Written by the Winners

aka: Written By The Victors

"The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice."
Image by Carlos Latuff. Used with permission.

"If you win, you need not have to explain.
If you lose, you should not be there to explain!"

— Adolf Hitler ^note who, sure enough, wasn't "there to explain" at the end of the war.

When the official history of the setting is overwritten by the ones in power and their Propaganda Machine. As such the real heroes and good guys are given Historical Villain Upgrade, the bad guys build a Cult of Personality around their actions and all the bad sides of the past is submitted to a Rose-Tinted Narrative.

In Real Life and actual history, it is certainly true that historical accounts can be subject to the personal bias of the writer and readers have to be wary of them, which is what the saying warns us about. However, applying the saying in such a simplistic manner can potentially be as reductive, misleading, and more importantly just as binary as "the winners' narrative". To say that history is written by the winners should mean that we should treat both the winners and losers fairly and not present a one-sided view. Academic historians would qualify this by stating that our knowledge about our past, certain figures and events, is based only on a few sources and furthermore, our understanding of history is never static and unchanging. History is, in truth, written and rewritten by all sorts of people with different agendas. For example, while the records are indeed often biased in favor of the winners, they're just as often biased in favor of the losers, who put pen to paper so they could gripe about how different things would be if they'd won out. Historiography is a separate discipline that actually studies and keeps track of how people's opinions about the past and certain events change throughout history. The reason for those changes is that people who win in one era, would lose in the other and their conquerors will be as generous to the defeated as they were to their defeated. Likewise, "winners" and "losers" mean a variety of things. In the military-political sense, losers at times do end up writing history; since they've often been deprived of actual power after their defeat, they often spend their time sulking and writing about how things would have been so much better had they won — just ask a Neo-Nazi or someone still re-fighting the civil war. The actual losers in this situation would be in the broader societal sense (in the examples, Jews and slaves, respectively; and generally those third parties whose oppression by the later losers the conflicts had started over in the first place); and the resolved conflict may well mark the end of their troubles.

Also worth pointing out that not every "winner" is going to be slick and sly about their crimes, simply because they don't view them as crimes. Many of history's "winners" will be surprisingly honest about atrocities or even write proudly of how they brutally crushed their opponents, because it would serve their self-interest and their careerist aspirations. For example, Caesar wrote of his genocide of the Gauls in his personal memoirs, and historians doubt that account and other Roman accounts only because they feel Caesar is exaggerating, not only his actions but also those of his enemies, since Romans always did like painting its wars as "defensive" and their victories as underdog triumphs, so historians are skeptical about the moments when Romans invoke Worthy Opponent on their enemies as well. It likewise appealed to the vanity and pride of an Empire to preserve trophies and symbols of their conquest of foreign peoples, after all if the winner is writing a history, they would need losers to make themselves and their achievements look special. You can't be a King without a Kingdom and a People to rule over, so in every work of propaganda there are, for lack of a better term, Freudian Slip and other bits and moments that actually do allow the multitude to peep over the shoulder of their rulers. It's also worth pointing out the most obvious fact that even people on the same side will often disagree wildly on events and motivations.

This is also connected with Grey-and-Gray Morality and Morality Kitchen Sink in that picking one side of the story over the other in this context does not necessarily make it correct. After all, Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters.

Note that if the historical dispute already exists its use may become controversial at worst, or people may feel there is a Writer on Board at best. And if it doesn't, people may not take it seriously, and think that Beethoven Was an Alien Spy is at play instead (disputing historical accounts is the task of historians, not authors of works of fiction). The usual way to deal with this is to apply the trope to completely fictional history, where both the official and disputed events are fictional to begin with. Such as the exploits of the national hero of a fictional country, or a Empire with a Dark Secret. The usual way is to provide a recap of the official history, have the hero find out the real and darker history, and start a conflict between him and the figures in power that may be in problem if the actual history comes to light. There are three possible outcomes. One, The Bad Guy Wins and official history stays. Two, the actual history comes to light, and Nothing Is the Same Anymore. Third, the hero realizes the scope of the changes that would take place and decides that it's not worth it; for good or evil, history has already happened a long time ago, and its discussion should be merely academic.

A prime belief of every Conspiracy Theorist. Sub-trope of Might Makes Right. Supertrope of Internal Retcon and Pop-Cultural Osmosis and Hollywood History. Contrast You Cannot Kill An Idea and Won the War, Lost the Peace.

Example Subpages:

• Real Life

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• One of the tools that 20th Century Boys' Friend uses to win over all of Japan and, later, the rest of the world. It's so much easier to be a Villain with Good Publicity when the public at large is convinced that you saved the world from that Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.
• In Attack on Titan the history of the Eldian people sees this from both sides. During their reign, the Eldians depicted themselves as bringers of civilization and wealth; the Marleyans who replaced them depict the Eldians as bloodthirsty racists who tried to exterminate the Marleyans. Even their link to the Titans is subject to this, with Eldians claiming it as a divine blessing and the Marleyans as a demonic pact. The Eldians were imperfect humans and so could not have been perfect rulers; at the same time their rule was so long that if they had truly tried to exterminate the Marleyans none would remain. It's eventually revealed that the truth is somewhere in-between. The Eldians did indeed use the Titans to develop civilization and bring wealth to themselves, but they were also conquerors who went around destroying and subjugating other nations and did indeed try to wipe out the Marleyans, who were their hated enemies. And the connection to the Titans is neither divine nor demonic, but the end result of a total accident.
• In Campione!, Athena used to be Queen of the Gods, as well as the Goddess of Death. Then Zeus defeated her in battle and took over as ruler. He rewrote history and the myths so that her true role was forgotten and she was demoted to being one of his daughters. This is the underlying principle of all Divine Ancestors. Earth goddesses defeated by warrior gods have their power stolen and memories sealed, rendering them obedient daughters or wives of the victor. This usually appears in mythology as a hero conquering a dragon (earth goddesses often manifest as dragons) and rescuing a maiden.
• In Death Note, Light tells the Task Force that if Kira wins, he's justice; if he loses, evil. He loses.
• Gate: Three years before the main story, the Empire invaded the Kingdom of the Warrior Bunnies. The Warrior Bunnies fought back, but Queen Tyuule realized that if this continued, they would lose. She bravely offered herself to Prince Zorzal as a Sex Slave if he would spare her people. Unfortunately, he took her as a slave and then had the Kingdom razed anyway, with anyone who couldn't escape killed or enslaved. The Empire then recorded in their public records that Tyuule cowardly sold out her people and offered herself to Zorzal to save her own life. As a result, the survivors hate Tyuule's guts and think she is a traitor. Sometime after Tyuule's death, the protagonists find out the truth of the matter and manage to clear her name.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders: Early on, while brainwashed by DIO, Kakyoin justifies his villainy on the grounds that the victor is the one who has justice and the loser is always the evil one. How one goes about winning is irrelevant as long as they're the last man standing. Jotaro proceeds to throw it all back into his face with a series of punches.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans features a particularly infuriating example. Despite being one of the most corrupt members of Gjallarhorn, Rustal Elion crushes both Tekkadan and the Revolutionary Fleet, and with the help of Nobliss Gordon's media connections, is able to spin the whole thing to make himself look like the good guy. He completely gets away with everything, and even earns more good publicity for himself by implementing "reforms" to Gjallarhorn (which are really just a means of expanding his own personal power) while Tekkadan only go down as footnotes in history.
• At the end of Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, the Meiji government destroys all evidence that the Tokugawa Shogunate were women or that women ever had any kind of ruling position in any of Japan's Clans, and rewrites history with all the people involved having been male all along. The Chronicle of a Dying Day started under Iemitsu the Younger, which contained the history of the female Tokugawa dynasty, is burned, and the Inner Chambers that made up the main setting of the manga are scourged of any evidence that men lived there. Only a few people escape the Boshin War alive with knowledge of the original history, and they are all sworn to the Ooku code of secrecy.
• In One Piece, this is more or less the case with the Void Century, though it's less "written" and more "entirely ignored". The World Government absolutely forbids any research into the century immediately prior to their founding. They will murder anyone and raze entire islands to keep that secret. The only record of that time is found on indestructible tablets called Poneglyphs, written in a dead language that only one living person knows how to read. Others could before, and the government had them systematically killed.
  • This trope is an explicit belief held by Donquixote Doflamingo, who says that whoever wins the war between the World Government and Whitebeard will be the ones to define what "Justice" means. Considering that Doflamingo is one of the descendants of the "winners," this is not surprising in the least.
  • In Wano, children of the Flower Capital are taught that Shogun Orochi saved the nation by defeating the Kozuki Clan and stopping them from opening the nation's borders to invasion. The truth is, Orochi teamed up with and basically gave Wano to the Beasts Pirates who slew the rightful Lord Oden (The next shogun) in a bloody invasion and the country outside the capital is dying because of the pirates' factories.
• In PandoraHearts, it turns out that the most detailed records of the Tragedy of Sablier were written by Arthur Barma, who was manipulated by Jack Vessalius. Jack was the one who tried to throw the former capital into the Abyss, killed Glen Baskerville and put all the blame on him. As a result, the Baskervilles and their allies were treated like criminals for a century.
• Record of Ragnarok: When Lu Bu was defeated and executed, he met his death with quiet dignity. However, to spite him, it was recorded that he cried and begged for mercy.
• The backstory of the former La Résistance in the anime of RideBack, which becomes a global military, is only vaguely discussed to the mostly-cheerful populace, but there is clearly some betrayal that forms the antagonism between former teammates.
• The motto of Big Bad Makoto Shishio in Rurouni Kenshin.
• Saint Seiya — Cancer Deathmask subscribes to this theory, but was in the wrong side of the conflict. However, in the Hades arc, he could've been subscribing to this and just been smart for once.
• In Scrapped Princess, Earth was conquered by the aliens who then rewrote history, presenting the heroes of La Résistance and Les Collaborateurs as evil and good gods, respectively.

Comic Books

• Once upon a time, the Shi'ar were almost destroyed by the Mephitistoids, an Always Chaotic Evil race with Compelling Voice. But, in their darkest hour, T'Kyll Alabar managed to inspire bravery in the Shi'ar troops, who fought with renewed strength and managed to turn the tide of the war and win. The Mephitistoid leader was sentenced to roam space in a Sleeper Starship, alongside the hero who defeated him. Legend Fades to Myth, until the day the ship crashed on Earth. Alabar, the living legend, explained to the Shi'ar Deathcry that it was all propaganda, that the reviled Mephitistoids were actually noble aliens defending their homeland from an invading Empire. And the Vision figured out something else as well. Legend says that Alabar inspired bravery in the soldiers all by himself, but doesn't mention how. It would be better to forget that little detail...
• Asterix: Asterix and the Missing Scroll is about the Roman's attempts to pull off this trope. Caesar plans to leave his failure to conquer the Gaul village out of Commentaries on the Gallic War, knowing the illiterate Gauls will have no way to protest. A rouge scribe steals the chapter containing these losses and passes to the Gaul village, who in turn pass it to a teacher who spreads it orally until it reached René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo in the 20th century, who then tell the stories as the ''Asterix'' comic books.
• In an issue of Peter David's Captain Marvel, Rick Jones and Genis-Vell travel to a far-flung After the End future where the Earth is covered in desert and has been colonized by aliens. The only surviving history was written by Doctor Doom. Notably, this means that all superheroes were portrayed as evil villains who stood in the way of progress. Hitler was still a bad guy, though, because he persecuted the Roma (Doom's ethnic group).
• Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds begins with Superboy-Prime being thrown into the Legion Of Superheroes' time. Soon after, he happens upon the Superman museum, and is outraged to learn that history depicts him as an even bigger loser than he really is; the holographic tour guide mocks Prime for always "whining" about how his lost Earth was "better", and not only claims that he was easily defeated in all his major battles, but that the C-list villain Neutron had a bigger impact on Superman than Prime ever did. This leads Prime to decide to become a villain that history cannot ignore, which he attempts to accomplish by gathering together every villain in the future into an army to destroy the Earth and everything Superman helped build in the future.
• Legends of the Dead Earth: In Adventures of Superman Annual #8, the Curatti believe that their ancestors invaded Ramar, the homeworld of the Sarkons, a millennium earlier and that the Sarkons defeated them, bringing an end to their cruel campaign of conquest. However, it turns out that Ramar is in fact the homeworld of the Curatti and that it was invaded by the Sarkons. The myth that the Curatti's ancestors were a race of conquerors who preyed on the weak was perpetuated by the Sarkons so that the Curatti would hate themselves, making them easier to subjugate.
• Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons: The opening intro evokes this with stating everything everyone knows about the Amazons are a biased history written by men as the Amazons ultimately lost the war with Man's World. The book presents itself as a history of the Amazons that would have been written for a young Amazon.
• In another issue of Peter David's (this time X-Factor (2006)), Quicksilver offers his own version of the phrase: "The future is written by the winners. History is written by the survivors."

