"My beloved people, I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and the wingspan of an albatross and the left hook of a heavyweight Champ!"
— Queen Elizabeth, Hark! A Vagrant
But you know they gonna whitewash me
Make up some corny shit about me chopping cherry trees
It's hard to control a people if their founder's a thug
So they'll teach that I was all prayers, puppies and hugs!
Make up some corny shit about me chopping cherry trees
It's hard to control a people if their founder's a thug
So they'll teach that I was all prayers, puppies and hugs!
— George Washington, Founding Fathers
, Trevor Moore
, Trevor MooreThere are precious few at ease
With moral ambiguities
So we act as though they don't exist...
With moral ambiguities
So we act as though they don't exist...
—The Wizard, Wicked
In reality, William Wallace was actually a well funded militant separatist with extreme political views who attacked a larger, more organised society using guerilla tactics and no regard for civilian casualties. His biggest attack? Pulled on September 11th! Never forget. Even in the past.
The Cold Mountain guy was real, but there's no record of him abandoning his post for love. There's just a record of him abandoning his post. Twice. And now he's Jude Law.
... by all accounts, Rudy is kind of a prick. Oh, and speaking of pricks, every one of the 300 dudes was both boned by an older man as a child, and boned a child before leaving for battle...
I mean, for God's sake, The Patriot would have been about a guy burning churches, slaughtering unarmed Cherokee and raping his female slaves. That's what the real guy Mel Gibson was playing did. Over here in life, where everything is awful.
The Cold Mountain guy was real, but there's no record of him abandoning his post for love. There's just a record of him abandoning his post. Twice. And now he's Jude Law.
... by all accounts, Rudy is kind of a prick. Oh, and speaking of pricks, every one of the 300 dudes was both boned by an older man as a child, and boned a child before leaving for battle...
I mean, for God's sake, The Patriot would have been about a guy burning churches, slaughtering unarmed Cherokee and raping his female slaves. That's what the real guy Mel Gibson was playing did. Over here in life, where everything is awful.
"One of the most despicable, ruthless, falsely publicized characters in the American western folklore, Jesse Woodson James, a true bastard. He was so low that his first job was to rob a train with his brother, and the train was a hospital train filled with wounded soldiers. They killed all the wounded soldiers and took the few dollars...That was Jesse James...He was no good. But thanks to many pop-magazine writers, he was celebrated and, over a period of years, he became a hero."
"It doesn't matter. I won't be in the history books anyway, only you. Franklin did this and Franklin did that and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them - Franklin, Washington, and the horse - conducted the entire revolution by themselves."
— John Adams, 1776note
Charles George Gordon functioned as example and as symbol. He seemed for many years and for a large section of the British public to have been the best of his race, embodying those traits most dearly admired by Victorian England: bravery, religious humility, honesty, resourcefulness, an innate sense of justice, and a real but manly feeling for the unfortunate. This was how the English nation liked to think of itself...The public needs a constantly fresh supply of heroic figures, and it is only when a national figure is catapulted beyond his time that he survives in the national Valhalla. We could point to people such as Nelson, or perhaps Churchill, for contrast. Nelson lasts in the national mythology because he has been made to embody national qualities of courage and daring connected with the sea which are still admired in the English consciousness. Similarly with Churchill: he is thought to stand for a kind of bulldog determination never to give in, although fighting against overwhelming odds...Gordon shares many of the qualities necessary to the heroic figure, qualities which may be said to be universally admired. He might have succeeded had he not been tainted by the smell of imperialism, a doctrine which is in very bad odor in the twentieth century. It is hard to admire wholeheartedly the man who stood for the imposition of white civilization on non-white peoples; he needs constant apologies and explanations.
— Cynthia F. Behrman, The Afterlife of General Gordon
Who can we collect in Horrible Heroes? Blackbeard! Not much of a hero; sort of murderous pirate. Tudor executioner! Very much not a hero from any stretch of the imagination. Genghis Khan! Again, not particularly heroic. Alexander The Great! Yeah? Um, uh... well, very successful, but not somebody you would call a hero. William The Conqueror! Um, again, not many people would heroise him. Random Viking berserker. Right, so a man renowned basically for murdering lots of, uh, people, raping and pillaging and going red in the face while shouting a lot and hitting people with an axe and he's a hero, apparently. Bodecea... Boudica or however they pronounce it this week; well, yeah, she could be seen as actually a heroine. And highwayman. Literally... a very dangerous mugger. Brilliant. So that's your 'heroes', is it? Only one of them can be described as 'heroic', really. And it's a woman, so it would be 'heroine', so well done!
"After the election this same Cardinal will be equally shocked that the Holy Father has a mistress, and bastards. Ooooh. Because that would be shocking in 2001, but in 1492 this had been true of every pope for the past century. In fact, Cardinal Shocked-all-the-time, according to the writers you are supposed to be none other than Giuliano della Rovere. Giuliano “Battle-Pope” della Rovere! You have a mistress! And a daughter! And a brothel! And an elephant! And take your elephant to your brothel! And you’re stalking Michelangelo! And foreign powers lent you 300,000 ducats to spend bribing other people to vote for you in this election! And we’re supposed to believe you are shocked by simony? That is not historicity. It is applying some historical names to some made-up dudes and having them lecture us on why [we] should be shocked."
Doctor: I remember this man.
Quarren: Tedran. He was a martyr to our people.
Doctor: Some martyr. He led the Kyrian attack against Voyager.
Quarren: You're lying!
Doctor: I was there.
Quarren: You're trying to protect yourself.
Doctor: And so are you - from the truth. Isn't it a coincidence that the Kyrians are being portrayed in the best possible light? Martyrs, heroes, saviors. Obviously, events have been reinterpreted to make your people feel better about themselves. Revisionist history. It's such a comfort.
Quarren: Tedran. He was a martyr to our people.
Doctor: Some martyr. He led the Kyrian attack against Voyager.
Quarren: You're lying!
Doctor: I was there.
Quarren: You're trying to protect yourself.
Doctor: And so are you - from the truth. Isn't it a coincidence that the Kyrians are being portrayed in the best possible light? Martyrs, heroes, saviors. Obviously, events have been reinterpreted to make your people feel better about themselves. Revisionist history. It's such a comfort.
— Star Trek: Voyager, "Living Witness"
In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue
He had three ships, he sailed from Spain
A first rate hat 'top a second rate brain
He sailed by night, he sailed by day
Will somebody tell him he sailed the wrong way?
He's cruel, he rules through thuggery
Yet he's praised for the New World's discovery
Are we sure he deserves his own day?
Wed've found this stuff anyway.
Columbus sailed the ocean blue
He had three ships, he sailed from Spain
A first rate hat 'top a second rate brain
He sailed by night, he sailed by day
Will somebody tell him he sailed the wrong way?
He's cruel, he rules through thuggery
Yet he's praised for the New World's discovery
Are we sure he deserves his own day?
Wed've found this stuff anyway.
The history of our Revolution will be one continued lie from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's electrical rod smote the Earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod, and thence forward these two conducted all the policy, negotiations, legislatures and war.
