YMMV / Doña Barbara

• Applicability: The book has been considered applicable for Venezuelans at different points of time. Many politicians in Venezuela, with different political point of views, have compared themselves with Santos Luzardo. This includes socialist leader Hugo Chávez, to many politicians who oppose the Chavismo movement.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In many parts of the book, Santos Luzardo thought of selling Altamira and leaving the country due to the bad situation of the flatlands not giving him a profit, and the justice system is corrupted due to Doña Barbara's influence. As of 2017, many companies that helped move the Venezuelan economy decided to leave the country due to the land not giving enough of a profit, and the harsh relationship with the government only made this worse. In fact, much of the population is leaving the country due to the terrible national crisis in what is know as the Bolivarian Diaspora. It's hard to read the book and not to feel related to Luzardo's own problems.
  • The 2008 television adaptation had a Distant Finale, said to happen "ten years later", that shows Doña Barbara dying. The finale aired on May 2009; Doña Barbara's actress in said version, Edith González, actually did pass away ten years later in June 2019 of ovarian cancer. Even more, in said finale Doña Barbara is shown growing into old age, complete with long, gray hair to signal it; not only did González die at the relatively young age of 54, but due to the nature of her illness, she spent the last years of her life with drastically short hair.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In the last episode of the 2008 TV version, Doña Barbara's right-hand man Melquiades tells her in a vision, "Only us ordinary beings die, those of us who are flesh and blood. But you can not die, because legends like you stay in the hearts and souls of people forever." This phrase and its aesop about how the end of the physical existence of someone does not truly mean that they've been lost forever led to it being used in eulogies for Doña Barbara's actress in said version, Edith González, after she died on June 2019 of ovarian cancer.