Domino Revelation, From Cataclysm to Myth, and Prophecies Are Always Right are Sub-Tropes of this. For versions where the myth is based on truth but people got the details wrong, see God Guise, Cargo Cult, Ancient Astronauts, Physical God, Sufficiently Advanced Alien, and A God Am I. If this treatment is given to only one pantheon/religion/what-have-you, see A Mythology Is True. For characters who might live in a world where All Myths Are True and despite solid evidence don't believe it, see Flat-Earth Atheist.
For the scientific counterpart, see All Theories Are True. For the conspiracy nut, there's the Conspiracy Kitchen Sink. For the video game rumor counterpart, see Infallible Babble. Someone with the tendency to exclaim "That can't exist!" in one of these settings may suffer from Arbitrary Skepticism.
A not uncommon variant of this is to have only ancient myths be explicitly true and shown on screen, with the truth of modern religions going unexamined or remaining ambiguous; this is done for reasons similar to No Such Thing as Wizard Jesus, where writers avoid touching on religions with significant numbers of modern adherents in order to avoid the controversy that would come from putting them on equal footing with myths few modern readers treat seriously.
This goes hand in hand with The Law of Conservation of Detail: if a myth is mentioned in a show, it should be relevant to the plot, and the myth being true will certainly help with that. See also The Legend of Chekhov.
Not to be confused with Clap Your Hands If You Believe (and its sub-trope Gods Need Prayer Badly), where believing in a myth makes it true. One Myth to Explain Them All is if they all stem from the same source (aliens, wizards, etc). If it's the myths in our universe that are treated as all being true, then that's a Crossover Cosmology or a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. See also Public Domain Canon Welding.
Audio Play
- Double Subverted in the Big Finish Doctor Who adventure Neverland. The Doctor and the Time Lords head into a universe of Anti-Time to fix Charley's paradox, but it is revealed that the Time Lords have other motivations for heading there. It is revealed that legends on multiple planets speak of the great Time Lord Rassilon heading into the empire of Zagreus (the Anti-Verse) to face the beast himself. The legends seem to be true when they find the casket of Rassilon, which is given to them by the denizens of the Anti-Verse. However, it is revealed that the legends of Rassilon and Zagreus were planted by these so-called Neverpeople in order to lure the Time Lords into bringing the casket, which actually contains enough Anti-Time to destroy the universe. However, when the Doctor absorbs the Anti-Time into himself and the TARDIS to save the universe, a creature of Anti-Time is created inside him. It decides to take its name from a creature of legend. The Doctor: I have become... ZAGREUS!
Fairy Tales
- In "Sleeping Beauty", when the prince comes and asks after the castle, he gets a whole slew of false answers; although one old man does know the truth, it's not the popular one.Everyone answered according as they had heard. Some said that it was a ruinous old castle, haunted by spirits.Others, That all the sorcerers and witches of the country kept there their Sabbath or night's meeting.The common opinion was: That an ogre lived there, and that he carried thither all the little children he could catch, that he might eat them up at his leisure, without anybody being able to follow him, as having himself only the power to pass through the wood.
Fan Works
- Cosmic Warriors, an AU Sailor Moon retelling, the author starts the story off with the first villain Usagi faces being a reincarnated hero from Irish mythology, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne.
- A Crooked Man: Johann explains to the former Hellions that the Afterlife, Heaven, Hell, Demons, God, and "a ton of stuff in between" are all true.
- Diaries of a Madman plays around with this. Several human myths are actually true, such as Merlin, but others such as the Ancient Greek goddess Athena are actually the subject of Demythification.
- Fate of the Clans: Even figures from myth actually existed and are able to be summoned as Servants. They are even able to be in possession of what was described in their legends.
- Harbinger (Finmonster) (Danny Phantom, ParaNorman):
- The Reapers include several death gods and goddesses, like Anubis and Baron Samedi.
- Ember is a banshee, which is an agent of the Fates (who have numerous identities in different cultures) in this universe.
- In Hearts of Ice, Ranma and Akane run into all kind of Eastern deities and mythological creatures. Shampoo meets up with an old Chinese divine dragon. Akane gets stranded in the Kami Plane, works as a bodyguard by Yuki-Onna, is trained by a Tengu and meets Susano-O. Ranma meets Emma-O and makes a deal with a Phoenix. And so on.
- How the Light Gets In:
- Discussed when Dean is trying to brief Team Flash on the supernatural.Joe West: Just how many things are there?Dean: Witches, Ghosts, vampires, ghouls, shapeshifters, hellhounds, demons, angels. It's all real. Name an urban legend and I'll tell you if it's real.Wally West: (instantly) Zombies.Dean: Yep. Real.Wally West: Holy Shit.
- Unicorns, however, are fake. Or possibly extinct, depending on who you ask.
- Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus: During the Trip to the Cyan Desert Car, Chloe confronts Anubis who reveals that the beings who blessed her cloak (The Cloak of Marchosias and Wepwawet) are real. Upon this revelation, Lexi is ecstatic because this means mythologies of different civilizations were created by people who happened to board the Train throughout the millennia, not to mention that demons are also real. Chapters later, Wyn tells Tony Clark that the gods and demons go by different names on the Train: the Numine and the Goetias, and passengers who are lucky enough to meet them can be given contracts ("aligned" for a Numine and a "covenant" for a Goetia).
