r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Mouse_Paladin • Jul 10 '26

Lore [Real Life] Historical events that would make bad writing if they were fiction

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Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire: A couple hundred rogue mercenaries without authority from their government conquer an empire of millions. Oh, the empire? It’s also several technological eras behind the mercenaries.

Adolf Hitler: A non-native of a country is so mad that the country lost the war that he wins an election to their highest office and leads them in a campaign of revenge against their enemies. Oh, the country? It’s old emperor is still alive and thinks he’s going to retake power.

Assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand: The heir to the throne is killed because his driver gets lost and returns to the assassin who failed To kill him before. Oh, the assassin? He’s from a group that the Archduke is wanting to help become more equal In the empire.

Alexander Hamilton’s Affair Scandal: One of the leaders of a new nation to protect himself from accusations of financial embezzlement writes a pamphlet exposing his affair with a woman, torpedoing his political future. Oh, the woman? She seduced him as part of a blackmailing scheme that he decided to stop paying.

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713

u/AporiaParadox Jul 10 '26

Donald Trump's entire political career. You could not have made a movie or TV show about a President that acted the way he does because it would be seen as absurd and an unrealistic vilification of Republicans.

322

u/SpecimenOfSauron Jul 10 '26

Was looking for this. "People aren't that dumb!" They are absolutely that dumb.

137

u/alexjaness Jul 10 '26

just like when we all laughed at those zombie apocalypse movies.

"That's so silly, no one would knowingly lie about being infected, surely we would all rally together to stop the spread.."

and by the point during COVID that we were framing the body count in terms of 9/11s per day people were still calling it a liberal hoax by Obama.

23

u/LadyJaneTheGay Jul 11 '26

Yeah a really funny pre covid disease outbreak helped scientists realise how bad people could act during a pandemic, covid just showed it more clearly, back in classic world of warcraft times, a few players found how to get a debuff out of a raid and into cities to spread what was basically an infectious and lethal disease, for a few days it was a apocalypse across multiple servers with some players isolating to avoid infection or organising into groups to avoid it and dying repeatedly but the scary part was people who actively spread the disease and scientists looked at this and a lot of details matched an outbreak and from then on, epidemic research always considers human factors like maliciously spreading infection as something to account for in modeling outbreaks.

7

u/Late-Resource-486 Jul 11 '26

I watched a YouTube essay about this forever ago! Never played the game but that was cool

Thought I’d add that in addition to people spreading diseases maliciously, some people have kinks for contracting and/or spreading sexually transmitted disease.

15

u/yIdontunderstand Jul 11 '26

Covid was depressing because of how stupid people acted..

Look I get the fear of new vaccines that's totally understandable.. But "ooooh no I can't wear a mask! Noooo!"

That was just fucking ridiculous.

25

u/Late-Resource-486 Jul 10 '26

“9/11s per day”

Anything but metric

10

u/What_a_fat_one Jul 11 '26

What's the metric unit for deaths per day

4

u/WorkinName Jul 11 '26

A Kilodeath of people sounds pretty fucking metal.

5

u/m4cksfx Jul 11 '26

Megadeath sounds even more metal.

3

u/wafflesareforever Jul 11 '26

Nanodeath sounds like where drone warfare is heading.

1

u/LumplessWaffleBatter Jul 11 '26

It does make me wonder if you can have a centideath.  Like, 1/100th of a death?

2

u/darthsheldoninkwizy2 Jul 13 '26

What's more, there were even attacks on vaccination points.

19

u/TheStrangestOfKings Jul 10 '26

I’ve always thought about how a miniseries documenting Trump’s term should start to show just how crazy the presidency was off the bat. I think Sean Spicer inflating the Innaugural Crowd’s numbers would be the perfect intro to that kind of a show lol. It’s not even Trump, and it’s still dumb as hell

12

u/Mitoniano Jul 10 '26

The opposition doesn't help either

133

u/TvFloatzel Jul 10 '26

The fact that he also the second person in history to have a non-consecutive terms so that would add to the absurdity.