Fan Works

• Anyone: All For One is quite clear when he tells Izuku and Shoto that their history books are full of lies and propaganda to hide the blatant corruption of the early Quirk era. Some examples he mentions include a politician who supposedly advocated for the rights of quirked people but actually used them for slave labour, and a vigilante said to have died in a battle against a Villain, but was actually assassinated by the government in her hospital bed.
• In Avenger Goddess, Clint wonders if this trope is the reason that Herakles is seen as a hero after hearing about the god's past crimes, but Diana explains that Herakles genuinely was a hero once before Hera's actions drove him mad with grief. Clint is subsequently heartened to learn that the Trojan War happened basically as recorded.
• Bad Future Crusaders: The official story of Twilight Sparkle's rise to power is that Princess Luna once again became Nightmare Moon after Celestia's death, conveniently "forcing" Twilight to strike her down and assume complete control of the country for herself. Even those loyal to her don't hesitate to call this out as BS (in private, at least).
• In Black Book of Arda, one of the most prominent Russian J. R. R. Tolkien fanfics, The Silmarillion is revised this way.
• Invoked in The Chosen Six when Hermione's parents question how wizarding society can hold Salazar Slytherin in such high esteem after he became a racist madman, Hermione pointing out that his personal prejudices generally aren't a big deal and that various historical figures have equally controversial pasts despite their otherwise positive impacts.
• In Custody Battle, a My Hero Academia fanfiction, All for One reveals that much of modern history was revised to be "more palatable", based on his personal experiences as someone who lived through the dawn of the age of quirks.
• A Divine (Romantic) Comedy: It's mentioned that Belos destroyed and rewrote the history of the Boiling Isles to fit his anti-Wild Magic agenda, with researchers trying to uncover the truth now that he's gone. Already, the "Savage Ages" have been renamed to the "Wild Ages" as a result of casting off his old propaganda.
• In Equestria: A History Revealed, the Conspiracy Theorist Lemony Narrator seems to think that all of Equestria's history was rewritten by Celestia, despite clear evidence that this is not the case. However, Celestia does alter history a few times in eliminating Discord's name before his return, sealing away the records on the Crystal Empire, and altering some aspects of the Equestrian Civil War, which hints that the Lemony Narrator was not entirely incorrect.
• In Fury and Flame, after Azula and other Fire Nation personnel appear in Westeros (and set up a miniature Fire Nation on Dragonstone, with numerous small outposts across the continent), Westeros receives a highly biased version of the Fire Nation's history — the Air Nomads, Water Tribes, and Earth Kingdom are, in a highly unflattering analogy, compared to the Dothraki, the Wildlings, and Slavers' Bay, respectively.
• The Games Tent: When Oblina is looking for the 'Human Manual' she presumes exists as a counterpart to the Monster Manual, she demands Bradley's history book. Later, when she returns it while singing the praises of humans and all their accomplishments, he gives her a paperback detailing the darker aspects of history, bitterly calling his history book propaganda and insisting the new one will give her a much clearer picture of humanity. She doesn't take it well.
• Halloween Unspectacular: During the climax of the seventh edition's Story Arc — which initiates the Darkest Hour of the second Myth Arc — General Rausseman gleefully talks about how after he's won, the history books will remember him as a hero for wiping out all nonhumans and superpowered people, and the actual heroes as terrorists and criminals for trying to stand in his way.
• A variation occurs in How I Lost My Mother where Princess Celestia uses the Elements of Harmony to not only strip her daughter of her immortality and access to Unicorn Magic, but also to erase everypony's memories and official documentation to make it impossible for Cozy Glow to try proving that she really is Celestia's daughter in the first place.
• The Last Ringbearer points out that the Red Book, which is the basis of The Lord of the Rings, is actually a history written by the winners. It's bursting full of examples. In it, the Orks and Wild Men of the south are simply people of color. The Red Book dehumanizes its enemies, makes light of Aragorn using Necromancy to defeat the Mordorians and condemns the scientific nation of Mordor as corrupters by blaming the desertification of their homeland on them. The war was started by Gandalf because the enemy technology was becoming stronger, while the magic of the eldritch elves and the wizards became only weaker as knowledge was lost. Saruman saw that the only way to stamp out science was to commit genocide and wanted nothing to do with it. Further, Aragorn taunts the Mordorian general after having him shot in the back during a honor duel: "The history books will say you got killed by a midget and a broad." Though this whole premise is rather undermined by the fact that Hobbits that actually wrote the Red Book don't exist in the fic, raising way too many questions.
• Legends of Equestria: When Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon, her actual goal was to re-acquire equal footing with her sister, who had taken all the power in the country for herself. Luna fully intended to restore the day and go back to business as usual afterwards. Rather than give up sole power over the country, Celestia disposed of Nightmare Moon and vilified her in the history books.
• The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)/The Chronicles of Narnia fic The Lion, the Cat and the Turtles features an example of this where basically both sides have their own version because nobody knows who won; according to myth, the desert between Narnia and Calormen was created as a result of Aslan and Tash engaging in battle when the world was still young, the resulting war waging for three days and three nights, but Narnians and Calormens each claim that their god defeated the other.
• The Lunar Rebellion: The Pegasopolan ephors, and Swift Blade and Bright Charger in particular, claim that Celestia rewrote much of Equestria's official history to make herself look better, considering the tale of Nightmare Moon to be a smear campaign created by Celestia after unjustly overthrowing her sister to make herself sole ruler of Equestria, and further justify their alliance with warlocks and lunar cultists by the reasoning that assigning such titles is simply a way for Celestia to discredit political opponents. Subverted in the end, as this is all portrayed as being completely incorrect — Nightmare Moon is still a self-centered Mad God, the warlocks are genuinely horrible people, and this belief in general seems to be more than anything a way for the Ephorate to retroactively justify their rebellion against Celestia — and not all ephors buy much into this line of reasoning, for that matter.
• My Mirror, Sword and Shield: The history that gets written down is very different from what happened in the fic. Cornelia, Schneizel and the Black Knights were the heroic resistance fighters who put aside their differences to fight a tyrant. In reality, Cornelia and Schneizel were planning to back stab their Japanese allies so they could hold onto Imperialist power. The Black Knights hated every second they had to work with them and were extremely nationalist. Euphemia and Sir Raleigh go down as martyrs when they were murdered by Suzaku for attempting peace with the Japanese people. Euphemia was actually murdered by Sir Raleigh who feared she was cheating on him with Suzaku and his racism refused to accept that. Emperor Lelouch is remembered as a horrible tyrant and Suzaku is remembered as The Quisling who slept his way into becoming the Emperor's right hand man and murderously loyal Yandere to him. Lelouch actually ensured his sister, Empress Nunnally's peaceful rule through many backroom deals and purges; Suzaku was actually a time traveler who sided with Lelouch to make sure he didn't derail history. Suzaku is believed to have been the most powerful person in the War of Ascension after Emperor Lelouch. Suzaku had relatively little political power due to everyone despising him due to his race. Emperor Lelouch was believed to be assassinated and Suzaku committed suicide in grief. Suzaku and Lelouch escaped to the future after faking their deaths.
• Night's Favored Child: After defeating Celestia, Nightmare Moon spends the next thousand years not only removing all traces of her from history, but also of the very concept of day, including removing words like "dusk", "dawn", "sun", and (notably) "twilight" from the lexicon.
• In Of Her Story, Starlight Glimmer admits that she saw herself as the hero and Twilight Sparkle as the villain, and if she had won, the history books would have reflected that. Even though Starlight has pulled a Heel–Face Turn, she fears that history will only remember her as a lunatic who almost destroyed the world. This attitude is defied by Twilight, who asks Starlight to tell her everything about her so that it can be properly recorded.
• Pony POV Series:
  • Celestia reveals she erased Discord from the history books because, in her mind, he didn't deserve a legacy after all he'd done. She also explained that she didn't want the memory of those like Shady who were related to Discord to be tainted by association with him.
  • We later see the Sea Ponies in the Epilogue timeline are fed a completely rewritten version of history that's the complete opposite of what happened, right down to Discord blaming the Alicorns for the genocide he committed.
  • The Hooviet empire does this via propaganda, so that they never have to admit to having ever lost a war.
  • Cadence defies this after the Changeling battle: Cadence beats Chrysalis and becomes the Changeling Queen, while Chrysalis dies of her injuries and is reincarnated as an innocent filly. Cadence then tells the Changelings to remember Chrysalis for the good she did, but also not deny the evil either.
• A Thing of Vikings: Referenced in Chapter 36, in a scene where Ruffnut pledges to help her husband Magnus break free of Einar's control, and envisions a future in which Magnus is revered as a strong, wise and beloved ruler.
  "Well, the ones who write the sagas are the winners, yeah? I wanna write that one."
• In This Bites!, Luffy plans to use this trope when he becomes Pirate King. Luffy is a Friendly Pirate, but he knows adventurers like him are the minority and that most pirates are Rape, Pillage, and Burn monsters. Luffy hates these kinds of pirates, and that the world sees them as the status quo. When he becomes Pirate King, it will prove that his style of piracy is what a real pirate is, and the criminals will be the "fakes" to the world.
• Vainglorious carries over Thor: Ragnarok's depiction of Odin rewriting Asgard's history to mask its violent rise. Aside from erasing Hela's era, the fic also includes the wars with the Dark Elves and Vanir. Current history vastly understates the power and threat of the Dark Elves. Meanwhile the Vanir's supposed defeat was actually a peace treaty after the Aesir found themselves unable to break a stalemate with their vastly more populous rival.

