History Series / TheBorgias

** All over the place. It's to be expected, since the show is produced by the same company that made ''TheTudors,'' which was known for not inviting realism over for tea.

* MaritalRapeLicense: Giovanna Sforza believes in this.

* EyeScream: Micheletto treats us to some by jamming his thumbs into a guard's eyes, ''[[{{Badass}} underwater]]'', in Naples ("The Moor").

* ThePrince: Niccolo Machiavelli's hugely important political text was written, in part, in reaction to his encounters with Cesare when he was serving as Florentine diplomat. He shows up in "Lucrezia's Wedding" and tends to serve as Cesare's ''[[TheConsigliere consigliere]]''.

** The presence of Machiavelli is an example too; the time frame isn't very clear after the 1492 title in the pilot episode, but most of the events depicted took place between 1492 and 1496 in real life. Machiavelli was elected head of the Second Chancery in 1498 and didn't hold any political position in Florence before that. Then again, the show seems to be under the impression that he worked for the Medici, so the year alone isn't the only bit of artistic license (in reality they were his arch enemies who had him imprisoned and tortured-many think he wrote his infamous book ''ThePrince'' in part as veiled criticism of them).

* ReallyGetsAround: About half the cast.

* RoyalBrat: Juan.
** Alfonso of Naples, too.

%% * ReallyGetsAround: About half the cast.

%% * RoyalBrat: Juan.
%% ** Alfonso of Naples, too.

* AffablyEvil: How Creator/JeremyIrons played Rodrigo Borgia, to a tee.

* AnachronismStew: In "The Beautiful Deception" Rodrigo is worried because Lucrezia's refusal to nurse imperils her baby's health. In real life, there were wet nurses available.

* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: Subverted when Rodrigo finds out about the death of [[spoiler: [[WorthyOpponent King Charles]]]]. Cardinals Sforza and Piccolomini are in high spirits, but Rodrigo quickly rebukes them and orders them each to recite three dozen rosaries for the soul of the deceased.

* ArrangedMarriage: All of the Borgia children, save Cesare, but poor Lucrezia really gets the worst of it.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: All over the place. It's to be expected, since the show is produced by the same company that made ''TheTudors,'' which was known for not inviting realism over for tea.

* AsYouKnow: In "The Beautiful Deception", Rodrigo tells Juan that Juan must go back to "our ancestral homeland, Spain". Presumably Juan knows where his family comes from.

* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: When Rodrigo becomes Pope.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Ursula asks Cesare to "liberate" her from her husband... and when he [[MurderTheHypotenuse does]], she suffers a massive FreakOut and becomes a nun.

* BerserkButton: Threaten Lucrezia in front of [[KnightTemplarBigBrother Cesare]], I dare you. For that matter, don't [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas call his mom a whore]], either.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Lucrezia, Paolo the stable boy, and Francesca the maid have all suffered at Giovanni Sforza's hands, so they team up to make sure he himself suffers (in this case, a fall that immobilizes him).

* BlatantLies: Too many to count.
* BlingOfWar: Juan's fancy armor.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Lucrezia, Vannozza, and Giulia.

* BloodKnight: King Charles, though subverted in that while he enjoys battles and war, he doesn't get involved in the actual fighting and killing. He also does have some feelings of remorse, if not for making war, but for reveling in it.

* BookEnds: Season 2 begins and ends with poisonings.

* BreakTheCutie: Poor, poor Lucrezia.
* BridalCarry: Cesare carrying the sleeping Lucrezia to bed on her wedding night.

* BrotherSisterIncest: Long contested [[spoiler: and now canon as of season 3]].

* CainAndAbel: Cesare and Juan. In the end [[spoiler: utterly played straight, complete with Cesare asking if he's to be his brother's keeper.]]

* CityStateEra: The show takes place during this period of Italian history.

* CorruptChurch: However bad Rodrigo may be, imagine how messed up the religious system that allowed him to come to power is.

* CostumePorn
* CountryMatters: "Source of disquiet."
* ColdBloodedTorture: Cesare and Micheletto love this. Perhaps a little too much.

* CurbStompBattle: Theo is on the losing end of one from Juan, who is pissed off that people are gossiping that he's Theo's son instead of Rodrigo's. Vannozza is not pleased and throws him out of her house, and Rodrigo gives him a blistering [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech Reason You Suck Speech]] before slapping him and ordering him to beg forgiveness from his mother.

* DaddysGirl: Lucrezia to Rodrigo.

