History Main / HistoricalBadassUpgrade

Compare BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy for a possible justification of this trope. AdaptationalBadass is when this happens to a character from a previous work. MemeticBadass is when the Badassery is upgraded through MemeticMutation. Giving the same treatment to a ''living'' famous person would generally fall under CelebrityPower.

* UsefulNotes/ThePope John Paul II has a good claim on being a RealLife badass, as he is often credited for playing a major role in the downfall of the Soviet bloc. But regardless of whether you agree with this opinion or not, Polish memesters from the local ImageBoards have re-imagined him as a war criminal and a were-cheetah, two things he most certainly wasn't. ([[{{Troll}} They]] also cast him as a PaedophilePriest, but we all can agree it hardly counts as badass.)

-->-- '''Website/TheAgonyBooth''' [[http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Hudson_Hawk_1991.aspx?Page=2 recap]] of ''Film/HudsonHawk''.

* The upcoming MOBA game ''VideoGame/ArenaOfFate'' features many historical figures with powers and abilities well beyond their actual profession. Nikola Tesla is a ShockAndAwe hero, and Joan of Arc having LightEmUp abilities.

** [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement Fairly or not]], Wagner was a major cultural influence on the Nazis. Between that and his anti-semitism, his music was unofficially banned in Israel until about thirty years ago.

* In ''Manga/TheLegendOfKoizumi'', many historical figures good ''and'' bad are represented as superpowered Mahjong gods, prominently [[BigBad Adolf Hitler]]. [[OneWingedAngel Who can become a Super Saiyan]] and has a [[PowerLevel Mahjong power level of over 30,000 Adelheids at his maximum power]]. In addition are the additional members of the Fourth Reich, including Josef Mengele, Otto Skorzeny, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Rudolf Hess, UsefulNotes/ErwinRommel, and, for some reason, musical composer Charles Wagner. Each of them also are formidable at Mahjong to some extent.

** /[[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement Fairly or not]], Wagner was a major cultural influence on the Nazis. Between that and his anti-semitism, his music was unofficially banned in Israel until about thirty years ago.

* * ''Film/{{UHF}}'': The ShowWithinAShow ''Gandhi II'' reimagines the passive resistance leader as a ''Film/DeathWish''-style vigilante who drives a Ferrari and fights thugs in the street.

* For a given definition of "historical", UsefulNotes/PrehistoricLife are frequent recipients of this treatment. On the whole, extinct creatures are often thought of as always being more badass compared to modern animals due to the larger, more unusual, and more dangerous animals being more frequently portrayed in media or better preserved in the fossils record.
** [[RaptorAttack Raptors]] are often portrayed as being able to take down prey hundreds of times their size, such as adult hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, or even sauropods. In reality, it's ''extremely'' unlikely they'd have been able to manage such a feat even in a best-case scenario; most species would have preferred small to mid-sized herbivores depending on the species' size.[[note]]And if you're wondering about the pack-hunting thing, there is no evidence for it in most raptor genera; even the ones that have been argued for such remain controversial.[[/note]]

* There was a pair of advertisings during the 2007 elections in Argentina, where a guy casually mentions that he is not even aware which party did he vote, that he simply took the first one he saw. In the first one, Manuel Belgrano runs to him, does a flying karate kicks and a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, and then ties again his topknot and leaves with "Saludo a la bandera" in the background. In the other, José de San Martín stomps the guy with a cavalry charge, gives another NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, and then leaves, but not before [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown kicking him while he's down]]. Belgrano and San Martín are both national heroes of Argentina, from the XIX century wars of independence. Both advertisings end saying "There is people who gave their life for this country. This sunday, vote with responsibility".

