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Originally Posted by DaleDe
Legend is often an extension of a real person. For example if you were to write about King Arthur's life there are no real facts that can be verified about this likely read person from the sixth century but legends about him certainly exists. Most of what we know of Robin Hood is legend. There are also popular legendary people that are likely or possibly composites of real people. These are the kinds of things that might assume a fictional biography category if there were such a thing.
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yes this is how i define legend as well. in this case however i *still* would not mix it with biography ; i think it is rather analogous to the history / historical fiction dilemma. a legend *may* be based on a real person, but to what extent ? what if it's based on an amalgam of 12 different real people ? what if it was based on a misunderstood rumor about an alleged person which actually had no truth to it whatsoever ? what if it was based on a grain of truth but had been so altered through centuries of incomplete / incorrect retellings that it no longer bore any resemblance to the original story ? maybe we should create (yet another...) category for "myths and legends" (which seem to me to have more in common than either one with history), or simply put those in "fiction" with a "myth" or "legend" tag.
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Certainly historical fiction and real history are very different things as are any of the categories I mentioned as possible overlaps. Some historical fiction borders on legends and some are about a fictitious or composite person but the facts apart from the story itself are all very accurate. The tag would define which is was. However, if anybody would get confused over this I can drop the whole idea. That is why I asked the question in the first place.
Dale
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i personally think it's wisest not to mix history and fiction, even if it's historical fiction (and even if "History" is itself simply a legitimised fiction, to varying degrees...). after all, History is supposed to be Non-fiction, whereas "historical
fiction"... well it's right there in the name. but this is just my opinion.