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Basic Trope: The author claims that his/her work is factually accurate. It isn't.
- Played Straight: The author's factual claims are counterfactual.
- Exaggerated: The author's factual claims are all the exact opposites of reality.
- Justified:
- The claims were well researched at the time the book was written, but Science Has Marched On since then and some are now known to be inaccurate.
- The author is writing about an Alternate Universe, the "True History" claims are just there to provoke Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
- Inverted: The author calls factual history an Alternate Universe.
- Subverted: The author's factual claims are only false because of an Unreliable Narrator...
- Double Subverted: ...who turns out to be the designated truth-teller anyway.
- Parodied: A blatant work of Science Fiction featuring space aliens and cyborgs is tagged with a "This book is based on true events" preface at the beginning.
- Deconstructed: The work's definition of "facts" is clearly distinct from any sense of truth, leading the reader to walk away in disgust.
- Reconstructed: The reader continues to find it enjoyable as a work of post-modernist parody, even if this was not the author's intention.
- Zig Zagged: Some factual claims are true, others are not.
- Averted: The author is right, or else does not say more is fact than he/she can honestly say.
- Enforced:
- The work is written in a country with crimethink laws.
- Alternatively, it touches on an issue where the zeitgeist is hostile to the facts.
- Lampshaded: "And yes, I know Patty Duke was never Pope. Just work with me here.."
- Invoked: The author is sending a coded message; presenting clearly untrue statements as fact jars the reader and alerts him/her that something else is going on.
- Defied:
- "Yes, I know some people claim their history is factual when it is not. But I promise you, the reader, that the history in this book is really true." The author proceeds to give true history in the story.
- Alternately: "I admit up front that this work is largely fictional, and that it should not be taken as a serious historical account. If you want to know the real story, here are some more accurate sources that I used for background."
- Discussed: "Sometimes, man, it feels like God is just making it all up as he goes and pretending it works."
- Conversed: "For a story meant to inform, that contains a lot of misinformation."
This link takes you back to Dan Browned.
Actually, it's this one.