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Identity Amnesia: Difference between revisions
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The affected character may have additional bouts of amnesia on top of their personality change. Other times, they may still know everything they did prior to the switch, except that they've never before ''acted'' the way they're acting now. Attempts to get them to remember previous defining life events that may snap them out of it are met with a stern dismissal. "I haven't time for this! I'm a world-famous opera singer and must be on stage in one hour!"
Just like other forms of TV amnesia, this variety is often rectified by [[Traumatic Toggle|just smacking the character in the head a second time]]; they are usually very resistant to seeking out help on their own. Once cured, they'll probably have no recollection of their alter-ego self, and will be puzzled as to why things have apparently moved forward by several hours/days.
Once their [[Jekyll and Hyde]] nature has been demonstrated, it's a foregone conclusion that should the character in question get tapped in the head at a later date, the alternate persona will be [[Split Personality Takeover|right back in the saddle again.]]
A vast exaggeration of a [[Truth in Television
See also [[Brainwashed]], [[Wistful Amnesia]], [[Fake Memories]], [[We Want Our Jerk Back]], [[Traumatic Toggle]], [[Amnesiac Hero]], and [[Amnesiac Lover]].
Subtropes:
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* [[Napoleon Delusion]] - The new "character" is a famous historical figure (insanity is a bigger factor here).
* [[Criminal Amnesiac]] - The character goes from his heroic or noble life to an evil or self-serving one.
* [[Amnesiacs Are Innocent]]
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[Magical Project S]]'', Misao Amano's alter ego Pixy Misa likes to torment the main cast with her magical powers. When Misao reverts to her normal self she doesn't remember any of what she did while transformed.
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** Woah. ''Is'' there an amnesia trope for forgetting even basic learned skills?
* This is what happened to {{spoiler|Seiya's older sister Seika}} in ''[[Saint Seiya]]''.
* Kirika Yumura of ''[[Noir]]'' starts out with this. She only knows what her name is due to it being printed on her student ID, and a comment from Chloe towards the end of the series implies that not only is 'Kirika Yumura' not her real name, it was entirely possible that nobody remembered what her real name ''was''.
* ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' has Johan's good-hearted twin sister, Nina Fortner, can't remember she's Anna Liebert after {{spoiler|he forced her to shoot him in the head}}.
* ''[[
* ''[[Noein]]'s'' resident [[Ax Crazy]] psychopath Atori gets amnesia after nearly dying in combat, and becomes a gentle, if somewhat out of it, young man who enjoys spending time with Miho, since she reminds him of his [[Dead Little Sister]] Sarah. He does regain his memories later on, but by that point, spending time with Miho and the rest of the group has softened him and reawakened his sense of morality.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Happened in ''[[Justice League International]]''. One punch from [[Batman]] took down Guy Gardner. When he awoke, he was no longer an abrasive chauvinist. He was instead Sensitive Guy, who cared what women think, and was generally respectful and agreeable in every way that the true Guy wasn't. Random head bops (his powers protected him from
** As for the Ring protection, it should be considered that Gardner took off the Ring to fight hand-to-hand, without using weapons. So, when Batman took him down, he was as vulnerable as any random burglar.
* [[Superman]] developed a trauma after executing 3 Kryptonian criminals, and had another identity known as "Gangbuster" who would tackle the underworld.
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* One [[Archie Comics]] story had Veronica bump her head in an airplane due to turbulence, and wake up believing herself to be the heroine of a novel she was reading.
* An [[Elseworlds]] comic, ''Batman: Hollywood Knight'', has an actor who plays Batman (here a fictional character) in film serials barely surviving getting shot in the head by mobsters, only to start thinking he really ''is'' Batman and proceed to run around fighting crime.
== [[Film]] ==
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* In ''Blackout'', Keith Carradine's character is in a car accident that leaves him an amnesiac and the other man who was in the car dead. As only one of the men's identities is known, Keith takes on that one, and becomes a sweet guy who marries his nurse, adopts her kids, and has a baby with her. Everything is going swimmingly until {{spoiler|everyone, including Keith, suddenly realizes he's actually the other guy - a crazed serial killer.}} Oops.
* [[Arashi no Yoru ni|''One Stormy Night'':]] {{spoiler|When Gabu gets caught up in an avalanche, he forgets all about his experiences with Mei. When they meet, he knocks him out and drags him away to eat him, just like any other wolf would. He only remembers when Mei repeats the phrase [[Title Drop|'one stormy night']] to him.}}
== [[Literature]] ==
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* In ''[[The Bourne Series (novel)|The Bourne Identity]],'' Bourne loses his memory and becomes convinced he was a freelance assassin. The book revolves around his search for the truth, which is much more complicated.
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* One of the foes from the ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' TV show was King Tut, a meek and mild-mannered Egyptology professor who became a [[Criminal Amnesiac|criminally inclined]] Pharaoh whenever he got hit on the head.
* One episode of ''[[The Addams Family]]'' involved Gomez becoming an ordinary '50s-style breadwinner whenever he took a blow to the head.
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* In the [[Hustle]] episode "A Bollywood Dream", [[The Mark]], a sweatshop owner and all around jerk, has an accident, loses his memory temporarily, and realizes he doesn't like the person he used to be. {{spoiler|When he decides to give all his money to charity and go follow his childhood dreams of being an actor, the team has no choice but to call the con off.}}
* ''[[Ghost Whisperer]]'': "Step-ins", ghosts who take over newly dead bodies for a second chance at life, usually go insane because A) the ghosts lose everything except for whatever they were obsessing with when they died (generally a loved one) as soon as they wake up and B) all the information they have (if any) is for someone else's life. Interestingly the two step-ins we meet weren't fixed by a smack to the head; one could only get help after he talked to the title ghost whisperer who only learned about all this an episode earlier, the other {{spoiler|had to have a near-death experience}}.
