Amnesiac Dissonance: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''10,000 years of unerasable acts and permanent facts<br />

The record of my unspeakable crimes<br />

In previous lives, in previous times<br />

Indelibly stains the pages of history''|'''[[They Might Be Giants (Music)|They Might Be Giants]]''', ''Reprehensible''}}

[['''Amnesiac Dissonance]]''' occurs when a good or evil person suddenly remembers their past of the opposite [[Character Alignment|alignment.]] This becomes the epitome of Man versus Himself (or Herself) as the values and memories of their past self collide with their current self. This can result in a complete [[Face Heel Turn]] or [[Heel Face Turn]], or give a shade of grey to the character that they didn't possess before. [[Reincarnation]] can be substituted as a type of spiritual amnesia.

A variation may be that the person never gets their memory back directly, but does find out who they were previously and has to deal with the implications; be they [[Out, Damned Spot!|crippling guilt]] over past evil, or longing for [[Villains Out Shopping|the simple pleasures]] after [[Pet the Dog|petting the dog.]]

{{examples|Examples:}}

* For the first two seasons of ''[[Blood Plus+]]'', Saya goes through this after meeting Haji, and starts to remember when she went [[Unstoppable Rage|berserk]] in Vietnam and older memories.

* Inverted and averted in ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'': Protagonist Light gives up his memories of being the mass-murderer "Kira", then his mind wiped self tries to [[Clear My Name|clear his name]] by joining a task force devoted to capturing Kira. Although he still keeps his intelligence and ''says'' that his thought patterns are similar to Kira's, his personality changes to that of a decent person rather than the self-righteous, prideful [[Well -Intentioned Extremist]] he was before that would be willing to use the Death Note (the most jarring is the difference in how he treats Misa). Even if he doesn't sympathise with Kira because he wants to clear his name, the personality change was the series' only notable headache. {{spoiler|But when he gets his memories back, there's no dissonance - just a [[Psychotic Smirk]]. Everything that happened went "Exactly as planned."}}

* In ''[[Elfen Lied (Manga)|Elfen Lied]]'', when Lucy loses her memories, she goes from being a violent mass murderer to an innocent, harmless (and slightly retarded) girl, Nyu.

* After Greed is captured in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Mangamanga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', he is given complete amnesia by his creator Father. When confronted by a former companion, Greed kills the companion which causes memories to start resurfacing. One of the images he sees is King Bradley (who killed his three closest companions) and Greed attacks King Bradley's house before running away.

* In the ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (Visual Novel)|Higurashi no Naku Koro Nini]]'' manga, Keiichi falls asleep, and forgets he {{spoiler|kills Mion and Rena.}} He wakes up quickly and sees the {{spoiler|bloody sight.}} This is not in the anime or sound novels, though.

* Used and played with in ''[[Monster (Animemanga)|Monster]]'' with two of the main characters and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epC71UrPcgg&feature=related some interesting children's books].

* In ''[[Naruto (Manga)|Naruto]]'', nearly played straight with filler character Memna. Formerly a bandit, he became kindly and even heroic after losing his memories. However, the trope falls apart when it's revealed that he lost his memories during a [[Heel Face Turn]].

* In a later episode of ''[[Noir (Animeanime)|Noir]]'' it appears that Kirika is being [[Brainwashed]]. The reality is that her self up to that point ''was'' the brainwashed self, and the ritual removes it. In the penultimate episode, Mireille fights not only the "true" Kirika, but attempts to get her "fake" version back.

* Mara from ''[[Ah My Goddess (Manga)|Ah! My Goddess]]'', despite being a demon, is shown to be extremely gentle and kind after she loses her memories. Unfortunately for the protagonists, she was holding Keiichi's sister hostage before she lost her memories, making it necessary for them to restore her memories.

* In ''[[Fairy Tail (Manga)|Fairy Tail]]'', {{spoiler|Jellal}} gets called out on for all his past crimes by Erza during the Oracion Seis arc when she's trying to prove she's not going to fall for his tricks again and buy his lie about having amnesia. Except he really does have amnesia, and since neither of them know that {{spoiler|he was brainwashed into committing those crimes}}, and he's actually a good person at heart he's horrified to learn what kind of a person he was.