Films — Animation

• Frozen II begins with Elsa and Anna being told a story about their grandfather, King Runeard. Having established a treaty with the neighboring Northuldra tribe by building a dam in their homeland, the Enchanted Forest, Runeard threw a feast to celebrate the peace between Arendelle and Northuldra. However, a fight broke out, and the native spirits of the forest lashed out at Runeard and his people. Later in the film, though, we find out Runeard built the dam to cut off the Northuldra's water supply, and the "feast" was intended to help him find out how big their army was. Once he decided it was a fight he could win, he tried to kill the unarmed leader of the Northuldra in secret. The sisters only manage to make everything right when Anna destroys the dam.
• NIMONA (2023): The official history of the kingdom was that Gloreth, a mighty knight, defended her village from a wicked monster before founding the Institute. In truth, Gloreth was just a child who befriended the monster, Nimona, before the adults turned on her for her shapeshifting. After the village was accidentally set ablaze in the riot, Gloreth simply told Nimona to leave, ending their friendship.
• The Sea Beast: Throughout the film, Maisie starts to wonder if the books she (and everyone else) read about sea beasts aren't skewed in perspective after she and Jacob note several things wrong with it with regards to sea monsters and their history. She later realizes that the books are part of a campaign to stoke hatred against the sea monsters with the ultimate goal of wiping them out so the empire can expand far beyond its current borders.
• Trolls World Tour: The six Troll tribes in the film each possess a magical string tied to the music which represents them: the villain, Queen Barb, seeks to gather up all the strings and destroy them so only rock music is left. Poppy's father, King Peppy, is the one who tells her about the strings and sends her off to stop Barb: what he leaves out is that the six tribes used to live together, with all the strings in the same place. It was the Pop Trolls, Poppy's tribe, who caused the schism by attempting Barb's plan years ago, only they intended to replace it all with pop music. Interestingly in this case, it was the winners of the conflict (the tribes that stopped Pop from taking over) that wrote history as it happened, while the losers scrubbed it out and played it as more Grey and Gray than it was.

Films — Live-Action

• The documentary The Act of Killing is essentially about what happens to society after war criminals win.
• This is the impetus behind Thanos's revised plan in Avengers: Endgame — a completely new universe that is unaware of the destruction of the current one will eliminate any chance of someone attempting to undo Thanos's work.
• Braveheart, the opening monologue: "I shall tell you of William Wallace. Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes." Note, however, that both the English and the Scottish were united in calling out the film for its blatant historical inaccuracies (on the Scots' side, it sidelined an even greater national hero — the future King Robert the Bruce — in favor of Wallace, whom he is falsely portrayed as betraying).
• Evoked in The Devil's Advocate: Kevin Lomax tells John Milton that Satan and his progeny lost in the Bible, and they're destined to lose again at the end of time. Milton retorts that of course the Bible would say that, considering who it's written by. The ironic part is that the Bible has very little to say about Satan and "the Heavenly argument", and in earlier Jewish tradition, he was even considered an ally of God. Much of the Satanic role came from later traditions of Christianity and was informed by the poet John Milton's "Paradise Lost", who was famously called "of the devil's party without knowing it".
• Fahrenheit 451 (2018): The regime has edited history to claim Benjamin Franklin started the Firemen, and thus even the Founding Fathers backed their book-burning work. Franklin did in fact start the first real fire department in the then-Colonial America (Philadelphia's), though he would no doubt be appalled by this.
• Directly addressed by former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, who admitted that firebombing 63 Japanese cities and following it up with 2 nuclear bombs would be considered a war crime if not for the fact that he was on the winning side, and then wonders why that should make any difference.
• Invoked by Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, when he sings about Sir Francis Drake:
  ". . .The Spanish all despise him / But to the British, he's a hero, and they idolize him."
• Thor: Ragnarok reveals that Asgard's power and influence was won the way most empires win influence. Odin just had a change of heart and covered the messy bits up.
• In the Underworld (2003) movies, Viktor rewrote vampire history to appear as if he was the original vampire, when, in fact, it was another Elder, Marcus. So this is a literal case of history being written by the Viktor. Despite this, he doesn't hide the fact that Marcus is a son of the first immortal Alexander Corvinus, although he claims it's a children's story.
• An important theme in Wang De Sheng Yan, where control over records and histories is shown to be a powerful tool. Empress Lü Zhi has scribes record events that will happen to her enemies at court. The she makes them happen. Something of An Aesop about how powerful people falsify history.

Literature

• Referenced in 1632 by Cardinal Richelieu, as to why he isn't surprised or bothered all that much by how villainous he looks in our uptime media.
• Nineteen Eighty-Four. This was the whole purpose of MiniTrue (The Ministry of Truth), which constantly rewrites history to suit the Party's current needs and destroys and replaces "inaccurate" accounts and records with today's official version of events — which is in turn likely to be "corrected" again tomorrow, when the Party's needs change. ("He who controls the past, controls the future; he who controls the present, controls the past.")
• Animorphs. Interestingly, it's the humans that do this, refusing to put Jake on trial for war crimes while happily trying Visser One for the same charge.
• In Arcia Chronicles, The Church rewrote history of the War of the Deer to remove all positive mentions of those heroes who didn't comply with its official doctrine.
• Artemis Fowl has a quote invoking this:
  “If I win, I'm a prodigy. If I lose, then I'm crazy. That's the way history is written.”
  • A side story in the series has a copy of Artemis's report card. The headmaster says that Artemis proposed building a Time Machine to get around this trope, and doesn't doubt Artemis would succeed if he tried.
• In The Bartimaeus Trilogy, history classes are mandatory for commoners' children, where they're taught a version of history that uplifts the magicians on the side of the British government and casts commoners in general as weak and unable to rule. Foreign governments are vilified, and the Czechs have a particularly bad time of it, this being the ruling government prior to Britain. Questions are generally discouraged and regarded with disdain. Ironically, the government has whitewashed things so thoroughly that even the magicians themselves are never taught the full truth and actually wholeheartedly believe the state line in many things. This is rather ironic, because if they did know the real history it would help them identify certain recurring patterns and thus, at least for a time, help them maintain their faltering power.
• In a BattleTech novel, a character counters to someone stating this that "History is written by the survivors" and that "given my track record, you should hope I remember you fondly".
• Glen Cook's The Black Company novels have a lot to say about warfare and human nature, particularly as depicted in High Fantasy. The first book strongly implies that most Black-and-White Morality shown in High Fantasy is actually the result of history being written by the winners (who them portray themselves as the purest light, and their foes as blackest darkness). The Lady is a story of redemption, but also of Grey-and-Gray Morality, as it is repeatedly emphasized that, while she may be evil, she is not nearly as evil as her husband.
• The Commentaries on the Gallic War are a literal example. Our primary source of information about the Gallic Wars was written by the man himself who won them.
• Discworld:
  • Subverted... kind of... in Small Gods:
    Om: Winners don't have glorious victories. That's because they're the ones who get to see what the battlefield looks like afterwards. It's only the losers who have glorious victories.
  • Another Discworld example, from Hogfather, as Susan tells a bedtime story:
    Susan: And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, but he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you're a hero, because no-one asks inconvenient questions.
  • In Unseen Academicals, all the histories say the goblins were on the other side, regardless of which side wrote them. The goblins didn't even have a pencil.
• Doctor Who Expanded Universe: In Just War, the Doctor deconstructs this mindset in a Russian Roulette confrontation with a captured Nazi, pointing out that even if you get to write the history books it doesn't make you and your cause good:
  The Doctor: You can't create anything with a gun, Herr Wolfe, let alone Utopia, authority, or truth. You can dress up in a scary black uniform and talk about destiny. You can use the full power of the state to rewrite biology, mythology, genealogy, history, and geography. Burn all the books you disagree with, burn all the people who wrote or read them. Hold a parade in every street, attend a thousand Party rallies. Gang up on the weak, persecute the minorities. Win the war. It still won't make you right.
• Dragon and Damsel: The school play in the prologue is an example of this. According to it, Edmonton was saved from the dragon tormenting them by the brave and noble Sir Edmond. Later, one of the descendants of the slain dragon reveals that the dragon wasn't harming the village at all, that the knights did several terrible things to even reach their castle, and slaughtered several innocent dragons, some of them hatchlings.
• In The Egyptian, Sinuhe muses that due to Horemheb's rewriting of history, no one will ever remember the three Pharaohs that preceded him: Ay, Tutankhamon and Achenaton. Horemheb was, obviously, less than successful.
• Played with in Ender's Game. The eponymous character wins the war, and then goes on to write its history from his defeated enemy's point of view, leading him to be vilified as a war criminal for thousands of years. The winners write the history books, but that doesn't mean they have to cast themselves as the heroes.
• This is a major theme in For Want of a Nail, an Alternate History of the North American continent following a quelled The American Revolution. The In-Universe persona of the author has very little sympathy for them, and is called out on it by an In-Universe peer review at the end of the book, who invokes this trope to some extent.
• A couple examples from Larry Niven's Known Space universe where victors wrote the original history of a colony world:
  • In A Gift From Earth, the official histories say that the social stratification of Plateau was initially agreed upon by the crew and colonists because the crew had done the work and taken the risks. In fact, the original crew "convinced" the original colonists at gunpoint.
  • In Fleet of Worlds, the official histories say that the Puppeteers rescued a crippled human colony ship and settled its occupants on one of their worlds. In fact, the Puppeteers themselves had attacked the ship out of panic that it had discovered one of the worlds being moved into the fleet, and then enslaved the occupants in order to breed a compliant population.
• Orientalism by the Palestinian-American critic Edward W. Said is a non-fiction work that explores in detail how colonialist nations abuse their control of the media and command of universities and textbooks to spread stereotypes and Flanderization of a complex, subtle and regionally diverse culture and how this comes to define the general perception of the Middle East well into the 20th Century.
• Practitioners in Pale, who write most of the relevant in-universe histories, can't lie verbally or in written form, so instead they tend to leave out context or search for events that justify their worldview in their writings. This is most notable in Famulus, where the cordial relationships between practitioners and Others in Namibia is portrayed as a direct result of the most dangerous Others being killed or bound by colonial practitioners.
• Princess Academy: Discussed in the third book, The Forgotten Sisters. Miri relates an event in Danlandian history where a pair of royal twins, Katarina and Klas, were born. Before Klas could be crowned king, Katarina forced the royal physician to declare that she was actually the firstborn and thus the rightful queen, sparking a civil war that she eventually lost. Miri asks her students what would be written in the history book if Katarina had won. Astrid suggests that the physician, after years of being threatened into silence, bravely revealed that Princess Katarina was the firstborn, but the evil, greedy Prince Klas started a civil war in an attempt to murder his sister.
• The same is done in Reflections of Eterna, particularly in the prequel Flame of Eterna: Rinaldi Rakan was sentenced to death by his royal brother and left in history as a monster, while he was framed by his brother and Beatrix Borrasque. In the Taligoian Ballad, his distant descendant Ramiro Alva was killed by Alan Oakdell for regicide and betraying the Cabitela City to the Maragonian Bastard. 400 years later, the last will of the "murdered" king was found and revealed that the king himself ordered Ramiro to give up the city.
• Subverted in the Alternate History novel Resurrection Day, in which the Cuban Missile Crisis turned into WW3. The Soviet Union has been obliterated while the United States has been reduced to a virtual Third World country. President Kennedy, who died in the war, has been blamed for the situation, but the actual culprit is the General Ripper who now runs the US as a military dictatorship. As one character states, in this case history has been written by the survivors.
• Safehold: The official history of Shan-wei's fall and the War Against the Fallen was written by the "Archangel" Chihiro, who had fought the war on the side of Langhorne, the late leader of the "Archangels". All documentation they could find that portrayed Shan-wei and her husband Kau-yung sympathetically was destroyed, often along with any evidence of the existence of the person who wrote it. However, at the end of book 10, Chihiro's fellow "Archangel", Schueler, is revealed to have secretly left behind his own Testimony of what happened, which, judging by Schueler's denunciation of Chihiro as a liar in the same scene, promises to be somewhat more truthful.
• Santa and Pete: where young Pete asks his amateur historian grandfather, "Who was right, the Indians or the Dutch?" His grandpa laughs and answers, "Depends on who's telling the story."
• George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire deals with this trope. In the present timeline, Robert Baratheon is loved as a glorious rebel king but hated by Targaryen loyalists for being The Usurper. Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, who was regarded as The Wise Prince in his lifetime, is smeared after his death as a rapist and villain. The real truth is somewhere in between, with a dose of Deliberate Values Dissonance.
  • The tragic and poignant consequences of this trope is explored more subtly in The Sworn Sword in the case of Ser Eustace Osgrey who lost his entire family fighting for the defeated Blackfyres but continues to believe that their fight was just and honorable. He claims that because the Blackfyres lost the rebellion they're condemned as traitors and rebels, but had they won they'd be idealized heroes.
  • Played with over the events of the Dance of the Dragons, particularly in that there were no winners. Black history books portray Rhaenyra as a woman trying to reclaim her birthright from a murderous usurper and his scheming mother. Green history books portray her as a mentally unstable harlot who tried to steal the throne from her brother, male-preference primogeniture be damned. In all reality, it's become increasingly clear that they were both mentally unstable murderers, and were not so different. Aegon had Rhaenyra eaten by his dragon in front of her son, as well as having one of his supporters murder Rhaenyra's son for seeking support with the Baratheons. In retaliation, Rhaenyra had two men sneak into the Red Keep and force a mother to choose which of her children she wanted dead, and then proceed to murder the other one, so the living child would spend the rest of his life knowing his mother wanted him dead. What would have happened had either of them kept the throne may never be known, but it probably wouldn't have been good.
• Star Wars Expanded Universe:
  • Lost Stars shows that the Empire wasted no time doing this after its establishment: There's a scene where protagonists Thane and Ciena, who were born the year the Empire was established, are studying for a history class in their Imperial school. They're specifically studying how the Clone Wars started, and the version they learned in school portrays Jedi Master Mace Windu as the leader of a criminal gang that interfered with a legal execution of a certain peace mongering Senator who hated Clones on Geonosis. Anyone who's seen Attack of the Clones will know that's... incorrect.
  • Servants of the Empire also does this, though this time it's the Trade Federation, portrayed in the lessons Zare Leonis learns in his history class as engineering a famine on Chrona to protect their profit margins and destroy genetically modified crops that would've been a viable alternative so they can render the local population dependent on their medical services until the Empire saved the day by nationalizing agriculture and reintroducing the modified crops. While Leonis takes issue with this due to being around when the Trade Federation was still a major company, he's still glad they're no longer in business, considering all their bad history, like the Invasion of Naboo, blockading Pantora in order to make them go over to the Separatists while kidnapping Baron Papnoida's daughters, and overall making profits over the many dead people in the Clone Wars.
• Star Wars Legends: Addressed but averted in Timothy Zahn's Vision of the Future:
  Shada: What do you mean by "true" [history]? What does anyone mean by "true"? We all know history is Written By The Winners.
  Jorj Car'das: History is also written by the bystanders... peoples who had no part or stake in what happened. Would you accuse them all of lying?
• The Stormlight Archive: One of the reasons that Jasnah Kholin, an avowed atheist, dislikes the Vorin religion so much is because hundreds of years ago, when the church was at the height of its power, they took to rewriting history books to match their dogma. While the Vorin Hierocracy was struck down and replaced with a system of slave-priests called ardents, modern Vorinism still accepts those ancient "corrections" as truth.
• The Sundering reimagines The Lord of the Rings with an aversion of this trope.
• The Sunne in Splendour was written in response to this trope, imagining Richard III as a brave and decent man living in brutal times. By the Downer Ending, Richard is dead and history is being written by his enemy, Henry Tudor.
• Swordspoint: In The Fall of the Kings, earlier in the setting world's history, the kings and their wizards were overthrown and the ruling nobility burned all the works about magic that they could find and made it illegal even to claim that magic was real. This causes some frustration for one of the protagonists, a historian living 200 years later who has trouble finding reliable sources for his research on the wizards. Especially when he proposes a debate to prove that the wizards' magic was real, disregarding the fact that the aforementioned law is still on the books...
• Tortall Universe: In the first book of The Numair Chronicles, it's taught that Ozorne's father Apodan was sent to put down a Sirajit rebellion in southern Carthak and was killed in the conflict, leading to both Ozorne and his mother swearing vengeance on the Sirajit. A classmate later tells Arram that the "rebellion" was nothing more than a tribal feud that had gotten out of hand. Prince Apodan slaughtered everyone involved, including babies, until he was assassinated by a member of one of the tribes. The imperial heralds proclaimed that the Prince died tragically in battle putting down the "rebellion". Ozorne and his mother are unaware of the truth, as are most Carthakis.
• To Shape a Dragon's Breath: The Anglish have control of the historical narrative regarding New Markesland. History is is consistered to have started with the explorations of Norsemen to the land and with the arrival and settlement by Stafn Whitebeard; almost no history of the indigenous people is considered, simply because they had no written history. In recent memory, the Naquisit massacre has been cleaned up by the Anglish, who call it the Nack Island uprising. It's portrayed as the Naquisit violently attacking the Anglish and brutally slaughtering Anglish women and children in their beds, and as murderers of the innocent and deserving of thier executions. What really happened is that when the Anglish discovered coal on the island, they broke their treaty to get access to it, and tried to drive the Naquisit off completely. A group of elders tried to seek accord and were murdered for it, and the Anglish went so far as to burn farms, poison food and water sources to kill the population, and turning dragonfire on whole villages. A party of Naquisit led the war party to try to drive the Anglish off and when they failed were executed as traitors, including both of Theod Knecht's parents. As Anequs puts it, it was a war that the Naquisit lost—but that doesn't mean they were wrong to fight it at all, and they're no more vicious murders than the Anglish were.
• Shtetl Days: As shown by their title of World War II, the War of Retribution, the Nazis have framed their war of aggression as a just cause.
• Vorkosigan Saga: In The Vor Game, Gregor hasn't heard any of the stories about his father except stuff he could dismiss as propaganda. Miles is able to assure him that the stories he has heard are not all true.

