Written by the Winners: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* The motto of [[Big Bad]] Makoto Shishio in ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]''.

* In ''[[Scrapped Princess]]'', Earth was conquered by {{spoiler|the aliens}} who then rewrote history, presenting the heroes of [[La Résistance]] and [[Les Collaborateurs]] as evil and good gods, respectively.

* In ''[[Death Note]]'', Light tells the Task Force that if Kira wins, he's justice, if he loses, evil. {{spoiler|He loses.}}

 

* 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 [[Big Bad|Doctor Doom]]. Notably, this means that all superheroes were portrayed as evil villains who stood in the way of progress. [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act|Hitler]] was still a bad guy, though, because he persecuted the Roma (Doom's ethnic group).

** So, this is a literal case of history being written by the Victor (Von Doom).

* In ''[[The Cartoon History of the Universe]]'', Julius Caesar declares about the Gallic Wars, "I'll go down in history! By Jupiter, I'll '''write''' the history!!"

 

 

* ''[[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."

** Ironically, the film is in fact [[You Fail History Forever|laughably historically inaccurate]] from ''any'' perspective.

** Not quite: Viktor is quite willing to acknowledge the ''legend'' that vampires and werewolves came from the brother Corvinus ("One bit by a bat, the other bit by a wolf"), but he makes fun of it, probably to [[Fantastic Racism|diminish the connection between Lycans and Vampires]]. On the other hand, he's quite willing to rewrite {{spoiler|his murder of Selene's entire family}}.

** Selene [[Genre Savvy|shows signs of being aware of this]]. She recognizes that Kraven is not enough of a warrior to have actually killed Lucian, but as the only survivor could claim that he did. She also initially comments that the Lycans started the war, but then admits that that is what is said anyway. By the second film, she's (accurately) assumed virtually everything Viktor has said is a lie.

{{quote|Rebellion is ''always'' legal in the first person -- "''Our'' Rebellion". It's only in the third person -- "''Their'' rebellion" -- that it becomes illegal.}}

:As does another:

{{quote|Treason, eh? Treason is a charge invented by winners as an excuse for hanging the losers.}}

 

* 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.

* The same is done in ''[[Reflections of Eterna]]'', particulary in the prequel ''Flame of Eterna'': Rinaldi Rakan was sentenced to death by his royal brother and left in history as a [[Complete 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.

{{quote|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.}}

::Most people will take any excuse they can get to have had a glorious victory, but meh...this is the Discworld, after all. And the quote is from a tortoise.

{{quote|"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, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy any more. 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."}}

* A couple examples from [[Larry Niven]]'s ''[[Known Space]]'' universe where victors wrote the original history of a colony world:

* 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".

 

* ''[[Blackadder]]'' - Henry Tudor has everyone else erased from history in the first series.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' - In an [[Inverted Trope|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.

** Debatable, as there were some hints that the winning side really were that bad. Most of the martyrs were those who were gunned down after being convinced by Janeway to surrender.

** Not that it mattered {{spoiler|since history was one of the many, many things that the Colonials decided to jettison upon reaching Earth.}}

* ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]''

* A variation in that they didn't really "win", but the version of the Peacekeeper battle against the Venek Horde that Aeryn relates in the [[Farscape]] episode ''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 Time Loop|Stable-ish Time Loop]], he was just following Aeryn's instructions in the first place.

 

* Some [[Satan Is Good]] beliefs held this about [[The Bible]].

* Averted in [[Greek Mythology]], where it is established that Chronos ruled over a Golden Age, so the Olympians didn't bother to hide that.

 

* 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 [[Downer Ending|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.

* This helps explain the [[Continuity Snarl|untidiness]] affecting a lot of ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'''s backstory. The Space Wolves ''know'' that the Thousand Sons were traitorous sorcerers that their forebearers rightfully punished for using forbidden magics, while the Thousand Sons ''know'' they suffered an unjust and unprovoked attack ordered by the Emperor they up until then had loyally served. The [[Horus Heresy]] novels reveal that while the Thousand Sons were using sorcery, they were trying to ''warn'' the Emperor about the imminent rebellion, but then the true traitor, Warmaster Horus, changed the Space Wolves' orders from "bring in for questioning" to "kill them all," and the psyker-hating Space Wolves were happy to oblige. Nowadays the idea that the Space Wolves were played or that the Emperor should have believed the Thousand Sons' warning are treated as heresy.