* Teito in ''[[Zero Seven Ghost|07 -Ghost]]'' {{spoiler|flees the military, abandoning a promising career, when he remembers that Ayanami, one of the top military officers, killed his "father."}}

* There is an instance or two where [[The Joker]], [[Batman (Comic Book)|Batman]]'s enemy from [[The DCU]], loses his memories and becomes a regular family man. This self is always consumed by his madness returning.

** Marvel loved this trope. Early on in ''[[Ultimate X -Men]]'', Professor Xavier mindwiped Magneto and convinced him that he was a baseline human who taught handicapped children and was having a relationship with a human woman (with whom he eventually moved in). It worked...for a while.

* Earth-2 [[Catwoman (Comic Bookcomics)|Catwoman]] had been suffering from amnesia during her criminal career. When she recovered, she was willing to go to prison for her crimes. (Later, during a story where Batman sprang her from jail to help him, she [[Retcon|revealed]] that she had made up the amnesia to make her [[Heel Face Turn]] plausible; in reality, she had wanted to quit.)

* In ''[[One Hundred Bullets (Comic Book)|100 Bullets]]'', various characters discover that they were formerly highly trained assassins known as Minutemen who were brainwashed into forgetting their work. As they are awakened to their real memories by various usages of an embedded code word, they must decide whether to return to their old agenda or walk away.

* In the ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'' fic by Quiet [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4979561/3/The_Art_of_Drowning "The Art of Drowning"], this trope is the catalyst of the fic's plot, where the main time line diverges from the original story when Light [[Eureka Moment|suddenly realizes]] that the detective L is actually his [[Forgotten Childhood Friend|"murdered" childhood friend]] L Lawliet. This triggers his [[Trauma -Induced Amnesia|suppressed memories]] and an inner [[Battle in Thethe Center of Thethe Mind|Battle for dominance]] Light vs Kira.

* In the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' fic [[Past Sins (Fanfic)|Past Sins]], Nightmare Moon is reborn as a filly as part of a botched spell by a cult seeking to resurrect her as a mare of her own. She regains some of her old memories, leading her to feel guilt and then loses it when she regains all of them as the same cult recast the spell on her to complete her.

** In ''[[Pony Psychology Series (Fanfic)|Ditzy Doo: Muffins]]'', Ditzy starts to recover her memories from before she came to Ponyville, and freaks out when she thinks she may have been a mob enforcer who killed a Canterlot guard and his wife. {{spoiler|She was actually a secret agent who was trying to take down a griffon mobster, and was too late to warn the guard that the mob was after him.}}

* In ''[[Overboard (Film)|Overboard]]'', Goldie Hawn plays a [[Rich Bitch]] who loses her memory after falling overboard her yacht. Kurt Russell plays an average joe handyman who convinces her that she is his wife (he's widowed) in order to get revenge for unpaid work on the yacht. The two characters fall in love and when Hawn's character eventually regains her memory she must decide whether to go back to her previous life or remain with her new family.

* The ''fear'' of [[Amnesiac Dissonance]] drives the suspense in ''Unknown''. Several kidnappers and their captives wake up in a vacant warehouse, having succumbed to an accidental gas leak that has caused temporary amnesia. They find clues that some of them are criminals, but don't know which of their own number are the bad guys, and need to figure it out before the rest of the kidnapping gang comes to collect their prisoner.

* Seen in ''[[X 2X2: X -Men United (Film)|X 2 X Men United]]''; Stryker claims that he and Wolverine were partners before Wolverine lost his memory.

