BEHIND THIS SCENEWhat is history and what is fiction?
Historically anchoredThe setting or public event is documented; dialogue, motives, and recurring characters are invented.
Historical anchor
Alexander occupied and burned Persepolis; motives and circumstances are debated, and later Zoroastrian tradition remembered him as a destroyer of religion.
Fiction boundary
The rescue of the Keeper archive and the exact library fire are fictional; claims of Avesta destruction belong to later tradition and are labeled as such.