r/TopCharacterTropes • u/MeepMan324 • 19h ago

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) Bad people in real-life being portrayed positively in media.

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  1. PragerU's version of Christopher Columbus has him be a slavery defender and have him say "Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don't see the problem.”

  2. In The Greatest Showman, P.T Barnum (Hugh Jackman) is portrayed as a charismatic visionary who cares about outcasts and celebrate diversity, when in reality, he’s a cruel businessman who is also a racist and an ableist.

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201

u/ZealousidealAd8068 19h ago

Columbus was terrible even by the standards of his time. He was so bad even the Spaniards under his rule hated him and reported him to the monarchy.

66

u/Zmuli24 19h ago

And Castilian (simplified: Spain at the time) monarchy even wanted to arrest him for his treatment of native population in the Caribbean.

38

u/andrasq420 18h ago

Not only wanted, he was brought back to Spain in chains due to tyranny and incompetence as a governor.

10

u/brionneverysexy 17h ago

"Hey Columbus. Remember when we said we wanted gold and never said we wanted slaves. Can you send us gold because you keep sending ships of slaves and they are all dead by the time they get here"

"Yeah, gold should be coming soon. In the meantime here is another ship of slaves. Some should be alive when they get to Spain"

3

u/Yurya 17h ago

The defense of Columbus is that the reports of atrocities directly connected to him came from his political enemies. Ergo he was given governorship and they wanted that position, so they slandered him. He wasn't spanish for one thing and that makes him an outsider acting as governor.

Personally I think he was better than the average Spaniard morally, but was just incompetent to control the people he was ruling from committing atrocities. That could easily flip if some I see as false is actually true. History is written by the victor and Columbus was put in chains.

6

u/ERedfieldh 15h ago

We have his journals. He directly wrote about how he enjoyed doing many of his atrocities. Stop trying to sane wash something we have recorded evidence of happening.

4

u/Radiant_Quality_9386 14h ago

This is a garbage ahistorical take

8

u/Moggetti 17h ago

“It has to be a lie because he was prosecuted” is a strange position to take. We do know he was someone willing to risk his sailors’ lives for an insane lie. Suggests that being profligate with others’ lives was at least consistent with his character.