*** This Trope and the Lion's ultimate allegiance are dealt with in the Age of Darkness anthology story Savage Weapons, {{spoiler|Lion'el is absolutely loyal to the Emperor but his campaign against the Night Lords, and the Chaos Gods intervention in the Warp will prevent him from ever reaching Terra to aid in the defence. Night Haunter himself directly taunts Jonson stating that the Lion's character will always be questioned because he not was at Terra.}}

 

* The majority of Shakespeare's Histories (That is: ''[[King John]]'', ''[[Richard II]]'', ''[[Henry IV]]'', ''[[Henry V]]'', ''[[Henry VI]]'', ''[[Richard III]]'' and ''[[Henry VIII (play)|Henry VIII]]'') feature this to a greater or lesser degree, seeing as how Shakespeare wrote histories for the winners, his 'sponsors'. The [[wikipedia:Shakespearean history|other wiki]]'s article is a brief introduction to this.

* The Wizard's song "Wonderful" in ''[[Wicked (theatre)|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.

 

* ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'': {{spoiler|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.}}

* ''[[Star Trek]]: Birth of the Federation'' - When you choose to play the Cardassians, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhV43JiGiSE their opening] claims this as one of their motivating principles.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' is full of this trope. {{spoiler|Saint Ajora and the Lucavi in the past and then the official history of Ramza and the Kingdom as a whole.}} Possibly subverted by the Durai Reports though.

* 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.

* Mentioned by developers of ''[[League of Legends]]'' 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).

* 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. [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|Then they all died in a nuclear apocalypse]].

 

* In the ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' episode "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) know 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 Aang tries to point this out, the teacher snaps that, [[Dramatic Irony|unless he was actually around 100 years ago]], he shouldn't be questioning the Fire Nation's history books.

 

'''To minimize the danger of [[Flame War|history politicizing discussion]], [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|please refrain from adding examples that are less than 200 years in the past]].'''

* Pretty much [[Historical Hero Upgrade|anything you were taught]] about Christopher Columbus or the story of Thanksgiving in Elementary School, if you're American. Though this is slowly changing.

** The above seems to be speaking of modern history. Finding a text by the losing side in ancient history is extremely rare. Furthermore, there is no law that states Written by the Winners and Lost Cause tracts are mutually exclusive - each side might get their viewpoint across, both will be biased. If there is actually a person that disbelieves this trope happens in Real Life, then I have a bridge over some swamp-land in Florida on the moon to sell them.

** Suetonius and other Roman histories are cases of losers (ie: the Senatorial Elite) writing the history which is no small part of why the first twelve Caesars come across as such villains. From classical times onward losers have been very good about getting their side into print - at least in the West. The Soviet Union of course was another story.

** And then there's a huge gap between what scholars know and what the population believed. Up until recent times when scholars studies are more readily available to the general public, it is not at all strange to think this trope is in play in lots of real life cases.

* Regarding Israel, there are multiple Egyptian stelae from multiple eras noting how one Pharaoh or another "completely destroyed" them.

* From a class perspective as opposed to a national one: Most of history (at least until modern times) focused on ruling and upper class males because ruling and upper class males dominated society, were generally the ones who knew how to write history, and were only interested in the affairs of their peers (i.e. other ruling and upper class males). There are remarkably few historical works that focus exclusively on women, members of the peasant classes, or the bourgeoisie.

* In European history it is quite common for histories of a large war to come from everyone concerned. That is because despite all of Europe's wars it is rare that a major state is actually eliminated. Usually they just hold a [[Peace Conference]], exchange provinces and then get back to plotting their next evil deeds.

* Invoked by [[Winston Churchill]], who is also the [[Trope Namer]]

 

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