples as well, which is basically the characters themselves oversimplifying or pedestal-ing historical figures. but i'll hold my trigger-happy finger on that one for the moment).

@King Zeal,

As I said, I am not diminishing these people "goodness" or "evilness". Just pointing people tend to exaggerate when talking about them.

Anyway, yeah, 'Real Life' is not a good way to look at this trope. The focus should be in how they are shown in media.

edited 10th Dec '10 9:15:13 AM by Heatth

Just cut the Real Life section. We're not about real life, and it's cluttering up the page.

and That could be said about every Real Life section on the page, and currently, they are not forbidden.

If you want to delete Real Life sections for the sake of deleting Real Life sections, petition for banning all of them, but until that, you have to prove that in this case, they are less correct than work-based examples, instead of just attacking it for being a Real Life section.

edited 10th Dec '10 11:13:37 AM by EternalSeptember

The trope is about (mostly) Real Life people in fiction—I don't think that we should expand it to Real Life people in Real Life.

edited 10th Dec '10 11:56:26 AM by helterskelter

By the way, we may want to consider the implications of this for Historical Villain Upgrade as well. I tend to think there has been certain amount "Actually, Lincoln was a Complete Monster, because he suspended habeas corpus"/"No, Lincoln was holier than any angel has ever been because of his 'Emancipation Proclamation'" Natter and Edit Sparring (not really a full-fledged war, laus Deo) going on on both pages.

I don't know that there is a need to ban all Real Life references, yet. I do believe that these two pages' Real Life sections have been mildly, and could become majorly, contentious, to nobody's gain and to many people's detriment. (Redistributing the Real Life entries to "Several Media," by the way, should only be done in my opinion if that person can be shown to have been upgraded in several media.)

While I personally lean in the direction of believing that Mother Teresa example, I do agree that both Historical Hero Upgrade and Historical Villain Upgrade could use some fixing.

Pretty much, I would avoid the "general examples" (i.e. entries on characters who receive this a lot) as well as examples in real life- but still keep the examples by media.

What helterskelter said. This is about Real Life gray characters being upgraded to heroes in fiction. It is not about historical disputes about how heroic a specific person is.

Cut it.

Oh, and on Mother Teresa-> Opposing abortion is evil?

You don't think that's Flame Bait right there?

Mother Teresa gained her reputation when she was still alive. There was no later "upgrade" of her to heroic status. Instead there has been a later move to downgrade her to "scam artist". Generally by militant atheists who argue that religion is the source of all evil in the world and find Mother Teresa's reputation has been an effective counter to their claims.

That is the true motivation behind these ridiculous charges against her. It's why things like founding convents are listed as "evil deeds".

Mother Teresa lived in poverty. She took in dying people who either had no family or who's family could no longer afford to support them. She fed them, cared for them, and stayed with them while they died.

No she did not provide painkillers. She was not operating some hospital with modern medicine, she was merely trying to provide some human compassion and companionship for the dying who had no one else.

edited 11th Dec '10 11:08:50 AM by Sackett

Opposing abortion is not evil. Spending money that was donated by people under the impression that it would go to helping people to campaign against abortion is...well, I don't want to say evil, but bad.

Deliberately withholding painkillers from people in pain is evil.

edited 11th Dec '10 11:40:27 AM by Nyktos

That, and the larger idea that she thought suffering was good and that played a role in her not providing better medical care.

But regardless, there really shouldn't be a real life section. You're angry at someone attacking Mother Teresa; I'm angry at someone attacking Lincoln. Let's call the whole thing off.

Besides that point, this isn't about two different sides of a question viewing the same person differently. The Romanians regard Vlad Tepes as a national hero, the Turks regard him as a monster. That's simply because he was doing things the Romanians approved of and the Turks didn't, and being quite ruthless about it. It's not an upgrade — it's two sides of the same coin.

I'm removing examples that just discuss a real person without a media example.

Mother Theresa was not a friend of the poor, she was a friend of poverty.

Now, you see? If we can't avoid highly charged and utterly irrelevant arguments  ^*

Hmph.

The poor thought she was their friend.

I tend to trust their judgment on this matter more than yours.