I’d be interested in a top 10 confrontations with liars after finding clues video. Not necessarily culprits, but things like confronting Charlie about living in the basement, confronting Ingrid about her conflict of interest, etc.
Scott Varnell from Nancy Drew Trail of the Twister His rotten rude grouchy attitude made it way too obvious that He was going to be The Culprit especially when He blamed Nancy Drew for Frosty’s Camera not having any footage on it and not remembering or caring about Ma when Nancy Drew brought up Her death He just wanted to wipe everything under the rug.@@WizardKittenYT
Another red flag is when you ask harlen what he did before the amusement park. He doesn't give a straight answer, and we find out he was a previous convict. Another amazing nancy drew analysis video. You're so talented and I love this channel
I actually loled when you said "wonderful shade of scarlet flag". You saw your opportunity and you took it! Grade A joke right there! Keeping with the red theme, have you ever made a video ranking different red herrings in the series? I think that would be interesting to analyze!
I just recently had a very bad conversation with a person who was a HUGE red flag and I thought that it was like a convo with a villain from a Nancy Drew. and now i see this wonderful video !! thank u thank uu ❤
Ooh love this video! LOVE the shade towards Victor and Richard hahahahahaa. Another couple to mention: Treasure In the Royal Tower: If you tell Lisa that you did get into the library, the fact that she brings up a "bug collection". It may not be a lie, but it's a very specific detail that is unlikely to just be said as a joke. Sea of Darkness: When Soren tells Nancy that Gunnar gave him the black eye, just for Gunnar to deny it later. It isn't the strongest as it's more he said/he said type of denial without any physical evidence, but it's something that has always stood out to me too.
“A man who growls is already a red flag” If I had a nickel for every time a ND man growled at me I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice
I totally got the dress hint the first time. You don't just 'forget' how to sew. Victor being mad that Ryan is innocent told me immediately he did it. The rest, I didn't catch the first time through. I thought the one night show contradiction was weird, but Niobi had been acting odd anyway. I mean, JJ wanting to practice lying was a red flag for me because why does she need to do that? She is a glorified mannequin, not an actress.
Another one. In Blackmoor, if you listen hard you can tell who it is from the very beginning by their voice compared to their growl. Once you solve the mystery you can hear it like it was obvious the whole time. Still don't know who that shadow in the hallway is though. And once you know about Anja's past relationship with Marcus, if you look in her filing cabinet, you can find some pages that wave a blazing red flag that she's out for revenge.
Hello there from another Nancy Drew fan! 👋🏻 I LOVE the Nancy Drew games, and I REALLY like your video here, especially because I noticed the same red flags with many of these same characters! 😁 Here's what I have to say about a few of them specifically: Yes, when Dr. Craven let out that animal growl upon firing Fiderman, I remembered hearing it on the tape at Quigley's camp, so I instantly figured he had to be the one who trashed the place. 😉 Yes, when "Jane Willoughby" refused to help Nancy with that dress, not even by giving her pointers, that was EXTREMELY suspicious to me since she said she used to be a dressmaker. And like you said, even if you haven't sewn a stitch in years, you wouldn't completely forget how it works, especially if you did it as a career. So yeah, if you take all of that in mind with the fact that Jane absolutely refuses to help with the dress in ANY way, it's a major red flag that she's not really who she says she is...which, as we find out at the very end, is just that. When I first solved Secret of the Old Clock, I was shocked by that twist ending that "Jane" was really an impostor who was posing as Jane as a way to make some fast money, but I thought it was very cool, too! 😲😮😵😁 Yes, when she first meets Nancy (who is going by "Becca" as an alias), Rachel immediately acknowledges who she must be without "Becca" introducing herself. But the next time Nancy goes to Rachel's room...she seems to have no ability to recognize "Becca", despite Rachel explaining a lot of details during their first meeting, so that was DEFINITELY a red flag! But then I caught another discrepancy...sometimes when a strand of hair fell in front of her face, Rachel didn't do anything, but then other times, she tucked it back. So when Rachel was revealed to have a twin sister? I was shocked, but I thought it was an AMAZING twist, just like I did with the twist of "Jane Willoughby" being an imposter! 😲😮😵😁 Yes, thank you for pointing it out! Years ago, I also caught that red flag about Dwayne regarding his use of the phrase "ladder climber" in Lillian's letter, since he said those EXACT words during his first conversation with Nancy, which helped me realize, yes, he was the one trying to kill Rick! 