It’s an exciting time to be a part of AMC’s The Terror fandom. Through the efforts of one of its members, a team of researchers were able to reveal the fate of one of the men who died in the real life events depicted by the show.
After a year of remaining icebound, the two ships were abandoned, with the crew attempting to return to civilization by walking across sea ice and islands sparsely inhabited by indigenous groups, but they were never seen or heard from again.
In AMC’s telling, all but one of the men including Fitzjames, died during the walk to civilization, succumbing to disease, starvation, mutiny, or murder by a mysterious creature. It’s a great show worth watching especially for Jared Harris’ performance as Captain Francis Crozier.
In reality, all the men of the expedition died with their bodies scattered across what is known today as King William Island, with some remains showing signs of cannibalism. Historians and researchers have spent over 170 years piecing together what happened to the expedition and identifying remains.
Before now, only a handful of men have been identified, but through the assistance of Terror fan Fabiënne Tetteroo, the anthropologists were able to identify the remains of Captain Fitzjames, making him one of the highest ranking officers found and the expedition’s first identified victim of cannibalism.
According to her website, Tetteroo is a naval historian who fell in love with the real story of the Franklin Expedition after watching the show. She grew attached to Captain Fitzjames through William Battersby’s biography of him and went on to research him extensively eventually starting her own biography on him. Though she is a fan of the show and of Fitzjames, Tetteroo said on social media that she does not like Fitzjames’ character, played by Tobias Menzies, as he “misrepresents the real guy.” The researchers praised Tetteroo in the acknowledgements section of the paper, crediting their findings to her extensive research:
Sincere thanks are extended to Fabiënne Tetteroo for generously sharing the results of her investigations of Fitzjames’ family history and for her efforts to identify possible candidates for our Franklin expedition DNA research. It was through her efforts that we were connected with the descendant donor.
Though Tetteroo has made it clear her work was born out of love for history and not fandom, on social media, fans of The Terror are excited that one of their own was able to have an impact on the real life story.
This is what happens when the awesome powers of fandom are used for good. Also, take this as your sign to finally watch both seasons of The Terror on Hulu or AMC+.