* Whether it gets depicted in a positive or negative light, chances are that the [[StateSec Waffen-SS]] will be portrayed as UsefulNotes/NaziGermany's EliteMooks. This was not the case in reality. Waffen-SS members were "elite" only in a societal sense, and its members were selected for how well they seemed to fit Nazi ideas, not their capabilities. While some of its units and members were legitimately badass, the organization as a whole did not have a particularly impressive combat record. See UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons for more on why their popular perception as [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous impressive elite fighters]] is untrue.
* Similar to the above (though far less likely to be portrayed in a positive light) is ''Werwolf'', an underground network of Nazi military operatives who conducted sabotage and guerilla warfare in parts of Germany captured by the Allies, and spent some time as TheRemnant after the war was over. Fiction tends to depict the organization as a terrifying "hidden army" that had a legitimate chance of reviving Nazi Germany. This is a far cry from what it was actually like. ''Werwolf'' was never seriously intended as an insurgency that would continue the fight after Germany's official defeat (since Hitler and other Nazi leaders considered even acknowledging the possibility that Germany could lose as "defeatist" and "cowardly"), and its propaganda value far outweighed its actual achievements. Even revisionist historians like Perry Biddiscombe who consider ''Werwolf'' to be more accomplished than the mainstream position says they were nevertheless generally insist it was no real threat to the Allied occupation after summer 1945 for a number of reasons.

* In real life, Dante Alighieri (of ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'') was a scholar and historian, who only had some military service. In ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'', not only is he a high-ranking [[UsefulNotes/TheCrusades Crusader]], he winds up killing many of Hell's [[DemonSlayer demons]] and [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade trapped souls]] with the help of the large SinisterScythe he stole from TheGrimReaper.

!!Examples using real people

[[folder:Media in General / Common Persons]]

[[folder:Film]]
* William Wallace in ''Film/{{Braveheart}}'' (possibly).
* Creator/LeonardoDaVinci (post mortem), Buckingham and Cardinal Richelieu in the 2011 film adaptation of ''[[Film/TheThreeMusketeers2011 The Three Musketeers]]''.

* ''Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand'': Basically every historical person shown fighting is given a healthy dose of this due to the stylized combat. Marcus Crassus, however, is also portrayed as a tyrannical MagnificentBastard. In real life, Crassus (by many estimates the richest person who ever lived) is believed to have simply bought his way to the top and eventually got himself killed in an ill-advised quest for military glory.
* This is the entire premise of ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}''. The emotion-based MagicalRealism of the setting makes every last HistoricalDomainCharacter ever mentioned into a terrifying badass and makes their belongings into [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]].
* America's Founding Fathers are given this treatment in ''Series/SonsOfLiberty''. In reality, they were mostly middle-aged and spent their time debating and writing pamphlets, contrary to the series' portrayal of them as a band of scruffy thirty-somethings who can jump between rooftops and excel in combat.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Whenever a historical figure teams up with the Doctor, they will always prove very capable in a tight spot and help win the day.

* ''{{Series/Blackadder}} Back and Forth'' features a working TimeMachine based on plans by Leonardo da Vinci.

[[folder:Web Originals]]

* The clone of Ben Franklin from ''[[WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja Dr McNinja]]''.

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

* Mayor Dewey ''tried'' to do this in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' with his ancestor William Dewey, but he wrote him as so over-the-top that he was a total MarySue -- he gave his ''ordinary human'' ancestor the power to ''grow 50 feet tall at will'', entirely to invoke this trope. Pearl, who was actually there for the events the play covers, rewrote the whole thing to be more historically accurate and less absurd.

* Multiple forms of UsefulNotes/PrehistoricLife are frequent recipients of this treatment.
** [[RaptorAttack Raptors]] are often portrayed as being able to take down prey hundreds of times their size, such as adult hadrosaurs or even sauropods. In reality, it's ''extremely'' unlikely they'd have been able to manage such a feat even in a best-case scenario. However, that depends somewhat on the species we're talking about; while highly improbable with something like the turkey-sized ''Velociraptor'', the bear-sized ''Utahraptor'' would certainly have been a threat to a decent-sized herbivore.
** Similarly, dire wolves tend to get depicted as [[CanisMajor huge]], incredibly deadly beasts. In reality, they were only slightly larger (and stockier) than modern grey wolves, and probably not that much more dangerous.