{{quote| '''Stryker''': You were always an animal, Wolverine. I just gave you claws.}}

* Happens in ''[[Resident Evil (Filmfilm)|Resident Evil]]'' with {{spoiler|Spence. Gas released by the Red Queen's defences causes him (and Alice) to lose their memories. He spends most of the film as a good guy but, when he regains his memory, he also reverts to his original personality - an amoral shit whose theft of the T-Virus started everything.}}

* Played with in ''[[Dark City (Film)|Dark City]]'': J. Murdoch has no memories, and the only evidence he can find about his past points to him being a serial killer. He's horrified, and soon becomes convinced that it can't be true, that he isn't a killer. Turns out he's right, and the truth is even stranger: {{spoiler|[[Reality Warper]] aliens had staged the evidence, and implanted everyone around him with false memories--and they've been doing so for years. Murdoch's own amnesia is because he had somehow rejected the latest attempted memory transplant.}}

* {{spoiler|[[Liam Neeson]]}}'s character in ''[[Unknown (2011 film)|Unknown]]'' (aka ''Unknown White Male'') turns out to be a terrorist/mercenary-assassin.

* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[GauntsGaunt's Ghosts]] novel ''Traitor General'', {{spoiler|Sturm}} is deeply indignant about his treatment by Imperial forces. When the mindlock on his memories, he realizes that he [[Heel Realization|had been treated justly]] and [[Redemption Equals Death|deserved to die]].

* In [[Robert Ludlum]]'s ''[[The Bourne Series (Literaturenovel)|The Bourne Identity]]'', the amnesiac David Webb comes to believe that he is professional contract killer Jason Bourne, which was in fact only a cover assigned to him by the CIA before the incident that caused his amnesia. When the [[Big Bad]] comes to realize that something of this nature is occurring, he begins setting Webb/Bourne up to reinforce this belief.

** This is played quite differently in [[The Bourne Series (Filmfilm)|the movie adaptations of the Bourne novels]]; prior to his amnesia, Webb/Bourne had in fact been trained as an assassin, if a government-sponsored one. The amnesia works as something as a mental-reset button, as he'd been brainwashed into becoming the assassin. As a result, post-amnesia he is [[The Atoner]].

* [[PGP. WodehouseG. (Creator)Wodehouse|PG Wodehouse]]'s novel ''The Indiscretions of Archie'' does this for laughs: Archie befriends a man who has lost his memory during the war and, horrified, suspects that his name may be Lancelot.

* At the beginning of [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene (Literature)|The Golden Age]]'', Phaethon learns that he is suffering from [[Laser -Guided Amnesia]] and told he has committed horrible offenses. A Neptunian urges him to flee to have his personality repaired, pointing out that his self-chosen name [[Meaningful Name|shows]] that he is not by nature as acquiescent as he acts.

* Happens in the ''[[EveEVE Online]]'' novel ''Empyrean Age'': A high-ranking, slave-keeping [[The Empire|Amarrian]] official suffers amnesia due to a botched assassination attempt. He is found by a [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]], which includes [[La Résistance|Minmatar]] members, who naturally react to his presence with revulsion. While he eventually reassumes his position, he [[Becoming the Mask|keeps]] the nice guy persona he developed during the story.

* In a short story by [[Diana Wynne Jones]], a young prince wakes up in a field staring into the eyes of a witch, who tells him perhaps this will help, and leaves. He struggles to survive in the nearby city, selling everything he has on him and eventually working for a living. Finally, he comes across some people who recognize him and take him home. Due to his complete amnesia of anything before, and the fact that he now understands how difficult other people have it, he's a much nicer person. Everyone who knew him before keeps complimenting him on his niceness in a way that's not quite complimentary. Even worse, his [[Arranged Marriage]] fiancee has the same eyes as the witch who [[Cursed Withwith Awesome|cursed]] him, a fact he tries hard not to think about too much.

* A somewhat similar situation comes up in [[Diana Wynne Jones]]'s ''[[Castle in The Air (Literature)|Castle in Thethe Air]]'', where it turns out that a character had been given amnesia and memories of a different identity to teach him a lesson.

* Self-inflicted in [[John M. Ford]]'s short story ''Erase/Record/Play'', in which the scientists experimenting on prisoners in a concentration camp give ''everyone'' - victims, guards, and tormentors - the same experimental memory-wiping drug, and mix themselves into the general population to avoid punishment when the liberators come. They can't be coerced or tricked into revealing their guilt, because even they don't know if they're guilty.

