A Fistful of Warlocks (SPOILERS: FISTFUL OF WARLOCKS)

[Arjan]

I believe that is why the moniker of "Great" is earned, Elizabeth, Catherine, Frederick, Alfred, etc.... but alas they are few and far between.

Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Tamerlane, Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, ...

Genocidal maniacs all of them and more. Charlemagne has a myth that is far from his true personality as we know it from history.

[Gman]

He's also been in multiple gunfights and walked away from all of them without a scratch.  Literally immuned to bullet.

That is true. Some gunfights he had bullet holes in his clothes but they missed him. Wyatt Earp knew how to shoot and he had courage under fire.

[wardenferry419]

Among other wizards, Harry has a legendary status for beating great powers. But, we, the readers, know how close his wins came to defeats. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

[Quantus]

I believe that is why the moniker of "Great" is earned, Elizabeth, Catherine, Frederick, Alfred, etc.... but alas they are few and far between.

Well, fwiw, the difference between the moniker of "Great" vs "Terrible" is usually in the eye of the translator. 

[forumghost]

After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things - Terrible, yes, but great.

[Aminar]

After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things - Terrible, yes, but great.

Yes. Kemmler was in this story.

[Snark Knight]

Successful rulers and leaders often are not.  Sometimes you can't be both nice and successful in politics and war.  It's not hard to find examples in history of kings and rulers who were kind, decent...and ineffectual or worse.

In-universe, Nic even acknowledged at one point that Marcone would have been a successful ruler in times gone by.

[Dina]

I agree with that. In fact, he is a successful ruler in a way.

[LordDresden2]

Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Tamerlane, Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, ...

Genocidal maniacs all of them and more. Charlemagne has a myth that is far from his true personality as we know it from history.

Um...no.  Those names don't go together.  None of them were necessarily nice, but putting Napolean and Caesar in the same category as Hitler and Stalin just doesn't work.

[LordDresden2]

In-universe, Nic even acknowledged at one point that Marcone would have been a successful ruler in times gone by.

Not just successful.  By the standards of much of history, King John Marcone would be seen, and remembered, as exceptionally just, fair, and reasonable, not just competent.  Which is both a terrible truth of history and a peculiar commentary on Marcone.

[Arjan]

Um...no.  Those names don't go together.  None of them were necessarily nice, but putting Napolean and Caesar in the same category as Hitler and Stalin just doesn't work.

They all shared the same appreciation for human life.

http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/150000-fled-their-lives-were-slaughtered-julius-caesar-army-bones-reveal-020659

This was not an accident. Roman warfare was brutal but Julius Caesar was new in the scale of his killings and invasions, he invaded Gaul for money and did not even need an excuse.

Of course he would not have started a holocaust, he would have thought it a waste of resources, romans were very practical. But mass slaughter of defenseless people? Happened a lot in his campaigns. Unprovoked attack on other peoples? He was all for it.

Caesar and Napoleon still have the myth around them and people who seriously ascribe to that myth.

[forumghost]

Atrocities were committed everywhere throughout history. When the First Crusade got to Jerusalem, they say the City ran ankle-deep in blood. Alexander the Great brutally marched his Army conquering everything in sight. The British slaughtered, divided and enslaved countless to build their Empire. The treatment of Native Americans by Settlers. Etc, Etc.

That's War. That's Empire. It's a terrible, evil thing. But Napoleon and Caesar (bastards though they are) aren't really comparable with the acts of Hitler and the Holocaust, or Stalin's purges.

[Dina]

What about atomic bombs? What is happening in Aleppo? And so many other examples.

[Arjan]

Atrocities were committed everywhere throughout history. When the First Crusade got to Jerusalem, they say the City ran ankle-deep in blood. Alexander the Great brutally marched his Army conquering everything in sight. The British slaughtered, divided and enslaved countless to build their Empire. The treatment of Native Americans by Settlers. Etc, Etc.
W
That's War. That's Empire. It's a terrible, evil thing. But Napoleon and Caesar (bastards though they are) aren't really comparable with the acts of Hitler and the Holocaust, or Stalin's purges.

Hitler and Stalin had modern technology, communication and organisation at their side. Unlike Rome however they lost and we do not have to listen to their mythology.

They were innovators and though their crimes were not new they were on a scale unheard of before their time.

Rome was similar. Everything they did was known before the romans came but they killed and enslaved on a scale and efficiency never heard of before. They were innovators too.

But I think I wandered away from my original argument here. They were all horrible people who did far more even than most people in their situation and even in their time would have done. The difference that was important for my argument is that some of them had build a mythology around them.

And that mythology still has power today over peoples mind.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/opinion/sunday/stalinist-nostalgia-in-vladimir-putins-russia.html

[Aminar]

Hitler and Stalin had modern technology, communication and organisation at their side. Unlike Rome however they lost and we do not have to listen to their mythology.

They were innovators and though their crimes were not new they were on a scale unheard of before their time.

Rome was similar. Everything they did was known before the romans came but they killed and enslaved on a scale and efficiency never heard of before. They were innovators too.

But I think I wandered away from my original argument here. They were all horrible people who did far more even than most people in their situation and even in their time would have done. The difference that was important for my argument is that some of them had build a mythology around them.

And that mythology still has power today over peoples mind.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/opinion/sunday/stalinist-nostalgia-in-vladimir-putins-russia.html

Remember, we see a difference between what a ruler does to others and what they do their own people still. Ceaser and Napoleon didn't commit genocide within their borders on nearly tbe scale Hitler and Stalin did.(Although I think at points Rome did.) That's the difference people see. And it's a tough difference to argue against. In the end I'm not sure the difference matters. But to our culture it does. But you're arguing the wrong thing.