fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5410 ]

[ SECRET POST #5410 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5410 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[DC's Legends of Tomorrow]

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IMO there's way more people who are wrongly whitewashed than people who are unfairly maligned

Richard the boy buggering butcher "Lionheart" Plantagenet of Robin Hood fame, for a start. And Edward III of England who seems get a far nicer rap than a man of his savagery deserves.

Also, for some reason I'll never fathom, we keep seeming to let Oliver the butcher of Ireland Cromwell off the hook too easily too.

Piggy-backing of Richard. Saladin. He's always the enemy in the Crusaders stories but he was a pretty decent dude. I mean, the Crusaders set the bar underground but still, he was a totally standup guy in comparison.

Hadrian. I thought he was a cool dude. He was 48 when he and Antinous met - Antinous was probably around 13.

Macbeth, easy one.
https://fandomsecrets.dreamwidth.org/2500769.html?thread=1074454433#cmt1074454433
"No, he existed and was pretty positive figure overall. He was one of the early Kings of Scotland from 1040–1057, one of the unifying ones who may have done as much as Kenneth MacAlpin himself in bringing together the various sub-kingdoms of Alba, Strathclyde, and Dal Riata to make a unified Scotland, and his rule predated even the Saxon rule in England. Contemporary sources say he was called "The Generous King of Good Fortune" and the "he gave money to the poor as if it were seed".

On the downside, he also hosted a lot of Normans from France as guests and refugees which contributed to the start of Feudalism in Southern Scotland (although it was never quite as tyrannical as it was in England, it was the English-Normans continually trying to impose their stricter version of feudalism on Scotland that contributed so much to the ill feeling between the two countries). "

Yes! I loved reading about the real Macbeth. I do still love the play, but yes in real life he wasn't a villain.

It's kinda ironic that the play was written for a Scottish king.

The Scottish king was actually descended from the guy who beat Macbeth and was king after him.

Wow, I wonder if he knew that?

A few years ago I found out to my amazement that Macbeth and Duncan were brothers.

Richelieu.

(And Napoleon did write the civil code although I do get why he's problematic.)

Oda Nobunaga. In spite of the groundwork he laid for Toyotomi and Tokugawa, he was pretty awful and I'm truly fascinated by just how villainous he was. Simultaneously badass and villainous. I appreciate how much Japanese media likes to play with his personality and confirmed actions and turn him into, if not an outright villain, a complex anti-hero or something in betwen the two. On the other hand, historians in Japan are now trying to turn some of the opinions on other figures who, as enemies of the Tokugawa, had no chance to write their own story and explain who they really were - Tokugawa straight up obliterated their history and substituted his own, as you do, so a lot of people in that era were unfairly maligned for centuries and only now are historians trying to correct the record.

John Brown

Machiavelli, Macbeth, Salieri, Chamberlain isn't fully villainized but he is painted as worse than he is when in fact England was not ready for war and he was probably right to hold off at least for a while, and Malcolm X.

With Elizabeth Bathory, it is entirely unclear how much of a villain she was or wasn't given that most or even possibly all of the stuff about her was made up by enemies who wanted her land and property. Some of it may have been true, or none of it. But certainly a huge chunk of it was made up, including the bathing in blood thing.

The lady in the McDonald's lawsuit who has been successfully villainized by McDonalds and Republicans when in fact she had third-degree burns because McDonalds' coffee at the time was way too hot. She had only asked for a reasonable amount for her medical bills at first, but McDonalds refused to give her anything or to settle.

Monica Lewinsky. People still act like the whole thing was her fault. Uh, no. First, he was the one with the power, so there was some iffy power dynamics there, and that would be his fault. But second, none of it was a reason to impeach him, and clearly Republicans only care when it is Democrats given that Trump has done so much more and way worse. But whether or not you think the impeachment was a good idea, Lewinsky was taken advantage of by everyone and is the only real innocent party in the whole thing.

On the other hand, Columbus was a terrible person in every respect, a true villain, and yet he gets a holiday named after him. Churchill was a dick who may have helped win the war, but most of the other things he did were not good. Douglas MacArthur was pretty awful too.

Andrew Jackson was a racist, genocidal monster. Reagan was fairly evil, and the things he did in Latin America (including helping the genocide in Guatemala) were criminal not to mention all the damage he did right here in the US.

Mother Theresa was actually pretty terrible.

I'm sorry and I think the rest of the post is really good and I agree with it but I have strong feelings about Chamberlain.

First of all, Chamberlain was prime minister from 1397. He had been Chancellor and generally a leading figure in the coalition government from 1931. If the UK wasn't ready for war, it was to a large extent the responsibility of Chamberlain and the government in which he served. Second, British foreign policy from 1931 consistently failed over and over to enforce any kind of real restrictions on the fascist powers or enlist any kind of multilateral coalition that could have checked them. And three, even if Britain wasn't ready for war, that still doesn't require you to actively acquiesce in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

It's true that Chamberlain does get a slightly bad rap, because in popular memory, he basically takes the blame for the whole British government from 1931 on. People like Baldwin, Hoare and Simon deserve a lot of blame as well. But the basic underlying popular narrative about appeasement is essentially correct.