* In ''[[The Candy Shop War]],'' Nate and his friends are given a Blank Slate--aSlate—a magical food that will cause whoever eats it to lose all their memories and become, well, a [[Blank Slate]]--and—and are told to use it on a rival magician. They can't bring themselves to do it, but Nate holds on to the food anyway. But when it becomes apparent that there's no way to stop the main villainess from drinking from the [[Fountain of Youth]] and becomming an unstoppable Child Mage, he crumbles the slate into her goblet of magic water... thus turning her into a harmless and sweet-natured little girl.

* The ''[[Babylon 5 (TV)|Babylon 5]]'' episode "Passing Through Gethsemane" centers around a mind-wiped [[Serial Killer]] who lives as {{spoiler|a monk in a religious order.}} Upon discovering his past, he's aghast. How can he pray for forgiveness when he doesn't even know his sins? Ultimately, he decides the only way he can atone is {{spoiler|[[Redemption Equals Death|through death.]] And so, despite his superior's pleas that he accept the mercy of a new life, he allows himself to be crucified by the families of his old victims.}} In an [[Irony|ironic]] [[Twist Ending]], {{spoiler|the leader of the lynch mob is sentenced to mind-wipe, and joins the same religious order.}}

* In the 2007 series of ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' {{spoiler|episode "Utopia", The Master}} hides from {{spoiler|the Time War}} by transforming himself into a {{spoiler|human being}} and erasing his memory, becoming {{spoiler|the mild-mannered, philanthropic Professor Yana}}. His original memories are stored inside {{spoiler|a watch which, when he opens it decades later, restores his memories to him - and in an instant, he turns against everyone he'd been working with as Yana and hatches a plan to conquer the universe.}}

* Inverted in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', when {{spoiler|Peter Petrelli wakes up in a cargo box with total amnesia. He resists learning about his past for the longest time, because he fears that he'll find out he's really evil. Naturally, pretty much everyone who hears this--cast and audience alike--laugh their asses off at this possibility.}}

* In the ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Back To Reality", the crew wake up from the virtual reality game they were playing, and discover that their real personalities are very different from the people they thought they were. Dave Lister, who likes to think he's a good guy who will usually do the right thing, discovers that he's really a brutal fascist officer; Arnold Rimmer, who thinks he's better than Lister, discovers that he's really Lister's less successful brother; Kryten, who thinks he'd never harm a human being, discovers that he's capable of murder; and the Cat, who defines his whole existence by his sense of style and good taste, discovers that he's really an awkward, buck-toothed, fashion-deficient [[Nerd]]. Subverted when {{spoiler|it turns out this is all a hallucination created by the Despair Squid, and their "game" personalities are their real ones after all.}}

* An episode of ''[[Criminal Minds (TV)|Criminal Minds]]'' had a serial killer attempting to escape police, only to fall several stories down and end up in a coma. He awakes years later, with no memory of his former life or his actions. Most people believe he's faking, but his amnesia is sincere... Until his memories begin returning. {{spoiler|He escapes and is tracked to the park he worked at as a ranger, the police believing him trying to kill one more time. In actuality he dug up a previously-unfound body to confirm whether his memories were real. He turns himself in on discovering this, admitting to all his crimes in exchange for life rather than a death sentence due to his sincere regret for his actions}}.

* On ''[[Dollhouse (TV)|Dollhouse]]'', Echo gradually comes to realize that Caroline, the original personality in her body, wasn't such a good person, and is no longer sure if she wants her old memories back. This may have been a response to the audience finding Caroline, who was a radical member of an [[Animal Wrongs Group]], to be a rather unsympathetic heroine.

* An episode of ''[[The Outer Limits (TV)|The Outer Limits]]'' involved an amnesiac who is being helped by a woman he met. They are being chased by unknown persons. Every so often, he gets an injection of liquid that appears to hold his memories, remembering more and more each time. In the end, he is revealed to be the evil boss of the people chasing them and uses the same procedure to erase the woman's memories.

