Discussion Main / ArtisticLicenseHistory

I'm not confident enough to pull this, but I noticed that the bit in the El Cid: The Legend entry stating he's "very (in)famous for having murdered his own father-in-law for insulting his own father, while in the film, he inadvertently kills him in self-defense" contradicts the Artistic Licence - History entry on the live action El Cid page, which says this never happened at all. Some brief research seems to back this up — Wikipedia isn't even entirely sure when Jimena's father died, never mind the circumstances surrounding it, and it appears to have its origin in the 15th century play Le Cid. But ICBW.

Why does this not have an Anime and Manga section?

• ... the Lancasters to which both the Beauforts and the Tudors were satellite families ...

The Beauforts were descended from the first duke of Lancaster. Were the Tudors allied to the Lancasters before Margaret Beaufort married Edmund Tudor?

Pulled this:

• In The Chalet School in Exile, which is set during World War 2, the titular school relocates to Guernsey. As this article points out, the school would have been utterly screwed if it had relocated there, as it was occupied by the Nazis at the time.

The article also points out the book was written during World War 2, and the author "had no way of knowing" the events of later in the year it was published. She didn't fail history; she failed to predict the future.

I'm fairly sure that the first part of the Family Guy entry, the one someone wrote a long rant about, was just a one-off sarcastic joke. Can't exactly call it an Author Filibuster if there's less words in the joke than I have fingers.

Cut from the discussion on 300: "What is true, however, is that only the 300 Spartans stayed to fight to the death on the last day when the Greek Army had been surrounded." That's not actually true; most famously, 700 Thespians also refused to leave and remained with the Spartans, along with 400 Thebans, and probably the Spartans' helots as well (though likely not happily) [1].

It might come a little too late but I feel the need to clarify one thing. While whole trope is often at work a little change would be required on main trope page.

To tell the truth while not wrong following sentence requires a note or slight change: "We very well know what happened in the past for the most part, and as we all know that history repeats itself, and those who do not know it are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past... but for some reason some people just don't seem to even want to try to understand. Mainly caused by not doing the research properly, especially when a fiction writer bases his history on the works of other fiction writers instead of actual histories."

My point is - we don't know. All accepted history is based mostly on two kinds of sources. 1) archeology (items left by humans who lived in the past - this includes photography) - as sources go archeology is "solid" evidence which gives us base for speculations... and nothing more. Even a picture of Churchill wouldn't mean much if we don't know who he was. Therefore more reliable is: 2) written information - which is exact opposite to "solid" evidence - people who created it could be purposely or not completely wrong. In fact many "historians" of old were creating false chronicles for one reason or another.

Therefore we have such thing as "historical research" - historians are gathering all sources they can, comparing them and creating their own version of what happened. next step is discussion - when a historian publishes results of his research other historians specializing in related subject are obligated to verify his findings. If someone finds them inaccurate he's obligated to answer with his own research. When all concerned historians agree on something we achieve what most people learn as "widely accepted history".

To sum up - what we "very well know of history" is in fact our best reconstruction of facts - basically what most historians agree with. And they might be wrong by the way.

Removed, for obvious reasons:

• Homestuck features the female (and referred to as such) Marquise Mindfang. The proper title for a female marquis is marchioness. Granted, the character is from another planet, so the rules of titles may be different.
  • Marquise is actually the proper term, in French.
  • There is also the fact that Marquise fits the number requirement in the Ancestor's titles while Marchioness does not. The title is entirely intentional.

Also see the dictionary! (Grammar Nazi fail.)

Removed re:gladiators

• In the same vein, any media depiction of "thumbs up = let him live" is wrong; thumbs down meant 'lower your weapon,' thumbs up meant 'kill.'

Doktor von Eurotrash: Regarding the Passion of the Christ example (the original post): the real issue is that in Judea and other eastern provinces (*not* in the west, as a rule), Romans would have spoken Greek as their first language. I don't really know how to add this to the entry as of now...

