Flashback Echo: Difference between revisions

* '''Type 2.''' As above, but with nostalgic or otherwise meaningful events.

* '''Type 3.''' A person reminds someone of a different person they used to know, and they flashback to memories of that person, sometimes represented by visually superimposing the old person's image over the new person's.

 

 

Compare [[Visions of Another Self]], where the "Echo" part can be conveyed through a dream, an alternate reality side trip, a holodeck or other such literary device, usually in a way that teaches the character or the audience some lesson relevant to the present.

 

Could be considered having some [[Truth in Television]], because people with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) have this type of flashback activated by a trigger. For instance, if a war veteran with PTSD heard gunfire, he could have a flashback to a traumatic event with the same weapon.

{{examples}}

 

* In ''[[ROD the TV]]'', the youngest of the Paper Sisters has a breakdown during a book-burning, since it gives her a very keen flashback to the incident that gave her a phobia against books in general -- being trapped in a burning library.

* [[Mahou Sensei Negima]] had Rakan going into a (one panel) flashback to show how closely [[Generation Xerox|Negi's group of friends paralleled his father's group]].

* During the Conviction arc of ''[[Berserk]]'', Guts has a combination of Type 1 and Type 4 when {{spoiler|a horse that has turned into a demon bears down on Farnese and tries to rape her}}, reminding him strongly of {{spoiler|the rape of his lover Casca at Griffith-turned-Femto's hands during the Eclipse}}. This proceeds to [[Berserk Button|set Guts off]] in a ''[[Unstoppable Rage|serious]]'' way, and needless to say, {{spoiler|it doesn't end well for the once-helpful steed}}.

 

 

* ''[[Fatal Instinct]]'', in a parody of ''[[Sleeping with the Enemy]]''. Twice when Laura Lincolnberry sees some disarranged towels, she has a flashback to her [[Domestic Abuse|abusive husband]] getting angry at her because of his obsessive need for everything to be perfectly arranged, including towels.

* The killings start in ''[[Pieces (film)|Pieces]]'' when the killer witnesses a girl crashing through a mirror, as it reminds him of his mother breaking a mirror in the past before he killed her.

 

 

* In ''[[Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets]]'', Dumbledore asks Harry, "Is there something you wish to tell me?" in such a way that it's suggested he knows whatever the "something" is and is trying to give Harry the opportunity to come clean himself. Later on he asks Tom Riddle the same thing in the diary flashback.

** Both Harry and Tom respond with the same "No, sir, nothing."

 

 

* ''[[Torchwood]]'' did this in the first episode where an odd looking knife sparks Gwen's memory and overrides the amnesia drug she was slipped earlier.

* ''[[Kung Fu]]'' was all over this.

* In a season 4 episode of ''[[Angel]]'', "Ground State", electro-girl Gwen Raiden electrocutes and kills Charles Gunn. She immediately flashes back to an event in her childhood in which she accidentally kills a boy she was making friends with. [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Shocked]] with herself, she revives Gunn within twenty seconds or so.

* ''[[Dexter]]'' flash-cuts back to the moment Harry found Dexter more than once - most notably, at the end of season four.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[Xenogears]]'', Elly is speaking to a mob of mutated humans, offering to sacrifice her body to them in order to ease their pain. In the middle of her speech, the game flashes back to Sophia{{spoiler|, her previous incarnation,}} saying the same words.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker]]'', around 85% through the main storyline, after {{spoiler|Snake attempted to chase down the Peace Walker whilst riding the Boss's horse, said horse breaks it's back after being thrown off an extremely steep hill, Snake (i.e. The Player) is then forced to euthanize said horse, before (or after, depending on how long the player takes to pull the trigger) Snake has flashbacks to the climax of Operation: Snake Eater, in which he was forced to finish off the Boss, whom was helplessly suffering from wounds attained in her previous battle with Snake, with a single round from her Patriot}}.

** Veled has a [http://www.lastres0rt.com/2008/11/showering-is-honestly-very-important/ flashback to Cypress's mother], which (apprently) convinces Veled to spare Cypress.

** Cypress [http://www.lastres0rt.com/2010/11/bowling-for-bozos/ has one herself] ([http://www.lastres0rt.com/2011/06/i-think-johnny-cash-wrote-a-song-about-this/ explained here]), but backfires given that instead of jumping into a pool of ''water'' ([[Wrong Genre Savvy|ala the flashback]])... {{spoiler|she jumps into some flesh-dissolving nanotech!}}

 

 

* A common symptom in dramatic portrayals depicting war veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

** Really, anyone with PTSD could suffer the first and third points.