* ''[[The Shadow Line (TV)|The Shadow Line]]'' teases this with Jonah Gabriel, who is implied to have been a [[Dirty Cop]] before he lost his memory in contrast to the good cop he is afterwards. {{spoiler|Ultimately a subversion, however. He was a good cop all along; all the apparent evidence of his corruption turns out to have been part of an investigation into actual corrupt officers.}}

* While he is an arrogant [[Anti -Hero]], Swan of ''[[Exalted]]'' should feel ''real'' glad that he has no memory of the [[Complete Monster|former]] [[Moral Event Horizon|holder]] [[Villain Withwith Good Publicity|of his shard's]] [[Purity Sue|life]].

{{quote| '''von Konigswald:''' Orange juice! I killed a man with Orange juice?}}

* Soma Cruz from ''[[Castlevania Aria of Sorrow]]'' and its sequel ''Dawn of Sorrow'' is an [[Ordinary High School Student]], except for the whole "being the [[Reincarnation]] of [[Dracula]]" thing -- somethingthing—something he has to resist succumbing to when he "remembers."

* ''[[Tales of Innocence (Video Game)|Tales of Innocence]]'' invokes the reincarnation variation of the trope with every Avatar ingame. Luca, having been the great {{spoiler|Overlord}} Asura, is constantly attacked by friends and foes from his old life. Meanwhile, both {{spoiler|Luca and Iria}} go into brief [[Heroic BSOD]] when they {{spoiler|regain their memories of the roles their past lives played in the destruction of Devaloka/Tenjo.}} All the other party members also comply to the trope, to a slightly lesser extent.

* In the PS2 game ''[[Disgaea 2 Cursed Memories (Video Game)|Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories]]'': it is revealed that {{spoiler|the "God of Demon Overlords" Zenon}} really isn't the [[Big Bad]]. She had gotten tired of her role and [[Reincarnation|reincarnated]] herself into the character who had thought she was. Whether she turns good or evil after recovering her memories [[Multiple Endings|depends on the character's actions up to that point]].

* Terra from ''[[Final Fantasy VI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VI]]'' suffers from a variation from the start. Kefka had put a slave crown on her and used her powers for all sorts of casual slaughter with her being utterly oblivious about this. Once it comes off and people mention what she's done, she comes down with massively crippling guilt for a large part of the game. Combined with her fears of being less-than-human, she makes a very effective [[The Woobie|woobie]].

*** And ''Duodecim'', the prequel, plays through that cycle, revealing that it was [[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Vaan]] who helped snap her out of it.

** [[Final Fantasy IX (Video Game)|Kuja]] in duodecim was ''this'' close to joining the good guys until Kefka ruined his plans and manipulated him into dying in a battle with Lightning. First thing when Kuja was revived in the next cycle, Kefka put it in his head that he loathed Zidane and wanted nothing more than to kill him

* ''[[Ghost Trick: (VideoPhantom Game)Detective|Ghost Trick]]'' spends a lot of time setting this up, displaying the seemingly nefarious doings of pre-death Sissel and making the protagonist wonder if he was really that bad of a person. Of course, the man in red is certainly a monster.{{spoiler|.. but Sissel's not the man in red.}}

* This happens with {{spoiler|Garcian Smith}} at the end of the chapter Smile in ''[[Killer 7Killer7]]''.

* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (Videovideo Gamegame)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'', it turns out that {{spoiler|the player character}} was actually Darth Revan prior to being mind-wiped by the Jedi. No matter whether Revan turns to the light or the dark side, [[Pronoun Trouble|the ex-Sith]] [[But Thou Must!|always ends up]] killing Darth Malak.

* The ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' series averts this trope, but only temporarily. The vampire-wraith Raziel discovers that he and his brothers used to be vampire-slaying priests. At first he embraces his former humanity, but upon traveling into the past, he discovers they were [[Well -Intentioned Extremist|just as bad as]], ([[Knight Templar|if not worse]]) than, the vampires they hunted. Raziel renounces and kills his former self, setting the stage for his eventual resurrection as an amnesiac vampire.