😁👍🏻 For similar reasons, I figured out that Emily was the culprit in Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, because that journal/notebook she was keeping down under the house mentioned a phrase she said to Nancy once before: "Malone and his stupid puzzles can take a flying leap!" The phrase I'm talking about there is "take a flying leap", because she said that to Nancy when they first met, saying "Jeff Akers can take all his precious rules and regulations and take a flying leap!" Now WHAT do you make of that as a red flag?! 😁😁😁 And THANK YOU for mentioning Victor! 😁 The first time I played the game and told him that Ryan's alibi was solid and thus she couldn't have killed Niko, the fact that Victor got FURIOUS about it was VERY alarming to me! 😲😮 You would think the person who hired Nancy would have pleased about her progress and find out who definitely DIDN'T commit the murder, but NO! 😤😠😡 Victor was SO livid upon learning this, and as we find out later, it was because HE was Niko's killer and was obviously hoping that Nancy would have found hard evidence to pin all the blame on someone else and divert all attention away from him! 😰😨 Have you watched the outtakes at the end of The Deadly Device? It reveals that Victor called Deirdre to provide a "reference" for Nancy. Because she dislikes Nancy, Deirdre lied and told Victor that Nancy was an incompetent detective, making him think Nancy would be a good "bumbling" detective who would frame Ryan Kilpatrick for the murder. So he hired Nancy just because he thought she would do a poor job and have Ryan put away...but when he realized Nancy was doing too good of a job, Victor realized his mistake and finally appeared at the lab to fire her before she could keep going and find out he did it. Anyway, this was a cool idea for a video! 😁😄😉 I'll be sure to check out more of your videos, and I wondered if you might want to check out mine sometime. Right now, I have walkthroughs of the series, Easter eggs, and videos of fun extra materials from the games. Nothing like this, but I definitely plan to make videos like that in the future.
@@WizardKittenYT You’re welcome! 😁 I’ll be sure to check out and leave comments on more of your videos. I’m sure you weren’t expecting this monster comment, but sometimes when I notice something, I have a LOT to say, and I did so with this because I was elated that you shared many of the same thoughts as I did about the character red flags.
In my humble opinion, Secret of the Old Clock had 2 culprits...and they were BOTH on this list!! Topham is the culprit of the Crowley Will, and Jane is the culprit of the hauntings/whatever was going on with Emily Crandall and the theft of the jewels during the fire. (Though I'm still unclear on why Josiah Crowley had a picture of Jane Willoughby in his safe deposit box...rather conveniently for a man who died before any of the impostor stuff could've possibly known!!)
This makes me think of a different video idea: what culprits say to Nancy that make them a dead giveaway for the culprit. And good job with the Malachi Craven catch. It’s the only one I’ve never noticed!
I noticed exactly what you mentioned with the conversation with Guadalupe - always thought that was a very clever way to show that she really didn't do her homework on birds, and even if she were lying, it proves that she really doesn't have an interest in what she was pretending to be there for. I always wondered if anybody else picked up on it.
I live in Minnesota, so I'm a bit familiar with winter 😅 and I'm also a huge outdoor person. The second she said she'd seen orioles if was like "no the heck you have NOT." Cardinals and birds of prey I can see, but jays and orioles, sorry boo, wrong answer. Also, as an environmentalist, Lupe really should have known that.
I love this video! The funniest red flag ever is probably in Labyrinth of Lies, when Nancy goes up to Xenia and says "I have reason to believe you've been stealing artifacts," and she just says "Sorry, I'm busy" and the conversation ends. By the way have you ever heard the Blackmoor Manor guinea pig theory? There's sort of a red flag in the game, Spoilers! A really dark theory is that Jane killed her guinea pig with the hair growth treater she got from her uncle 😨 When Nancy asks Jane about the guinea pig, Jane doesn't want to talk about it which seems normal, but when she asks Hugh about her guinea pig, he says she overfed him, and eventually that note is found in the water tank. If Jane's guinea pig grew out its hair though, it would look like he got plumper, right...? Learning more info makes Jane not wanting to talk about the guinea pig seem like a bit of a retroactive red flag.
Oh I totally agree and I absolutely love that hidden clue! My theory has always been that Jane fed the hair growth treatment to her guinea pig to test it out and ended up accidentally killing it :( which would be so sad, but is honestly probably what happened!
