Braveheart/YMMV
The following are Subjective Tropes relating to Braveheart.
- Crazy Awesome: Stephen.
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Hamish: Is your father a ghost or do you converse with the Almighty? |
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- Crosses the Line Twice: The scene where Prince Edward's lover gets shoved out a window. According to the filmmakers, this was unintentional.
- Crowning Music of Awesome: James Horner delivers an absolutely amazing score for this film.
- Bonus points for the main theme song, which was later remixed and became a respectable chart hit.
- Complete Monster: King Edward Longshanks is depicted as one hell of an evil bastard. In real life, he isn't remembered as that much of a tyrant, though he is known as "the Hammer of the Scots". He did expel the Jews from England in 1290 (primarily so that he could confiscate their property and repudiate his debts),however.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: Wallace is made a lot more important than Robert Bruce, and the third key figure in the war, Bishop William de Lamberton, was cut out altogether.
- Another character cut out was Andrew de Moray, another Scottish noble who died after the battle of Stirling Bridge. Some historians have argued that his contribution to the war was just as important and more successful than William Wallace's.
- Arguably he is in, but his name is mispelled as Mornay and he's not nearly as important and heroic as his real life counterpart.
- Another character cut out was Andrew de Moray, another Scottish noble who died after the battle of Stirling Bridge. Some historians have argued that his contribution to the war was just as important and more successful than William Wallace's.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: King Edward Longshanks was a bastard in real life, but is a downright mustache-twirling thug in the film. Well...Scots understandably take a dim view of him, as do the Welsh with equally good reason but the English quite correctly regard him as one of their best kings. He was also an excellent husband and father. He may never have known of Edward II's proclivities, he certainly didn't kill any of his male lovers. Anyway Edward II had at least one bastard in addition to four children by Queen Isabelle (the oldest born seven years after Wallace died; see You Fail History Forever below), suggesting that he swung both ways.
- His plan to cause the racial death of Scotland is entirely invented.
- Actually, many historians believe Edward II wasn't gay at all (Not That There's Anything Wrong with That), and that it was made up to discredit him. It is true that he did have several male "court favourites", most infamously Hugh Despenser the Younger, but he was not necessarily in sexual relationships with them.
- Also, Longshanks' control over Scotland was partly the Scottish's own fault, since they decided to "temporarily" relinquish control of Scotland to him until a new king could be appointed and didn't plan for the possibility that Longshanks would backstab them after having been handed all of Scotland on a silver platter.
- Amusingly, he did everything he could to secure the Scottish crown for an acceptable Scottish monarch, but the dibvisive Scottish noble families made it difficult appointing a satisfactory candidate, as every option seemed to lead towards civil war. When an appropriate candidate was finally found after years of negotiation(amusingly a young girl who was barely Scottish at all) that candidate died at sea as she was being transported to Scotland to take the crown. Reading the history of the situation, you really get a sense that Edward was just bloody sick of the business at the end of the day, and decided the only competent candidate Scotland had available to rule it was himself.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Gibson of all people portraying Edward as a panto bad guy considering that in real life one of the most disgusting things about him was his mistreatment of the Jews.
- I Am Not Shazam: Whenever Mel Gibson's portrayal of William Wallace is spoofed/referenced, people will call his character "Braveheart" instead of Wallace. In actuality, it refers to Robert the Bruce.
- Magnificent Bastard: King Edward. Sorry, but Patrick McGoohan is awesome.
- Squick: An English soldier tells Murron how she reminds him of his own daughter back in England before he attempts to molest her.