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5: After conquering the Narns a second time, the Centauri lay the blame for the conflict squarely on their shoulders, to the point of placing every member of the Narn ruling council on trial for war crimes (this just after the Centauri used orbital bombardment with meteors on the Narn homeworld, something which is outlawed by every civilized government in the setting). Then again, the two powers have been taking stabs at each other ever since the Centauri overthrew the Narns the first time. And the Centauri are still not willing to acknowledge that the first time even happened either. They keep claiming that they landed peacefully on Narn and uplifted the primitives, who repaid their generosity with violence. The Narn on the other hand claim they peacefully greeted the strange alien visitors, who then conquered and enslaved them. Given that G'Kar's father was hung from a tree by his thumbs until he died three days later (for the crime of accidentally spilling a cup of tea on a Centauri woman), it renders the Centauri account a bit questionable.
• Tom Zarek uses this theory to gloss over murdering Laird and The Quorum in Battlestar Galactica (2003). He loses. Not that it mattered, since history was one of the many, many things that the Colonials decided to jettison upon reaching Earth.
• Blackadder shows how Henry Tudor, after winning the Wars of the Roses, completely removed Richard IV and his family from the historical timeline and changed Richard III into a child-killing madman.
• Becomes a plot point in the Community episode "Alternative History of the German Invasion", which helps the study group come to a Heel Realization regarding their presence at Greendale.
• In the Doctor Who episode "The Lie of the Land", the aliens that have taken over Earth brainwash everyone with propaganda that they have always been there, guiding the evolution of humanity and civilization, while in reality they have only been there for a few months. People who disagree with the so-called "True History" are arrested by the Memory Police and sent to a forced labor camp.
• Farscape: A variation in that they didn't really "win", but the version of the Peacekeeper battle against the Venek Horde that Aeryn relates in "...Different Destinations". Subofficer Dacon was a cook and only ended up negotiating the ceasefire because everyone else was killed. Alternatively, if this is a case of a Stable-ish Time Loop, he was just following Aeryn's instructions in the first place.
• Game of Thrones: According to Robert Baratheon, Rhaegar Targaryen is an insane rapist and Lyanna Stark is a helpless martyr torn cruelly from Robert's loving arms by way of Rhaegar's word and will alone. None of this is true. Though you can't blame him for rebelling since The Mad King called for his head on less-than-questionable grounds.
• Generation Kill gives us a more "unique" interpretation of this trope.
  Sgt. Eric Kocher: If something happens to me, I want my wife to know the truth. If they say we fought valiantly here, I want her to know we fought retarded.
• Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story: The show posits that the giant atop the beanstalk, Thunderdell, was in fact nothing but friendly and benevolent, with most of the fairy tale being a lie made up to cover for what Jack and his mother did for their own selfish ends. This includes killing the giant after he falls off the beanstalk.
• Lost Girl. Trick mentions that this is the only reason people have a favorable opinion of the ancient Blood King. Considering that the Blood King has reality warping powers when writing with his blood, he may mean this literally. Also, since Trick is the Blood King, this doubles as him recognizing his own past crimes and mistakes.
• The Man in the High Castle: This trope is in full effect here.
  • Several characters of the Greater Nazi Reich sometimes mention the "American genocide", referring to the mass murder of the Indians in their history. By accentuating these negative events, the victors portray the Americans they conquered as a savage people with a tendency to brutally kill off whoever gets in their way, making the victors look more sympathetic (or, alternatively, as proof that the Americans already had Nazi-like tendencies before the Axis invaded).
  • The Nazis also refer to their genocide against the Jews as their war against Semite terrorists. This chillingly shows that the winners of a war can portray the losers as terrible as they want them to be, distracting the people from their own wrongdoings.
  • The opening of Season 2 shows some Nazi students praising the fact that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned 600 and 300 slaves, respectively. It is fitting since in our timeline, these facts are glossed over or underappreciated.
• Crops up in the Once Upon a Time episode "Tallahassee". Captain Hook tells the Human-Giant wars as a war against brutal giants who came down to pillage the land and kill humans. Humans drove them back up the beanstalk, and killed all but one, the most vicious of them all. The last surviving giant claims humans started the war and slaughtered giants for no real reason, but since they won got to paint history how they wanted.The giant was telling the truth. Humans started the war for the giant's gold and magic beans, and gleefully slaughtered them.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • In "Promised Land", the Tsal-Khan rewrote the history of their conquest of Earth so that their descendants would view it in a more favorable light, claiming they first came in peace but humanity attacked without provocation. In reality, it was an unprovoked attack and enslaving humanity was always their intention. The Tsal-Khan poisoned all of the plants on Earth; eating the fruit and vegetables that grow naturally is typically fatal even twelve human generations later. According to the revised version, they came in peace and freely offered the advantages of their more advanced technology. However, the humans resisted and the Tsal-Khan won the long and bitter war that followed, which resulted in the plants being poisoned. The true history was passed down to Dlavan through his great-grandparents, who were among the original Tsal-Khan settlers after Earth was conquered.
  • Played with in "Abaddon". Virgil Nygard claims that the North American Corporation vilified him by severely exaggerating the number of people that he killed. It is never made clear whether he is telling the truth.
• In one episode of Red Dwarf, Rimmer invokes this with regard to Robert Scott, pointing out that his diary is the only record of Laurence Oates' Heroic Sacrifice, and that if Rimmer had been Scott he'd have bludgeoned Oates to death with a frozen husky and eaten him, telling everyone that he had sacrificed himself. As is immediately pointed out by Lister, however, Rimmer is an exceptionally self-centred and ignoble person.
• Julius Caesar in Rome is a walking, talking example of this.
  Caesar: It's only hubris if I fail.
• Spartacus: War of the Damned:
  • Invoked. Crassus muses that both he and Spartacus see themselves as the hero of the tale, and their opponent as the villain. Crassus then states that only history will judge who the hero was; he, of course, wins.
  • Defied, however, by Agron, who swears that it is ultimately Spartacus who history will see as the hero.
    Agron: One day, Rome will crumble and fall. But your name will be remembered forever.
• Referenced in Stargate SG-1. Woolsey initially helps Kinsey in trying to shut down the SGC. He eventually realizes what kind of person Kinsey is, and then gives the President evidence of Kinsey's crimes. The following conversation then takes place:
  Woolsey: I also hope that one day history recognizes that I tried to do the right thing.
  President Hayes: Whose version of history, Mr. Woolsey?
• Star Trek: Voyager: In an inversion, in the episode "Living Witness", the history was written from the perspective of the losers who were relegated to second class citizenry, and the winning faction was very annoyed at being portrayed as vicious, bloodthirsty tyrants who slaughtered innocents and made martyrs out of people that turned out to be pirates and raiders. As it turns out, both sides weren't exactly saints to begin with. Ultimately subverted at the end of the episode when we flash forward to the future to see that both sides have reconciled their differences (thanks in large part to the Doctor). The old anti-Voyager propaganda simulations are still on display, but only as an example of how past prejudices once pushed them apart.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • "Contagion": Picard says this in reference to the Iconians.
  • "Unification, Part 1" has Picard asking for some help from his good buddy Gowron. Gowron himself was letting the press know that he did not have as much help from Picard as there really was; this trope's name is given word for word.
  • "The High Ground" has Kyril Finn point out to a captive Dr. Crusher that if George Washington had lost his war, he'd be remembered as a terrorist, and not a revolutionary.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In the two-parter "The Way of the Warrior", Gowron quotes it again just before the Klingon fleet and Deep Space Nine engage in battle.
• Star Trek: Enterprise: The Mirror Universe episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" opens with the conclusion of Star Trek: First Contact, but instead of returning the Vulcan's Strange Salute, Mirror Zephram Cochrane pulls out a shotgun and murders him, whereupon the humans storm the spaceship brandishing firearms. Mirror Archer is later shown proudly showing off this shotgun from his antique Wall of Weapons.
  Archer: I wonder how history would have played out if Cochrane hadn't turned the tables on your invasion force.
• In an episode of Timeless, the team travels back to the time of the Lincoln assassination and Rufus ends up saving the life of Andrew Jackson. However, since Rufus is a black man and it was an incredibly racist time, when Rufus returns to the present he is saddened but unsurprised to find that the historical record credits his actions to a white soldier instead.