@@WizardKittenYT I only just put it together, but considering she nearly blew up the kitchen with experiments and of all animals, had the one known for being experimented on, she probably did :'(
The biggest red flag imo is victor lossett and brenda carlton. Not only are they highly unlikeable and appear to lack common sense in victors sense. But The way they had it out for nancy (Brendas non stop whining about making nancy look bad (Victor firing nancy and getting angry when ryan was proven innocent) That already shouldve made them the obvious culprit at the very beginning of their introductions
Alternative title: Top 10 'You played yourself' moments. I've been replaying the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial with a RUclips lawyers commentary in the background while working lately, and there are so many of these moments in the trial it almost feels like fiction haha. To me the biggest red flag was always Jane in secret of the old clock not remembering how to sew. I agree with you, pretty sure if you did something as a profession you would at least remember the basics
@@WizardKittenYT the whole pencil thing with the roller coaster and Nancy thinking it was Joy who caused it to try and run Nancy over was a HUGE RED HERRING in my eyes
The corollary to this is things that looked like Red Flags, or SHOULD have been Red Flags, but turned out to be meaningless, or dead ends, due to flaws in the writing. For instance, the fact that all the Egyptian writing in TMB is in English. Is this an important clue to the fact that the tomb is a phony? Or is it something where we're supposed to make like Sgt. Schultz and say "I know NOTHING! I see No-THING!" (In this case, it's the latter). (And sometimes there are things that *shouldn't* have been important, but were. Like Nancy getting fired for saying she saw Gum Bo Fu in a book instead of a magazine.) So, what are some of the things that *should* have been big clues, but weren't? This is, after all, a series about a high schooler who lives on perpetual vacation, jet sets around the world without taking any money along, and works for important clients for free so as not to jeopardize her amateur status. It seems like there are a lot of times you find yourself wondering "Is this an important clue to the mystery? Or is this something that we're supposed to suspend disbelief and pretend we don't see it?" Maybe my biggest example of that is in RAN when George conveniently didn't arrive on the dock until it was too late to signal the pilot, even though she knew the plane was coming. When I first played I was convinced that this was a major clue to the fact that the whole kidnapping was a joke. It turns out no, it was just bad writing.
@@WizardKittenYT My biggest historical glitch (not an anacronism exactly) is the way Alejandro constantly seems to confuse the Mayans and Aztecs with the Spanish. The Spanish were the conquerers of the Aztecs, not the Aztecs themselves. It seems the games have an odd mix of real history and fictionalized history. For instance, I've always felt that Mickey Malone was a fictionalized version of Al Capone (similar names and circumstances). But they changed the name so that nobody could say "Capone didn't really do that". On the other hand in Final Scene, they had no problem saying that the real Harry Houdini owned a fictional theater. (I don't have a problem with it either). If you ever want to see some truly mind-bending alternate history, read the Linda Carlton, Air Pilot series. In the second book Linda becomes the first woman to solo the Atlantic. The book acknowledges the existence of Amelia Earhart, but decides that Earhart already has enough glory, and wouldn't *want* that record. She'd leave it to some younger up and comer to do. Then a year or so later Earhart DID get that record. Whoops! I still wonder how many students in the early 30's had to wear the Dunce Cap for saying that Linda Carlton was the first woman to solo the Atlantic. (But it's actually a very good series, despite that elephant in the living room).
I’d be interested in a top 10 confrontations with liars after finding clues video. Not necessarily culprits, but things like confronting Charlie about living in the basement, confronting Ingrid about her conflict of interest, etc.
It would be interesting to try and compile how many of them come clean and how many of them keep on lying! It's always so fun confronting suspects!!
Scott Varnell from Nancy Drew Trail of the Twister His rotten rude grouchy attitude made it way too obvious that He was going to be The Culprit especially when He blamed Nancy Drew for Frosty’s Camera not having any footage on it and not remembering or caring about Ma when Nancy Drew brought up Her death He just wanted to wipe everything under the rug.@@WizardKittenYT
Another red flag is when you ask harlen what he did before the amusement park. He doesn't give a straight answer, and we find out he was a previous convict. Another amazing nancy drew analysis video. You're so talented and I love this channel
I almost included that one!! Just narrowly missed out on my top 10! So glad you liked the video!
Oh I worked in a store department store in Fleming ton not around here. Yeah sure Harlen Bishop sure You did.😂@@WizardKittenYT
Ten-year old me played STFD with my babysitter, and she called Dwayne as the culprit during his first conversation.
