Written by the Winners: Difference between revisions

** This trope is an explicit belief held by Donquixote Doflamingo, who says that whoever wins the current war between the World Government and Whitebeard will be the ones to define what "Justice" means.

* ''[[Saint Seiya]]'' - Cancer Deathmask subscribes to this theory, but was in the wrong side of the conflict. {{spoiler|However, in the Hades arc, he could've been subscribing to this and just been smart for once.}}

* ''[[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.

== Fan Fiction ==

* 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 ''[[The Egyptian]]'' Sinuhe muses that due to Horemheb's rewriting of history no one will ever remember the three Pharaohs that preceeded him: Ay, Tutankhamon and Achenaton. Horemheb was, obviously, less than successfull.

* Addressed but averted in [[Timothy Zahn]]'s ''[[Hand of Thrawn|Vision Of The Future]]'':

'''Jorj Car'das:''' History is also written by the bystanders... peoples who had no park or stake in what happened. Would you accuse them ''all'' of lying? }}

* 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...

* 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.

== Live-Action TV ==

** 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.

* {{spoiler|Tom Zarek}} uses this theory to gloss over murdering {{spoiler|Laird and The Quorum}} on ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined|Battlestar Galactica]]''. {{spoiler|He loses.}}

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

** "Contagion": Picard says this in reference to the Iconians.

** Another episode 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 was given word for word.

== Theatre ==

* ''[[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.

* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]''

** ''Legacy Of Kain: Defiance'' This is what Raziel says upon finding out {{spoiler|what the Hylden have to say about their war with the Ancients}}.

== Western Animation ==

** YMMV on whether the change feels more like going to the opposite extreme than a move towards neutrality.

** Similarly in American textbooks: The American Revolution. America won, so the war is written as downtrodden citizens rising up against an oppresive ruler. If America lost, it would have gone down as one of the most heinous examples of treason against the British government.

* Nearly all of our information about the Roman Empire comes from Roman sources. The only reason we are at all aware of the Romans ever doing anything bad is because of [[Values Dissonance]] (they wrote about something that seemed ''good'' to them, like efficiently exterminating a particularly troublesome tribe). And then, our information about the Roman Empire has been mostly processed through Christianity, which means we need to keep in mind the possibility of [[Historical Hero Upgrade]] and [[Historical Villain Upgrade]], particularly on part of Christian and Pagan emperors.

** There is little evidence outside a few passages in Suetonius to suggest that Tiberius had a [[Moral Event Horizon|rape palace]] built on Capri. It is also worth remembering that Suetonius was commissioned to write his history by the Flavian dynasty which succeeded Tiberius's own Julio-Claudians. The Flavians were akin to modern "family values" politicians who espoused a return to the piety of Augustus and the Republic, in deliberate contrast to the supposed excesses of the later Julio-Claudians.

** While the [[Flanderization]] of Caligula is surreal enough, it's nothing compared to what his daughter and sister got. (Meassured in surrealness rather then evilness.) The [[Unreliable Narrator|official history]] on the emperor Caligula teaches us that the conspiracy that had him murdered was very brave, wise, and benevolent. Not only was Caligula so evil and mad that he totally deserved to die, his two years old daughter who was murdered at the same time (because she was his only heir and thus a threat to the usurper) was '''also''' so evil that she totally deserved to die. The same history writing tell us not only that all political decisions he ever made was evil, crazy and stupid, but also that many of them was very popular... but that's only because the population is stupid. The later theory was also used to [[Hand Wave]] why empress Drusilla was considered a popular politician... while using unsubstantiated slander to [[Retcon]] her into a mere [[Sex Slave]] of her brother.

** The objective historical truth about Drusilla is that the imperial oath was aimed at her as well as her brother, that the coins of the empire depicted her like they would depict any emperor, that she had a imperial cult around her just like the other emperors had, and that there was a national mourning when she died. Also, that she was married to another man and that her brother was married to another woman. Two of the funny quirks about the rumors about [[Brother-Sister Incest]] is that they 1. Seems to have started after Caligula's death, and thus long after Drusilla's death. 2. That the story was simplified by pretending that Drusilla's husband and Caligula's wife didn't exist, rather then commenting on how ''they'' reacted to the stories.

* Ivan IV of Russia. Consider at the very least the fact that he actually ''prayed'' for those he sentenced to death. Though, that would not be especially abnormal for his highly religious time. Still, there is plenty of historical debate as to whether he destroyed Muscovite society and caused the Time of Troubles or whether he dug out the foundations of Peter the Great's new Russian Empire (or both). There is also debate as to whether his epithet "Groznii" means "Terrible" in the modern sense of "horrible" or in the Old Testament sense of "awe-inspiring". The fact remains that he has been used as a historical justification for the need of a strong leader in Russian society (see: Stalin).

* A rare subversion can be seen in the Mongol conquests of everything from China to Hungary. In addition to more conventional tools of war, among their most effective weapon was their reputation. They deliberately committed horrific atrocities, and actively encouraged the spread and exaggeration of the stories (which were pretty bad to begin with by any standard). The primary purpose of this was to make their enemies shake in their boots when the Mongols came knocking, breaking the enemy morale, and leading many adversaries to outright surrender without a fight (it was that or be butchered down to the last man, woman, child and dog).<br /><br />The sheer amount of those who chose to surrender due to hearing such gruesome tales may have even saved lives in the long run, at the cost of absolutely brutalizing those that did die. This is a subversion as both winners and losers agree on their version of events--the losers because they were powerless to stop the flow of rumors counter-productive to the war effort, and the winners because it suits them to have a reputation as bloodthirsty warmongers that only give you one chance to surrender before they take everything you own, slaughter your children, rape your wife, burn down your house, use you as a human shield against your own soldiers (often by filling a spiked trench with corpses so that they could ride over it) and then have a good laugh about it, not necessarily in that order.

*** The battle ended up in a ''draw'', with both army commanders being killed and both armies being crippled and unable to continue the fight. Family ties (the serbian prince Lazar's daughter married Murad's son) and shifting of allegiances (Some Serbians lords, including Lazar's son were allies of the Ottoman empire) muddle the issue even more.

** Similar to the Scottish example but even more extreme, ''every battle'' in which the Irish faced the English is almost completely forgotten about in England while being seen as watershed moments in Irish history. This includes not only the rare occasions when the Irish actually won such as Yellowford (1598) but also occasions like the Battle of Kinsale (1601) when English commanders pulled off spectacular victories. The one partial exception seems to be the Battle of the Boyne (1690) - and even there it is only recalled in England because Ulster Unionists are so vocal about it.

* [[Pirate|Privateers]] get this naturally...some of the biggest and most well known? Sir Francis Drake and Capt. Morgan (the one who...you know...has a certain drink named after him). Celebrated heroes in England...demons of history to Spain.

** 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.

* 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.