The Sioux/Lakota example is rather vague, and not at all clear to a non-American not familiar with the tribes or states. Can this be better explained?

UK Monarch's Veto

Redacted from examples: "** Interestingly, Elizabeth II did veto a Parliamentary Bill quite recently - it was a proposal that would have allowed the government (ie the Prime Minister of the time, Tony Blair) to take direct control of the military from the monarchy. Upon advisement by the Privy Council, she vetoed the Bill, and the matter was quietly dropped."

Reason: It's bullshit. I can find no reference to this ANYWHERE. To the proposed bill or the veto. Most likely, this is a misinterpretation of events. Besides, if the queen did use her veto, it would not be "dropped quietly", at least not by the press. Especially The Grauniad, they'd have a fucking field day.

Reflections: I have a slight question, why was the real life folder deleted? I did not see a discussion on the disscussion page. Was this decision reached on the forum? Sorry if I am disturbing anyone.

Cut these:

** Lets not forget the fact that there is no physical or documentary evidence that the Jews were ever enslaved by the Egyptians. To this day, people refer to the captivity in Egypt as historical fact. The Egyptians were meticulous record keepers and never once mention Jewish slaves. The pyramid builders were paid, free, Egyptian masons. Most were farmers who worked the construction during the off season.

*** Also, let's not forget that there is no evidence of the Egyptians ever having slaves. At least nothing even remotely resembling what we would consider slavery, but more resembled what would now be called indentured servitude, vastly different from Roman or American-style chattel slavery.

Because there actually is physical evidence for a Jewish presence in Egypt at the correct era: the remains of residences of a distinctively Israelite architecture dating from approximately 3000 years ago have been found in Egypt.

Also, the Bible nowhere says that the Israelites built the pyramids; it specifically says that they built the cities of Pithom and Raamses (which is an anachronistic name for the city), but never mentions any pyramids.

Also, saying that the Egyptians did not practice slavery in the same manner as the Romans or the Americans is rather beside the point, because the Bible never depicts the Israelite servitude in Egypt as being institutionally identical, or even particularly similar to Roman or American chattel slavery. The Israelites are consistently depicted as retaining their own family and community structures, with their own communal leaders, and living in a separate area; this is of course radically different from American or Roman slavery.

Also, there is no specific word for slave in Hebrew: the word `eved simply means servant, not slave, so the Bible never could have referred to the Israelites as slaves in any case.

Lastly, the Egyptians did keep extensive records, but they were also very effective at censoring anything potentially embarrassing, like a successful escape by a group of indentured servants. Plus, if the theory that the Israelite presence in Egypt was in some way affiliated with the Hyksos conquest of Egypt is correct, then it should be borne in mind that the Hyksos conquest brought the Middle Kingdom to an end, and interrupted the functioning of government and regular record-keeping. Lastly, even if records were made at the time, it would not necessarily follow that they would still exist today. Plenty of documents probably did not survive the past three millennia, and it is likely that the documents we do possess represent only a fraction of those produced; certainly, plenty of the ones we do possess are damaged or fragmentary.

Several of the Web Original entries aren't for works of fiction, but ostensibly "factual" blog posts or whatever. Isn't this trope about historical mistakes in works of fiction?

This is going to seem incredibly stupid, but I can't figure out what's wrong with the picture. Could someone savvier explain it?

If this trope is about when the writers get history wrong and not when the characters do, then like half the examples need to be cleared out.

I removed this comment about Shakespeare:

• Shakespeare had both the Earl of Shrewsbury (Lord Talbot) and his son die in (the same) battle. In real life, the son survived to become the second Earl. Although Shakespeare's listing of Talbot's titles (including Lord Verdun) does make Alton Towers the only amusement park mentioned (albeit indirectly) in Shakespeare.

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury did die at the Battle of Castillon, 1453, together with one of his sons. A DIFFERENT son survived and inherited the title of Earl of Shrewsbury. To complicate matters, BOTH of these sons were named "John" (they had different mothers)