The seething rage doesn't help his case! LOL
I actually loled when you said "wonderful shade of scarlet flag". You saw your opportunity and you took it! Grade A joke right there!
Keeping with the red theme, have you ever made a video ranking different red herrings in the series? I think that would be interesting to analyze!
Lol, why thank you! I had fun writing this video 😁 Also a red herring video is such a good idea!
Nancy Drew: Secret of the Scarlet Flags
Bahaha, excellent!
🤣🤣🤣
I just recently had a very bad conversation with a person who was a HUGE red flag and I thought that it was like a convo with a villain from a Nancy Drew. and now i see this wonderful video !! thank u thank uu ❤
Oh wow, how timely!!
The moral of this video is: don't trust anyone who growls at you. They may need a distemper shot.
Looking at you, Thanos! 🙄
Ooh love this video! LOVE the shade towards Victor and Richard hahahahahaa.
Another couple to mention:
Treasure In the Royal Tower: If you tell Lisa that you did get into the library, the fact that she brings up a "bug collection". It may not be a lie, but it's a very specific detail that is unlikely to just be said as a joke.
Sea of Darkness: When Soren tells Nancy that Gunnar gave him the black eye, just for Gunnar to deny it later. It isn't the strongest as it's more he said/he said type of denial without any physical evidence, but it's something that has always stood out to me too.
Oh both really good ones!! I also thought about including Lisa's lie about not knowing Spanish, but I like the bug one even more!
I'm going through a stressful time right now and your videos are a HUGE comfort and relief for me emotionally.
Thank you Caitlyn ❤️
So sorry to hear that things are tough right now! I'm so glad the videos can help! Sending you lots of support!
Thought of an idea. An analysis sorting either characters or games into various aesthetics (dark academia, cottage core, etc)
Ooh, great idea!! Thank you!
“A man who growls is already a red flag” If I had a nickel for every time a ND man growled at me I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice
Tis indeed 😂
I totally got the dress hint the first time. You don't just 'forget' how to sew. Victor being mad that Ryan is innocent told me immediately he did it. The rest, I didn't catch the first time through. I thought the one night show contradiction was weird, but Niobi had been acting odd anyway.
I mean, JJ wanting to practice lying was a red flag for me because why does she need to do that? She is a glorified mannequin, not an actress.
Another one. In Blackmoor, if you listen hard you can tell who it is from the very beginning by their voice compared to their growl. Once you solve the mystery you can hear it like it was obvious the whole time.
Still don't know who that shadow in the hallway is though.
And once you know about Anja's past relationship with Marcus, if you look in her filing cabinet, you can find some pages that wave a blazing red flag that she's out for revenge.
Hello there from another Nancy Drew fan! 👋🏻 I LOVE the Nancy Drew games, and I REALLY like your video here, especially because I noticed the same red flags with many of these same characters! 😁 Here's what I have to say about a few of them specifically:
Yes, when Dr. Craven let out that animal growl upon firing Fiderman, I remembered hearing it on the tape at Quigley's camp, so I instantly figured he had to be the one who trashed the place. 😉
Yes, when "Jane Willoughby" refused to help Nancy with that dress, not even by giving her pointers, that was EXTREMELY suspicious to me since she said she used to be a dressmaker. And like you said, even if you haven't sewn a stitch in years, you wouldn't completely forget how it works, especially if you did it as a career. So yeah, if you take all of that in mind with the fact that Jane absolutely refuses to help with the dress in ANY way, it's a major red flag that she's not really who she says she is...which, as we find out at the very end, is just that. When I first solved Secret of the Old Clock, I was shocked by that twist ending that "Jane" was really an impostor who was posing as Jane as a way to make some fast money, but I thought it was very cool, too! 😲😮😵😁
Yes, when she first meets Nancy (who is going by "Becca" as an alias), Rachel immediately acknowledges who she must be without "Becca" introducing herself. But the next time Nancy goes to Rachel's room...she seems to have no ability to recognize "Becca", despite Rachel explaining a lot of details during their first meeting, so that was DEFINITELY a red flag! But then I caught another discrepancy...sometimes when a strand of hair fell in front of her face, Rachel didn't do anything, but then other times, she tucked it back. So when Rachel was revealed to have a twin sister? I was shocked, but I thought it was an AMAZING twist, just like I did with the twist of "Jane Willoughby" being an imposter! 😲😮😵😁