* In one episode of ''[[Weird Science (TV series)|Weird Science]]'' Lisa hits her head on a sign while time traveling to 1969 and becomes a stereotypical hippie.
** In another episode Lisa is infected with a computer virus and believes she’s a character from a [[Stylistic Suck|bad]] [[Soap Opera]] she watched.
* The ''entire town'' of Storybrooke in [[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]] is under a curse that made them forget that they are characters from fairy tales. It's implied that the [[God Save Us From the Queen|Wicked Queen]]/Regina Mills remember, as does Rumplestitzkin/Mr. Gold. [[Prince Charming|Prince James]]/David Nolan gets a double whammy as he can't recall either his fairy tale identity or his Storybrooke one.
== Music ==
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== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] wrestler Perry Saturn, via a series of blows to the head, went from a hard-nosed brawler/submission expert to a [[The Ditz|ditz]] who was in love with a mop with a crudely drawn face on it.
* [[CHIKARA]] wrestler Tim Donst received a double underhook piledriver from UltraMantis Black, leader of the NeoSolar Temple - then woke up, and was convinced by UltraMantis that he had been a member of the Temple all along. {{spoiler|Tim was faking it, after the initial few days after the bump on the head.}}
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Happens to anyone who enters the [[Ravenloft]] domain of Darkon and stays there longer than a month or so. Someone "claimed by Darkon" remains essentially the same person, but forgets having ever lived anywhere else, believing that they are native-born Darkonians.
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* [[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]] has a rather interesting case of this. {{spoiler|At the end of ep 8 it is revealed that Battler actually survived the Rokkenjima incident but lost his memory. He was then found by Ikuko Hachijo with whom he stayed with and adopted the name Toya Hachijo. He slowly regained his memory but interestingly even when his memory was fully back he still couldn't think about himself as Battler and so kept his new name.}}
* ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' has a cruel variant of this with [[Troubled but Cute|Fenris]], a bitter fugitive slave who hates the former master who used him as a bodyguard and personal warrior. His earliest memory is of the horribly painful ritual that gave him the ability to phase through objects and erased his previous memories. {{spoiler|As it turns out, he was raised in slavery as Leto...and he asked for and ''fought'' for the "privilege" of having this done to him. He is utterly horrified to find out that he essentially destroyed his OWN identity, willingly.}}
== [[Web Animation]] ==
* In the unfinished ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' cartoon "Tis True, Pom Pom, Tis True", Homestar believes himself to be a minstrel in medieval times after taking a blow to the head.
* After the Alpha AI from ''[[Red vs. Blue]]: Reconstruction'' severed its memories of torture from itself, it completely forgot what it was. Using the few memories it retained, it adopted the [[Living Memory|identity of a younger version]] of its [[Brain Uploading|creator]]: {{spoiler|Dr. Leonard Church}}.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* The inhabitants of ''[[The Ends]]'' are reborn without memories in an endless cycle. The protagonist, Jason, has managed to recover a portion of his identity and is now [[Quest for Identity|questing for the remainder]].
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'': At one point, Zimmy forgets who she is and takes on the identity of someone else she knows. (And for extra [[Mind Screw]], the comic portrays this from Zimmy's perspective, so when Gamma tries to help Zimmy remember who she is, the audience is more likely to interpret it as someone else being brainwashed into believing they're Zimmy.) Gamma's response implies that [[Blessed with Suck|this is not a rare occurrence]] for a [[Reality Warper]] for [[Power Incontinence]].
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', Lil Evil drinks from the Lethe. Reaction? [https://web.archive.org/web/20111020215313/http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4035 Agh! Who's that weirdo in the river?]
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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* One episode of ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' featured a trio of sirens hypnotizing Jack into thinking he was a waiter named Brent Worthington and spoke with a [[Keanu Reeves]] accent.
* In the [[Donald Duck]] cartoon ''Donald's Dilemma'' (1947), Donald is hit on the head by a flowerpot knocked off a high windowsill and instantly becomes a [[The Fifties|50's-era]] crooner, and goes on to become famous. But he forgets about and ignores poor Daisy, who eventually goes to a psychologist and explains the whole thing in flashback. He tells her to choose between the two Donalds, and she chooses to drop another flowerpot - complete with the flower from the original blow - on his head while he's onstage singing to cure him.
* Related to the above: An episode of ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'' involved Uncle Scrooge coming down with Identity Amnesia after tripping over a skateboard and believing himself to be an unemployed blue-collar worker (even going so far as to lose his [[Just a Stupid Accent|accent]]); he goes on to get a low-paying job at his own factory and begins a crusade to improve working conditions.
* In an episode of ''[[A Pup Named Scooby-Doo]]'', Shaggy loses his memory and believes that he's a fictional superhero, Commander Cool.
* A ''Pith Possum'' segment of ''[[The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show]]'' was based around this.
* ''[[Generator Rex]]'': {{spoiler|Rex himself. Not much is known about the circumstances surrounding his amnesia, but one thing we ''do'' know is that his personality has changed between blackouts. For example, when he led a small gang of EVOs in Hong Kong, he was a backstabbing traitor, a far cry from the hero he currently is. It is unknown right now whether the Rex we see in the present is at all like the Rex from before his blackouts.}}
* An episode of ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' had Scratch losing his memory and thinking he was TV superhero Edgar Eagle.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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[[Category:Memory Tropes]]
[[Category:Split Personality Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Identity Index]]
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