'''Basic Trope''': The winners of a conflict glorify themselves and vilify the losers retroactively.
* '''Straight''': TheEmpire attacks and conquers TheGoodKingdom. The historians later present TheGoodKingdom as {{Mordor}} who planned to release ThePlague, so TheEmpire acted purely in self-defense.
* '''Exaggerated''':
** TheEmpire is the lone global superpower and TheGoodKingdom is a tiny but resource-rich speck of land on the other end of the globe. Everybody believes that TheGoodKingdom was a real threat so TheEmpire was justified in attacking it.
** TheEmpire refuses to acknowledge that TheGoodKingdom [[InternalRetcon ever actually existed]] in its own right. As far as the imperial PropagandaMachine is concerned, they were just suppressing secessionist rebels.
* '''Downplayed''':
** The Empire's history books say that most of the Kingdom didn't really want a war, but their king and a few crazy nobles forced them into it.
** The Empire's historians don't intentionally distort facts, they just write from their own perspectives and never consider how the citizens of TheGoodKingdom view the invasion.
** The revision fail because they were done a few generations after the invasion.
** While The Empire's historians definitely are more [[SympatheticPOV sympathetic towards the Empire's motives]], as time goes on it becomes clear that [[GreyAndGrayMorality The Good Kingdom isn't exactly blameless or without sin either.]]
* '''Justified''':
** The historians believe, "MyCountryRightOrWrong."
** Everyone in TheGoodKingdom was killed, so there's nobody left to contradict TheEmpire.
* '''Inverted''':
** TheEmpire doesn't [[VillainWithGoodPublicity care about its image]], so the conquered peoples get to write what posterity knows about it.
** Alternatively, due to any number of reasons (like the Empire having no written records or having those lost), the only accounts available ''are'' those written by the losers.
** The Empire [[UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan deliberately plays up its own atrocities]] to scare people into raising a {{white flag}} of surrender
** Even though The Empire fell, [[StillFightingTheCivilWar sympathizers spread propaganda]] on how their atrocities never happened to anticipate its resurgence.
** For whatever reason TheGoodKingdom downplays the evil of TheEmpire suggesting that it was mere desire for slaves that caused an invasion instead of their actual practices of deliberate genocide for its own sake.
** The [[CrapsaccharineWorld "Good" Kingdom]]'s [[TheRemnant rump state]] demonize and denounce TheEmpire's conquest as a bunch of imperialist monsters hell-bent on genociding anyone standing in the way. In reality, this is merely [[MexicoCalledTheyWantTexasBack irredentist propaganda]], and the [[HegemonicEmpire Empire]] was only acting to liberate the [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil slaves in the Kingdom]] (which the Kingdom pretends are "just" [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide "servants"]] in their propaganda).
* '''Subverted''':
** Centuries after the war, the historic research reveals that TheGoodKingdom [[TheExtremistWasRight really]] ''[[TheExtremistWasRight was]]'' [[TheExtremistWasRight as evil as the Imperial historians proclaimed]].
** The Empire considered what they did right at the time but [[ValuesDissonance shifting values]] make their descendants [[TheAtoner feel very guilty about it.]] They scour the earth for overlooked evidence and put together the damning history of what really happened.
** The Empire's fictious accounts go out as planned, and they're the only perspective featured in all the history books... as evidence of their crimes. Sure, the winners wrote all the information, but who's ''editing'' it?
* '''Double Subverted''': …but that evidence was also forged.
* '''Parodied''': Just because they can, Imperial historians write that TheGoodKingdom was populated by one-legged, two-headed people with flowers for hair who fought with golf clubs.
* '''Zig Zagged''':
** TheEmpire sets out to rewrite history, but their BlatantLies spark off a rebellion and lead to a coup. Following this upheaval, the rebel leaders glorify themselves and vilify TheEmpire. Most citizens are aware of this, but don’t care because they hated TheEmpire anyway. …However, eventually some of the nastier things the rebels did to defeat their enemies come to light, including acts that make them similar. This creates a rift between those demanding the full truth be told and those who prefer to ignore those travesties because they ultimately benefited from them. This leads to ''another'' revolution, the former heroes are overthrown, and these rebels set out to ensure their image remains clean…
** The Empire doesn't hide away from its atrocities, and doesn't go out of its way to villainize the Good Kingdom, but it still justifies its many crimes on the basis of patriotic fervor.
** Some of the Imperial scholars try to conceal the atrocities committed by the Empire, while others do not care and might even be proud of the crimes.
* '''Averted''': The history of a conflict is written by an impartial observer (possibly by an even stronger superpower).
* '''Enforced''': “Just to show how evil TheEmperor is, let’s give him a PropagandaMachine for BlatantLies!”
* '''Lampshaded''': “History is written by the winners, remember?”
* '''Invoked''': [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”]]
* '''Exploited''':
** TheProtagonist doesn’t care if they have to slaughter everyone in that village to get the Spy, because if the Empire said that they found the village already slaughtered nobody would believe them.
** Knowing the possibility that The Empire and the Good Kingdom could have potentially forged their written accounts, a third party not allied with either decides to write down their conflict... but hates them ''both'', and so writes down every atrocious thing both have done to sour the public opinion of the two nations while spreading the accounts farther than the Empire and the Good Kingdom's reports ever would have reached on their own. The real "Winner" is the one whose story is the most well known, after all.
* '''Defied''':
** “This folder contains the full truth I discovered about the war. Five hundred such folders are currently on the way to every major publishing house in the world.”
** The historian cites ''both'' the reports made by the historians from TheEmpire and those made by TheGoodKingdom apologists, compare them, analyze how does the historical evidence supports the claims made by both sides, and concludes what is right and what is wrong about each view, without fully taking a side.
* '''Discussed''': “If we die now, his truth will be the only one remaining.”
* '''Conversed''': “I mean, what’s the point of fighting in the first place, if they cannot win and will be remembered as villains for all eternity thanks to the winners’ propaganda?”
* '''Implied''': Imperial-friendly accounts from the time since it conquered the Kingdom are readily available to anyone inclined to read them; those friendly to the old Kingdom are restricted.
* '''Deconstructed''': TheEmpire tries to rewrite the history of a recent war but its citizens lose patience at such blatant lies and spark a rebellion.
* '''Reconstructed''': …after the coup, the rebel leaders glorify themselves and vilify the previous government even further.
** Future generation of historians are GenreSavvy enough to realize the biases involved in the accounts by TheEmpire and look for alternate document sources or archeological evidence.
* '''Played for Laughs''': The Kingdom is treated as having the stuff of a joke.
* '''Played for Drama''': {{Alice and Bob}} were 2 {{Mooks}} in service of The Empire, who were {{Just following orders}} to enact a {{final solution}} treatment on the Kingdom. Now that the empire has won, it has rewritten the history books to glorify itself and demonize The Good Kingdom. Unfortunately for Alice and Bob, The Empire sets out to exterminate the mooks ordered to do the dirty work [[HeKnowsTooMuch so that the truth doesn't leak out]].
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%% Optional items, added after Conversed, at your discretion:
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%%* '''Plotted a Good Waste''': ???
%%* '''Played for Drama''': ???