Historical Domain Character / Fan Works

Following

Historical Domain Character examples from fanworks.

• In 1983: Doomsday Stories, there's a passing mention of "President Reagan" leaving the DC area in America's story, as well as a reference to Otto von Habsburg in Hungary's. Yuri Andropov, who was General Secretary of the USSR in 1983 also makes an appearance in Russia's arc. He died by heart attack though Russia killed him upon learning the truth about Doomsday. St. Joan of Arc still casts a shadow over what came to be the Survivor-Nation of Orleans. Especially since she is Orleans.
• Adventures of a Line Hopper:
  • Slavery and Freedom has Maximilien de Robespierre as a supporting character whom Seo and Dawn debate about when they end up in The French Revolution in the fic's second half. Martin Luther King Jr. also has a cameo in the epilogue as Seo and Dawn originally want to hear one of his speeches and much prefer him to Robespierre by the ending.
  • Mr. Hart features the Howard family whose line will produce Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I. The one brother to be mentioned by name is Richard, who was indeed a child of the Thomas Howard who was the Earl of Surrey at the time the fic takes place.
• All He Ever Wanted has FDR, Winston Churchill, King Ned, some Italian guy with a nice pair of shoulders, some Austrian guy with an evil moustache, Herr Beck, Olivier Messaien, Beniamino Gigli, General Gamelin, and that's just so far.
• In AR1996 Ultraverse, Tomoe Gozen is the original Red Samurai Ranger and also The Ageless, considering that she's over 900 years old despite her youthful looks since she serves as the mentor of the current Samurai Rangers.
• The Ben Chatham Adventures's titular Ben Chatham's love interest in The Case of the Twelve Gold Crosses is Oscar Wilde.
• The Best Of All Possible Worlds's protagonist is Voltaire. Its antagonist, Francesco Algarotti, is also a Historical Domain Character who got a Historical Villain Upgrade. Ovid, Frederick the Great, and Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis also make it to the fic.
• In The Boy and the Governess (a The Alienist fanfic), the protagonist Laszlo Kreizler invites Carl Wernicke, a real-life speech pathologist, to treat his wife Mary's aphasia and teach her to speak — although to no avail.
• In Call Me Connie, CSA President Jefferson Davis, his family, famous Confederate spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow, and a couple of South-sympathizers play a major role in the story.
• A Castle of Silence and Bones plays with real-life historical characters, like Empress Wan Rong, the wife of China's last Emperor Puyi and the Showa Emperor of Japan, Emperor Hirohito.
• Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love: Draco and Hermione speculate that the mysterious Marquis from whom they were able to steal a bit of hope off Pandora's box is none other than The Count of St. Germain.
• In the Night at the Museum prequel fanfiction, Child of Moonlight, Hatshepsut makes an appearance as a half-sibling to Ahkmenran and Kahmunrah.
• Children of Time possesses a rich abundance of real people (all deceased by the year 2000) in its first season alone, thanks to the use of the TARDIS.
  • It starts with Will Shakespeare, as per Doctor Who's "The Shakespeare Code". For added fun, he ends up deducing that Holmes and Watson are from a totally different time period.
  • Major General Leslie Groves, the real-life C.O. at the Manhattan Project, makes a cameo in "The Manhattan Conspiracy".
  • Nikola Tesla and real-life friend, employer, and fellow inventor George Westinghouse both undergo a Historical Hero Upgrade in "The Icarus Experiment" as well as being vitally important in the season finale. Oh, and Tesla ends up a powerful telepath.
  • Bram Stoker also undergoes something of a Historical Hero Upgrade doing... what else? Vampire-hunting in Paris!
  • Jeremy Brett gets an episode that kind of revolves around him, and his BFF Edward Hardwicke plays a supporting role. It's actually really melancholy because Brett ends up a Distressed Dude and the audience knows that he has only a few years of life left.
  • Tom Johnstone was a real British smuggler who may or may not have looked like Benedict Cumberbatch. He's something of a One-Scene Wonder in the season finale and is something of a Chaotic Neutral, along the lines of Han Solo in the first Star Wars film.
  • Whether or not Oliver Cromwell was a real historical villain, he gets a Historical Villain Upgrade in the season finale as the new Sheriff of Nottingham, killing Robin Locksley, his men, and his pregnant wife. He's promptly dispatched by a higher power.