- Intelligence Factor: According to Giratina, all of the legendary Pokmon are real, and even myths with no basis in reality can become real thanks to Infinity Energy.
- Mortified: It's all but stated that all of the earth's myths are related to ghosts and the Infinite Realms, via the natural portals between the real world and the Ghost Zone. For example, Ereshkigal, the core of the Ghost Zone, has also been called Hades and Hell, the Ancients were once known as the Anunnaki during the time of Ancient Sumeria, and they were once attacked by a sorceress named Inanna who tried to conquer the Ghost Zone, referencing the famous myth of the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna's descent into the underworld.
- My Lesbian Life with Monster Girls: Monster Yurisume: In one chapter, Froze mentions that her species, the Fenrir, inspired Inuit Mythology about the great wolf Amarok, and later, Iormu states that she dated Thor, and the story of their breakup was blown out of proportion and eventually became the Ragnarok myth.
- Ned Stark Lives, after the appearance of the Others, the Night's King, the Stranger, dragons and so many creatures of tales, many characters are starting to wonder if other stories they were told by their elders were true as well.
- The Night Unfurls: Surprisingly, around half of the myths or legends about the Good Hunter have some truth to it, while the other half is either false or not confirmed.
- A popular notion amongst the populace is that Sir Kyril can sense ill intent somehow. While it is true that Kyril is very observant, thanks to his accumulated combat experience from the Night of the Hunt, it is not explicitly shown that he can detect malicious ki/energy/intent.
- Another notion is that Sir Kyril drinks the blood of his enemies to harvest their strength, or similarly, his Saw Cleaver drinks the blood of the traitors and the faithless. Although the two do not directly ingest the blood of his foes, and it is unknown whether the "rally" mechanic works the same way in the waking world as in Bloodborne (i.e. regaining health within a window of opportunity while continuously attacking an enemy), this is exactly what he does in Yharnam. To elaborate, his means of recovering health, levelling up, and purchasing consumables either directly or indirectly involve blood, as in, the Old Blood.
- At the beginning of the story, Kyril has racked up a high body count of orc and goblin kind, leading to many believing that he had an intense hatred of them. In fact, he defies What Measure Is a Non-Human? and does not hold a grudge of any kind.
- While not confirmed by the populace, the notion that Sir Kyril is nigh unkillable is certainly true, thanks to his Resurrective Immortality.
- Some say that Kyril is a demon in human form, which is not true unless you equate "demon" with a certain slug/squid-like creature.
- For the more absurd ones, there are stories about Kyril occasionally taking people, including teenagers like Soren, as a Human Sacrifice. This is simply not true.
- The Harry Potter fanfic One World, dramatically expands the list of mythical creatures that exist in the Harry Potter universe due to research on various myths. Thus far Hogwarts has a professor that's a Drow, Selkies and Knuckers in Black Lake, Dungeons & Dragons was invented by a former Cursebreaker that lost his magic, and Voldemort has been shown to negotiate with devils and demons.
- Percy Jackson: An Age Gone By: Like in canon, multiple pantheons are confirmed to be real. Just to name a few, the Persian, Greek and Egyptian pantheons are all confirmed to be real.
- RWBY: Reckoning shows that Adam and Eve were created, not by God, but by an oppressive species known only as the Founders. Adam grew tired of seeing humankind suffer under their rule, and decided to rebel. In the end, Adam and Eve were forced to construct a galactic portal, and escape to an uninhabited planet, armed with an array of Dust crystals.
- Silent Partner, Unfinished Business: Once you know about Shinigami, nothing else can be ruled out.Misa: And like, I know, okay, vampires aren't real. [...] Actually, I DON'T know vampires aren't real. Like, gods of death are real. And magic has to be real. So, like, maybe? Let me start over. I know that there is a very small chance vampires are real, and if they are, that I know any.
- Son of the Seven Kingdoms combines the mythology of A Song of Ice and Fire and The Elder Scrolls and makes it nearly everything real: the Others are Alduin's servants, vampires and Mythic Dawn want to get their hands into an Elder Scroll, Daenerys, William and Arya can use Dragon Shouts...
- Son of the Western Sea takes the premise of Percy Jackson and the Olympians to the logical extreme.The Shinto Pantheon and members of the Tuatha de Danaan have appeared while the Celestial Bureaucracy, the Hindu Pantheon, the Egyptian gods and the Koshchei have all been confirmed as existing. And those are just the ones mentioned so far.
- In The Legend of Zelda fanfic Til the Sun Grows Cold and the Stars Grow Old, all of the myths of Hyrule are proven to be true.
- The Ultimate Evil: With a dose of Crossover Cosmology added in the mix. The second installment reveals that the mother of the Demon Sorcerers is Tiamat who has taken part in every major continental/biota cataclysm on Earth. After her husband and Other Apsu's death, Typhon had her birth for him the Demon Sorcerers in exchange for the vengeance she wanted. However, instead of dying like in the original myth, she hid herself after she regretted setting the Demon Sorcerers to wreak destruction on her enemies.
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