| 1 | * CommonKnowledge: Due to the number of adaptations of ''The Last of the Mohicans'' often casting older actors, Chingachgook is frequently believed to be older than he actually was. As he was seventy in his debut story ''The Pioneers'', set in 1793, and ''The Last of the Mohicans'' was set in 1757, he was actually thirty-four, the same age as Leatherstocking, who is not Chingachgook's adoptive son. Similarly, Uncas is often believed to be a young man, but with the setting of ''The Deerslayer'' being between 1740 and 1745, Uncas is only seventeen at the oldest. He is young, but technically did not live to become a man. |
| 2 | * FairForItsDay: Cooper in his day was seen as a friend to Native Americans and commended as such e. g. in a eulogy by the Chippewa chief George Copway (Kah-Ge-Ga-Ga-Bow). Partly to get to know them better, he would attach himself to delegations from Western Plains tribes to Washington. Today, ''The Last of the Mohicans'' is somewhat controversial for popularizing the concept of "{{noble savage}}s" who were loyal to the English and Americans versus "ignoble savages" who weren't. On the other hand, Magua (who is struggling to regain the dignity he lost because the white men taught him to drink) is one of Cooper's complex and interesting characters, and the book did popularize the romantic notion of Indians as [[MagicalNativeAmerican culturally superior]] and better adapted to the natural environment. The 1992 film skirts this by showing Indians on an equal footing with whites at a time when they were just fighting to keep their land. That and hiring Creator/RussellMeans to play Chingachgook (he was well-known for activism on behalf of Native Americans) made the film much more well-received in the Native community. |
| 3 | * GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Cooper was the first American author to achieve not just recognition, but also bestselling commercial success in Europe. He was lionized while he lived in France - ''The Prairie'' was written in Paris - and influenced not just a number of French, German and British writers who would write (proto-)Westerns modeled on the Leatherstocking Tales, but also for instance Balzac's novel ''Les Chouans'' and Alexandre Dumas père's ''Les Mohicans de Paris''. And Cooper occupies, to American eyes, astonishing amount of room in the Soviet and later Russian English Literature syllabus. In Germany he was hugely influential as well and is second only to Creator/KarlMay in terms of literature dealing with Native Americans, to the point that many of the tropes, cliches and misconceptions of Cooper's work are "common knowledge" about Native Americans ''to this day'' in Germany. |
| 4 | * SequelDisplacement: Or rather "Prequel Displacement" in that ''The Last of the Mohicans'' is the most famous of the Leatherstocking Tales, but is a prequel to its first story ''The Pioneers.'' |
| 5 | %% * ValuesDissonance: Comes up a ''lot''. |
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