• Chronicles of the Siren War, being set in an alternate version of WWII, has plenty of these:
  • Azur Lane meets Rear Admiral Doorman at Surabaya. During the Battle of the Java Sea, he valiantly has his fleet sail into Jintsuu's trap to give Azur Lane a chance to stop the Sakura Fleet's advance.
  • Then-Rear Admiral Spruance makes his appearance as the officer commanding Enterprise, butting heads with Azur Lane's own commander along the way.
  • Commander Hyman makes an appearance alongside Sims at the Battle of the Coral Sea. They both meet their historical end.
  • Then-Captain Sherman and his dog Admiral Wags also make their appearance at the Coral Sea. Lexington even gains her riggings (and averts her historical end) by swearing fealty to him.
  • Chester W. Nimitz is introduced having Brooklyn rush to inform Azur Lane of an attack by the Sakura Empire, and becomes Azur Lane's best ally among Union High Command.
  • Then-Captain Mitscher shows up alongside Hornet during the Battle of Midway, with the two having something of a father-daughter dynamic.
• A Cold Calculus has a few, most prominently Alphonse Pierre Juin and Erwin Rommel. Albert Einstein also gets a mention as being Nina's grandfather. Chapter 38 adds General Pytor Ivanovich Ivashutin, General Richard O'Connor, General Hubert Wingelbauer and General Manuel Gutierrez Mellado. All of them actual, period-appropriate military figures the author noted were pains in the ass to look up. A non-military figure appears by reference: Boris Spassky is named as the only person in the EU who can beat Lelouch at chess.
• In the Total Drama story, Courtney and the Violin of Despair, Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy (1714 – 90) and composer Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809) appear in the prologue.
• Crimson Dawn features prominent public figures of that time period like Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, NASA Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan and East German leader Erich Honecker.
• ''Different Tales, Different Lessons has several:
  • Three appear in the eleventh vignette: Jorge Alvares who led a Portuguese colonial expedition to China, Tome Pires who was a traveling historian and diplomat in the same period, and Long Shi, who is based off of the infamous female pirate Ching Shih.
  • Dayan Khan, in the scene with Vachir and the Mongol invasion of Beijing. Also something of a Historical Villain Upgrade, since in actual history he genuinely did try to maintain good relations with the Ming, the murder of his envoy actually was carried out by the Emperor's decree rather than a traitor in their midst, and his motives for invading (to keep from being subsumed by the Ming and as revenge for having previously been invaded and conquered by China) are purer and more sympathetic. Thankfully, the author states this had nothing to do with painting Mongols as villains but simply the fact that by making the current emperor and his government one of goodness and nobility rather than what it was in history, any invader or antagonist would have to look villainous in comparison; the inclusion of trickery and treachery on Meng Tao's part, and Dayan's own Hot-Blooded Pride, was intended as mitigating factors.
  • By contrast, Emperor Chen ends up being a Composite Character based on two different historical emperors, though mostly the Hongzhi Emperor. It's also a case of Historical Hero Upgrade—several of the emperors whose shorter reigns he replaced were rather cruel and barbaric in regards to the Mongols, and the son of the Emperor who was his main antecedent was a debauched, hedonistic, and incompetent ruler. Obviously this was done away with to create a far more idealized Son of Heaven. Since Emperor Yang (see below) was both accurately depicted from history and a tyrant, this would seem to be a case of trying to be balanced and fair to both the Imperial system and China itself, although a bit of Author Appeal might also apply.
  • Emperor Yang of Sui. Unlike the other examples, this one is almost exactly as he appeared in history and thus makes for a pretty good villain just as he is.
• The Supernatural fic Down to Agincourt contains an appearance by Cornelia Africana, Mother of the Gracci, as well as her son Gaius Graccus.
• In Earth: A Rendezvous with Destiny, some (in)famous and obscure individuals from history have been portrayed or are referenced in the story such as Walter Krueger, Gotthard Heinrici, Bernard Law Montgomery, Tank Ace Franz Bäke, Gus Grissom, Harland Sanders , and even a living Winston Churchill to name a few examples.