I’m assuming 1397 was a typo. Otherwise, there’s a whole lot more going on with Chamberlain than his work as Prime Minister.

lol, yes, should be 1937

You are discounting the effect the great depression had on the British public and the memory of the previous war which was felt to have been all for nothing in the end. Don't fall for Churchill's bullshit, or the post war revisionism, the British Public were almost as isolationist as America was in the thirties when it came to Europe. Nobody wanted another war. People were desperate not to have one, and would not have supported any attempt to go to war over somewhere as distant as Czechoslovakia, nor were any European allies any better (and just look at a map, and tell me how the UK was supposed to go to war there without support from Continental Europe anyway, look at the supply line issue, logistically impossible), there was barely any support even over Poland at the time. It wasn't until Dunkirk that the British public gave a damn.

If Chamberlain, or anyone, had tried to go to war or even serious threaten one, they'd have been out of office the next day. We stand and look back from the other side of it, from the side of a world class bullshitter, and a lot of propaganda that was pumped out regarding it, but the truth was that for the people from before WWII, they just didn't care, they wanted not to care, and they didn't believe it was right or worth it. Also, the rhetoric coming out of Germany about Jewish people is pretty much at the same level as the rhetoric coming out of the UK regarding trans people, so when you invading Britain? Or do you not care and not want to care?

+ 100

It's true that there was a large segment of the British public that didn't want war and that approved of appeasement at the time. But I don't think it's really much of a defense to offer for Chamberlain and Baldwin that they undertook a disastrous and failed policy for the sake of winning elections. If that really was why they did it, it was still a failed policy, and also they were political cowards.

And as a matter of policy, it really was a failure. It was a disastrous failure on every level. None of the explanations really make sense. If Britain was isolationist, it doesn't make sense why they would start making ultimatums and pledging themselves to go to war over central Europe. If Britain needed to buy time to rearm, it was the government who were responsible for - and failed at - the rearmament process in the first place. If the justification for appeasement is that avoiding another war was the most important thing, it clearly failed - it led directly to another war. We don't know if another policy would have succeeded. But we know that this policy certainly failed, and given what we know about international relations, it's hard to see how a policy of coalition-building and a stronger rearmament would have left Britain in a worse position even if it didn't avoid the war altogether.

This isn't something that only Churchill was saying, either. Duff Cooper and Eden resigned over appeasement of the continental dictators. Sinclair and Lloyd George and the non-government Liberals were harshly critical of appeasement and the problems with rearmament. And so were Labour (at least after 1935), who excoriated the government for not pursuing a policy of collective security and not being effective enough in rebuilding the military. So in fact, pretty much everyone outside of the Baldwin-Chamberlain government criticized the policy of appeasement and the failures of rearmament at the time.

Of course it's possible that the British public would have supported appeasement in an election - it's a counterfactual so we have no way of knowing, but it doesn't seem unlikely. But the fact is that we actually do know as a matter of fact that Baldwin's and Chamberlain's policy was wrong, and the critics were right. And that's still true regardless of how the electorate might have voted.

Also, the rhetoric coming out of Germany about Jewish people is pretty much at the same level as the rhetoric coming out of the UK regarding trans people, so when you invading Britain? Or do you not care and not want to care?

I don't think that the anti-semitism of the Third Reich was the only reason that the UK went to war against them, or even the primary reason; it was also their extremely belligerent aggressive expansionism. I think there's a general argument you can have about the merits of interventionism, and obviously practical considerations are important, but I think the argument for intervention is generally going to be stronger when a country is doing things like that.

Also, I condemn in the strongest possible terms the rampant transphobia in the UK. But I'm not really sure it's accurate, reasonable, or proportional to compare the UK's treatment of trans people to the status of Jews in Nazi Germany.

You have to explain the Mother Theresa thing, because now I’m curious!

(I could just Google it, but I’m admittedly being lazy)

Actually, I take it back. My understanding previously was that she denied painkillers, thought suffering was good for the soul, refused to allow her patients to see doctors, forced conversions, and did things like reusing needles.

But in trying to find some articles for you, I came across a Reddit thread of someone debunking all of that with evidence to back it up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mother_teresa_was_documented_mass_murderer/

Evita, the musical is to blame for this mostly.

Emperor Nero is an interesting case, as some historians believe that a lot of the horrific things he was accused of were made up or exaggerated by political rivals, and biased history in general. And that a lot of his “madness” was the result of lead poisoning, which Caligula also suffered from.

I’m not saying that’s true, and I’m no historian. But I’ve been hearing things like this recently, and I find it fascinating, whether true or not. Even The New Yorker got into this subject:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/14/how-nasty-was-nero-really

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[ SECRET POST #5410 ]

Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligned

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne

Re: Inspired by 3: Your favorite historical villains or historical figures who were unfairly maligne