Manhua

• Ravages of Time so literally runs on this trope that in Chapter 209, a historian employed by Prime Minister Cao Cao discusses with an old friend named Chen Gong how the historian is going to demonize the prior Prime Minister to make the current one look better.
  Chen Gong: That's what happens after a dynasty change. In order to justify the rule, the enemy would have to take all the blame. Historians are but tools for propaganda.

Music

• This trope is a recurring theme in the music of Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance. It's presented most directly in "Song of the Dispossessed" and "Amnesia" but also more subtly in some other pieces.
• Silvina Garré's "Quien quiera oir que oiga": si la historia la escriben los que ganan, eso quiere decir que hay otra historia, la verdadera historia, quien quiera oir que oiga^note "if history is written by the winners, then that means that there is another history, the true history, whoever wants to hear then hear".
• New Model Army: "Drag It Down" talks about modern society tearing down statues, abandoning faith, and destroying its tales of heroes and magic. The song takes the view that "Mammon is a jealous master" who's now triumphed, discrediting and destroying the past.

Professional Wrestling

• Since WCW was bought out, WWE mostly only provides its own account of the Monday Night Wars, and spends a lot of time mocking WCW for its silly gimmicks (while the WWF had plenty of its own), its reliance on established stars at the expense of newcomers (while ignoring the fact that most of the talent acquired by WWF during their first boom period in the 1980s were already established stars from the territories. Even looking at WWE in the 2020s, the company's main event roster is largely the same as it was ten years ago.) and the mismanagement that led to its downfall (some of which WWE is also guilty of, such as expanding RAW to three hours like WCW did with Nitro. Not to mention that, while the crappy booking and incompetent management didn't help their case, the main reason why WCW fell was because of Turner Broadcasting's mergers with TimeWarner and later AOL, which resulted in Ted Turner — who was more or less the only person in the company in favor of keeping WCW in business at all — losing most of his power, leading the new executives to put it up for sale. Eric Bischoff was actually in the process of buying WCW himself, but Vince McMahon bought it before he could). You'll seldom hear much about why Nitro beat Raw in their ratings war for so long, just that it happened. ECW, on the other hand, gets treated like a Worthy Opponent and gets much more respect (perhaps because it's more marketable, perhaps because they were writing checks to ECW during its run). WWE will seldom admit to getting most of their ideas from ECW during their so called "attitude era" all the same.
  • In the past decade it seems as if this trend has slowly been changing. Eric Bischoff wrote his pro-WCW, anti-WWE expose book Controversy Creates Cash while still working for WWE. And with Sting's long-awaited arrival in WWE in 2014, the WCW legacy has been getting a lot more respect from its vanquisher, with Triple H depicted as a heel for wanting to expunge Sting's existence from the wrestling archives. Heck, at the WrestleMania match between these two, D-Generation X were the heels and the New World Order (one of the most notorious heel stables of all time) were the faces!

Religion

• Virtually every religious text will describe the founder of their religion as an impossibly perfect and good human being. They're all basically hagiographies (in fact many of them are hagiographies in a literal sense) in which you're never able to check how much of it is true or how much less heroic stuff has been left out. This goes so far that some theologians in fact apply a "rule of embarrassment" to find out which things are likely to have happened. A tale of Jesus being wrong would have no place in a hagiography and hence some theologians argue that it only found its way into a story written by a Christian because it actually happened. Example: the time he got mad and cursed a fig tree for not having fruit, only for his followers to point out it wasn't in season.
• Some Satan Is Good beliefs held this about The Bible, which would make some sense if only because the modern idea of Satan and the role of the Devil is more or less medieval traditions, fused with leftover paganism, and is not really part of classical Judaism.
• Hijacked by Jesus is this trope for some scholars who note that a lot of pagan myths and beliefs, especially Norse Mythology, were written down after most of its original practitioners and faithful were converted and unlike Greek, Roman, and Hindu myths we don't have works written by the people who believed in it.
• Averted in Classical Mythology, where it is established that Chronos ruled over a Golden Age, so the Olympians didn't bother to hide that.
• Books of Kings:
  • A theory is that this is why Jezebel and her family got such a negative portrayal. All of them were killed off, so nobody was around to tell their side of the story. Their opponents (who had won in the battle of faiths) were thus able to slander them as much as they wanted to.
  • And as for their kingdom in general: around 720 BC, Israel was overrun by the Assyrians, while Judah was saved by a timely civil war that shortly thereafter broke out in the Assyrian Empire and continued to exist for a good 200 additional years. So all somewhat contemporary surviving records of that time come from the priesthood in Jerusalem, which explains why the inhabitants and kings especially of the northern kingdom are described in such a negative light.

Tabletop Games

• A feature of the BattleTech universe:
  • The Star League is viewed almost universally as the golden age of humanity... except within the Periphery States, whose absorption into the League came at 'Mech-scale gunpoint.
  • A staple of Clan society. Most notably, in the aftermath of the Trial of Annihilation against Clan Wolverine, Nicholas Kerensky ordered official Clan history altered. The result was the recasting of the Wolverines from a Clan on the rise who'd made one too many enemies into bogeymen whose radical ideas would have ripped Clan society apart. The ilKhan even personally destroyed the sole surviving copy of the Wolverine Remembrance.
• In Eberron, there was the War of the Mark, the first half of which was basically genocide preformed by the dragon mark houses against those with aberrant dragon marks, and the second half was a war because the victimized party got organized and put up a valiant effort; anyways, it didn't end well. Most people don't like and fear aberrant dragon mark wielders, although the extent of the prejudice is up to the DM. The dragon marked houses, however, are quite accepted, and while many people know of the War of the Mark (despite it happening almost 2,500 years ago), almost none know what actually happened.
• The history of the Realm in Exalted proclaims there was a time when the world was ruled over by demonic "Anathema" who harrowed and tormented mankind, and it was only through the overwhelming force of the Dragon-Blooded that they were driven back into the shadows. While this isn't entirely inaccurate from what sometimes happened under the rule of the Solars, it sure does obscure a lot of the nuances.
  • Some of it is flat out wrong — namely, they say that the Anathema are humans possessed by demons (or demons in human form) rather than humans given power by gods that steadily drives them mad.
• Paranoia: It's the year 214. It's always the year 214. We are at war with the Communists, always were, and always will be. The Computer Is Your Friend, and this is the history the Computer tells you. Questioning the Computer's history of the world is treason. Treason is punishable by death.
• This helps explain the untidiness affecting a lot of Warhammer 40,000's backstory. The various factions, and the Imperium of Man especially, will often rewrite historical records to reflect their side better. In reality, most of the setting veres between Black-and-Grey Morality and straight Evil Versus Evil; everyone views themselves as the heroes, and writes their histories accordingly.

