Basic Trope: A real-life not-completely-evil person who, through the lens of history, is viewed as a villain.
- Straight: Alice Troper was, back in the day, a very ambitious and powerful aristocrat. When Alice and Bob: The Motion Picture comes out, she's painted as an irredeemably Evil Matriarch.
- Exaggerated: In real life, Alice spent her entire life as a nun, doing nothing but praying and worshipping the gods. In The Movie, she rapes men and women, betrays her own country for more money and power, and gleefully carries out a genocide.
- Downplayed: The director of Alice and Bob: The Motion Picture exaggerated Alice's tendency to give Embarrassing Nicknames to her friends and miss her children's dance recitals.
- Justified:
- The makers of Alice and Bob: The Motion Picture sided against Alice Troper, so naturally they'd want to make her look bad.
- Earlier historical records were biased against Alice.
- Alice And Bob: The Motion Picture is an Alternate History story, where Alice is pretty much a different person after a crucial Point of Divergence.
- While Alice meant well, her actions caused problems in the long run. In real life she was ignorant of this, but the makers of Alice and Bob: The Motion Picture made her well aware to make it clear that her actions should not be repeated.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- Later historical evidence reveals that Alice Troper did indeed poison her husband for power.
- Alice's portrayal seems wholly over the top, a near-cackling villain skipping the Moral Event Horizon like crazy. It seems unbelievable due to how over the top it is, but it turns out she really was that bad.
- Movie Alice appears worse than her historical counterpart at first, but turns out to be misunderstood; all her evil deeds either had very good reasons or were just in-universe slander.
- Double Subverted:
- Her other evil actions, however, have been either fabricated or exaggerated.
- The historical evidence was not accurate.
- While that made Alice evil by the standards of the previous generation, now most agree that poisoning her husband was justifiable considering that he was going to execute their son on a whim.
- Movie Alice appears worse than her historical counterpart, but turns out to be misunderstood. At least, until she decides that if everyone sees her as a villain anyway, she might as well become one.
- Parodied:
- The character of Alice in the movie rattles off all the good things she did in real life — and the Designated Heroes summarily hand wave them away.
- Alice is a stereotypical supervillain with a Doomsday Device and a convoluted Death Trap for our hero(ine) to escape from.
- Zig-Zagged:
- The movie dips in and out of a sympathetic portrayal.
- Alice is the only character portrayed with historically accurate values. Most others get 'adapted' to something more acceptable.
- Averted: The screenwriters decide to do the research and paint the characters correctly.
- Enforced:
- "Well, boys, I like the script, but those moronic viewers can't understand subtle, nuanced characters. If you just make Alice an evil, puppy-kicking harpy, I think things will go over much more easily."
- The filmmakers are tired of seeing Alice getting Historical Hero Upgrades, so they try to avoid this. Unfortunately, they avoid it by going too far the other way.
- Lampshaded: "Alice Troper, did you really poison your family members for power? Really?"
- Invoked: The filmmakers spew propaganda to paint Alice as a villain.
- Exploited: People who disagree with Alice's ideals use her bad reputation and lines espousing them as Anti-Advice, or something similar.
- Defied: See Averted.
- Discussed: "The history books may put you down as some hero, Alice. But you'll always know the truth about what you've done!"
- Conversed: "So, Alice was a Depraved Bisexual who couldn't go twenty-four hours without kicking a dog? So much for my PhD thesis."
- Implied: An unflattering biopic of Alice is far more popular than an esteemed, highbrow book of scholarly biography.
- Deconstructed: Popular opinion of Alice Troper never recovers, causing her to be viewed unfavorably throughout history for a very, very long time.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice Troper: The Miniseries comes out, rehabilitating people's opinions of Alice.
- Alice becomes a beloved pop culture icon due to her badass villainous portrayals.
- Played for Laughs: A historical television show trying to use comedy to teach children about historical figures paints Alice as a Woobie beset upon by lazy writers.
- Played for Drama: Alice's family, and the people in her hometown, are utterly horrified to see the legacy of their dear friend tarnished. They leave the theater in disgust, then sue the director for defamation.
Salieri wants you to go back to Historical Villain Upgrade. Don't worry, he wasn't THAT bad.
