Web Video / Brandon F

Brandon Fisichella is a YouTuber who focuses primarily on the history of the British Empire and its military, though the channel discusses other topics as well. Many of these videos focus on dispelling historical misconceptions. His channel includes "Pedantically Playing Assassin's Creed III" (where he points out the inaccuracies in Assassin's Creed III), and "The Patriot Review" (where he points out the flaws in The Patriot (2000)).

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This channel provides examples of:

• Ask a Stupid Question...: Deconstructed in "The Stupidest Questions Reenactors get Asked (and their value!)". Brandon points out while these questions can be answered by common sense, reenactors likely get asked these because observers are a little intimidated by the disparity in knowledge. Brandon suggests showing patience to help engage the asker and pique their interest.
• Armies Are Evil: In "Did the Duke of Wellington Call His Men Scum?", Brandon describes how this was the common perception in Europe and especially Britain before the Victorian Era. This is due to the fact that armies were often drawn from thieves and whores and were used to supress riots and protests by lethal means. It was even assumed that the only reason soldiers didn't murder every civilian they came across was because their Officers held them in check. However this changes in From Blackguards to Imperial Heroes, when imperial expansions lead to the army being glorified in their home country.
• Army of Thieves and Whores: Also in the above-mentioned video, Brandon describes how the common soldiers of the British Army during during the Napoleonic War was made up of the dregs of society, and how the Duke of Wellington doubted that even one of his foot-soldiers enlisted out of a sense of patriotism.
• Camp Follower: His video Regimental Wives: Women in an 18th Century Army is about the lives and roles of camp followers in 18th century British regiments, particularly debunking common stereotypes that he sees in media and even some reenactments such as the assumption that they cooked or that they were all drunken, useless prostitutes.
• Cool Ship: The Ship of the Line is described as one in "A Titan of Pre-Industry: The Ship of the Line, with Brandon giving context to often-quoted facts of this ship to show how they'd be seen by the people of their age.
  Brandon F: "Imagine scaling the steps, the countless steps of the Cathedral, moving up into the highest of her bell towers. From the heights you gaze down at the world below you, at the industrious townspeople going about their daily lives, the miles and miles of green countryside surrounding you. You feel from this immense height as though you can reach out to the very heavens from that most holy place where only the clouds dare to cast their shadow upon you. The tallest building in the entire city for the last hundred years. But then, you turn your gaze out to the waters and you realize that you are in shadow but it is not a cloud casting that shadow on you. Because because towering authoritatively above you; the masts of the great warships, these monolithic constructions of war. They look upon you, standing higher even than the divine."
• Crossover:
  • In "How GoT Should Have Ended: With HM 54th Regt of Foot", they describe how Drogon burned Boston to the ground before being killed by His Majesty's 54th Regiment of Foot after a high-casualty battle. The background is that Brandon's reenacting group found a prop dragon head left behind after a Game of Thrones-themed party, and decided to have some fun with it.
  • In "Reconsidering the Historical Films of Mr Mel Gibson + An Announcement", Atun-Shei Films impersonates Brandon and "apologizes" to Mel Gibson for prior criticisms of him.
  • In How New England Yankees Conquered the World, Brandon made an apperance on Atun Shei Films' channel.
• Dirty Coward: Defied on his video on the Battle of Camden where American soldiers infamously fled the field of battle, leading to a humiliating defeat for General Horatio Gates. Rather than condemn the men as cowards, Brandon points out the many extenuating factors at play: the men were in horrible physical and mental shape from the march, the command structure broke down so they had no orders to hold, and most notably, the men in question had no military training and had never seen battle before, and the noise and terror of war proved too much for them. Even while he's heaping scorn on The Patriot (2000) for getting almost all aspects of the battle wrong and painting the regulars as breaking ranks (when it was the militiamen who ran), he's most angry that it makes the fleeing soldiers look like idiots and cowards, rather than men reacting the most natural way they could to such a horrifying situation.
• Politically Correct History: One of the (many) reasons he dislikes The Patriot (2000) is that the characters are far too progressive for their time period and the lot of slaves heavily downplayed to avoid making the characters too unsympathetic. For one, it's extremely unlikely that Benjamin Martin would have had a plantation where all black people are free, or that a group of Maroons (escaped slaves) would have taken in a former slaveowner.
• Private Military Contractors: Discussed in Hessians were NOT Mercenaries!, where Brandon states that Hessians were not this trope. He points out that while German Princes could qualify as mercenaries under George III, the Hessian soldiers under said Princes were conscripted peasants who didn't get a choice or even a decent wage. This naturally resulted in a lot of Hessians deserting and defecting during the war.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Discussed in "Becoming an Officer in the 18-19th Century: The Purchase System in the British Army", where Brandon explains that Officers buying their commission was a legal and official way for aristocrats to gain command in the British Army. He does reveal that this didn't mean the officer could get away with cowardice or incompetence; an officer who failed his duty would be cashiered - losing their investment and being ostracized from polite society.
• Silly Reason for War: Deconstructed in "Why did the British "overreact" to the Boston Tea Party?". Brandon points out that it wasn't just about the tea, but about political violence and clashing ideologies between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies coming to a head.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Discussed in "Regimental Wives: Women in an 18th Century Army". Because the women were camp support rather than soldiers, (launderers, seamstresses, and nursing most often), soldiers would occasionally refuse to fire on them, with one example being a wife of a soldier being allowed to retrieve water from a river even while all the men were fired upon. However, he considers this cold comfort, as sickness, fatigue and the elements were often as much as if not more deadly than enemy action and did not discriminate, and large numbers of women died on campaign anyway.
• You Are What You Hate: In his analysis of the McCarthyist song "Ain't I Right?", he believes that the singer is this, painting anyone who opposes his views as enemies of the state who are secretly trying to destroy America and who must be hunted down, found out, and "removed", and dismissing freedom of speech and disagreement as coddling communists. In essence, promoting the exact type of totalitarian, repressive state that he despises, but with his side in control.