{{quote| '''Human Raziel:''' "You're a righteous fiend, aren't you?"<br />

* Much of Zero's story in the ''[[Mega Man X (Video Game)|Mega Man X]]'' games comes from villains attempting to resurrect his "true" personality as a ruthless killing machine; there has been much fan speculation that Zero was responsible for the deaths of the original cast of the ''[[Mega Man (Videovideo Gamegame)|Mega Man]]'' games while in this state.

** Zero suffers this again in the transition between the ''X'' and ''[[Mega Man Zero (Video Game)|Mega Man Zero]]'' series. While he stays a hero in between both series, his memory was lost during hibernation, including one crucial detail: {{spoiler|that the body he was inhabiting was a duplicate.}}

* In ''[[Persona 3]]'', {{spoiler|Ryoji}}'s only reason for being is to serve as the vessel by which Nyx will [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|destroy the world.]] In a subversion, despite the fact that it is against his will, he accepts it as inevitable and gives the Main Character the option of killing him (and erasing SEES' memories of the Dark Hour) to spare them the agony of having to watch the Fall unfold before their very eyes.

* The protagonist of ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' has lost his memory multiple times. He slowly, steadily recovers memories from ''several'' past stages, each with their own moral codes (or lack thereof). There's an especially well-written scene, if you've taken the [[Karma Meter|good path]] to that point, where he recalls a [[Moral Event Horizon|particularly heinous moment]] from his [[Manipulative Bastard]] stage and [[Heroic BSOD|breaks down in horror at his past selfishness]].

* Alex Mercer of ''[[Prototype (Videovideo Gamegame)|Prototype]]'' hunts down and kills dozens of people and killing several thousand in the crossfire in a combination of a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] and investigation of [[The Virus|the Infection's]] release and his own transformation, only to find out that {{spoiler|the real Mercer was not only one of the very scientists he'd been tracking and killing, but also solely responsible for both. Funnily enough, this means that he was ''less'' evil as a sociopathic [[A God Am I|human superweapon]]; the original Mercer only cared about himself, while Virus Mercer slowly starts to grow a conscience.}}

* In ''[[La Pucelle (Video Game)|La Pucelle Tactics]]'', two of the characters have lost their memories two years ago. Both of them are now demon hunters on the side of light. Turns out, {{spoiler|one of them is actually the "Dark Prince", the emissary of the in-game equivalent of [[The Devil]], and was dead set on destroying all humanity.}}

* In ''[[Snatcher]]'', protagonist Gillian Seed is an amnesiac police agent who is assigned to take out the [[ReplicantKill Snatchingand Replace|identity-stealing]] [[Ridiculously -Human Robots|androids]]. {{spoiler|However, by the game's end, he finds that he ''and his wife'' were both scientists who worked on the Snatchers.}}

* Cammy from the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' series joins the good-guy Delta Red faction after her [[Laser -Guided Amnesia]] erases all memory of the fact that she was ''created'' to be the next body of the [[Big Bad]] Bison.

* ''[[Amnesia: theThe Dark Descent (Video Game)|Amnesia the Dark Descent]]'': One of the true horrors of the game is realizing what a depraved monster the player character Daniel was before he gave himself amnesia. No wonder he chose to forget, even though it would make killing Alexander a lot easier if he knew what he was supposed to do and why.

* ''[[The Whitewhite Chamberchamber]]'' has Arthur reveal to Sarah that she was the one who murdered the entire crew. {{spoiler|Whether she redeems herself or not is dependent on the player's actions throughout the game.}}

* ''[[Cave Story (Video Game)|Cave Story]]'' subverts this. Several [[NPC|NPCs]]s recognize Quote as "a soldier from the surface", or make references to squads of war robots that came to the island ten years ago and massacred the Mimigas. The obvious conclusion for the player (and several in-game characters) is that Quote was one of those killer robots--ratherrobots—rather unsettling since Quote is currently trying to ''save'' the remaining Mimigas. But, if you complete the sidequest to save Curly Brace and restore her memories, then she remembers that Quote was comrade-in-arms ten years ago. And unlike all the other combat robots, they hadn't fought the Mimigas; their mission had been to destroy [[Artifact of Doom|the Demon Crown]].