* Jebediah Springfield, eponymous founder of Springfield in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. Pop history holds that he killed a bear with his bare hands, but evidence suggests it was the other way around. It's also said that he tamed a buffalo, but by his own confession, it was already tame; he merely shot it. His presence at the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga has been questioned. [[spoiler:It turns out he was a murderous pirate, and while he was a brawler, he probably didn't participate in the American Revolution at all, since he was called Hans Sprungfeld until 1795. According to the same episode, he actually died of disease]].

** There are examples of [[SubvertedTrope subversions]], however. For example, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, who in myth is known to wield a sword and spear combination, something he can't do as a servant. He is still physically stronger than when he was alive, but he cannot use his preferred fighting style as a servant.

* General UsefulNotes/GeorgeSPatton has often been portrayed as a highly badass American general, a lover of general Nazi-asskicking and getting his hands dirty, and is simultaneously given a HistoricalBeautyUpdate in regards to his height and appearance. All of this was mainly due to the film ''Film/{{Patton}}'' and to his very much real attitude of an all-American tough guy; however, despite being portrayed as youthful, tall, booming-voiced, and tough, he was actually fairly advanced in years and appearance when the War came around. He didn't enjoy public speaking due to his short height and raspy, very much non-booming voice, and he never actively went out in the field to get his hands dirty in combat, partly due to poor physical health. A good commander he was, Rambo he wasn't.[[note]]''In his youth'', Patton was indeed quite the badass, fighting on the front lines of the Pancho Villa Expedition and UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, as well as being an Olympic athlete and MasterSwordsman who barely missed out on the Bronze medal in the 1912 Modern Pentathlon. It's just that fiction acts as if he didn't physically decline in the 25 years after UsefulNotes/WW1, in addition to making him more physically attractive and charismatic.[[/note]]

** Inverted and then played straight with Creator/LeonardoDaVinci, who is revealed to be an alien who is one of the least intelligent of his species[[note]]though this still makes him incredibly smart compared to ''humans'', which is one of the reasons he came to Earth[[/note]], but designs and builds a giant killing machine to extract revenge for his ill-treatment.

* In ''Manga/BungoStrayDogs'', most of the cast corresponds to a real life writer, and almost all are given badass superpowers based around the writer's work(s).

* In ''Manga/BungoStrayDogs'', most of the cast has a name that corresponds to a real life writer, and almost all are given badass superpowers based around the writer's work(s).

* In ''Manga/BungoStrayDogs'', most of the cast has a name that corresponds to real life writers, and almost all are given badass superpowers based around the writer's work(s).

* ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne'': [[spoiler:Sir Isaac Newton]] is an alchemist who uses the power of Atlantis.

* UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla was undoubtedly a major influence on the MadScientist trope, but what a lot of people either forget or choose to ignore is that after he got bored of ''sane'' science, his career totally bombed. Media depicting Tesla often give Thomas Edison (who, in all fairness, was by no means a particularly nice guy in RealLife) a HistoricalVillainUpgrade and posit some kind of grand conspiracy to suppress Tesla's discoveries, when in reality his attempts at creating a DeathRay or WeatherControlMachine or whatever else he was hoping to build that week just plain didn't work. He did some important early work on the physics of radar and may have been the first person to file a patent on a VTOL aircraft, but neither would actually be built until decades later with the actual nut-and-bolts engineering being done by someone else.

** [[RaptorAttack Raptors]] are often portrayed as being able to take down prey hundreds of times their size, such as adult hadrosaurs or even sauropods. In reality, it's ''extremely'' unlikely they'd have been able to manage such a feat even in a best-case scenario.
** Similarly, dire wolves tend to get depicted as [[CanisMajor huge]], incredibly deadly beasts. In reality, they were only slightly larger than modern grey wolves, and probably not that much more dangerous.