• Everything In The World Was Standing Still has plenty of them, including but not limited to Captain Smith, Margaret Brown and J. Bruce Ismay. Winston Churchill is also briefly mentioned but doesn't appear. Thomas Andrews and Second Officer Charles Lightoller appear on the poster. Andrews and Chief Engineer Bell later appear in Chapter 27.
• In The Fight we Chose, many prominent figures from The '60s make an appearance.
  • John F. Kennedy, who doesn't get assassinated in this timeline continues his tenure as the US President with Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara guiding the United States through the Gate crisis as well as the escalating Vietnam situation.
  • Lee Harvey Oswald is killed during the Empire's invasion of Dallas and later somewhat hailed as a hero for his actions in saving several citizens from being captured and enslaved by Empire. Many characters do find his intentions suspicious anyway due to his known communist sympathies and his coincidental presence at the book depository being so heavily armed in the first place.
  • Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore appears during the siege of Italica, leading his 7th Air Cavalry Regiment's baptism of fire as helicopter troops being in the Special Region instead of the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam. General Creighton Abrams is also mentioned to be the overall commander of operations within the Special Region.
  • One of the commanders in the Green Berets is heavily implied to be Captain Larry Thorne a.k.a Lauri Törni.
  • On the Soviet's side, we see glimpses into the Communist Party meetings headed by the First Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev. The Chairman of the KGB back then, Vladimir Semichastny has several lines of dialogue during one meeting.
• Four Seasons: Given the Ripped from the Headlines premise of the Crack Fic, the author makes liberal references to politicians involved in the 2020 American Presidential election and name-drops Rudy Giuliani "rant[ing] incoherently from a podium set between a fire extinguisher and a yellow hose".
• A History of Magic tells the stories of historical figures that were Puella Magi, such as Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, going all the way back to Eve.
• Ice on the Rhine features Napoléon Bonaparte.
• In If Wishes Were Ponies..., every named high ranking official in Britain's Muggle Government are the actual people who held those positions in the early 1990s, the only exception is the OC Castor Searle who starts the story as a simple police officer.
• it feels more like a memory has its own page. It uses the Historical Domain Characters from Hamilton, which it's a fanfic of, and adds many more from the same time period as minor or background characters.
• Lost Tales of Fantasia has Adolf Hitler.
• Mille Plagas, Mille Mortes Adducite Vos: Most of characters are, with the exception of Ferrando, Ines, Azucena, Ruiz, and Leonora. Ferdinand is Ferdinand the Honest of Aragon, Eleanor is Ferdinand's wife Eleanor of Alburquerque, Di Luna is Frederic, Count of Luna, and Manrico is Violante of Aragon, Countess of Niebla, but Transgender in keeping with Manrico's gender in the opera.
• Monarchy Over The Danube has Otto von Habsburg, and a few others show up or are mentioned, including Miklos Horthy, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
• In The Most Hated Man In The Southern States, Haynes is an influential railroad man in the antebellum South, so he occasionally encounters other powerful and influential men in the business and political spheres, such as Robert Rhett, P. G. T. Beauregard, and Lammot du Pont.
• In Nerve Damage, due to the expanded roster of the Holy Grail War, there are many new Servants drawn from the history, folklore, and religions of many cultures.
• Nymphadora Tonks Goes to Hell has many, including Andrew Jackson and "Seximilien Robespierre."
• On the Origin of Duffers (The Chronicles of Narnia fanfic) features a number of historical figures responsible for the deaths of various sages and philosophers (Anytus, who was the prosecutor of Socrates, Peter the lector, who killed Hypatia of Alexandria, and many others). In a karmic role reversal, they are forced to live for centuries under the rule of a magician called Coriakin, who is an eccentric sage not unlike Socrates and other such figures.
• Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls: Harry S. Truman is set to appear in an upcoming 4-koma, alongside Iowa.
• Pearl in WWII has many, many, many of them, most prominently German scientist Ernst Schafer, Polish resistance leader Ignaczy Oziewicz, and noted lunatic John "Mad Jack" Churchill. Christopher Lee even makes a cameo as a young SAS trooper on a desert sortie.
