Revisionism (fictional)

In fiction, revisionism is the retelling of a story or type of story with substantial alterations in character or environment, to "revise" the view shown in the original work. Unlike most usages of the term revisionism, this is not generally considered pejorative. The film "Dances with Wolves" is a revisionist Western because it portrays the Native Americans sympathetically instead of as the savages of traditional Westerns, which have been criticized as racist. Similarly, the novel "" by Gregory Maguire is a revisionist account of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", which portrays The Wicked Witch of the West fighting for what is right and the Wizard being a ruthless dictator of Oz.

The novel "Creation" by Gore Vidal portrays a secret history of the Persian Empire, not implausible but neither supported by historical evidence, in which Darius murders King Cambyses and steals the throne from rightful heir Prince Smerdis, in collusion with Queen Atossa. Another revisionist novel is "The Looking Glass Wars" by Frank Beddor. It re-presents the classic story of Alice in Wonderland as a war for control of an other-worldly realm.

Many works of fantasy retell fairy tales in a revisionist manner. [John Grant and John Clute, "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy", "Revisionist Fantasy", p 810 ISBN 0-312-19869-8]

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