* ''World of Warcraft'': This occurs during the starter quests for the Death Knight class. You, the Death Knight player, start the game following orders from [[Big Bad|Lich King]] & pals. You run about destroying a town, slaughtering its townsfolk and torturing its guards. Then you're given an order to kill a hostage NPC, but when you confront him/her, he/she turns out to be an old friend of yours who reminds you of your past before you became a pawn of the Lich King--whenKing—when you were a hero. After you finish the NPC off, you begin your transformation into an [[Anti -Hero]].

* Played with strangely in ''[[Trauma Center (Video Gameseries)|Trauma Team]]''. CR-S01 is a surgeon committed to saving lives who was seemingly a bioterrorist behind an attack on Cumberland College prior to his amnesia. However, despite the fact that he can't remember how he did it or why, he's ''fully aware of this fact'' -- it—it's actually his knowledge of what he might have done before, absent any of the memories that drove him to it, that motivates his [[Heel Face Turn]]. {{spoiler|Then finally outright subverted when it turns out he was never responsible for the attack in the first place, and he was never a villain}}.

* Initially, ''[[Overlord]]'' doesn't even provide a framework for this trope--thetrope—the game begins with your being disinterred and declared the Overlord, and apart from indications that you were quite evil [[Protagonist Without a Past|your past is treated as unimportant]]. You are informed, however, that the seven [[Fallen Hero|heroes]] who oppose you previously defeated not you, but "your predecessor." {{spoiler|You were the eighth hero, fallen in battle and left for dead. How much of a shock this is depends on [[Karma Meter|how you've been playing]].}}

* In ''[[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream]]'', one of the main playing characters is an elderly German scientist called Nimdok who has a failing memory. The [[Big Bad]] of the game, mad and omnipotent supercomputer AM, sends him to confront his past... where it is revealed that he {{spoiler|was working for the Nazis, directly under the command of Josef Mengele in a death camp, doing barbaric experiences on dozens of innocents.}} Apart from that, Nimdok is a kind old man who is horrified by what he discovers in the camp and feels sorry for the detainees here.

* Tanya, who is the android love interest from the [[Science Fiction Visual Novels|science fiction visual novel]] ''[[Bionic Heart (Visual Novel)|Bionic Heart]]'', learns that {{spoiler|her creator used a serial killer's brain in building her}}, which explains why she has century-old memories. Unsurprisingly, she has a [[Heroic BSOD]] from the revelation.

* Trace from ''[[Two KindsTwokinds]]''. Interesting in that the ''only'' person not aware of his past is Trace, nearly everyone else is well aware of who he is/was and ''openly terrified'' of him. It's gotten to the point that Trace has decided that he's better off '''''not''''' knowing who he was.

* The eponymous character of ''[[Zap (Webcomic)|Zap]]''

* In ''[[Fleep]]'', Jimmy is rather horrified to infer that he used to be a terrorist, and that the building he's trapped in was collapsed by a bomb he set off. What's interesting is that he never actually ''remembers'' any of this--sothis—so he ends up inferring what he did well before he figures out ''why'' he did it.

* Jack of ''[[Jack (Webcomicwebcomic)|Jack]]'' was a genocidal dictator in life but when he died and became the [[Grim Reaper]] and [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of [[Seven Deadly Sins|Wrath]] his memories were erased. Now, he's a [[Don't Fear the Reaper|pretty nice guy]] all things considered.

* Hector: [[Animated Armor]] and [[Minion Withwith an F In Evil]] [[Heel Face Turn|turned good]] from ''[[A Modest Destiny]]'', were at some point "resurrected" by the resident vampire lord, [[Fluffy the Terrible|Fluffy]]. The only thing he can remember is that it was his own sister that killed him, and she is also a vampire. It is later revealed that {{spoiler|she didn't do it personally, she had Fluffy bind Hector's soul to the armor in order to save him. Apparently, Hector was, at some point, a psychopath with such issues that even the [[Eats Babies|baby-eating]] Fluffy was [[Even Evil Has Standards|disgusted by him]]. When Hector got the offer to be returned to life in a real body, he refused, as he was afraid that he would go back to being [[Complete Monster|whatever he was before]]}}.