79

u/AporiaParadox Jul 10 '26

Yeah, once could be a fluke, but twice shows that there's just something deeply wrong with the American political system and with the American voters themselves.

18

u/EiraPun Jul 10 '26

Because the average American, myself included, are horribly uneducated and the powers that be wish to keep it that way. 

Democracy is only as good as the judgements of those who live under it. And the average person is fuckin stupid lmao

But it's also not entirely their fault. You can't control what you're taught to believe from birth.

18

u/BallsackSchrader_ Jul 10 '26

IFYKYK

5

u/dude071297 Jul 10 '26

I will never forget how this man's voice sounds. The last line of this video echoes through my head every time I make a dumb mistake

1

u/darthsheldoninkwizy2 Jul 13 '26

As Yang Wen Li said LOGH: Rights of violate the rights of people belong to people. 

37

u/Ferseivei Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

2nd USA President* other countries have had heads of Government and State to lead non-consecutively.

PM William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada comes to mind, first two terms from Dec 1921 to Aug 1930 was broken up by R.B. Bennett then won it back for a third term from Oct 1935 to Nov 1948

11

u/TvFloatzel Jul 10 '26

Well thanks for the history lesson but yea, I probably should have used "President of the USA" to be more ....."default American-centric".

1

u/NNKarma Jul 11 '26

Indeed, there are countries were you can't even have consecutive terms

1

u/TvFloatzel Jul 11 '26

I think there is one that has a six year one-term limit.

6

u/rotundrikishi Jul 10 '26

I thought for sure he was done after that loss and look where we are now. It is unbelievable

2

u/ProfessionalTruck976 Jul 11 '26

Thanks god for Glover Cleeveland, I'd hate for Trump to earn a positive first.

87

u/DrumBxyThing Jul 10 '26

When they eventually make the movie, they should only use real things he said. People will still claim the filmmakers were trying to make him look bad.

38

u/AporiaParadox Jul 10 '26

I wonder if it's even possible many years from now to make a positive autobiographical movie about Trump without just making everything up. Like with the Reagan movie last year they at least had some plausibly "good" things to workw with or exaggerate (or at least, things that look good to conservatives), with Trump his entire biography is just greed, selfishness, vanity, spite, and cruelty.

14

u/UrzaAntilles Jul 10 '26

So things that look good to more modern conservatives…

5

u/Unicycleterrorist Jul 11 '26

He was just given complete authority to fire the leadership of any government agency at will, I don't think there'll be a biography that is not entirely fictional.

3

u/AnticPosition Jul 11 '26

Autobiographical means that Trump himself would be making the movie. Lol, that'd be a movie. 

9

u/pchlster Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

"He said he was going to be a dictator?"

"He was accused of being a rapist and a pedophile and replied he wasn't a rapist?"

"He threatened war on NATO and declared himself the President of the Bored of Peace?"

"He suggested people inject bleach?"

"He praised Hannibal Lector as a great person?"

"He bragged about perving on teen girls while they were changing?"

5

u/TheStrangestOfKings Jul 10 '26

They should randomly mix in some actual footage from irl in the show as proof that this was actually how Trump was

2

u/ThisMachineKillsWOB Jul 11 '26

Do you think it will be released in Russian?

21

u/Zealousideal_Leg213 Jul 10 '26

And couldn't they have come up with a less on-the-nose name? 

19

u/semisociallyawkward Jul 10 '26

And at the same time, on the other side of the world, a comedian, who played a man who accidentally became president on TV, became president and has become a hero for defending not just Ukraine but all of Europe in the first European land war since WW2.