Yes, thank you for pointing it out! Years ago, I also caught that red flag about Dwayne regarding his use of the phrase "ladder climber" in Lillian's letter, since he said those EXACT words during his first conversation with Nancy, which helped me realize, yes, he was the one trying to kill Rick! 😁👍🏻 For similar reasons, I figured out that Emily was the culprit in Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, because that journal/notebook she was keeping down under the house mentioned a phrase she said to Nancy once before: "Malone and his stupid puzzles can take a flying leap!" The phrase I'm talking about there is "take a flying leap", because she said that to Nancy when they first met, saying "Jeff Akers can take all his precious rules and regulations and take a flying leap!" Now WHAT do you make of that as a red flag?! 😁😁😁
And THANK YOU for mentioning Victor! 😁 The first time I played the game and told him that Ryan's alibi was solid and thus she couldn't have killed Niko, the fact that Victor got FURIOUS about it was VERY alarming to me! 😲😮 You would think the person who hired Nancy would have pleased about her progress and find out who definitely DIDN'T commit the murder, but NO! 😤😠😡 Victor was SO livid upon learning this, and as we find out later, it was because HE was Niko's killer and was obviously hoping that Nancy would have found hard evidence to pin all the blame on someone else and divert all attention away from him! 😰😨
Have you watched the outtakes at the end of The Deadly Device? It reveals that Victor called Deirdre to provide a "reference" for Nancy. Because she dislikes Nancy, Deirdre lied and told Victor that Nancy was an incompetent detective, making him think Nancy would be a good "bumbling" detective who would frame Ryan Kilpatrick for the murder. So he hired Nancy just because he thought she would do a poor job and have Ryan put away...but when he realized Nancy was doing too good of a job, Victor realized his mistake and finally appeared at the lab to fire her before she could keep going and find out he did it.
Anyway, this was a cool idea for a video! 😁😄😉 I'll be sure to check out more of your videos, and I wondered if you might want to check out mine sometime. Right now, I have walkthroughs of the series, Easter eggs, and videos of fun extra materials from the games. Nothing like this, but I definitely plan to make videos like that in the future.
Hello fellow ND fan!! I'm so glad you liked the video! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!
@@WizardKittenYT You’re welcome! 😁 I’ll be sure to check out and leave comments on more of your videos. I’m sure you weren’t expecting this monster comment, but sometimes when I notice something, I have a LOT to say, and I did so with this because I was elated that you shared many of the same thoughts as I did about the character red flags.
In my humble opinion, Secret of the Old Clock had 2 culprits...and they were BOTH on this list!!
Topham is the culprit of the Crowley Will, and Jane is the culprit of the hauntings/whatever was going on with Emily Crandall and the theft of the jewels during the fire.
(Though I'm still unclear on why Josiah Crowley had a picture of Jane Willoughby in his safe deposit box...rather conveniently for a man who died before any of the impostor stuff could've possibly known!!)
Jane is such a red flag. If you ask her (before Emily) about Gloria’s middle name, she doesn’t know it. And she can’t sew.
Right?! Extremely sus!
This makes me think of a different video idea: what culprits say to Nancy that make them a dead giveaway for the culprit.
And good job with the Malachi Craven catch. It’s the only one I’ve never noticed!
I noticed exactly what you mentioned with the conversation with Guadalupe - always thought that was a very clever way to show that she really didn't do her homework on birds, and even if she were lying, it proves that she really doesn't have an interest in what she was pretending to be there for. I always wondered if anybody else picked up on it.
It's such a great detail!
I live in Minnesota, so I'm a bit familiar with winter 😅 and I'm also a huge outdoor person. The second she said she'd seen orioles if was like "no the heck you have NOT." Cardinals and birds of prey I can see, but jays and orioles, sorry boo, wrong answer.
Also, as an environmentalist, Lupe really should have known that.
I just found your channel. I didn't know anyone was interested in Nancy Drew still! Thank you for this content ❤️
Oh yay!! Welcome!
There’s a bunch of us out there!
I love this video! The funniest red flag ever is probably in Labyrinth of Lies, when Nancy goes up to Xenia and says "I have reason to believe you've been stealing artifacts," and she just says "Sorry, I'm busy" and the conversation ends.
By the way have you ever heard the Blackmoor Manor guinea pig theory? There's sort of a red flag in the game,
Spoilers!