• Peter Chimaera book of hsitorical faFfiction has fifteen short stories, each involving famous historical figures or literary characters. Some of them are:
  • Hitler: Extreme Nazi
  • Light Ball (Thomas Edison)
  • Leonidas in Falling Destiny
  • Sherlock In The Miystery
  • Returns of Caesar
  • Genghis Khan's Teamup
  • William Wallace Cuts Back
  • Kung Arthur and his Problem
  • Dracula Undermath
  • Dorothy Recruits President America
  • Wyatt Earp Vs. Greater Attack
  • I Wish You Dead (Joan of Arc)
  • Einstein's Theory of Justice
• In Phantoms of the Bay, Greg's initial persona is Billy the Kid.
• The Piratesverse includes the Historical Domain Character Martin Van Buren in An Adventure With Pioneers.
• Prehistoric Park: Extinction World has Harriet Tubman appear in Chapter 15.
• Prehistoric Park: Reimagined has the rescue team be present to witness the funeral of the La Brea Tar Pit woman in the episode Oozing From the Pit.
• The Price of the Wish has H. P. Lovecraft, with two differences. He lived a few decades longer, but he spent those extra years in an asylum, after glimpsing the true nature of the universe, which didn't stop him becoming a famed author.
• In The Private Diary of Elizabeth Quatermain, Volume II has the League befriend Dr. Howard Carter, the famed Egyptologist who is best known for the discovery of King Tut's tomb. Volume V introduces them to Queen Victoria herself. A few others are mentioned in Allan Observes, including George Washington, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Caligula. President William McKinley is not seen, but does get mentioned as meeting with Tom Sawyer in one part.
• Prodigal Son has Emperor Leo V.
• A Study In Venom mentions Jane developed a rather creepy crush on the young French Revolutionary Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. Corin hints that she saw Alexander the Great in battle, as well as witnessed the murder of Caligula's family.
• Temporal Spark Pretty Cure has most of the members of The Tempus Group based on historic villains.
  • Alpone is based on Al Capone
  • Roixillian is based on Maximilien Robespierre
  • Yurinika is based on Yuri Gagarin
  • Bethory is based on Elizabeth Báthory
  • Atlack is based on Blackbeard
• A Thing of Vikings: The cast is, by bulk numbers, either a slim majority or strong minority of historical characters, due to the fanfic's premise of having the first film be a historical event in Real Life history (in the 1040s, specifically). The biggest examples are Wulfhild and Magnus of House Fairhair of Norway, who have equal prominence to Hiccup and the rest of the first flight of dragon riders as others call them. In a podcast interview, the author joked that he has more characters with Wikipedia pages than original characters. Other prominent historical figures are Pope Benedict IX, Harald Hardrada, Harthacnut, Mac Bethad (yes, THAT Mac Bethad), William the Conqueror, and several Byzantine rulers.
• In Tingles Raveng: The Tingling, Margaret Thatcher and Fidel Castro make appearances in the Cuban Missile Crisis chapter, and actually turn out to be the same person.
• TITANOMACH sees the Traveler resurrect many revolutionary figures from Earth's history in preparation against the Triumvirate. One of them is not named, but the description given is a dead ringer for Che Guevara.
• In To Rule Them All: A Lord of the Rings ISOT, the far majority of the European Cast is this; the only two exceptions within the first dozen-or-so Chapters are two minor characters introduced during the Fall of Krakow, only one of which (a farmer-turned-conscript) gets a POV.
• In Touhou: The Iron of Yin and Yang, Buront and his speech come from the posts of a real life individual. His frequent praising of the Gluttony Sword and hate of Ninjas boosts their importance, to the point of turning them into plot elements.
• Uplifted has Erwin Rommel, Mad Jack Churchill, General George. S. Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bill Donovan, Adolf Hitler, Gerd Von Rundsedt... The list goes on and on.
• Unlife is Strange: Elizabeth Báthory is prominently featured as one of the Co-Dragons to Mordred, although it does play around with the Blood Countess aspects of her story. Rather than claim for sure on her innocence and guilt in the matter, Bathory claims that the legends surrounding her are based on lies and slander; only to immediately imply the really nasty stuff occurred following her death/transformation. If she wasn't the legendary Blood Countess in her mortal life, she became so in undeath.
• Vera Verse has Arthur listen to Lord Haw Haw's 'Germany Calling' for updates on the war-front.
• With a Key and a Kite uses the Historical Domain Characters included in Hamilton.