History Main / LegendFadesToMyth

* ''Literature/{{Cape}}'': By the time the story starts, the {{Superhero}}es of the world have been inactive and unseen for so long that the public is starting to question if, and believe that, they never really existed at all.

* ''Literature/TheSagaOfRecluce'' uses this a lot, as each book mentions a legend or a myth and the actual event is recounted in a separate book, often bearing little resemblance between the event and the legend/myth. Once such instance is the Legend itself.
* Creator/BrandonSanderson:
** ''Literature/TheAlloyOfLaw'' is set 300-odd years after the ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' trilogy. The events of the trilogy have taken on mythological and religious significance to the later generations. The most humorous of these changes is the ancient [[SacredLanguage High Speech]]; when an example of it is given, it's quickly recognizable to readers as the [[JiveTurkey silly-sounding thieves' cant]] used by Spook in the original trilogy, which nobody but he could really understand all that well. It hasn't gotten any more coherent.
** ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': In Roshar's ancient past, the [[KnightInShiningArmor Knights]] [[MagicKnight Radiant]], led by [[ArcNumber ten]] men and women known only as the Heralds, would battle the [[LegionsOfHell Voidbringers]], who invaded Roshar every few centuries in massive attack's known as Desolations. Now, there hasn't been a Desolation in 4,500 years, and most people are convinced the Voidbringers were just a myth, while the long-defunct Knights were just con-artists and charlatans. The Heralds are still major parts of several religions, but there's debate on their actual nature and role. Several characters are trying to figure out ''what'' actually happened before the next Desolation, [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the biggest yet]], arrives.

** The myth of the Black Fiend that lives in the Summerhouse of the Palace seems like a follow-up of [[PantheraAwesome Ullr's]] exploits 500 years earlier.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': An old legend tells a certain princess named Kaguya who ate the fruit of the God Tree, making her the first person to gain control over chakra. However, the God Tree became furious and transformed into the Ten Tails, forcing Kaguya's son, the Sage of the Six Paths, to pacify it and divide it into nine beings, the Tailed Beasts. Surprisingly, the tale is fairly accurate to the real thing, save for the fact that [[spoiler:Kaguya herself was the one who became the Ten Tails, having fused herself with the God Tree, because she wanted to take the chakra possessed by her sons. That's right, sons; the Sage, Hagoromo, had a younger brother named Hamura, who assisted him in sealing Kaguya, and he was the ancestor of the Hyuga clan, linking them with the Senju, Uzumaki, and Uchiha clans (all of whom were descended from Hagoromo).]]

** An interesting case comes up in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]'' where the hero of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' is remembered with the proper epithet, but he's not called the "Hero of Time" because he traveled through time,[[note]](To be fair, there WAS TimeTravel involved, but it's not like the people knew that!)[[/note]] but because he was worthy of claiming said epithet, which existed first, and was what allowed him to claim the Master Sword in the first place.

* Discussed but rejected in ''The Last Day of Creation'' by Wolfgang Jeschke, given that the time travellers are TrappedInThePast five million years before the time they left. In that abyss of time not even their DNA traces will survive, let alone myth.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Some of Remnant's myths and fairy tales, such as true magic, the [[ElementalPowers Four Maidens]] and [[LightEmUp silver-eyed warriors]], are based on true stories about the world's true, secret history. For years, [[BeenThereShapedHistory Professor Ozpin]] has deliberately encouraged some things to fade into myth to protect certain individuals and humanity at large from an AncientEvil, who's endangering Remnant by trying to obtain four specific ArtifactsOfPower so they can obtain a secret goal. [[{{Deconstruction}} This becomes a problem for the heroes later on, since the actual answers to put an end to this mess]] ''also'' gets shrouded behind propaganda and superstitious folklore as a result.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Some of Remnant's myths and fairy tales, such as true magic, the [[ElementalPowers Four Maidens]] and [[LightEmUp silver-eyed warriors]], are based on true stories about the world's true, secret history. For years, [[BeenThereShapedHistory Professor Ozpin]] has deliberately encouraged some things to fade into myth to protect certain individuals and humanity at large from an AncientEvil, who's endangering Remnant by trying to obtain four specific ArtifactsOfPower so they can obtain a secret goal. [[{{Deconstruction}} This becomes a problem for the heroes later on, since the actual answers to put an end to this mess ''also'' gets shrouded behind propaganda and superstitious folklore as a result.]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Some of Remnant's myths and fairy tales, such as true magic, the [[ElementalPowers Four Maidens]] and [[LightEmUp silver-eyed warriors]], are based on true stories about the world's true, secret history. For years, [[BeenThereShapedHistory Professor Ozpin]] has deliberately encouraged some things to fade into myth to protect certain individuals and humanity at large from an AncientEvil, who's endangering Remnant by trying to obtain four specific ArtifactsOfPower so they can obtain a secret goal.

