History YMMV / TheCrucible

* EvilIsSexy: Abigail Williams is awful in pretty much every sense of the word, but she's often played by attractive actresses, and there's the implication that John is still physically drawn by her even as he plans to stop her trials.

* EvilIsSexy: Abigail, as played by Creator/WinonaRyder.

* MoralEventHorizon: Just ''where'' Abigail crosses this is difficult to judge, but her lowest point might be when she [[spoiler:accuses Mary of witchcraft to save her own hide, and more or less drives the poor girl completely insane with fear. She then has the gall to feign sympathy for her when she completely breaks down]].

** Thomas Putnam also has when you see that he’s purposely getting his neighbors accused of witchcraft just so he can inherit their land. This already makes him irredeemable, but he comes across as especially despicable in the film when you see him soullessly watching poor George Jacobs attempt to state his innocence fail, and Putnam shows absolutely no sign of remorse.

* ValuesDissonance: Tituba's depiction in the play is fairly racist, with her speaking in broken English despite the real life woman having lived in an English colony since she was a child, so her English should be as fluent as everyone else's. Modern renditions of the play tend to remove this aspect for this reason.

** For those who dislike the girls for their sentencing innocent neighbors to death, the epilogue reveals that [[spoiler:Abigail ran out of the money she stole from her uncle and had to become a prostitute, dying before she turned 18 due to lower health standards in the former colonies]]. It also helps that Ruth/Ann Putnam in Real Life suffered a KarmaHoudiniWarranty: her parents died, including the manipulative Thomas, leading her to raise all of her siblings while in poverty, and she was unofficially excommunicated for her part. She never married, owing to the extra responsibility and lack of finances whatsoever. It took a public apology at her church for her to be welcomed back, and from what we hear, history records imply the apology was only accepted on principle because people's memories were still fresh of loved ones who had died or lost their livelihoods.
** The witch trials are shown as fraud and a sham in the epilogue. It's revealed that thanks to Abigail stealing all his money and vanished as the prime witness to witchcraft, her uncle Samuel Parris is forced to resign in disgrace and exiled. Elizabeth is the only one who gets a semi-happy ending, where it's revealed she lived, as did her baby.

** Judge Danforth doesn’t show up until Act 3, but from that point on he’s an extremely dominant force for the rest of the play, being a strong and terrifying force against the protagonists, making him one of the most popular characters in the piece.

* ValuesDissonance: Tituba's depiction in the play is fairly racist, with her speaking in broken English despite the real life person having been on an English colony since she was a child, so her English should be as fluent as everyone else's. Modern renditions of the play tend to remove this aspect for this reason.

** Tituba stands out as the only one who didn't really lose anything after the Trials because she didn't ''have'' anything to lose after becoming slave and having her life ruined.

* ValuesDissonance: Tituba's depiction in the play is fairly racist, with her speaking in broken English despite the real life person having been on an English colony since she was a child, so her English should be as fluent as everyone else's.

* FridgeBrilliance: Though it's more "Fridge Irony", as, prior to/during the (actual) Salem Witch trials, someone wrote a book which stated that witches couldn't recite the Lord's Prayer. One would think that would convince the town of Salem of Rebecca, Martha, and Proctor's innocence. (In RealLife, some of the accused actually did try to use this defense, but such was the hysteria that even the slightest stumble over a word or having a noticeable accent was counted as "failing", so it didn't help. Even reciting it literally perfectly didn't help poor George Burroughs--his accusers declared the Devil was dictating the prayer to him and hanged him anyway. [[InsaneTrollLogic Yes, really.]])

* NightmareFuel[=/=]{{Squick}}: The scene in the forest. Originally, Tituba was creating a love spell so that the men the girls chose for the ritual would fall in love with them, uttering an eerie chant to go with it. Then Abigail kills the chicken Tituba was using and drinks some of its blood. Those other girls go crazy and start screaming and dancing around.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Judge Danforth doesn’t show up until Act 3, but from that point on he’s an extremely dominant force for the rest of the play, being a strong and terrifying force against the protagonists, making him one of the most popular characters in the piece.

* NightmareFuel: The scene in the forest. Originally, Tituba was creating a love spell so that the men the girls chose for the ritual would fall in love with them, uttering an eerie chant to go with it. Then Abigail kills the chicken Tituba was using and drinks some of its blood. Those other girls go crazy and start screaming and dancing around.

** Giles Corey is a well meaning CoolOldGuy who mentions to Reverend Hale that he finds it odd how his current is constantly reading books. Little did he realize the damage that such a statement could cause. [[InsaneTrollLogic This ideas then snowballs into wife being a witch]], at which point she's arrested and in serious danger of execution, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone something that shakes Giles to his core and he blames himself for]]. Corey then tries to save her and stop the entire proceedings by pointing out how Thomas Putnam is abusing them to kill his neighbors and buy their land. When HangingJudge Thomas Danforth asks for his witness, Giles refuses, knowing that they'll be arrested. Danforth then declares court is in order and has Giles himself arrested. After this Giles is ForcedToWatch his friend John fail against Danforth's obstructive judgement, [[DisproportionateRetribution and is later said to have been executed, despite his only crime being refusing to name someone]]. The only bright side of all this is that [[DyingMomentOfAwesome Giles was able to manipulate the legality of these situations enough that his family is still able to keep their land]].

* FridgeBrilliance: Though it's more "Fridge Irony", as, prior to/during the (actual) Salem Witch trials, someone wrote a book which stated that witches couldn't recite the Lord's Prayer. One would think that would convince the town of Salem of Rebecca, Martha, and Proctor's innocence.

* {{Anvilicious}}: A common accusation of many Miller plays, then and now is that his messages were obvious and repeated incessantly throughout his scripts. This is no different in ''The Crucible'', where John Proctor spells out the moral and tells the audience whenever another audience is doing something wrong.

* NightmareFuel: For some, Abby’s scene where she and the rest of Salem’s youth pretend a bird is attacking them and begin repeating everything Mary says could be this.

* {{Anvilicious}}: A common accusation of many Miller plays, then and now, though considering [[TheFifties the time period]], SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped.