Nothing quite inspires the formation and sustenance of nation-states like myths-as-stories that function as ostensible historical realities in creating model national identities of today. Looking at a regional Southeast Asian epic and Malaysia’s nationalisation, both Hikayat Seri Rama and Hikayat Hang Tuah are heavily romanticised recounts of “history” through the heroes from or close to royal ruling families. Present public discourse that surrounds such texts in the Malaysian context has been steeped in controversy, centred on the validity of the culturally symbolic warrior heroes Hang Tuah and Laksamana. This paper looks into the ideological, and at times critically untouchable origin myths behind the two classical texts, a deconstruction of the history of ideas embedded within the narratives of shared Malaysian reified historical imagination: What are the specific outlooks influential within these communities that have contributed to the prevailing popularity of these texts? How do such nationalised ideals manifest in current postcolonial identities? Through the lens of Derrida’s framework of spectrality in a comparative textual and cultural analysis, this paper interrogates the identity of who haunts and who is being targeted, and histographies of our relationship to the past.