Theatre

• Invoked mockingly in The Complete History Of America Abridged:
  "I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said, 'History is written by the winners.' Well, tonight it's our turn."
• The Count of Monte Cristo, the musical, has the Villain Song called "A Story Told", referring to how "history is a story told by the men who make the laws". The three conspirators convene and choose to frame Edmond Dantés for crimes to further their own cause with the understanding that because he can't disprove the accusation, he will be remembered as guilty by everyone, and that's more real to the rest of the world than what actually happened.
• The majority of William Shakespeare's Histories (That is: King John, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VIII) feature this to a greater or lesser degree, seeing as how Shakespeare wrote histories for the winners, his 'sponsors' The House of Tudor and since he, without any inkling, became the most important and influential writer in the centuries that followed, the Tudor-Shakespeare propaganda is and remains Pop-Cultural Osmosis. The other wiki's article is a brief introduction to this.
  • The same applies to Macbeth, which was written to please King James I, a direct descendant of Duncan, Malcolm, and possibly Banquo. The real historical Macbeth slew the 39-year-old Duncan fairly in battle when the latter invaded his lands, and proceeded to rule for 17 years, earning a reputation of having been a good and generous king.
• The Wizard's song "Wonderful" in Wicked is all about this. ("A man's called a traitor — or a liberator. A rich man's a thief — or philanthropist. Is one a crusader, or ruthless invader? It's all in which label is able to persist.") Of course, he's used this to his advantage by wielding the Propaganda Machine against his political opponents.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed posits that all of history is deliberately distorted by The Knights Templar to strengthen their position, cover up their existence, and vilify the Assassins. This Hand Wave permits the dev team to stuff the series with exquisite research while still taking creative license with history when necessary for the sake of the story.
• Baten Kaitos is centered around the aftereffects of an ancient mythical battle between the god of evil and the gods of good. The prequel reveals that this essentially has the morality of the parties backwards — it's just that the good guys (who were a group, not an individual as history recorded) had made a Deal with the Devil with an unrelated and forgotten third party.
• BattleTech (2018): Referenced. Kamea waxes poetical about how history will describe the Aurigan Civil War as her reclaiming her rightful throne from her Evil Uncle with the aid of a noble team of loyal guns for hire. However, she is well aware that she won the throne because she was a better and more ruthless strategist, politician and spin doctor than her uncle, and that she never found out if you believed in her cause or just her ability to fend off loan sharks.
• Birth of the Federation: When you choose to play the Cardassians, their opening claims this as one of their motivating principles.
• The aptly named Borderlands 2 mini-mission "Written by the Victors" has you take a quick tour of the history of Hyperion and Handsome Jack. Naturally, every word of it is utter bull. Hyperion hasn't "won" anything yet, but they're winning, and they own the news media on Pandora. Hyperion spreads its version of events through Hyperion Truth Broadcasting, where DJ Hunter Hellquist is always spinning reality to make Handsome Jack look like the hero and the Crimson Raiders look like the vilest villains imaginable. Luckily, you get to shoot him in the face.
• In Breath of Fire III, after the Brood War that almost made the Brood (a race of dragons) extinct, the goddess Myria rewrote history so as to favor herself, as part of her grand plan to ensure she was the one and only deity watching over the world. The Brood were portrayed as bloodthirsty monsters due to their powers that could spell doom for the entire world if they were left unchecked, and her sister Deis was also portrayed in a negative light due to supporting such race. She also scattered the Yggdrasil trees to try to bury their collective knowledge and wisdom forever. Unfortunately, that plan didn't work out for Myria, as Ryu, the last of the Brood, sees through her lies.
• This point is made by Captain Price and General Shepherd in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. One of them is very much counting on it.
  "History is written by the victor. History is filled with liars."
• Crimson Echoes: Marle was not happy to find out her ancestor Cedric Guardia, aka King Guardia I, was quite the bloodthirsty asshole and not the hero the history books claimed, or that his feud with Antaeus Porre was because the latter thought he was taking things too far, or that this is all because the Frozen Flame messed with Cedric's head, which is cemented when Antaeus was corrupted by the Flame after stealing it from Cedric.
• Dragon Age:
  • Discussed in Dragon Age: Origins: At the Dalish Camp, the Warden can walk in on a Dalish storyteller recounting the history of his people, and how they were conquered and basically enslaved by Andrastian humans for refusing to convert to the worship of the human Maker. If a non-Dalish Warden points out that the Chantry says that the elves weren't so innocent either (kidnapped human children for human sacrifice blood magic rituals, attacked the helpless human village of Red Crossing, etc), he'll counter that history is written by the winners, and since humans won that war of course they'll demonize the elves to justify what they did to them afterwards (invaded, conquered, and stole their homeland; forced their people to convert or hide out in the woods; kept those who did convert as second-class citizens, etc).
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition:
    • A sidequest reveals the true history of what happened at Red Crossing. It's a lot more complicated, but basically a misunderstanding and a tragic romance became a mutual Pretext for War while all the reasonable leaders from both sides (both of which were later substantially misrepresented in history) were busy getting killed stopping completely unrelated disasters.
    • Inquisition gets even deeper into this with the history of the Ancient Elves, a.k.a. Elvhen. Both the present-day Elves and the Tevinter Imperium would have you believe that the Elvhen empire of Arlathan was destroyed by the Imperium and its survivors enslaved; the actual story is that the Elvhen were not destroyed by invasion, but by internal strife and being separated from the source of their magical powers, causing Arlathan to both literally and metaphorically crumble under its own weight, and the Tevinters just happened to be in the neighborhood to pick through the rubble left behind. So really, history wasn't written by the victors in this case, but by the opportunists who happened upon what was left and claimed it for themselves.
    • The Jaws of Hakkon DLC reveals Ameridan, the first Inquisitor, to be a victim of this: Ameridan was an elf mage of combined Andrastean/Dalish faith, who was sent to slay a possessed dragon that threatened Orlais and who ended up disappearing — along with the dragon. Without his stabilizing presence, he was unable to mediate developing tensions between the Orlesian and Dalish nations, which culminated with the above-mentioned Red Crossing incident and subsequent defeat of the Dalish Elves; in the aftermath, the Chantry covered up any and all mentions of Ameridan being an elf or a mage.
• In Dragon Ball Online, it is revealed in the guide Dragon Ball Online Chronicles that the majority of humans in the future have forgotten the protagonists' existence in favor of Mr. Satan.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • Inverted with the conflict between humans and demons. Although the humans lost, Zazz is still in charge of the civilized world and claims the demons wiped out all humans except for him. However, his hidden logs and Asterisk's own words imply that most humans were going to die from climate change anyways, and most of the survivors of the demon attack didn't survive the extreme heat wave, including the ones that were in cryosleep. The reason Zazz needs the archdemons in the first place is because the sleeping humans melted, and he can't revive them without the demons' help.
  • Zetacorp has a computer with information about each major humanoid species, but there's no entry on the Kolfos, who seem to be native to Vulcanite, which implies a species-wide Un-person.
  • President Zazz states that insurrectionists like Akira will be written out of history, and his words imply that he inflicted Un-person to other rebels in the past. In the ending, Akira and their allies take over both Zeta and Vulcanite, meaning they're the ones who get to write history and expose Zazz's crimes.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • In the backstory, as shown most prominently in Morrowind: Because of Nerevar's death, the disappearance of the Dwemer, Dagoth Ur's presumed death, and the fact that Azura is a Daedric Prince who doesn't often openly communicate with mortals, the Tribunal were the only ones present for the events following the Battle of Red Mountain left in a position to declare how the events there took place. As such, the Tribunal Temple's official story about what happened is the most widely accepted version, even though it is clearly the version most full of Blatant Lies and Metaphorical Truths out of those that comprise The Rashomon once you've done a little research. All stories to the contrary are considered heresy, kept alive only by the actions of the Ashlander Nerevarine Cult and the Dissident Priests.
  • Following the Dwemer's disappearance, the only groups in positions to know much about the Dwemer were the Dunmer (having been turned from the Chimer) and the Nords, both of whom warred with the Dwemer and wouldn't have had any reason to say anything good about them. In the years that followed, the Dwemer would be demonized by the Dunmer and popularized by ahistorical tales like Marobar Sul's Ancient Tales of the Dwemer series. Not helping matters is that their language was quickly lost after their disappearance, making it impossible for anyone to read the Dwemer's own records. (A means of translation was discovered around the time of Morrowind, but was apparently lost again by the time of Skyrim 200 years later.)
  • Also from the backstory, the Ayleids (Wild Elves) are the "losers" to the Alessian Empire "winners". While there is plenty of evidence that the Ayleids committed atrocities against their human slaves, there has almost certainly been some exaggeration of the centuries since. Even though several rebel Ayleid lords supported Alessia during the revolt and were permitted to keep their lands and culture after the war, even they would be demonized once the monkey prophet Marukh came to power and founded the Alessian Order. In addition to the persecution of any elves within the empire, the Order also destroyed any records and cultural artifacts of the Ayleids that could be found. Eventually, only the (almost certainly heavily biased) Imperial records of the Alessian Revolt remained.
  • In another backstory example, The ancient Falmer (Snow Elves) were nearly exterminated in a war with Ysgramor and his 500 Companions from Atmora. As part of destroying all traces of the Falmer culture in Skyrim that he could find, Ysgramor also destroyed any evidence of anything that happened other than what his official histories record. For instance, he claims that the Falmer attack on Saarthal was "unprovoked". However, surviving records of the Elves claim that the attack was in response to repeated "provocations and blasphemies" committed by the early Nords.
  • Additionally, the Septim Empire would later play up the relationship between Alessia's Nedic people (ancestors of most of the modern races of Men) and the Nords, whose support Tiber Septim badly needed to forge his empire. The Nedes were extinct as a unique race centuries before Septim's rise to power.
  • The Imperial orthodox history of Tiber Septim's life covers up, denies, or suppresses any other stories of Septim as "heretical". Given that there is plenty of evidence that Septim's life was not the truly noble, humble, and heroic version detailed by the official histories, there is plenty to cover up.
  • Between Oblivion and Skyrim, the Thalmor took credit for ending the Oblivion Crisis which brought them great support in their homeland. They assassinated Potentate Ocato 10 years later, irreparably destabilizing the Third Cyrodiilic Empire. Under their leadership, the Altmer quickly seceded and annexed Valenwood in order to reform the Aldmeri Dominion of old (and to give them a buffer state between their homeland and Cyrodiil). They then took credit for resolving a crisis with the moons that brought them Elsweyr, homeland of the Khajiit, as a client state.
• Mentioned in the Russian campaign of Empire Earth.
• Fallout:
  • The Fallout 3 expansion Operation: Anchorage has this as part of its backstory — a General Chase commissioned an elaborate virtual reality simulation of the Alaska campaign of the Sino-American War, in which he played a key role. But instead of serving as an adviser, he kept tweaking and changing the script, even as the world shuddered towards nuclear war, until the events depicted in the simulation bore little resemblance to what actually happened (including entirely fictional Chinese secret weapons). The technicians developing the program privately worried that the man had gone insane. Then they all died in a nuclear apocalypse.
  • Fallout 4 has the Brotherhood of Steel do this to the events of the previous games. The Lone Wander is never mentioned in their accounts of Fallout 3's events, and they insist that the Enclave was formed entirely postwar and their claims of being the United States government are fabricated.
• Final Fantasy Tactics is full of this trope. Saint Ajora, the leading messiah of the Church, was not a saint, but in fact a human possessed by a demon at best, and a actual demon at worst. The official history of Ramza has him as a heretic and usurper, while the truth is that he was just as influential, if not more so, in the kingdom's history than the eventual peasant king Delita. The Church, however, refused to acknowledge his role as his actions would have exposed massive corruption and generally unethical behavior, and suppressed everything that tried to tell the truth, including burning the author of the Durai Reports at the stake as a heretic. Possibly subverted by the Durai Reports though, causing Ramza to be Vindicated by History.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • In the first Hildibrand Adventures, official Ul'dahn records state that during the war between Ul'dah and Sil'dih, Sil'dih unleashed a terrifying alchemical weapon known as "Trader's Spurn", a powder that turned any who breathed it in into shambling undead thralls. But Sil'dih mishandled this weapon and was ultimately destroyed by it when its own populace was turned. As revealed by Ellie, one of the last surviving descendants of the people of Sil'dih and one of the two people behind the string of Phantom Thief robberies, Ul'dah was the one who created Trader's Spurn and used it against Sil'dih, going so far as to develop a secret Propaganda Machine unknown to even the sultana to keep this truth under wraps. By the end of the questline, Ellie is taken to prison for her attempts to use Trader's Spurn against Ul'dah, but Hildibrand, Godbert, and Briarden vow to bring the truth to light and ensure that proper history is recorded.
