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

Revisionism

Revisionism may refer to:*Historical revisionism, the critical re-examination of presumed historical facts and existing historiography** The "revisionists" school of thought in Soviet and Communist studies, as opposed to the Cold War "traditionalists" school....

, this is not generally considered pejorative

Pejorative

Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...

.

The film Dances with Wolves

Dances with Wolves

Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...

is a revisionist Western

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 because it portrays the Native Americans

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 sympathetically instead of as the savages

Barbarian

Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

 of traditional Westerns, which have been criticized as racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

.
Similarly, the novel Wicked

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is a parallel novel published in 1995 written by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Douglas Smith. It is a revisionist look at the land and characters of Oz from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, its sequels, and the...

by Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire is an American writer. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children...

 is a revisionist account of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...

, which portrays The Wicked Witch of the West fighting for what is right and the Wizard

Wizard (Oz)

The Wizard of Oz, known during his reign as The Great and Powerful Oz, is the epithet of Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, a fictional character in the Land of Oz, created by American author L...

 being a ruthless dictator of Oz.

The novel Creation

Creation (novel)

Creation is an epic historical fiction novel by Gore Vidal which was published in 1981. In 2002, he published a restored version, adding four chapters that a previous editor had cut...

by Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

 portrays a secret history

Secret history

A secret history is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars.-Secret histories of the real world:...

 of the Persian Empire, not implausible but neither supported by historical evidence, in which Darius murders King Cambyses

Cambyses II of Persia

Cambyses II son of Cyrus the Great , was a king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire. Cambyses's grandfather was Cambyses I, king of Anshan. Following Cyrus the Great's conquest of the Near East and Central Asia, Cambyses II further expanded the empire into Egypt during the Late Period by defeating...

 and steals the throne from rightful heir Prince Smerdis, in collusion with Queen Atossa

Atossa

Atossa was an Achaemenid queen and daughter of Cyrus the Great and his wife, Cassandane...

. Another revisionist novel is The Looking Glass Wars

The Looking Glass Wars

The Looking Glass Wars is a series of novels by Frank Beddor, inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The base is that the two books written by Lewis Carroll is a distortion of the 'true story' portrayed in these novels...

by Frank Beddor

Frank Beddor

Frank Beddor is a former world champion freestyle skier, film producer, actor, stuntman, and author. He is best known for his work as producer on Something About Mary and Wicked and as author of the New York Times best seller The Looking Glass Wars....

. It re-presents the classic story of Alice in Wonderland as a war for control of an other-worldly realm.

"Rebecca's Tale

Rebecca's Tale

Rebecca's Tale is a 2001 novel by British author Sally Beauman. The book is a sequel to the Daphne du Maurier novel Rebecca and is officially approved by the Du Maurier estate...

" is a 2001 novel by British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 author Sally Beauman

Sally Beauman

Sally Beauman is a British author best known for her Rebecca sequel, Rebecca's Tale.She was educated at Redland High School and Girton College, Cambridge....

. The book is a revisionist treatment sequel

Sequel

A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

 to the Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier

Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...

 novel Rebecca

Rebecca (novel)

Rebecca is a novel by Daphne du Maurier. When Rebecca was published in 1938, du Maurier became – to her great surprise – one of the most popular authors of the day. Rebecca is considered to be one of her best works...

and is officially approved by the Du Maurier estate. It continues the original plot and is also roughly consistent with the 1993 sequel Mrs. de Winter by Susan Hill

Susan Hill

Susan Hill is an English author of fiction and non-fiction works. Her novels include The Woman in Black, The Mist in the Mirror and I'm the King of the Castle for which she received the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971....

.

Many works of fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 retell fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

s in a revisionist manner. Specifically, the substantial sub-genre of "Arthurian Literature" can be considered as a continual revision of the classic tales of King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

.

Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey and the The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber are revisions of classical fairy tales providing a different viewpoint for tales like Cinderella

Cinderella

"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...

, Rapunzel

Rapunzel

"Rapunzel" is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. The Grimm Brothers' story is an adaptation of the fairy tale Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force originally published in 1698...

 and the legend of Persephone

Persephone

In Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....

 among countless other tales.

See also

• List of fictional works using settings created by other artists
• Fan fiction
  Fan fiction
  Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
  
  
• Informal sequel
  Informal sequel
  An informal sequel, also called an unauthorized sequel or unofficial sequel, is a sequel to a novel, film, television show, or video game that is produced without the consent of the creators or rights owners of the original material...
  
  
• Mashup (book)
  Mashup (book)
  A mashup novel, or mashup book , is a work of fiction which combines a pre-existing text, often a classic work of fiction, with a certain popular genre such as vampire or zombie narratives...