* DancesAndBalls
* DatingCatwoman: Cesare and Caterina Sforza.
* [[DeadGuyOnDisplay Dead Guys On Display]]: Ask King Ferrante of Naples about his "Last Supper".
* DeadlyDecadentCourt
* DeadpanSnarker: Machiavelli. Rodrigo upon occasion as well, especially in the latter half of the first season.

* DomesticAbuser: Giovanni Sforza and Baron Bonadeo.

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Do ''not'' insult Cesare's mother Vannozza by, say, calling her a Spanish whore. It will simply get your throat cut.

* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex

* FauxAffablyEvil: Cesare, more and more each episode.

* FiveBadBand

* ForegoneConclusion: For anyone who knows [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff the real history]]. Della Rovere becomes Pope Julius II.

* GeneralFailure: Juan is bad at army stuff.

* HeroAntagonist: Giuliano della Rovere.

* HistoricalBeautyUpdate: Apparent, but not to the same degree it was in ''TheTudors''. Except for a few differences in hair color, it's possible to picture that if Renaissance artists painted the actors in costume, they wouldn't look ''too'' dissimilar from their real counterparts, with the notable exception of Rodrigo. Even Creator/JeremyIrons thinks he doesn't look a thing like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pope_Alexander_Vi.jpg the actual Rodrigo]] and that they probably should have cast someone like James Gandolfini.

* HistoricalInJoke: When news of [[spoiler: the death of Prince Alfonso of Naples]] spreads to Rome, Rodrigo laments that he would have been a good match for Lucrezia.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Lucrezia arranges for her DomesticAbuser huntsman husband to have a fall from his horse. When they're setting his broken leg, she tells him to "be brave", thoroughly enjoying the pain he's experiencing for once.

* HoneyPot: Pascal is one for Micheletto in Season 3.

* TheHyena: Alfonso of Naples.

* IncestSubtext: Lucrezia and Cesare. Unsurprisingly, due to the many contemporary allegations.

* InfantImmortality: Subverted with the French invasion of Lucca in "Death on a Pale Horse", where a young girl is skewered by one of the French soldiers.

* InTheBlood: Much is made of "Borgia blood", particularly by Giovanni Sforza "forgiving" Lucrezia the sin of her blood and informing her that when France invades Rome, her father, the source of the bad blood, will be deposed and killed.

* IronicEcho: Savonarola's prophecy in "The Borgias in Love" is echoed in "Death on a Pale Horse", when it finally hits Giuliano della Rovere that Savonarola foresaw the French invasion Giuliano della Rovere himself brought about.

* UsefulNotes/ItalianWars
* ItsAlwaysSpring: While remaining deliberately vague about the passing of time and moving some events up and down the time table for story-telling purposes, the first season seems to cover the years 1492-1495, but no sign of changing seasons is ever seen.

* KickTheDog: Poor Theo gets his ass kicked by Juan basically for being a commoner and his mother's actual husband. He believes the local gossip that Theo is his real father, and not Rodrigo.

* KinkMeme: [[http://borgiaskink.livejournal.com/778.html Over here.]]

* LargeHam: Creator/JeremyIrons, not as much as one might expect, though he turns it UpToEleven in "Death on a Pale Horse".

* LiteraryAllusionTitle[=/=]TitleDrop: Savonarola quotes Revelation 6:8 in "Death on a Pale Horse".

* ManlyGay: Micheletto.

* MasterPoisoner: Micheletto. Lucrezia Borgia may become this in the future, depending on how many of the rumors about her the show runs with.

* NeckSnap: Micheletto the assassin does this in "The Moor", twice.

* NeverTrustATrailer: In one of the promos for the first season, a [[SexSells completely nude]] [[MsFanservice Giulia Farnese]] advises Lucrezia to use her female beauty for gain, reassuring that "it can be deadly"; the two are apparently modeling for Botticelli's ''The Birth of Venus''. This scene does not appear in the actual series, even though Giulia says the exact same words to Lucrezia at some point. Also, if all you knew about the series came from the promo material, you might think Cesare and Lucrezia's relationship is a lot more incestuous than it actually is.

* ObliviousYoungerSibling: Gioffre.

* OminousLatinChanting: Abounds.

* ThePeepingTom: Lucrezia spies on Cesare having sex in the first episode.

* PetTheDog: Even JerkAss Alfonso, who mocks his aged and deaf father, is still [[spoiler: distraught when the old man dies]].

* ThePope: One of the most controversial in History.

* RefugeInAudacity: The only reason Cesare is able to kill [[spoiler: Giovanni Sforza]] is because, even though his enemies knew he was dangerous and ruthless, nobody thought he would be reckless enough to brutally murder a man of that rank on his own turf in broad daylight with no pre-planning.

