History Main / SelfMadeMyth

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'' had Keyser Soze, a legendary criminal mastermind [[spoiler: made up by [[MagnificentBastard Verbal Kint]].]]

* In ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', "the man behind the curtain" is far less impressive than his legend.

* ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle''. Macros The Black cultivated the legend of the Black Sorcerer to protect his own privacy and solitude. (And after Pug takes up the mantle of the Black Sorcerer, he continues using Macros's methods to keep people who don't know the truth away.)
* ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicle''. Kvothe came to the University under unusual circumstances, being very young, very intelligent, and too poor to afford the usual tuition. He knew from the start that people were going to spread rumors about him based on that alone. So, being a trained actor and performer, he decided to take an active hand in creating the legend of Kvothe, so that when people talked about him, they'd at least be saying impressive stuff.

* [[Literature/TheLayOfPaulTwister Paul Twister]] loves this trope, building ridiculous legends about himself in a style reminiscent of Kvothe, above.
* In the ''Literature/{{Lythande}}'' stories, the titular character cultivates a mysterious and otherworldly reputation among common folk - figuring it can do only good for mages to be regarded with awe, even if only for parlor tricks like vanishing in the morning but leaving the room locked. Lythande also cultivates an image among other magical people and creatures as being swift to anger and prone to DisproportionateRetribution, because it comes in handy when intimidation is the best way to accomplish something and it forestalls any meddling; keeping everyone at arm's length is a happy side-effect. It works wonders; other mages and creatures like goblins view the name "Lythande" usually with variations on "awe" or "terror".

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. In the pilot episode Oliver Queen takes down three armed kidnappers, then claims a mysterious man in a green hood rescued him, creating the legend of "The Hood" (later "The Arrow") before he's even started his vigilante activities.
* In the ''Series/GameOfThrones'' History & Lore (Only on Blu-Ray), characters like Jaime Lannister, Roose Bolton and Stannis Baratheon believe that the myths about the Great Houses were invented by their ancestors to justify their status and rule.
* In the ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' tv series, there exists a secret society known as the Watchers who are not only aware of Immortals, but have been secretly chronicling the activities and lives of Immortals for centuries, possibly millennia. Sometime in the past Methos, the legendary [[TheOlderImmortal Oldest Immortal]] who is at least [[TimeAbyss five thousand years old]], (and we say at least because [[TheFogOfAges before that Methos's memory starts to get blurry]], so even he now has no idea how much older he might be than that) learned about the Watchers and joined the organization, at which point he became the leading scholar on the legend of Methos, which not even the Watchers believe is true. Once in this position, Methos made sure to play around with the information told about him, partially so he could tell what parts of his story he wanted while leaving out other bits, partially so that he could make sure nobody would believe the legends and thus he could continue living in peace, and partially to make sure that anybody who ''did'' believe the legends despite his best efforts could never find him, as there were too many false leads and contradictory information to get any clear idea on what Methos looked like or how to track him down.