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', Lil Evil drank from Lethe and [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20140209162807/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4036 fears this.]. (with reason!)

* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance (Roleplay)|The Gamers Alliance]]'', [[Cloudcuckoolander|Ronove]] recovers his memories during the siege of Vanna and remembers that he used to be a [[The Dragon|Dreadlord]] of one of the [[The Legions of Hell|demon hordes]]. After this realization he leaves his human friends behind, retakes his former position in the horde, starts acting like a seemingly cruel [[Manipulative Bastard]] as most demons do, but he also still seems to harbor some feelings for his former companions in the Alliance who he is now forced to oppose. He shows some of his quirky habits from his amnesiac cuckoolander days (such as his love for cake and sand gnome legs) but it's now mixed with his former dutiful yet cruelly efficient persona which has evolved into something more manipulative and vengeful because he's now fully aware of who betrayed him and caused his amnesia in the first place. He even keeps lampshading his sudden personality change every now and then, further cementing the fact that the different sides of Ronove coexist and that he hasn't set aside everything from his amnesiac days.

* In ''[[Legion of Super -Heroes (AnimationTV series)|Legion of Super Heroes]]'' animated series, there are two [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|ShapeShifters]], one on each side, who undergo processes to forget themselves and become one of the other side's members in order to gain intelligence. Chameleon Boy {{spoiler|ends up stuck as Persuader}} before finally remembering who he is. And {{spoiler|Superboy}} ends up revealing he's actually {{spoiler|Ron-Karr}} in the process and is shocked to discover he'd forgotten who he really was.

* In a second-season episode of ''[[Superman: theThe Animated Series]]'', villainous cyborg Metallo turns up on a volcanic island with no memory of himself; he saves a young girl's life and does other good deeds, but eventually he remembers his battle with [[Superman]] and turns evil again.

* In ''[[Transformers]]: [[Beast Machines (Animation)|Beast Machines]]'' (the sequel to ''[[Beast Wars (Animation)|Beast Wars]]''), Megatron had brainwashed two of the Maximals and given them entirely new identities. Upon recovery, Silverbolt became [[The Atoner]], and Rhinox decided to stay evil and competed with Megatron.

** Though it must be said that (possibly because the writers realized how much they'd pissed off the fandom), when Rhinox dies at the beginning of season 2, it's implied that he regrets his actions and is allowed to peacefully move on because his heroism in [[Beast Wars (Animation)|Beast Wars]] still outweighed his more recent actions.

** Also from Transformers, the character Flip Sides from both G1 and ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', is a decepticon who has a double-life as an Autobot--inAutobot—in G1 she's a teacher, in Animated she's a pop star. The catch is, while she's an autobot, ''she does not know or realize that she is a decepticon spy''. Talk about conflicting moralities.

* In an episode of the ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' TV series, Jasmine lost her memory due to a magic rose and [[Meaningful Name|Abis Mal]] convinced her that she was evil. This backfired when Jasmine became a [[Dark Action Girl]] and decided the idiotic Abis Mal was beneath her.

* An antiheroic version: in one episode of ''[[DuckDuckTales Tales(1987)]]'', Scrooge lost his memory and was lost on the streets without a penny to his name. Eventually he moved in and began a romance with an extremely working class single mother, and when she told him about Scrooge McDuck's employment practices reinvented himself as a socialist crusader against a man he saw as a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]. At the end of the episode he regained his memories and had no recollection of what happened, but the protest he unknowingly began forced him to improve worker rights.

* In an episode of ''[[Young Justice (Animationanimation)|Young Justice]]'', the team wakes up in the Biyalian desert with their memories of the past six months erased. This turns Superboy into a mindless berserker (he's not even six months old), Kid Flash and Artemis start flirting with each other and even hold hands right before their memories are restored, and Artemis believes she is there because her father wants her to kill Kid Flash.

[[Category:TropeDissonance Tropes]]