...Huh? Wait a second, that's not right at all! See, this isn't a myth or even a backstory; [[DistantSequel his story was actually told in the previous series]]. He didn't raise the rebellion; he just got caught up in it. The princess was not rescued by him either. He came to the prison searching for useful intel, and he met her when [[BadassInDistress she escaped herself]]; heck, they never fell in love and married, they were trusted companions who respected each other, no more, no less. And the attack on the castle was just a diversion so he could catch the emperor alone and assassinate him with a dagger, InTheBack. [[CombatPragmatist (It was the most expedient way to get rid of the guy.)]] And the dagger was not magic or blessed by the gods, the dagger was dipped in [[PoisonedWeapons poison just in case the stabbing itself didn't work]]. And no one called him "glorious hero" until many years later, after he had already dedicated the rest of his life to cleaning up the mess left behind by the power vacuum he helped create.

* ''Literature/TillWeHaveFaces'': Orual lives long enough to see her sister's life become the Myth/CupidAndPsych myth.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Some of Remnant's myths and fairy tales, such as true magic, the [[ElementalPowers Four Maidens]] and [[LightEmUp silver-eyed warriors]], are based on true stories about the world's true, secret history. [[BeenThereShapedHistory Professor Ozpin]] has deliberately encouraged some things to fade into myth to protect certain individuals and Remnant at large from an AncientEvil, who's endangering Remnant by trying to obtain specific ArtifactsOfPower so they can obtain a secret goal.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Many of the myths and fairy tales of Remnant are directly based on true stories about the true history of the show's world, such as the story of four Maidens gifted with ElementalPowers, or tales of [[LightEmUp silver-eyed warriors]] who can slay the [[AnimalisticAbomination creatures of Grimm]] with a [[MagicalEye single glance]]. The truth of these stories -- and, in turn, the fact that magic and divine power really do exist -- were [[EnforcedTrope deliberately encouraged]] to fade into myth by [[BigGood Professor Ozpin]], who turns out to have also been [[ResurrectiveImmortality the star]] of [[BeenThereShapedHistory several fairy tales]]. This is because his equally [[CompleteImmortality immortal]] adversary, [[BigBad Salem]], is trying to obtain these powers for her own goals; he is trying to protect the users of these powers, four [[ArtifactOfPower divine artifacts]], and humanity itself from her machinations. [[spoiler: [[DeconstructedTrope This gets deconstructed]] as it becomes increasingly clear that Ozma, in his crusade against Salem, has heavily altered and outright obfuscated the truth behind the legends in order to conceal his many, ''many'' mistakes during his millennia of fighting, as well as the fact that he doesn't know how to truly ''win'' the war. This ends up consistently causing anyone who finds out the [[BrokenPedestal full truth of his deception to lose faith in him or outright turn against him]] for effectively dragging them into a suicide mission with critical information being constantly withheld from them. It also ends up making it exceptionally difficult for the current generation (RWBY and JNPR) to be able to properly fight the forces of evil because they're having to figure out what is actually true amid layers of half-truths to outright falsehoods while they fight.]]