  • In Heavensward, the official church record of Ishgard states that King Thordan I and his knights bravely faced the great wyrm Nidhogg while following a vision from Halone to create a new nation devoted to her. The king and much of his Knight's Twelve perished in the battle, but not before plucking out one of Nidhogg's eyes and chasing him off. The survivors going on to found the four High Houses of Ishgard. While history frames them as the heroes, Thordan I and his knights were responsible for starting the Dragonsong War by exploiting Ratatoskr's affection for humanity to murder her and consume her eyes for power. Nidhogg's attack was an act of vengeance for his fallen sister, and he lost both eyes in the battle, requiring Hraesvelgr to loan an eye to him so he may begin a Forever War with Ishgard to make it suffer for the actions of the Knights Twelve.
  • In Shadowbringers, the dwarves of Tomra once suffered from a plague known as "stoneblight" that was inevitably fatal and had no cure, forcing the village elders to isolate the afflicted deep in the mines to avoid infecting the rest of the village. This swift and decisive action is said to have saved the Tomran dwarves, who revere the elders' actions as Necessarily Evil a century later. In truth, Lamitt, one of the Warriors of Light from before the flood, was able to venture deep into the ruins of Ronka to devise a cure from the ancient magics there. The formerly stoneblighted dwarves were none too happy about being left for dead and decided to remove their helmets and leave Tomra in protest. To maintain order and their own political standing, the elders exiled Lamitt along with the stoneblighted dwarves, who all perished in the Flood, allowing the elders to perpetuate their own self-serving narrative. Giott is disgusted to learn that one of these elders was her own great-grandfather.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade has a rather half-hearted version of this. The prologue states that the Scouring, a brutal war between dragons and humans, began when humans broke the peace for no explained reason. Yet it doesn't go on to question the fact that the human "heroes" of that war are held in religious reverence and the one who joins your party is something of the mentor.
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones has a variant of this. The common myth is that the Demon King was defeated by the "Five Heroes" led by Grado. It turns out that the "Five Heroes" were led by Morva, the leader of the dragonkin. Together, they defeated the Demon King; Morva was even the one to land the killing blow. However, as centuries passed, the human nations which the heroes founded eventually forgot about Morva. The people of Caer Pelyn are rather unhappy about this, believing the other nations are being ungrateful to the Great Dragon who saved mankind, but Morva himself doesn't really mind.
  • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance tells us that Yune is an evil destroyer god who will wipe out humanity if she is ever unsealed. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn reveals she is actually one of the Pieces of God who suffered a bit of Power Incontinence after a major war and is not actually evil; in fact, she sides with humans against Ashera, who decides that Humans Are Bastards and must be eradicated.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: The Verdant Wind route in particular reveals that much of the official history of Fódlan has been fabricated by The Church of Seiros — though parts of real history had to be integrated into the fiction for the sake of verisimilitude. Specifically, the Goddess Sothis is not a transcendent deity but an ancient dragon who uplifted humanity millennia ago, then slaughtered and forced them underground when they turned against her, falling into a deep slumber aftewards. The Remnant of this destroyed civilization, Agartha, has been erased from history by the Children of the Goddess, but continued to plot their revenge from Beneath the Earth. Nemesis was not an ancient king but a human bandit who, guided by the Agarthans, found and killed the slumbering Sothis, then drank her blood to acquire her Crest of Flames and had the Agarthans forge her bones into the Sword of the Creator. With it, he was strong enough to invade the Children of the Goddess' city-state in Zanado and to slaughter every Child of the Goddess he found, using their blood and bones to grant members of his gang superpowers and magical weapons, respectively. The five "Saints" of the Church weren't humans granted a divine revelation, but Children of the Goddess who survived the Zanado massacre, assumed human guise, raised an army, and waged war against Nemesis. After Saint Seiros killed Nemesis, his surviving goons have been re-branded as the "Ten Elites" — fictive generals of Seiros' own army — and made nobles under the emergent Adrestian Empire, while their dragon-infused bloodlines ("Crests") and dragonbone weapons ("Relics") were presented to the people as divine boons for the righteous. Seiros buried the remains of Sothis (the Sword and her petrified heart) and erected the headquarters of her new Church over her tomb. She then spent the next thousand years posing as the successive "human" Archbishops of the Church (with "Rhea" being her most recent guise^note while her true draconic form, the "Immaculate One", has been disassociated from her and explained away as another boon sent by the Goddess in the time of need), isolating Fódlan from the rest of the world, maintaining a Fantastic Caste System based on Crests, and effectively locking the subcontinent into Medieval Stasis to prevent another human uprising, while simultaneously searching for a way to reincarnate Sothis. The other four Saints either assumed their true forms and retreated into solitude (Indech the Immovable, Macuil the Wind Caller), or fell into a slumber (Cichol, Cethlean) and only reawakened in modern times (as Seteth and Flayn, respectively). Finally, the Agarthans continued to scheme against Sothis' children even after Nemesis' defeat, but their subsequent plots (including Loog's rebellion, The Plague of 1165, and the Tragedy of Duscur) have been covered up by the Church and/or by the Empire. In the second half, Sylvain even lampshades that whoever wins the newest Fodlan-spanning war will be portrayed as the righteous side in the history books — despite the fact that none of them truly is.
• In Freedom Planet 2, it is revealed that the earth dragons wrote themselves as an innocent party in a war against the water dragons, but the truth is that the destruction of the latter was a genocidal act by the former against a Slave Race uprising. The only reason the Magister never spoke the truth was because he was too young to know the full details, despite being the only earth dragon old enough to have seen that debacle; the truth comes out when Merga is released from stasis and makes her declaration to him and his entire army. While the Magister, his forces in Shang Tu, and the heroes all take umbrage with Merga based on what they know, as more of the truth comes out they become less offended by her motives in comparison to her methods; even the Magister proposes that he will tell the unabridged truth to the people of Avalice as an attempt to make amends and end her campaign of revenge without further bloodshed.
• God of War (PS4): It’s heavily implied that this is going on in both sides of the conflict between the Aesir and Jötnar. On one hand, the Norse gods portray the Jötnar as the evil monsters that their native mythology uses them as. The Jötnar, meanwhile, make themselves out to be poor innocent woobies that were unfairly persecuted by the Aesir. Both sides come off as if they’re demonizing the other side to justify their warring. Further, the ending heavily implies that Kratos and Atreus/Loki will be presented in propaganda as monstrous villains by Asgard in retaliation for them killing Baldur.
• In Guild Wars, White Mantle history records Saul D'Alessio's final battle against the Charr as a defeat. In fact, D'Alessio won the battle, but his gods murdered most of his followers and abducted him, never to be seen again. Ironically, this would lead to D'Alessio being villified by the people who overthrew the White Mantle when he would have likely sympathized with their cause.
• Guild Wars 2 takes place several centuries after the first game and players can see how history has been distorted.
  • Charr history of the Searing and the following war against Adelbern has been written largely to reflect the glory of their victories, excising all mention of how it was Shamans who gave them their greatest victories and the important role of the Ebon Vanguard in killing their "gods".
  • Likewise, Ascalonian history tends to focus on the Charr attempting to invade from the north many times before the Searing while conveniently glossing over the fact that Ascalon used to be Charr territory before the humans invaded, drove them north, and built a wall to keep them out.
  • After conquering Elona, Palawa Joko rewrote history to depict himself as a savior figure and took credit for great achievements of others, such as killing Abaddon and Zhaitan. This is just part of the brainwashing he enacted to keep his human subjects docile.
• Hero King Quest: Peacemaker Prologue: The Cerulean King states that history will judge Spiderweb as a villain, but she points out that if the Dark Realm wins the war against the other countries, the Dark Ones will write history in their favor.
• King of the Castle:
  • The Ragnarok scheme involves the Chiefs of the North forging an alliance with the neighbouring ice giants to attack the capital. If the scheme reaches its final stage, they can vote to march with the ice giants or send them to attack alone and then show up to "save" the Kingdom while murdering the King in the chaos. If they choose the latter and succeed, the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue observes that the history books claim the King was killed by the ice giants, not the traitorous Chiefs.
  • If the Patricians of the Coast reach the final stage of the Corruption scheme, in which they bribe the Royal court silly, they can choose to publicly accuse the King of being the corrupt one and position themselves as the saviours of the Kingdom. If they succeed, the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue notes that this perspective is reflected in the history books, referencing this trope by name.
• In Last Scenario, pretty much all of the standard history is a load of crap. This is used as part of the game's subversion of Video Game Tropes of all kinds, as it means the opening Info Dump lies to you.
• League of Legends:
  • This is mentioned by the developers as the reason why Demacia is perceived as "good", while Noxus is "evil".
  • The Journal of Justice is written by the League (neutral organization) and averts this trope (see also Morgana vs Kayle).
• Legacy of Kain:
  • In Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain, Kain combines this with In Their Own Image:
    Kain: Oh, Sebastian. Our destiny could have been glorious. The land was ours for the taking. History would have been rewritten in our image.
  • In Legacy of Kain: Defiance, this is what Raziel says upon finding out what the Hylden have to say about their war with the Ancients.
• In Mass Effect 3, it's revealed that the origins of the conflict between the Quarians and the Geth was an example of this. The winners in this case were the Quarians who killed off Quarians who fought to protect the Geth from being destroyed when they showed signs of sentience. The Geth originally didn't want to fight Quarians even as they were being destroyed — they only started taking up arms in an attempt to protect their friends.
• In Captain Qwark's log in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, he claims to have defeated the previous game's final boss, which ate him before Ratchet defeated it.
• In Red Dead Redemption, after the final mission, no matter how high or low you go on the Karma Meter, Edgar Ross sees to it that John Marston is remembered by most as a vile monster.
• In Robopon, Dr. Zero calls out Prince Tail for this; the King was defeated by Zero and only 'won' due to nearly killing him, but told everyone that he defeated Zero to begin with.
• Singularity has a variation:
  Demichev: History is rewritten by the victors. YOU LOST—
  [Renko shoots the pistol out of Demichev's hand]
• Tales Series:
  • In Tales of Symphonia, quite a bit of the legend of Mithos the Hero is falsified, written by Mithos himself.
  • Tales of Berseria ends this way, given that it's a distant prequel to Zestiria. History gets written by the remains of the Abbey, and while Velvet ultimately saved the world, she gets remembered as a monster and goes down in history as the first Lord of Calamity, and Artorius remains a glorious hero. It's helped along by the fact that Velvet did cause a lot of trouble and committed vile acts on her quest to bring down Artorius, including destroying an entire town's livelihood and having caused the deaths of many innocent people.
• Invoked in the Thief series, as the Keepers' motto is "Propaganda is written by the winners. History is written by the observer."
• Valkyria Chronicles: The known history has The Valkyria as demigods who arrived from the north and saved the land from the Darcsen race, who were fighting devastating wars with Ragnite weapons. The Valkyria are still worshiped as gods and saviors, and the Darcsen are prosecuted and marginalized. In truth, the Darcsen were peaceful, and the Valkyria were invaders who enslaved them — as well as causing enormous destruction with their ragnite weapons. They rewrote history to suit themselves, and hid the truth from all but their own descendants.
• In World of Warcraft lore, the Gurubashi War occurred when settlers from Stormwind increasingly encroached on the ancestral lands of the jungle trolls resulting in a series of escalating retaliatory raids. Prince Llane and his friends assassinated the Gurubashi leader in an attempt to stop the raids only for the enraged trolls to send a massive retaliatory army. After the trolls were defeated, at great cost, Llane became king and hid knowledge of the assassination, instead letting the people believe this was a war of one-sided aggression.

