Basic Trope: A real-life historical figure is inaccurately portrayed to be less evil than they were in real life (but not necessarily more heroic).
- Straight: Historically, Bob was a Jerkass who mistreated his employees and held bigoted views. In the movie about his life, he is a Deadpan Snarker Jerk with a Heart of Gold whom you like despite his obvious flaws.
- Exaggerated: In life, Bob was a bloodthirsty war criminal who committed heinous acts and got what he deserved when he was hanged for mass murder. In the movie about his life, Bob is a Well-Intentioned Extremist and a Good is Not Nice Anti-Hero whose death is treated as a tragedy and whose executioners are treated as Hypocrites and Dirty Cowards.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is portrayed as the Complete Monster he was in life, except for his death scene. While Bob's last moments were never documented, in the movie Bob is shown lamenting his misdeeds and begging God to forgive him.
- Bob as portrayed in the movie is shown shooting prisoners of war and then looting their corpses. His documented proclivity for torturing prisoners is left out.
- Justified:
- Bob was so awful that nobody would believe it if they saw his actual crimes on the screen. A few execution scenes can convey to the audience how evil Bob was without delving into his other atrocities.
- The show was written for children; it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about his worst misdeeds.
- The circumstances that led to Bob's misdeeds are not included in that timeline due to several Points of Divergence.
- Inverted:
- Bob gets an Historical Villain Upgrade to depict him as worse than he was in life.
- Historical Hero Downgrade; Bob was an All-Loving Hero but he's depicted as a garden-variety Nice Guy in the movie.
- Subverted: At first, the show only depicts Bob shooting POWs in cold blood and doing other reprehensible-yet-typical evil behavior. But then season 10 caps off with him molesting a child.
- Double Subverted: Even that is tame by the real Bob's standards.
- Parodied: In the movie about Bob, Alice makes a reference to what's widely considered the most heinous act he committed. In the context of the film, she's shown to have engaged in Malicious Slander against him.
- Zig-Zagged: Some of Bob's worst deeds are depicted directly, while some are played up, others toned down, others invented, and still others omitted.
- Averted:
- Bob's bad characteristics are portrayed accurately.
- Bob is written out of the universe of the film or at least becomes The Ghost.
- Enforced:
- Moral Guardians will not allow Bob to be as awful as he really was.
- The creators don't have the resources to depict all Bob's worst acts.
- The creators learn of Bob's vilest acts while filming is underway and can't or won't add new scenes in the middle of filming.
- The government of Bob's country censors or bans any media that show Bob as the monster he was.
- Bob is the producer of his own biopic and for obvious reasons, he refuses to have himself painted in a bad light.
- Lampshaded: The director and writer of the movie about Bob have a conversation about whether to depict him as the sheer psychopath that he was. Eventually, they agree to tone him down so the audience won't go "Too Bleak, Stopped Caring."
- Implied: Bob boasts of doing even worse things about which most of his mooks don't know to his Dragon.
- Invoked:
- Bob gets his worst deeds covered up.
- Bob does his worst deeds completely off the radar of any other person.
- Exploited: Without publicly available evidence that Bob was really that bad, his modern apologists maintain Plausible Deniability that they're just following the lead of someone who only did unpleasant but necessary things.
- Defied: The creators are sticklers for historical accuracy and show him as evil as ever.
- Discussed: "I could have gone the rest of the day without hearing about what Bob did to that poor girl. Heck, I could have gone the rest of the century."
- Conversed: "It's just a movie, he wasn't that bad in real life." "That's true; he was even worse."
- Played for Drama: Because Bob's worst acts are glossed over, the survivors of his atrocities and the families of his victims are greatly offended.
- Played for Laughs: Bob writes in his journals about having had No Sense of Humor, but he's depicted as Laughably Evil in the movie.
- Played for Horror: Bob is used as the Big Bad of the movie because everyone knows just how horrible he was, and Nothing Is Scarier works even when he's not shown doing anything that horrible.
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