History HistoricalVillainUpgrade / Literature

* Mao's nephew in "Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo". In real life, he was a politician of the Chinese Communist Party but quit politics after spending some time in prision, becoming a humble technician. However in Gumbo '72, he (now known as the Lesser Mao) becomes a brutal Tyrant who completely ruins China, uses nukes like there's no tomorrow, creates a massive global drug market (that then causes a massive crisis in the USA), outlaws literacy and causes his country to collapse into a new warlord era. [[PresidentEvil Donald Rumsfeld]] and [[TheFundamentalist Dick Cheney]] go through this as well, '''especially''' Rumsfeld. While in OTL he was a "only" a warhawkish neoconservative with [[MurderArsonAndJaywalking very bad acting skills]], in '72 he turns into a corporate fundamentalist tyrant who [[UnPerson Unpersons his enemies]], [[GaiasLament destroys the USA's Environment]], [[AbsoluteXenophobe supports the genecides in Israel and South Africa]], orders wounded soldiers executed rather than pay for their welfare and causes the collapse of NATO, all but assuring the [[TheBadGuyWins Soviet Victory in the Cold War]].If that wasn't bad enough, when he gets [[LaserGuidedKarma dragged to one of his very own Insane Asylums]] his VP is assasinated and the [[TheFundamentalist Christian Values Party]] wins the election. [[FromBadToWorse You can probably guess where this is going]].

** The Hoares are frequently described as very evil, but in perspective their rule was far more reasonable and pragmatic than most of the Ironborn rulers who preceded and succeeded them, and was one of the most progressive and prosperous periods in Ironborn history, as they discouraging reaving, protected the Faith of the Seven, and developed trade and friendlier relations with the other kingdoms until Harwyn's conquest of the Riverlands. Their bad reputation is most likely a result of the influence of both the Drowned Men, who resented the deviation from the good old ways of [[RapePillageAndBurn of reaving, looting, and kidnapping slaves]], and the Riverlanders, who despised the Hoares as foreign conquerors.

* In ''Literature/TheUltimateSolution'' by Eric Norden, the [[AlternateHistoryNaziVictory victorious German Reich]] is portrayed as a society of psychopathic pedophiles who get their rocks off to little girls being sexually tortured and consider gladiator deathmatches between black slaves a fine form of entertainment. Even children are so sadistic that they watch TV shows that teach them how to have fun by torturing small animals to death. Homosexuality and homoeroticism are widespread, unlike the real-life Nazis' [[BuryYourGays policies]] towards gay people. The novel ends with the Reich being taken over by fanatical "Contraxists" led by Reinhard Heydrich who want nuclear war with the Empire of Japan because the latter failed to assist them in the global eradication of all Jews.

* It's hard to upgrade history's most famous serial killer, but UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper gets a lot of the treatment anyway. In the short story "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper", his murders prove to be an occult means of extending his lifespan [[spoiler: and he's still alive today to kill the narrator.]]

* In ''Literature/TheSevenCitadels'', the empire of Galkis has legends and literature about an evil Enchantress in the jungle who [[TheVamp entraps men with her beauty]] until a hero defeats her with the help of the God Zeldin. It turns out that the story is based on inaccurate rumours of [[spoiler:the sorceress Tebreega]], who, while misanthropic, is happy to work on her biological research in the jungle and does no harm to any humans. In stark contrast to her popular depiction, [[AdaptationalAttractiveness she is also very unattractive]], and content to be so. An extra layer is added when she does confess to the protagonists that [[spoiler:when she first learned magic, she [[VainSorceress transformed herself into the beauty she'd always wanted to be]], using men and then hating them for their shallow love of beauty, until she grew disenchanted with humanity as a whole]], implying that the villainous depiction of her has some roots in the truth.
* In ''Literature/{{Timeline}}'', UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar French leader Arnaut is remembered in the 20th century as TheCaligula, but the time travelers find that Arnaut, while being indeed as ugly as history remembers him and capable of great cruelty, is a rather ReasonableAuthorityFigure and actually better than his supposedly saint-like enemy, Lord Oliver.
* In ''Literature/TheZodiacSeries'', the morality tales of the Houses paint [[NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed their versions of Ophiuchus]] as wicked villains, with what remains of the history about him claiming he resented his [[MortalityEnsues newfound mortality]] and committed some heinous crime trying to become immortal again. [[ThenLetMeBeEvil While he certainly fits the bill in the modern day]][[note]]Sort of--while he is genuinely bitter about what happened to him, it's implied [[CardCarryingVillain his behavior in the first book]] was an act[[/note]], he himself implies--and ''Thirteen Rising'' confirms--that by all accounts, he was an incredibly compassionate person who just got horrendously unlucky.

* Creator/GregoryMaguire's ''Literature/MirrorMirror'' combines history with the tale of Snow White and casts Lucrezia Borgia in the role of the wicked queen. Though the Borgias were not a nice family, there's little evidence Lucrezia had the expertise in poisoning she was later accused of (in fact, the attributes of the poison she was most famous for don't even ''exist'' in any known real substance). And, obviously, the Snow-White-like events of the novel don't have much basis in real history either.

* ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'' by Creator/AlexandreDumas started a trend of adaptations and derivative works depicting UsefulNotes/LouisXIV as a brutal, warmongering tyrant who wasn't even the rightful king of France. ''Film/TheManInTheIronMask'' is a particularly strong case of this, with the Sun King portrayed as a vicious and psychopathic rapist. Louis XIV may not have been a saint, but he's generally considered by historians to have been a successful and benevolent ruler, and there's not one shred of hard evidence that he was anything but the legitimate monarch of the Kingdom of France.

* It is unlikely that General José de Urrea was anywhere near as black as Creator/JTEdson paints him in ''Get Urrea!''. In particular, historians now believe that the Goliad Massacre was perpetrated at the orders of Santa Anna and not Urrea. Also, while public opinion varies greatly on where Wyatt Earp lies on the scale of heroism and villainy, Edson always portrays him as a petty and vindictive thug with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

* Mao's nephew in "Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo". In real life, he was a politician of the Chinese Communist Party but quit politics after spending some time in prision, becoming a humble technician. However in Gumbo '72, he (now known as the Lesser Mao) becomes a brutal Tyrant who completely ruins China, uses nukes like there's no tomorrow, creates a massive global drug market (that then causes a massive crisis in the USA), outlaws literacy and causes his country to collapse into a new warlord era.
** [[PresidentEvil Donald Rumsfeld]] and [[TheFundamentalist Dick Cheney]] go through this as well, '''especially''' Rumsfeld. While in OTL he was a "only" a warhawkish neoconservative with [[MurderArsonAndJaywalking very bad acting skills]], in '72 he turns into a corporate fundamentalist tyrant who [[UnPerson Unpersons his enemies]], [[GaiasLament destroys the USA's Environment]], [[AbsoluteXenophobe supports the genecides in Israel and South Africa]], orders wounded soldiers executed rather than pay for their welfare and causes the collapse of NATO, all but assuring the [[TheBadGuyWins Soviet Victory in the Cold War]].If that wasn't bad enough, when he gets [[LaserGuidedKarma dragged to one of his very own Insane Asylums]] his VP is assasinated and the [[TheFundamentalist Christian Values Party]] wins the election. [[FromBadToWorse You can probably guess where this is going]].
* UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla gets this treatment in ''Goliath''. His real-world eccentricities are ratcheted up [[AxeCrazy several]] [[MadScientist levels]].

* William Makepeace Thackeray's historical novel ''Henry Esmond'' has an extremely negative presentation of John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, presenting him as an amoral MagnificentBastard willing to betray anyone to advance himself. His wife, Sarah, is presented as a social climbing bitch. Worth noting is that John's descendant, UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill was prompted to write about his ancestors in part to address the portrayal in the novel.

* In Gideon Defoe's ''The Pirates'' series:

* The ''SPQR Series'' by John Maddox Roberts, which is a series of murder mysteries set in the last years of the Roman republic, almost always has a historical figure as the murderer and frequently [[MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot has the murder reveal an underlying scheme for world domination]]. Special recognition goes to the [[MagnificentBastard books' version of]] UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar, who as of the thirteenth book is just finishing up his elaborate plan to become God-King of Rome.

* Alexander Hislop's book ''The Two Babylons'' has a good deal of this.

* In ''The Ultimate Solution'' by Eric Norden, the [[AlternateHistoryNaziVictory victorious German Reich]] is portrayed as a society of psychopathic pedophiles who get their rocks off to little girls being sexually tortured and consider gladiator deathmatches between black slaves a fine form of entertainment. Even children are so sadistic that they watch TV shows that teach them how to have fun by torturing small animals to death. Homosexuality and homoeroticism are widespread, unlike the real-life Nazis' [[BuryYourGays policies]] towards gay people. The novel ends with the Reich being taken over by fanatical "Contraxists" led by Reinhard Heydrich who want nuclear war with the Empire of Japan because the latter failed to assist them in the global eradication of all Jews.
* In a particularly weird literature example, the villain of ''The Wild Road'' is most often called The Alchemist. He performs cruel experiments on cats to learn their magic, tries to ascend to godhood by trying to surgically add cat body parts to himself and wields an evil magical staff powered by cat skulls. It's never directly stated but so-heavily-implied-as-to-be-obvious that he's actually ''UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton''.

** Sima Yi was one of Cao Cao's trusted officers who was one of Wei's loyal officers but the novel depicted him as an EvilChancellor who destroyed Wei from within and a contrast to Zhuge Liang's UndyingLoyalty to Liu Bei. The perception induced by the novel of Sima Yi as a backstabber gets played up multiple adaptations such as older titles of ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' before the 7th title. Even adaptations that paint Cao Cao with a degree of nuance or even positively tend to have far less regard for Sima Yi. Part of this was because the Sima family's rule over China collapsed into infighting and fragmentation in mere decades, with Sima Yan, the same person whom unified the Three Kingdoms laying the seeds for the Jin dynasty's collapse.

** Sima Yi was one of Cao Cao's trusted officers who was one of Wei's loyal officers but the novel depicted him as an EvilChancellor who destroyed Wei from within. This gets played up in older titles of ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' before the 7th title.

* Mao's nephew in "Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo". In real life, he was a politician of the Chinese Communist Party but quit politics after spending some time in prision, becoming a humble technician. However in Gumbo '72, he (now known as the Lesser Mao) becomes a brutal Tyrant who completly ruins China, uses nukes like there's no tomorrow, creates a massive global drug market (that then causes a massive crisis in the USA), outlaws literacy and causes his country to collapse into a new warlord era.
** [[PresidentEvil Donald Rimsfield]] and [[TheFundamentalist Dick Cheney]] go through this as well, '''especialy''' Rumsfield. While in OTL he was a ,,only" a warhawkish neoconservative with [[MurderArsonAndJaywalking very bad acting skills]], in '72 he turns into a corporate fundamentalist tyrant who [[UnPerson Unpersons his enemies]], [[GaiasLament destroys the USA's Environment]], [[AbsoluteXenophobe supports the genecides in Israel and South Africa]] and causes the collapse of NATO, all but assuring the [[TheBadGuyWins Soviet Victory in the Cold War]].If that wasn't bad enough, when he gets [[LaserGuidedKarma dragged to one of his very own Insane Asylums]] his VP is assasinated and the [[TheFundamentalist Christian Values Party]] wins the election. [[FromBadToWorse You can probably guess where this is going]].

* ''Literature/TheTrialsOfApollo'': The leaders of Tiumvirate Holdings are all ancient Roman emperors who were able to become [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Deities of Human Origin]] - the emperors, in order of introduction, are [[spoiler:Nero, then Commodus, then Caligula]]. They orchestrate a CorporateConspiracy as part of a plan to overthrow the Olympian gods.

* Mao's nephew in "Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo". In real life, he was a politician of the Chinese Communist Party but quit politics after spending some time in prision, becoming a humble technician. However in FLaGoTCT72, he (now known as the Lesser Mao) becomes a brutal Tyrant who completly ruins China, uses nukes like there's no tomorrow, creates a massive global drug market (that then causes a massive crisis in the USA), outlaws literacy and causes his country to collapse into a new warlord era.

* ''Literature/TheTrialsOfApollo'': The leaders of Tiumvirate Holdings are all ancient Roman emperors who were able to become [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Deities of Human Origin]] - the emperors, in order of introduction, are [[spoiler:Nero, then Commodus, then Caligula]]. They orchestrate a CorporateConspiracy as part of a plan to overthrow the Olympian gods.

* ''Literature/TheTrialsOfApollo'': The leaders of Tiumvirate Holdings are all ancient Roman emperors who were able to become [[DeityOfHumanOrgin Deities of Human Origin]] - the emperors, in order of introduction, are [[spoiler:Nero, then Commodus, then Caligula]]. They orchestrate a CorporateConspiracy as part of a plan to overthrow the Olympian gods.

* ''Literature/TheBible'' has several examples.
** Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.) of Judea might not have slaughtered all those babies in his mad quest to find the infant Jesus, which is recorded only in [[Literature/TheBible the Gospel of Matthew]] (though some historians suggest this is because having at most a dozen babies killed in one small town was considered too insignificant at the time to merit much attention). However, he did massacre members of his own family out of paranoia (one theory being that Herod was certifiably insane). Despite this, a growing number of Israelis are attempting to rehabilitate his reputation. In addition to benefiting from MyCountryRightOrWrong and NWordPrivileges (although Herod was of course a Roman puppet and racially only half-Jewish), these Israelis argue that Herod was probably the best possible ruler they could have had under the circumstances. Only an accommodationist like Herod would have been able to persuade the Romans to be as tolerant of the Jewish religion as they managed to be (in a compromise, Herod had to design a temple that included both Jewish and pagan iconography). Also, following the collapse of the Jewish kingdom after the reign of Solomon and especially after the Babylonian exile, Judea had not only declined in glory but had become a cultural backwater -- and Herod did all he could to modernize Judean society.
** In popular culture, UsefulNotes/RamsesII is frequently depicted as the [[Literature/BookOfExodus Pharaoh of the Exodus]], more frequently than any other Pharaoh. Less commonly, he gets depicted as the Pharaoh of the Oppression. Scholarly consensus is that he was almost certainly ''not'' the Pharaoh of the Exodus (which is generally agreed upon to have happened earlier in the New Kingdom's history), and there's no evidence that an entire ethnic group was enslaved under his reign (so he almost certainly wasn't the Pharaoh of the Oppression either). Historical evidence says that, far from being a NephariousPharaoh, he was one of AncientEgypt's greatest rulers.