ffutures wrote: ↑Tue Sep 03, 2024 11:35 pmHitler in the example, Oswald in the first successful answer, and Nero in the second. Can't really accept that a fictional character set some time in the future is a historical figure, sorry.
What about a fic. char. who is fictional in our waking-state timeline, but an important historical figure in the fictional narrative?
I'm thinking of the Star Trek episode wherein time-travelling Kirk and Spock stand by and watch Joan Collins (leader of the American Pacifist movement during WWII) be run down by a car, in order to restore their version of the fictional timeline.
Yes, I know the question of accident or assassination is not pursued in that instance, I merely ask about the issue of fictionality. I suppose it's analogous to Hiran's example, except WWII was a really historical setting, whereas the events of
I, Robot are, to the best of our knowledge, wholly fictional.
(Why am I uncomfortable writing "really historical", not "real historical"? It reads like baby-talk, despite being grammatically correct in my view.)