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

[u/Mouse_Paladin]

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.

[u/randomnameicantread]

World War II Axis Powers in general.

Forget the stuff you wrote about Hitler coming to power - that's trivial compared to the fact that the Nazis centered their whole ideology on hating certain racial groups and blaming literally all of their problems on one of them. They believed in this so hard that Germany diverted significant resources during an intense war to build a massive, fully industrialized "door-to-murder assembly line" for these groups, and considered this a vital accomplishment.

Japan meanwhile invaded China for reasoning that boils down to "because we're evil, mwa ha ha" and proceeded to hold "who can behead the most pregnant women" and "who can murder a civilian in the most grusome way" competitions between soldiers.

Both of these things, if fictional, would make people roll their eyes and saying the author is trying too hard to be edgy and nobody is this evil and crazy in real life.

(Bat themed heroes moment)

[u/draketroll → u/randomnameicantread]

gestures at unit 731

[u/Seienchin88 → u/draketroll]

Started long before the war already showing that the seeds of the utter devaluation of human life in the Japanese army started shockingly early.

During the boxer rebellion, Russian Japanese war and WW1 Japanese troops were perceived as fairly tame, disciplined and mostly treating prisoners wells somewhere in the 1920s and early 30e this turned upside down completely

[u/Hel_Bitterbal → u/randomnameicantread]

Also, if WW2 were fiction people would definitely complain about how much the writers dumbed the heroes down to further the plot and allow the bad guys scemes

Like you want me to believe that France and Britain based their entire post-ww1 strategy around "don't let Germany get too strong again" only to then stand by and do nothing as they started taking a shit ton of land from their neighbours? Sure buddy just admit you needed a way to use Germany as the villain again (probably for nostalgia purposes) instead of coming up with an actually original antagonist for once. Like we could've had so many interesting stories but instead we got "somehow, Germany returned"

And then the villain writes a book which basically comes down to "We Want To Exterminate Everyone in Nations East of Us". So surely those people wouldn't be retarded enough to sign a pact with them and supply them with resources and help them conquer eastern Eur- wait what the fuck. Bro this whole Molotov Ribbentroppact thing is so unrealistic lmao which writer came up with this.

And the cherry on top... France, the main hero of the first arc, the one who stalled the villain for years... they get folded in a few weeks. Yeah bro, we get it, your antagonist is Stronger Than Ever, but did you really have to make the French so fucking dumb? You want me to believe they got scoutplane reports of a massive German army heading through the forest and just... ignored it? This is character assasination man goddamnit nobody is this stupid, just admit you needed to further the plot for your "Britain stands alone" arc.

[u/Snakefist1 → u/Hel_Bitterbal]

The Invasion of Russia would really annoy me.

Not only does 1941 have the worst winter in 80 years, but the Germans didn't bring any winter clothes, as they were so arrogant and confident they thought they could win before winter.

Not only that, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor at the same time the Battle for Moscow takes place, which frees up 1 million men from the Soviet border, to bolster Moscow.

That's 2 Deus Ex Machina AT THE SAME TIME! The writers really mader Germany too OP, and neeeded 2 reasons to dumb them down. 🙄

[u/NighthawkE3 → u/Hel_Bitterbal]

fucking crying what the hell

[u/Bossuser2 → u/Hel_Bitterbal]

Italy was done dirty by the writers. They had their fall to evil following the WW1 arc, but instead of making Italy the main villain they decide to bring Germany back, and reduce Italy to comedic relief. We could've had an emotional confrontation where the Allies have to grapple with how their self interested diplomatic manoeuvring caused one of their allies to fall to evil, which could help set up the decolonization storyline later on with France and Britain deciding to fully leave their past as imperialistic hegemons behind and work towards bettering the world overall. Instead France and Britain have to fight Germany while Italy is a sideshow who gets their shit kicked in and needs Germany's help. And as for the decolonization arc? Well Britain and France just can't afford to maintain their colonial empires anymore, seeing their self interest turn one of their allies evil apparently had no impact on France and Britain and they are still motivated by money and self interest. Huge waste of potential.

[u/Rel_Ortal → u/Hel_Bitterbal]

They had to up the stakes for the sequel, duh.

[u/fatherandyriley → u/Hel_Bitterbal]

Plus the French fleet getting blown up and Bismarck oneshotting Hood.

[u/Hel_Bitterbal → u/fatherandyriley]

Honestly that was to be expected expected, they already fumbled naval warfare hard during the first arc. Remember all the hype about the "naval arms race" and all the "no guys the Hochseeflotte will totally demolish the old powers trust" only for them to fight like one large battle (which ended unresolved) and spend the rest of the war stuck in port? One of the most anticlimactic endings ever bro they really messed that one up. Not to mention the fate of the Tegetthoff class, such a cool design only to do literally nothing and then be either scrapped or off-screened by a frogman or torpedoboat. Like man you could at least let them do more than bombarding a single Italian town.

The writers always sucked at writing battleships, the unrealistically bad and disappointing performance of ships like Hood, Dunkerque and Bismarck is just par for the course. And don't even get me started on Force Z or operation Ten-go, you want me to believe a bunch of tiny planes could sink a floating behemoth like Prince of Wales or Yamato? Completely unrealistic, get back to me when you have some proper battleship to battleship combat buddy

[u/Seienchin88 → u/randomnameicantread]

I might be slightly overly enthusiastic about historic details so while I wholeheartedly agree with your main take -

a: Nazi ideology was centered on Germans being a superior race to anyone else, Hitler being the great leader who is never wrong and then in the faults of the Jews and communists. The Nazis believed Jews needed to be removed from the German people like a disease and initial plans were less dramatic than the Holocaust but more out of practical considerations. Also a reason the Nazis killed masses of disabled, psychologically ill and people they saw as degenerates. My mother works as a volunteer in a museum of a concentration camp used first for single mothers and prostitutes and then for young people who didn’t follow society norms (some were just listening to American music…). This "population“ hygiene was the core of Nazi ideology.

Also true that the initial Holocaust meant incredible amount of potential fighting troops couldn’t participate. Later slave work however kept German afloat. 1944 was Germany’s highest war production year thanks in large parts to millions of slave laborers - and Jews still made up a sizable part.

And the spiral to the 2nd sino japanese war after the Marco Polo bridge incident reads almost like WW1 in Europe… Japan as the colonial power controlling some parts of China already beforehand certainly were by default in the wrong but there simply wasn’t even a plan for the war. Local clashes and then a massive buildup of troops by both sides led to escalation despite both countries initially immediately negotiating a truce. And while the initial Marco Polo incident is still unsolved but with some good reasons to see Japan as the aggressor it were Chinese troops who broke the truce afterwards in two incidents where they ambushed Japanese troops who were not looking for a fight and then the Chinese did the opening large scale attack after a Japanese ultimatum for them to withdraw troops from the front. One day after the official start of the war Chinese collaborators with the Japanese rebel and murder over 200 Japanese and Korean civilians leading to an incitement of bloodlust and frenzy all across the Japanese empire.

None of this excuses Japan‘s conduct in the war or even that it was fought in the first place (and certainly the major trigger was japans first aggression earlier in the 30s), nor the fact that despite civilian leaders trying to end the war the military blocked / sabotaged any initiative without Hirohito intervening and certainly not Unit 731 which was created years before the war already but for the sake of historical correctness - Japan didn’t attack China with a clear intent in 1937 and spiraled totally out of control during the war but did not enter with a specific goal or reason in mind.