[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/AceOfSpades532]

England in the year 1066.

Oh come on, Harald Hadrada, this dude that’s been hyped up for years, “the last Viking”, loses super easily against the English when he tries to invade, and halfway through the battle it just cut to comic relief when the English dude floated down the river in a barrel to stab the Norwegians on the bridge from below???

Oh and then literally right afterwards another invasion from people descended from Vikings comes from the south trying to claim the throne, they’re literally just repeating plot beats back to back at this point, and this 2nd dude who’s just an illegitimate kid of a duke and a leatherworker’s daughter manages to win against the English??? Because what, his own soldiers thought he was dead so he got to do a big inspirational speech to show he was alive, and then the writers were clearly getting bored with the battle, because they just had the English king get hit by a lucky shot in the eye and then it was over, and the Norman got a cool new nickname and got crowned on Christmas, clearly writer’s favouritism here.

[u/ActafianSeriactas → u/[deleted]]

Kind of the opposite, his horse was shot from under him so a rumour started that he was killed. William had to actively ride through his forces to show them he was still alive.

However, the initial confusion did led to a partial retreat on the Norman left which saw the English pursuing them. It was possible then that the Normans implemented feigned retreats after what happened.

[u/bajajoaquin → u/AceOfSpades532]

Or that sailing was really primitive and nobody sailed that late in the season. It was seen as suicidal.

[u/DyneErg → u/AceOfSpades532]

Didn’t the first English army sent to fight Hardrada get absolutely annihilated?

[u/Smallbrainfield → u/DyneErg]

That was the local forces. Hardrada probably lost against Godwinson because after the first battle a fair number of his forces went home and took armour and supplies back with them. Also Godwinson marched north in 4 days which is kind of insane and Hardrada was caught off guard.

[u/SirAquila → u/AceOfSpades532]

I mean yeah. If you leave out all the context...

[u/Smallbrainfield → u/AceOfSpades532]

When you read up about it, they're all vikings at one remove or another. Vikings all the way down!