History Main / HistoricalVillainDowngrade

** The film glosses over the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sheeran#War_crimes war crimes]] Frank Sheeran perpetrated during his service in World War II. Granted, some of the people he killed were [[AssholeVictim concentration camp guards]], but other victims of his had no known involvement in the Nazi regime's atrocities.

* Nero also appeared in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' in the legend of the cat who invented lasagna. While he was depicted as a VillainousGlutton who has been known to [[DisproportionateRetribution have bad cooks executed]], none of his real atrocities are mentioned.

* UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler gets this treatment in some of the endings to ''VideoGame/TitanicAdventureOutOfTime''. [[spoiler:Leaving with the painting results in it becoming famous as the only relic that was saved from the sinking ship. It's creator, Hitler, becomes a famous painter, never rising to becoming the leader of the Nazi party.]] In all other endings where [[spoiler:the painting is not saved]], and Hitler rises to power.

-->--'''The Brain''', ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'', "A Meticulous Analysis of History"

* ''Film/PainAndGain'': The film depicts Adrian Doorbal as a relaxed, even-tempered man who treats his girlfriend, and later wife, Robin with nothing but love and respect, and is appalled when Lugo (accidentally) kills Frank Griga. According to Marc Schiller (the Sun Gym Gang's first victim), the real life Doorbal [[AxCrazy "loved violence"]] and took sadistic glee in torturing him. It was also Doorbal who killed Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton, not Daniel Lugo as depicted in the film. And whereas Lugo's killing of Griga was an accident, this does not appear to be the case in real life; [[CruelAndUnusualDeath Doorbal crushed Griga's head with a blunt object strangled him and then finished him off with an injection of horse tranquilizer]]. It was Lugo not Doorbal who tried to pacify Furton with horse tranquilizer to pacify her. Doorbal also allegedly married his girlfriend Cindy Eldridge, on whom Robin is based, to keep her from testifying against him and got involved with a woman who worked in his lawyer's office while he was still married to Eldridge who later filed for divorce so she could testify against him. Doorbal's marriage to Eldridge only lasted four days.

* The SS camp commander Amon Göth in ''Film/SchindlersList'' is an AxCrazy individual who uses the Holocaust to indulge in murder. The real life Göth was ''even worse'': Spielberg had to tone down the man's senseless cruelty because his crimes were so horrible and numerous (which included a frequently-used TortureCellar built under his house, feeding prisoners ''alive'' to his starved dogs, shooting playing children with his sniper rifle, personally killing five hundred people, and more) that it was thought [[RealityIsUnrealistic an audience simply wouldn't have believed it on screen]] - some had trouble even grasping that a lunatic such as the one shown in the movie could keep his job, even in the SS. In fact, he ''didn't'' - he was so bad that [[EvenEvilHasStandards the SS relieved him from duty]] in 1944, accusing him of embezzlement and maltreatment of prisoners. Imagine what you have to do to get disciplined for maltreatment of prisoners ''[[UpToEleven while running a Nazi concentration camp]]''.

* The SS camp commander Amon Göth in ''Film/SchindlersList'' is an AxCrazy individual who uses the Holocaust to indulge in murder. The real life Göth was ''even worse'': Spielberg had to tone down the man's senseless cruelty because his crimes were so horrible and numerous (which included a frequently used torture dungeon built under his house, feeding prisoners ''alive'' to his starved dogs, shooting playing children with his sniper rifle, personally killing five hundred people, and more) that it was thought [[RealityIsUnrealistic an audience simply wouldn't have believed it on screen]] - some had trouble even grasping that a lunatic such as the one shown in the movie could keep his job, even in the SS. In fact, he ''didn't'' - he was so bad that [[EvenEvilHasStandards the SS relieved him from duty]] in 1944, accusing him of embezzlement and maltreatment of prisoners. Imagine what you have to do to get disciplined for maltreatment of prisoners ''while running a Nazi concentration camp''.

Compare LighterAndSofter, PoliticallyCorrectHistory, HistoricalDowngrade. Contrast HistoricalVillainUpgrade. If a villain indulges in ''self''-downgrading within the story, that's EvilIsPetty; if downgrading is ''all'' a villain does, that's PokeThePoodle.

