I <3 TvTropes
I was bemused by the conclusion to the entry "The Caligula" :
"So what does it take to be the Trope Namer for insane royalty? The Emperor Caligula page has the details."
And suddenly I flashed back to grade seven and our assignment to do a report on a Roman Emperor. I got a translation of Suetonius' "The Twelve Caesars" from the library and browsed it. Being 11 years old and already quite morbid, I gravitated to the bad emperors. I noticed that really, only two were genuinely crazy: Nero and Caligula.
So I read their chapters with diligence and decided to cover Caligula. Why? Because he showed more creativity and less tendency to repeat previous "shockers". In fact, in studying Western History since then, I don't think anyone barring perhaps Ivan the Terrible of Russia compares for having had the power and that level of "out there". Certainly Caligula is the craziest of the most renowned (to Westerners) rulers.
I'm just bemused that my eleven year old mind was working in much the same vein as at least one of the writers of TvTropes :)
"So what does it take to be the Trope Namer for insane royalty? The Emperor Caligula page has the details."
And suddenly I flashed back to grade seven and our assignment to do a report on a Roman Emperor. I got a translation of Suetonius' "The Twelve Caesars" from the library and browsed it. Being 11 years old and already quite morbid, I gravitated to the bad emperors. I noticed that really, only two were genuinely crazy: Nero and Caligula.
So I read their chapters with diligence and decided to cover Caligula. Why? Because he showed more creativity and less tendency to repeat previous "shockers". In fact, in studying Western History since then, I don't think anyone barring perhaps Ivan the Terrible of Russia compares for having had the power and that level of "out there". Certainly Caligula is the craziest of the most renowned (to Westerners) rulers.
I'm just bemused that my eleven year old mind was working in much the same vein as at least one of the writers of TvTropes :)