History Main / ThePowerOfLegacy

[[caption-width-right:285:[-Stretching the truth to avoid shaming a fallen comrade: so morally ambiguous ThePaladin can do it.-] ]]

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', the pair travel to a fantasy world where Morty is attack by a pedophile. Rick later kills the guy, who turns out to have been a beloved local king. Afterwards several of the King's officials find evidence of what the king was doing, but decide to DestroyTheEvidence so the King will continue being an inspiration to the people.

!!Examples

Warning: EndingTrope[=/=]DeathTrope, uncensored spoilers ahead.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

-->''[[AteHisGun With him they buried the muzzle his teeth had kissed,]]''
-->''[[TearJerker And truthfully wrote the Mother,]] [[GoOutWithASmile 'Tim died smiling.']]''

-->'''Lindsey:''' Did he say anything?
-->'''Tobias:'''(flashback) I just ''blue'' myself.
-->'''Michael:''' He said some wonderful things.

* At the end of ''ComicBook/{{Buck Godot|Zap Gun for Hire}}'', [[spoiler:Security Chief Parahexavoctal]] is revealed to have committed several large-scale crimes in pursuit of his assigned duty, including (but not limited to) genocide and the large-scale enslavement of a sentient race. When confronted with his sins, he continues to claim that [[IDidWhatIHadToDo he just did what he had to do]]. The Prime Mover acknowledges this, and decrees that his record shall stand unblemished. [[spoiler:Par]] smiles and thanks him for fulfilling his ultimate wish, even as he is wiped from existence.
* In the Trope Naming [[http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2006-04-13 example]] from ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'', the person they were talking about had challenged Donovan to a duel over Donovan's wife just before jumping into a portal to Hell.
** Later, at the end of that story arc, Dominic invokes this when recounting Siegfried's death. Using his second sight, he had seen that Siegfried had held a genocidal campaign against orcs since boyhood, and is now in hell, but just before going to Hell he punched out all of Dominic's teeth. When Milov or Jayden ask how their friend died, Dominic's epitaph paints the knight in a much more heroic light. [[spoiler:It comes back to bite him.]]

* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'': In the end, the heroes have to whitewash Fuhrer Bradley' reputation and claim that he was an innocent victim of the coup d'etat. In reality Bradley was one of the ringleaders of a GovernmentConspiracy that very nearly annihilated the entire nation, but he was such a VillainWithGoodPublicity that the heroes feared revealing the truth would lead to civil unrest and rioting.

* In the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' series the Andalite high command pressure Ax into doing this with his murdered older brother Elfangor upon learning he used his last minutes [[PrimeDirective to give morphing power to humans]]. Ax reluctantly takes the blame so that the Andalite citizens can continue remembering his brother as a hero untainted by disgrace. It's a rare case, though, where the decision to do so clearly isn't liked by the main characters, who feel the Andalites over-enforce their PrimeDirective law and because Ax has now been barred from advancing further in the military. [[spoiler:He becomes enough of own hero in the end, allowing him to be promoted to prince.]]

* In ''Literature/TheLostFleet'', TheAlliance brass has intentionally used this to paint a mediocre ship commander's LastStand as the most heroic act in history, turning "Black Jack" Geary into a MemeticBadass, using edited recordings of his last (and only) battle to underscore his greatness in order to inspire generations of fleet officers. Unfortunately, it ends up turning them into {{Glory Hound}}s with an AttackAttackAttack mentality. This is partly done to account for the immense losses the Alliance takes during its century-long war with the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Syndics]], resulting in most of the knowledge of how fleets are supposed to fight, as well as what it means to be AnOfficerAndAGentleman, forgotten. By the time Geary is recovered from his HumanPopsicle state, this average officer from the past turns out to be [[NormalFishInATinyPond the best damn fleet commander the Alliance has]]. Unfortunately, he has a hard road ahead of him to get the ship commanders to change their mentality and fight the way they're supposed to, especially since they are rather disappointed that he doesn't fit their image of the great "Black Jack". When he finally returns the titular fleet to Alliance space, the brass refuses to believe that the fleet has fought all those battles and survived given Geary's relatively light losses, given how, in their minds, battles are "supposed to be" fought.

-->--''Film/TheDarkKnight''

* At the end of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', Snake gives a rather generic speech about how Grey Fox had wished the best for Naomi, who Fox had practically been a big brother to. Snake decides to skip the part where Grey Fox confessed that he had been the one who had killed Naomi's parents.

