Beware the mistress of House Bathory...
Sometimes, even Jack is able to do away with the comedy and show just how terrifying history can be...
- Robespierre's gradual Sanity Slippage from a well-meaning revolutionary thinker into an Ax-Crazy tyrant is immensely unsettling, particularly when he gets eerily quiet when threatening his opponents, or his increasingly manic mood swings as the power starts going to his head.Robespierre: (practically snarling) What did I tell you about being worried?!
- The government realizes just how mad with power Robespierre has become and openly declares him to be insane, only for Robespierre to come bursting through the doors snarling like a wild animal about the "conspirators" among the government ranks.
Robespierre: "Insane?!" Am I? Is that what you've been thinking?! You know what this sounds like? London propaganda! There's conspiracists all throughout the government, and I know who you are! And I'm coming to get you!- Robespierre's final moments are no less horrifying: one of France's most eloquent speakers being strapped into the guillotine screaming bloody murder while his partially severed jaw hangs loosely to his face like it's been stapled back on, only being silenced when the blade falls. It sounds less like a recounting of an execution and more like the origin of a horrific ghost story.
- While Crassus' Obviously Evil portrayal is mostly amusing, there's something undeniably unsettling in how he interacts with the people around him. Not to mention his handling of the soldiers who failed to capture Spartacus the first time around.Crassus: Now to everybody else, I'm going to come around and hand you a cudgel. And I want you to beat them to death!
- The Halloween special on Elizabeth Bathory doesn't shy away from the gruesome rumours about the titular countess, even if the first iteration of her story is embellished.
- Elizabeth discovering that the blood of the servant girl she'd struck has the power to reverse her aging, and the next we see of the unfortunate young woman is her being approached by the stoic Elizabeth with a knife in her hand and an apology on her lips, then the sight of Elizabeth soaking in a bathtub full of the murdered girl's blood.
- Emperor Matthias describing just what horrors were found in Elizabeth's castle, with some of the descriptions reaching true Body Horror levels of terrifying. Aaron Veach's delivery makes it all the more chilling.
Matthias: I can scarce describe what he saw in that infernal keep. Their lips were sewn with needles and their hands in chains. Pins beneath their fingernails, lashes on their breasts, bodies scorched with burning irons. Most were corpses with their blood drained. Others were still alive, anaemic and pale, their bodies pricked with holes from head to toe, left to feel the warmth draining from them. Until the countess returned for her next feast... - The episode on Frederick the Great shows in gruesome detail just how much Frederick suffered in childhood under the thumb of his abusive, totalitarian father. Frederick William would ruthlessly beat his son in public and humiliate him in front of the court, particularly for his homosexual tendencies. Then the abuse all comes to a head when Frederick William discovers that his son was planning on fleeing Prussia with his lover. His choice in punishment? Force Frederick to watch as his beloved companion is put to the axe for treason.Frederick William: (grabbing his son by the lapels) If I weren't your father, I would kill you for that little stunt!Frederick: If you weren't my father, I wouldn't have tried.Frederick William: As your father, I would strip your titles, burn your inheritance, and leave you naked in the streets of Berlin! But as a member state of the Holy Roman Empire, that would be...challenging. So instead...(he presses Frederick's head to the window) You will watch what you've done to him.(Frederick looks out the window to see hid lover Katte being led to his execution)//Frederick: Wait, what? Whoa, that is like, seriously dark. Tell me you wouldn't - (The axe raises up) Oh my God! WHAT THE-
- Mehmed II's clashes with Vlad the Impaler are not for the faint of heart. While Jack admits that some of the stories about Vlad may have been exaggerated, there was no embellishment about how he captured and killed nearly 20'000 Ottoman soldiers during his campaign and left their impaled bodies on display for the horrified Ottoman army to see.
- Ruhollah Khomeini unceremoniously gunning down an Iranian official who'd negotiated with the Shah. This, coupled with Khomeini's rapidly increasing fundamentalism, quickly shows the Iranians simply traded in their previous autocratic dictator for another.