* ReallyGetsAround: About half the cast.

* RoyalBrat: Juan.
** Alfonso of Naples, too.

* ScreamingBirth: [[spoiler: Lucrezia]] in "Nessuno", though she's a bit better than most, with lots of standard grunting and heavy breathing too.

* SinisterMinister: All of them.

* StalkingIsLove: Cesare with Ursula, to some degree.

* StuffedInTheFridge: [[spoiler:Maria, the maid in "The Assassin". Micheletto seduces, then brutally murders her, with her death being the "proof" needed for Micheletto and Cesare to set up della Rovere to be banished from Rome. She basically dies so the audience can see how ruthless Micheletto and Cesare are, and to set up della Rovere's revenge angle.]]
** Arguably, a male version [[spoiler:with Paolo. His story function was to give Lucrezia the natural-born son she may have had in history and a paramour whom she loved, then die tragically. He's more or less a PuritySue.]]

* TakeThatKiss: Rodrigo gives two [[CrowningMomentOfFunny hilarious]] ones to Cardinal Orsini and Cardinal della Rovere, two of the cardinals who oppose him.

* TearsOfBlood: In the season 2 finale.

* ToThePain: The doctor of Juan while explaining the [[GroinAttack treatment]] for his affliction.

* TraumaticHaircut / ImportantHaircut: When [[spoiler:Ursula]] enters a convent after her husband's death, her hair is cut off. Notable, though, in that this is by choice, and the trauma in question is what lead to her making this decision rather than the haircut itself.

* UnwantedSpouse: Ursula's husband and Giovanni Sforza. Gioffre and Sancia may become this for each other.

* VillainProtagonist: The Borgia family may be sympathetic, but straightforwardly heroic they are not.

* VorpalPillow: "The Moor"
* WarIsHell: The French troops march into Lucca and kill any man, woman, or child in their way. Charles attempts to justify it to a shocked Giuliano della Rovere by saying "'Tis war, Cardinal, plain and simple".

* WorthyOpponent: By the end of season 1, Cesare seems to think this about della Rovere.

* TokenGoodTeammate: Possibly Gioffre Borgia, who historically lacked the ambitions of his siblings and just wanted to settle down in the country with a family.
** If they portray her as [[HistoryMarchesOn most historians now believe her to actually have been]] instead of the FemmeFatale of popular history, Lucrezia could be this. Time will tell.

[[caption-width-right:283:[[Film/HistoryOfTheWorldPartI It's good to be Pope]].]]

All this is portrayed in the series and then some. Creator/JeremyIrons has top billing as [[UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI Pope Alexander VI]], and the series debuted in April 2011. It has garnered some of the highest ratings on Showtime, and was renewed for a second, and then a third season. Shortly before the end of the third season, Showtime announced they were canceling the series.

* RealityIsUnrealistic: Apparently the producers ''could'' have stuck to a more historically accurate story, but chose not to out of fear that the audience ''wouldn't believe it actually happened'', according to [[http://www.exurbe.com/?p=2176 one analysis]].
* ReallyGetsAround: About half the cast.

* AdaptedOut: Leonardo da Vinci doesn't appear in the show at all, despite having been connected to the Borgias in real life. It's a bizarre omission considering the vast array of other historical figures that were written into the show in [[ArtisticLicenseHistory very different ways from their actual history]].

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Leaning strongly towards "mundane." We're never explicitly told whether or not TheLanceOfLonginus is a fake, let alone whether or not it has supernatural powers.

Well, you get the picture. Let's not even start on [[APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy 'The Banquet of the Chestnuts']]. To be fair, the Borgias had many enemies and some of the stuff written about them was quite possibly exaggerated, expanded upon, or possibly even made up, to demonize them. This does not, however, mean that they were nice people. Even by the standards of the time, they weren't. Considering the world they lived in - let's be honest, Rome in the 15th century had corruption up to the ears - they couldn't afford to be.

* ItalianWars

* LargeHam: Creator/JeremyIrons, not as much as one might expect, though he turns it UpToEleven in "Death on a Pale Horse".

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Leaning strongly towards "mundane." We're never explicitly told whether or not the Lance of Longinus is a fake, let alone whether or not it has supernatural powers.

* IncestSubtext: Lucrezia and Cesare. [[TruthInTelevision Unsurprisingly.]]

Not to be confused either with ''Series/Borgia'', the European 2011 version produced by Canal+ and created by Tom Fontana from ''Series/{{Oz}}''.

Not to be confused either with ''Borgia'', the European 2011 version produced by Canal+ and created by Tom Fontana from ''Series/{{Oz}}''.