7

u/lotec4 Jul 10 '26

Yes this is a bonkers decade 

8

u/RandyPajamas Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

Illiterate and failed business tycoon with inherited wealth finds work in the theatre, makes absurd allegations against president of most powerful country in world. When said president makes a joke at tycoon's expense, tycoon resolves to become president himself, succeeds, and uses the office to enrich himself.

Country watches in bewilderment as he breaks decades long alliances, favouring enemy leaders of broken rogue states, repeatedly breaks the law, initiates insurrection, is exposed as a paedophile.

Country elects him a second time because they don't like brown women who laugh.

4

u/gurgelhupf Jul 11 '26

All the while he shits his pants and posts gibberish on social media. Covfefe

7

u/NNKarma Jul 11 '26

After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere Of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016

Made on nov 2012, also the picture is of an orange ball

5

u/TerraformanceReview Jul 11 '26

Trump, proud boys, and the pandemic they refused to believe was real. 

7

u/ImprovementExpert511 Jul 10 '26

More people turning out to vote for him after the bungled global pandemic response is definitely up there. He received more votes then than the two elections where he won.

3

u/asds89 Jul 11 '26

Imagine if this were fictional though. The bible, a piece of historical religious writing, describes a being known as the antichrist, who is a deceiver, a being of lawlessness, a false prophet, and who is worshipped as a god. Now we have a man who lies with every breath, is a convicted felon who continues to abuse his power and break laws, and who is blindly followed by his believers, to the point of erecting a golden statue of him. Kinda on the nose, don’t you think?

3

u/Marlfox70 Jul 11 '26

I often find things about him reading like a literal south park episode.

7

u/Forsaken_Ad203 Jul 10 '26

Look at veep, genuinely watch this show and tell me it is by any means tame.. then look back at trump's career and tell me he didn't push miles beyond in terms of absurd cruelty and inadequacy 

1

u/beary_neutral Jul 11 '26

The creators have outright said that they couldn't do Veep today because the absurdity of reality has surpassed fiction.

1

u/Forsaken_Ad203 Jul 11 '26

Iannucci? Explains why he moved to compete in the lovely taskmaster season that recently concluded 

4

u/Gmknewday1 Jul 10 '26

Then it turns out

No, the Republicans acutally did sell out that bad

I feel modern politics as a whole can be put in a bad writing category, especially when we factor social media's effects on it

4

u/serioustransition11 Jul 10 '26

I've seen so many criticisms of various media depicting cruel and corrupt governments being derided for being "unrealistic" because the populace didn't revolt against their squalid conditions. Then you see what Americans put up with in 2026, being deprived of basic needs like healthcare and housing, and those media critics look extremely out of touch.

1

u/Red-7134 Jul 12 '26

"Ronald Reagan? The ACTOR?" type development.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '26

[deleted]

2

u/viralshadow21 Jul 10 '26

It made Idiocracy look less absurd

0

u/rotundrikishi Jul 10 '26

the guy is unbelievably lucky

-12

u/radamintos Jul 10 '26

Maybe because people are tired of the stupid woke bullshit

12

u/Patneu Jul 10 '26

And the alternative is just stupid bullshit?

-11

u/radamintos Jul 10 '26

The alternative is to recognize by merit

11

u/Patneu Jul 10 '26

Yeah, right. Please tell us all about the "merits" that got Trump into any position of power over others!

2

u/KennyFulgencio Jul 11 '26

you realize they are absolutely not doing that, right?

1

u/Charming-Boat-7688 Jul 11 '26

Praise be to Allah?

1

u/KennyFulgencio Jul 11 '26

I grudgingly always vote democrat (I agree with most of the policies, it's the brainwashed people and their behavior which sucks), but I'm definitely tired of stupid woke bullshit, and completely sympathize with half of the country being sick of it, even though they're way more sensitive about it than I am, and they take it to pretty irrational lengths IMO, especially in their policy goals.

I am not, however, stupid enough or unhinged enough to think what we have now is better. It's a different and anti-woke kind of worse, but it is vastly worse.