* Alan Alda's ''Sweet Liberty'' had the author of a book about the Revolutionary War upset that they were making the sadistic Green Dragoon Banastre Tarleton a romantic lead. Ironically, ''Film/ThePatriot'' did the reverse - see HistoricalVillainUpgrade.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain''

* UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler gets this treatment in some of the endings to ''VideoGame/TitanicAdventureOutOfTime''. [[spoiler:Leaving with the painting results in it becoming famous as the only relic that was saved from the sinking ship. It's creator, Hitler, becomes a famous painter, never rising to becoming the leader of the Nazi party.]] Averted in all other endings where [[spoiler:the painting is not saved]], and Hitler rises to power. In the very worst ending, Nazi Germany has a six year lead to [[spoiler:research nuclear technology, and uses the nuclear bomb against Britain in an alternate World War.]]

* There's an in-universe example in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' Halloween episode in season 1, arguably a parody of this trope as well. Cartman dresses up in a UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler costume for Halloween, so the principal shows him a classroom video about how Hitler was a bad person. Because it's made for 8-year-old American children, it only says that "Adolf Hitler was a very, very naughty man!" and merely shows him standing on a balcony above some parading soldiers and giving a speech in German, which Cartman can't understand because of the language barrier and the lack of subtitles. [[note]] Ironically, a later episode, "The Passion of the Jew", revealed that Cartman ''could'' speak German, but he blatantly mispronounced every word beginning with a ''j''. [[/note]] Based on that, the children are supposed to learn AnAesop that dressing up as Hitler to school is not acceptable. Things like the Holocaust and other war crimes couldn't be shown of course, because it's directed towards children. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Cartman finds Hitler very cool instead, and imagines being in his place]].

* Also downplayed with Lavrentiy Beria in ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin''; even in a cast full of unlikable {{Villain Protagonist}}s, he stands out from the rest due to being a depraved sexual predator who has not a single redeeming quality. This is accurate to real life, but according to the director, they actually had to ''tone him down for the movie''. For example, even ''Stalin'' himself was wary of him: after learning his daughter was alone with Beria at his house, he telephoned her and told her to leave immediately, and Beria even gloated about Stalin's death in real life, even going so far as to brag that he killed him.

* The SS camp commander Amon Göth in ''Film/SchindlersList'' is an AxCrazy individual who uses the Holocaust to indulge in murder. The real life Göth was ''even worse'': Spielberg had to tone down the man's senseless cruelty because his crimes were so horrible and numerous (which included a frequently used torture dungeon built under his house, feeding prisoners ''alive'' to his starved dogs, shooting playing children with his sniper rifle, personally killing five hundred people, and more) that [[RealityIsUnrealistic an audience simply wouldn't have believed it on screen]] - some had trouble even grasping that a lunatic such as the one shown in the movie could keep his job, even in the SS. In fact, he ''didn't'' - he was so bad that [[EvenEvilHasStandards the SS relieved him from duty]] in 1944, accusing him of embezzlement and maltreatment of prisoners. Imagine what you have to do to get disciplined for maltreatment of prisoners ''while running a Nazi concentration camp''.

* The SS camp commander Amon Goeth in ''Film/SchindlersList'' is an AxCrazy individual who uses the Holocaust to indulge in murder. The real life Goeth was ''even worse'': Spielberg had to tone down the man's senseless cruelty because his crimes were so horrible and numerous (which included a frequently used torture dungeon built under his house, feeding prisoners ''alive'' to his starved dogs, shooting playing children with his sniper rifle, personally killing five hundred people, and more) that [[RealityIsUnrealistic an audience simply wouldn't have believed it on screen]] - some had trouble even grasping that a lunatic such as the one shown in the movie could keep his job, even in the SS. In fact, he ''didn't'' - he was so bad that [[EvenEvilHasStandards the SS relieved him from duty]] in 1944, accusing him of embezzlement and maltreatment of prisoners. Imagine what you have to do to get disciplined for maltreatment of prisoners ''while running a Nazi concentration camp''.

Basically, this trope occurs whenever a historical villain's evil actions are either glossed over or reduced in severity, in order to make them palatable, [[ButNotTooEvil even as a villain]], to mainstream television audiences. Sometimes it's because RealityIsUnrealistic -- there are a few cases of real people displaying such extreme levels of evil that if you put it in a movie script, the audience would ironically just roll their eyes at your "obvious" exaggeration and they would be left dumbstruck if presented with evidence that this ''did'' happen.