* Used several times in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Even when elves are immortal and remember the distant past, they cannot be everywhere, so Gandalf only learns how to identify the One Ring by reading a scroll that is obscure even to the lore-masters, for their scripts and tongues have become dark to later men. A lot of legends are lost because they don't have a translation to the common tongue, Celeborn claims that "Old wives keep in memory word of things than once were needful for the wise to know", and it seems that only the hobbits, with their obsession for stories and relationships, wrote history books. The book even shows that ''The Lord of the Rings''' story will eventually be forgotten and replaced by myth:
-->''The second disappearance of Mr. Bilbo Baggins was discussed in Hobbiton, and indeed all over the Shire, for a year and a day, and was remembered much longer than that. It became a fireside-story for young hobbits; and eventually Mad Baggins, who used to vanish with a bang and a flash and reappear with bags of jewels and gold, became a favorite character of legend and lived on long after all the true events were forgotten.''

* In ''Literature/TillWeHaveFaces'' Orual lives long enough to see her sister's life become the Eros And Psyche myth.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Many of the myths and fairy tales of Remnant are directly based on true stories about the true history of the show's world, such as the story of four Maidens gifted with ElementalPowers, or tales of [[LightEmUp silver-eyed warriors]] who can slay the [[AnimalisticAbomination creatures of Grimm]] with a [[MagicalEye single glance]]. The truth of these stories -- and, in turn, the fact that magic and divine power really do exist -- were [[EnforcedTrope deliberately encouraged]] to fade into myth by [[BigGood Professor Ozpin]], who turns out to have also been [[ResurrectiveImmortality the star]] of [[BeenThereShapedHistory several fairy tales]]. This is because his equally [[CompleteImmortality immortal]] adversary, [[BigBad Salem]], is trying to obtain these powers for her own goals; he is trying to protect the users of these powers, four [[ArtifactOfPower divine artifacts]], and humanity itself from her machinations. [[spoiler: [[DeconstructedTrope This gets deconstructed]] as it becomes increasingly clear that Ozma, in his crusade against Salem, has heavily altered and outright obfuscated the truth behind the legends in order to conceal his many, ''many'' mistakes during his millennia of fighting, as well as the fact that he doesn't know how to truly ''win'' the war. This ends up consistently causing anyone who finds out the [[BrokenPedestal full truth of his deception to lose faith in him or outright turn against him]] for effectively dragging them into a suicide mission with critical information being constantly withheld from them. It also ends up making it exceptionally difficult for the current generation (RWBY and JNPR) to be able to properly fight the forces of evil because they're working with flawed information about the ForeverWar ranging from half-truths to outright falsehoods.]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Many of the myths and fairy tales of Remnant are directly based on true stories about the true history of the show's world, such as the story of four Maidens gifted with ElementalPowers, or tales of [[LightEmUp silver-eyed warriors]] who can slay the [[AnimalisticAbomination creatures of Grimm]] with a [[MagicalEye single glance]]. The truth of these stories -- and, in turn, the fact that magic and divine power really do exist -- were [[EnforcedTrope deliberately encouraged]] to fade into myth by [[BigGood Professor Ozpin]], who turns out to have also been [[ResurrectiveImmortality the star]] of [[BeenThereShapedHistory several fairy tales]]. This is because his equally [[CompleteImmortality immortal]] adversary, [[BigBad Salem]], is trying to obtain these powers for her own goals; he is trying to protect the users of these powers, four [[ArtifactOfPower divine artifacts]], and humanity itself from her machinations. [[spoiler: [[DeconstructedTrope This gets deconstructed]] as it becomes increasingly clear that Ozma, in his crusade against Salem, has heavily altered and outright obfuscated the truth behind the legends in order to conceal his many, ''many'' mistakes during his millennia of fighting, as well as the fact that he doesn't know how to truly ''win'' the war, something that ends up consistently causing anyone who finds out the [[BrokenPedestal full truth of his deception to lose faith in him or outright turn against him]] for effectively dragging them into a suicide mission with critical information being constantly withheld from them. It also ends up making it exceptionally difficult for the current generation (RWBY and JNPR) to be able to properly fight the forces of evil because they're working with flawed information about the ForeverWar ranging from half-truths to outright falsehoods.]]