Web Animation

• RWBY: The Girl Who Fell Through The World is Remnant's version of Alice in Wonderland, with the heroine Alyx written as a heroic girl who helps the people she meets. When the cast fall into the Ever After, they learn the real Alyx was a much more selfish, manipulative person, implying she wrote herself as a hero after returning to Remnant. Subverted when it turns out Alyx never returned to Remnant; she died in the Ever After after resolving to become The Atoner, and her brother Lewis was the one who wrote the book, trying to portray his sister in a better light.

Webcomics

• Blindsprings’ winners are the Academists and the losers are Orphics. Cue 300 years of Fantastic Racism, Unequal Rites style.
• In El Goonish Shive, when Ashley thinks of history as an educational subject she imagines this trope being taught.
• Played realistically in Noblesse; the Union got their collective asses kicked by Frankenstein, but because they're an enormous organization and he's one guy, the only records in existence paint him as a traitor to humanity that stole their research, when the opposite is far closer to the truth.
• Discussed by the messenger of the Conclave in Roommates, when he declared the winner of the Kings War arc and said winner protested the late intervention:
  Ariel: History is written by the winners, not in the middle.
  • And as the spin-off Girls Next Door parodied it, when the Sarah (the winner) got confronted with the distorted account of her adventure:
  Jareth: History is written by he who rules despotically over the goblin scribes.
• Sarilho: Steffano briefly discusses how odd it is that an empire who sports itself as the recoverer of the lost glory of mankind spends such an inordinate amount of time destroying the remains of the cultures it assimilates.

Web Original

• In C0DA, part of Jubal's "Talking the Monster to Death" speech to Numidium, essentially explaining that Numidium was used by a succession of "winners" to get what they want:
  "...fuck it, we won, we do what we want.”
  "...fuck it, they won, they get to do what they want.”
• Referenced in The Nostalgia Critic's review of The Magic Voyage, a story of how Christopher Columbus came to America. The film has the Native Americans thanking Columbus for his role in taking down an evil overlord and the film ends on a happy note. The film, written by and featuring white people, doesn't even mention what a bad turn the future is about to take for the Natives, instead acting like because Columbus "discovered" the continent, it would turn into a great and prosperous civilisation. Nostalgia Critic parodies it with a joke teaser for a sequel, saying that it would feature "lots and lots of slaughtering! Don't look for a G rating on the next one — it's gonna be a bloodbath!" while showing historical images of Europeans slaughtering Native Americans.
• One of the SCP Foundation's more bizarre entries is Bigfoot. According to the general clearance section, just seeing it causes you to have a percentile chance of instantly dying that increases the longer you spend looking at it. Except that's complete bull. The truth is that Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti were a nocturnal sentient race far more advanced than humans, being masters of Organic Technology, while humans were basically their own wild men of the forest. Man went from hunted to hunter, destroying 70% of their population in a single day and using their newly-acquired technology to rewrite the Sasquatch and their own memories to what we know today. They can communicate, and this is what they have to say:
  we forgive you;
  given choice for now, not forever;
  let us back in
• Spoofed on Twitter by the popular comedy account The Tweet Of God:
  People say history is written by the winners, but actually history is written by historians, and most of them are losers.
• Directly discussed and inverted in SMPEarth when Techno and Tommy are making a treaty to end the Wednesday War, and Techno spots Tommy (who had lost) editing the treaty.
  Techno: Y'know, they say history is written by the winners, but I can't help but notice him [Tommy] over there writing.
• Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited: Asmodeus, one of the Betrayer Gods (a title he despises) claims this about the conflict between the Betrayers and the Prime Deities; in his story, he was a Well-Intentioned Extremist who genuinely loved mortals, and was unfairly punished by his tyrannical, self-aggrandizing siblings, who portrayed him and his siblings as purely evil monsters to advance their own agenda. Zerxus, who already hates and mistrusts the Prime Deities for his own reasons, sympathizes with him. Subverted when it's revealed that Asmodeus is every bit as evil as history claims, and only played the victim to manipulate Zerxus into helping him escape his confinement.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • An early episode inverted this trope, showing an instance where history was written by the losers. A town the Gaang visits was founded by followers of Chin the Conquerer (a warlord who successfully conquered much of the Earth Kingdom during a period of unrest), and claim that a previous incarnation of the Avatar, Kyoshi, murdered Chin. Kyoshi was in fact protecting her home from Chin's conquests and didn't even directly kill him, but Chin's followers bitterly held onto their grudge against Kyoshi, and between that and A Hero to His Hometown being in effect, Chin was celebrated in local history while Kyoshi was demonized.
  • This trope is one of the many realizations that results in Zuko's Character Development and eventually completing his Heel–Face Turn during the Day of Black Sun. His whole life, he always bought into the propaganda that the Fire Nation is the epitome of national pride, believing that restoring his honor among the nation by capturing Aang is the only thing meaningful in his life. As he learns during his travels, however, the other nations see things differently: thanks to its power-hungry nobility, the Fire Nation has become feared and loathed as a corrupt empire that has oppressed all else for over a century. One notable instance where he's confronted with this dissonance happens at the end of "Zuko Alone", wherein after he saves a boy he befriended and liberates his village, he proudly declares himself to be the Ozai's son and destined for the throne, only to be ostracized by that very village as a result, with the boy in particular furiously refusing a parting gift from Zuko and yelling that he hates him.
    Zuko: (while lambasting his father for his selfish cruelty) Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history, and somehow, the war was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation! They don't see our greatness. They hate us, and we deserve it!
  • In "The Headband", Aang (in disguise) attends a Fire Nation school for a day. During the class's history lesson, the teacher quizzes the students on how Fire Lord Sozin defeated the "Air Nation Army". Of course, Aang (and the viewers) knows full well that the Air Nomads were a mostly peaceful population of monks, who didn't even have an established government, much less an army, and that Sozin's attack against them wasn't so much a battle as it was outright genocide. When he tries to point this out, the teacher irritably responds that unless he was actually around 100 years ago, he shouldn't be questioning the Fire Nation's history books. (Again, this is the same propaganda Zuko grew up on.)
  • "The Ember Island Players" uses a variant of this in the episode's Show Within a Show, "The Boy in the Iceberg". As it happens, the playwright was a Fire Nation apologist, and on top of a lot of in-universe Adaptation Decay, he chose to portray the Gaang as incompetent bad guys, with the Fire Nation being shown as more sympathetic. Notably, because the events of the series finale haven't happened yet and the playwright didn't know how the war would end, he chose to portray a hypothetical outcome for the ending of the play where Zuko and Aang were killed and the Fire Nation won. Needless to say, the Gaang (even Toph, who was actually enjoying the botched portrayal of herself especially) are instantly turned off by what they see as a Cruel Twist Ending, and it's implied that this is a major factor towards the effects being decent being the only good thing any of them have to say about the show.
• Elena of Avalor: At the start of the Coronation Day special, Marlena sings Elena's story from the time she lost her parents up until the present, but the narrative treats Elena and her allies far more favorably; the account completely demonizes Esteban for helping Shuriki take over Avalor, and ignores the fact that Esteban helped take back the kingdom 41 years after his first betrayal (a fact that Francisco brings up later on). Additionally, the story completely ignores Victor's role in helping Shuriki (which Elena clearly saw in an earlier vision), along with him and Carla's other crimes, and portrays them as the victims. Of course, this was likely due to Elena's personal opinions and perception.
• In Gargoyles, Macbeth is shown to have been an honorable man and a good and wise king, while Duncan was cruel and spiteful. Word of God is that the account given in Shakespeare's play is largely due to the King of England at the time being one of Duncan's descendants.
• Molly of Denali: In "Gold Strikeout," Molly and her friends discover a book about the Alaskan Gold Rush, and want to look for good. Grandpa Nat tells the kids that the book is a load of revisionist history BS since it left out the important part - that indigenous people were kicked off their land by gold prospectors.

• The Patrick Star Show: Discussed and subverted in "Klopnodian Heritage Festival". GrandPat says that he and his powerful army conquered the land of Klopnod in half a day. Squidina, reading from a festival brochure, points out that he actually lost and had a cream puff named after him.
• The Owl House:
  • The general history of the Boiling Isles as it's taught in schools is that it used to be a place where wild magic was practiced without limitations during a time period dubbed the Savage Ages, which angered the Titan and caused society to suffer endlessly. When Emperor Belos rose to power about 50 years before the show's canon, he introduced the Coven System, which allowed witches to practice magic the "right" way and society to flourish during a new period of peace. However, when Luz and Lilith go back in time during "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", they find that the Savage Ages are actually nicer than the present day, and that wild magic is not a threat in the slightest. The Coven System was created, among other things, to brand people with sigils, which would then be used on the Day of Unity to drain every witch with a sigil of their lifeforce, killing virtually every witch on the Boiling Isles.
  • Philip Wittebane is revealed to have practiced this plenty of times. He talks in his journal about how he's lost many traveling companions to the various hazards on the Boiling Isles, but it's later revealed that he used his companions as cannon fodder, willingly sacrificing them to get what he wants. When Luz sneaks a peek at what he's writing, she sees that Philip has already written down her and Lilith's deaths in advance, as he fully intended on sacrificing them both to the Stonesleeper guarding the Collector's tablet. He was also so adamant about hiding the fact that he stabbed his own brother Caleb to death, that he Unpersoned Caleb entirely.
• In the Christmas Episode of The Real Ghostbusters, the quartet gets taken back to the time of A Christmas Carol and accidentally catch the spirits of Christmas past, present, and yet to come. Now with nothing existing to make him undergo his Heel–Face Turn, a vengeful Ebeneezer Scrooge proceeds to write a bestseller making him look like the big hero, the spirits to look as Jerkass ghosts bothering an innocent man, and the holiday to look like one huge joke, which in turn causes everyone to hate Christmas.
• In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Mewnipendence Day", Star is horrified and saddened to realize that her ancestors were not heroes who cleared the land of evil monsters like she had been taught, but invaders who kicked the land's original inhabitants out because they were stronger and better armed than the natives. They painted themselves as heroic when the only victims were the monsters.
• Goes both ways in Steven Universe.
  • Gems raised on Homeworld largely believe the Earth was destroyed, and all life on it was wiped out, rather than the Homeworld forces having been driven off Earth by the Crystal Gems. Peridot wasn't even aware that there had been a war, only that Earth was no longer a viable colony. There is information available about Rose Quartz, but she's much more treated as a monster; not for starting the Civil War but instead for killing Pink Diamond. Complicating matters, Homeworld's leaders really did think at least the Gems were dead, as the Fantastic Nuke that caused The Corruption was meant to be a Depopulation Bomb.
  • On the flipside, Steven and Amethyst, the two members of the Crystal Gems who were born after the war, are kept in the dark over some unsavory things their seniors have done. Neither knew until they were told that Rose shattered Pink Diamond, which Garnet and Pearl later tell them was a necessary step for victory and only Pearl knew (and was unable to tell anyone due to a geas) that the shattering of Pink Diamond was actually faked, as Rose and Pink Diamond were actually the same person. Rose Quartz herself also poofed and bubbled Bismuth, a Crystal Gem rogue who was willing to take the war in a darker direction, and then allowed the other members of the group to believe she'd gone missing.
• Discussed in Transformers: Prime, where using the Omega Keys to restore Cybertron wasn't just about restoring Cybertron itself, but rather who are the ones to do so. It's pointed out that if the Decepticons are the ones who revive Cybertron, then Megatron would gain enough political influence to brand every Autobot as war criminals.

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