But there are certain characters in history who were really, ''really'' bad and did things impossible to justify, things that can't be depicted realistically on, say, a children's TV series. Sometimes not even on adult series.

But there are certain characters in history whose actions can't be depicted realistically on, say, a children's TV series. Sometimes not even on adult series.

Basically, this trope occurs whenever a historical villain's evil actions are either glossed over or reduced in severity, in order to make them palatable, [[ButNotTooEvil even as a villain]], to mainstream television audiences. Sometimes it's because RealityIsUnrealistic -- there are a few cases of real people displaying such extreme levels of evil that if you put it in a movie script, the audience would just roll their eyes at your "obvious" exaggeration.

* There's an in-universe example in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' Halloween episode in season 1, arguably a parody of this trope as well. Cartman dresses up in a UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler costume for Halloween, so the principal shows him a classroom video about how Hitler was a bad person. Because it's made for 8-year-old American children, it only says that "Adolf Hitler was a very, very naughty man!" and merely shows him speaking to a bunch of parading soldiers in unsubtitled German, which Cartman can't understand because of the language barrier. [[note]] Ironically, a later episode, "The Passion of the Jew", revealed that Cartman ''could'' speak German, but he blatantly mispronounced every word beginning with a ''j''. [[/note]] Based on that, the children are supposed to learn AnAesop that dressing up as Hitler to school is not acceptable. Things like the Holocaust and other war crimes couldn't be shown of course, because it's directed towards children. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Cartman finds Hitler very cool instead, and imagines being in his place]].

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII stories often give Imperial Japan this treatment. However, the frank truth is that they, much like the Nazis, were a brutal dictatorship who, among other things, were extremely racist towards non-Japanese Asians, as well as thinking that [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming being defeated was the most dishonorable thing imaginable and thus treated prisoners and conquered people as badly as they could.]]

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII stories often give Imperial Japan this treatment. While they weren't as horrible as Nazi Germany, that's not much of an achievement, as they were still a brutal dictatorship who, among other things, were extremely racist towards non-Japanese Asians, as well as thinking that [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming being defeated was the most dishonorable thing imaginable and thus treated prisoners and conquered people as badly as they could.]]

* For obvious reasons, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly is hardly ever portrayed in a positive light these days, but it tends to be portrayed as a relatively lesser evil than it was in reality. While its totalitarianism and imperialistic tendencies generally don't get glossed over, it's typically not depicted as being especially brutal or bloody, presumably at least partly due to the atrocities of its allies UsefulNotes/NaziGermany and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan being far more dominant in the popular imagination. In truth, while they may not have been quite on their level, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_war_crimes#World_War_II the Italians did commit serious war crimes]], particularly in Ethiopia, Yugoslavia and Greece. Not only that, but after the Nazis had established the Italian Social Republic in 1943, many of the Italian police and fascists directly assisted the Holocaust (before the Jews had not been killed, though subject to segregation laws modeled on those of Germany). The situation there was mixed though, as the Italian Fascists were not officially antisemitic prior to 1938 (although they had antisemitic members) and some Jews were even Fascists (along with anti-Fascists, of course). However, a significant number were increasingly aligned with the Nazis as part of the Axis, resulting in the antisemitic laws and eventually assisting the Holocaust.

* While, as noted in HistoricalVillainUpgrade, ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'s'' version of Aaron Burr is given villainous traits he didn't have in real life, he also doesn't seem like the type to conspire with the military to steal huge amounts of land in the west to create his own private empire and possibly conquer Mexico, as he attempted in real life.

* There's an in-universe example in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' Halloween episode in season 1, arguably a parody of this trope as well. Cartman dresses up in a UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler costume for Halloween, so the principal shows him a classroom video about how Hitler was a bad person. Because it's made for 8-year-old American children, it only says that "Adolf Hitler was a very, very naughty man!" and merely shows him speaking to a bunch of parading soldiers, which Cartman can't understand because of the language barrier. [[note]] Ironically, a later episode, "The Passion of the Jew", revealed that Cartman ''could'' speak German, but he blatantly mispronounced every word beginning with a ''j''. [[/note]] Based on that, the children are supposed to learn AnAesop that dressing up as Hitler to school is not acceptable. Things like the Holocaust and other war crimes couldn't be shown of course, because it's directed towards children. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Cartman finds Hitler very cool instead, and imagines being in his place]].