* PlayedForLaughs on ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment''. Tobias paints himself blue and walks off to an audition for the BlueManGroup. Unfortunately, he's hit by a car and taken to the hospital. (In a variation on this trope, he lives.) At the hospital, it's revealed that Michael was the last person to see him before he left.

-->'''Fr. Brown:''' [[spoiler:You will never have done with him in England," said the priest, looking down, "while brass is strong and stone abides. His marble statues will erect the souls of proud, innocent boys for centuries, his village tomb will smell of loyalty as of lilies. Millions who never knew him shall love him like a father—this man whom the last few that knew him dealt with like dung. He shall be a saint; and the truth shall never be told of him, because I have made up my mind at last. There is so much good and evil in breaking secrets, that I put my conduct to a test. All these newspapers will perish; the anti-Brazil boom is already over; Olivier is already honoured everywhere. But I told myself that if anywhere, by name, in metal or marble that will endure like the pyramids, Colonel Clancy, or Captain Keith, or President Olivier, or any innocent man was wrongly blamed, then I would speak. If it were only that St. Clare was wrongly praised, I would be silent. And I will.]]

* In ''Literature/TheLostFleet'', TheAlliance brass has intentionally used this to paint a mediocre ship commander's LastStand as the most heroic act in history, turning "Black Jack" Geary into a MemeticBadass, using edited recordings of his last (and only) battle to underscore his greatness in order to inspire generations of fleet officers. Unfortunately, it ends up turning them into {{Glory Hound}}s with an AttackAttackAttack mentality. This is partly done to account for the immense losses the Alliance takes during its century-long war with the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Syndics]], resulting in most of the knowledge of how fleets are supposed to fight, as well as what it means to be AnOfficerAndAGentleman, forgotten. By the time Geary is recovered from his HumanPopsicle state, this average officer from the past turns out to be [[NormalFishInATinyPond the best damn fleet commander the Alliance has]]. Unfortunately, he has a hard road ahead of him to get the ship commanders to change their mentality and fight the way they're supposed to (to be fair, there are a good number of good ''ship'' commanders, but they're all trained to fight individually, not as part of a cohesive unit), especially since they are rather disappointed that he doesn't fit their image of the great "Black Jack". When he finally returns the titular fleet to Alliance space, the brass refuses to believe that the fleet has fought all those battles and survived given Geary's relatively light losses, given how, in their minds, battles are "supposed to be" fought.

* ''[[Series/JohnDoe]]'': The episode "John Deux" ends with John telling the estranged father of a deceased vagrant that he knew him from working at the same factory, and that "he wanted you to know that he made something of his life".

[[folder:Comics]]

* While making a will on ''TheGoldenGirls'', Rose claims she lost all the savings Charlie had built up during his life, even though this causes a rift between her and her daughter. In fact, Rose just didn't want her daughter to know her father was a business failure with nothing to leave to them.

->'''Gordon:''' Whatever chance you gave us of fixing our city dies with Harvey's reputation... people will lose hope.
->'''Batman:''' No. They must never know what he did.

The hero has a good reason for doing this, however. At the end of his life, Bob did something that would tarnish his legacy. Maybe his last words were horrifying. Perhaps he did a FaceHeelTurn. Whatever the reason, telling Alice the truth would only result in damaging Bob's legacy, as well as hurting Alice by [[BrokenPedestal knocking down someone she held as a hero]]. Even if the hero has never told a lie up to that point, he will find it best to stretch the truth so that Bob can be remembered fondly. If this takes place at the end of the story, the hero will get away with it, but if the story goes on after the hero's lie then it will usually [[NiceJobBreakingItHero come back to bite him in the butt.]]

Not to be confused with ThePowerOfFriendship or ThePowerOfLove, although they may be the reason that The Power Of Legacy is invoked.\\
Related to NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead. LetThemDieHappy is also related, except going in the opposite direction -- lying to a dying character to ease their final moments. May overlap with TreacheryCoverUp.

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', O-Chul accepts responsibility for destroying the gate to protect the already-tarnished-enough legacy of WellIntentionedExtremist / KnightTemplar Miko Miyazaki.

* In ''The Amber Spyglass'', the third book of the HisDarkMaterials trilogy, Lyra is kept asleep for the first two hundred pages. When she wakes up, she thinks that she may have caught some disease, and that Mrs. Coulter had been taking care of her. In reality, Mrs. Coulter had been drugging her. Will decided it would be better to let her keep the good memory, even if it was a lie.

* In the Trope Naming example from ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'', the person they were talking about had challenged Donovan to a duel over Donovan's wife just before jumping into a portal to Hell.