A really dark theory is that Jane killed her guinea pig with the hair growth treater she got from her uncle 😨 When Nancy asks Jane about the guinea pig, Jane doesn't want to talk about it which seems normal, but when she asks Hugh about her guinea pig, he says she overfed him, and eventually that note is found in the water tank. If Jane's guinea pig grew out its hair though, it would look like he got plumper, right...?
Learning more info makes Jane not wanting to talk about the guinea pig seem like a bit of a retroactive red flag.
Oh I totally agree and I absolutely love that hidden clue! My theory has always been that Jane fed the hair growth treatment to her guinea pig to test it out and ended up accidentally killing it :( which would be so sad, but is honestly probably what happened!
@@WizardKittenYT I only just put it together, but considering she nearly blew up the kitchen with experiments and of all animals, had the one known for being experimented on, she probably did :'(
The biggest red flag imo is victor lossett and brenda carlton. Not only are they highly unlikeable and appear to lack common sense in victors sense. But The way they had it out for nancy (Brendas non stop whining about making nancy look bad (Victor firing nancy and getting angry when ryan was proven innocent) That already shouldve made them the obvious culprit at the very beginning of their introductions
Absolutely! You're so right about Brenda doing a really bad job of hiding her motive!! She looked so guilty from the start!
oooh! this was such a fun analysis video! I am HERE for the Topham disdain!!! XD
The man is the worst!! 😅
Alternative title: Top 10 'You played yourself' moments. I've been replaying the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial with a RUclips lawyers commentary in the background while working lately, and there are so many of these moments in the trial it almost feels like fiction haha.
To me the biggest red flag was always Jane in secret of the old clock not remembering how to sew. I agree with you, pretty sure if you did something as a profession you would at least remember the basics
Right?! So sketchy!! Love the alternative title! :D
have you made a Red Herring analysis video for the Nancy Drew games yet if not you should
I haven't, but that's such a great idea!!
@@WizardKittenYT the whole pencil thing with the roller coaster and Nancy thinking it was Joy who caused it to try and run Nancy over was a HUGE RED HERRING in my eyes
The corollary to this is things that looked like Red Flags, or SHOULD have been Red Flags, but turned out to be meaningless, or dead ends, due to flaws in the writing. For instance, the fact that all the Egyptian writing in TMB is in English. Is this an important clue to the fact that the tomb is a phony? Or is it something where we're supposed to make like Sgt. Schultz and say "I know NOTHING! I see No-THING!" (In this case, it's the latter). (And sometimes there are things that *shouldn't* have been important, but were. Like Nancy getting fired for saying she saw Gum Bo Fu in a book instead of a magazine.)
So, what are some of the things that *should* have been big clues, but weren't? This is, after all, a series about a high schooler who lives on perpetual vacation, jet sets around the world without taking any money along, and works for important clients for free so as not to jeopardize her amateur status. It seems like there are a lot of times you find yourself wondering "Is this an important clue to the mystery? Or is this something that we're supposed to suspend disbelief and pretend we don't see it?" Maybe my biggest example of that is in RAN when George conveniently didn't arrive on the dock until it was too late to signal the pilot, even though she knew the plane was coming. When I first played I was convinced that this was a major clue to the fact that the whole kidnapping was a joke. It turns out no, it was just bad writing.
It would be interesting to do a video on something like historical anachronisms!
@@WizardKittenYT My biggest historical glitch (not an anacronism exactly) is the way Alejandro constantly seems to confuse the Mayans and Aztecs with the Spanish. The Spanish were the conquerers of the Aztecs, not the Aztecs themselves.
It seems the games have an odd mix of real history and fictionalized history. For instance, I've always felt that Mickey Malone was a fictionalized version of Al Capone (similar names and circumstances). But they changed the name so that nobody could say "Capone didn't really do that".
On the other hand in Final Scene, they had no problem saying that the real Harry Houdini owned a fictional theater. (I don't have a problem with it either).
If you ever want to see some truly mind-bending alternate history, read the Linda Carlton, Air Pilot series. In the second book Linda becomes the first woman to solo the Atlantic. The book acknowledges the existence of Amelia Earhart, but decides that Earhart already has enough glory, and wouldn't *want* that record. She'd leave it to some younger up and comer to do. Then a year or so later Earhart DID get that record. Whoops! I still wonder how many students in the early 30's had to wear the Dunce Cap for saying that Linda Carlton was the first woman to solo the Atlantic. (But it's actually a very good series, despite that elephant in the living room).