All The Tropes

Identity Amnesia: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Identity Amnesia (view source)

Revision as of 12:21, 8 April 2014

271 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (Mass update links)
m (Mass update links)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Nina''': You got it wrong. My name is not Anna, I'm Nina.<br />
'''Dr. Tenma''': For now, but that wasn't your name back when you were brought into my hospital.|''[[Monster (Animemanga)|Monster]]''}}
 
[[Easy Amnesia|Amnesia comes easy in fiction]]. It is also [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|conveniently specific]]. A taste of [[Applied Phlebotinum]], a particularly shocking [[Trauma-Induced Amnesia|traumatic event]], or even a simple [[Tap Onon the Head]] will be sufficient to make your character forget all about [[Loss of Identity|who]] or [[The Masquerade|what]] he is.
 
In most cases, the character has simply lost his memories, no longer remembering his name, [[Amnesiac Lover|loved ones]] or where he came from. This is often the cause for a [[Quest for Identity]].
Line 36:
* In ''[[Code Geass]]'', after {{spoiler|C.C. loses her memory and goes back to her mental state as a slave girl}}.
** Debatably, this also applies to Lelouch at the start of ''R2''. Since he's {{spoiler|forcibly}} forgotten about his mother, sister, and being Zero, he [[Becoming the Mask|becomes his civilian-identity mask]], a [[Brilliant but Lazy]] student who cuts class to gamble on chess games. He's still dissatisfied with the world as it is, but since he no longer has an outlet, he's got a lot of bottled-up rage.
* ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'' has Light, upon losing his memories, becoming to the way he was before getting the titular [[Artifact of Doom]] where he is not evil and sympathetic to the people of the world. When he regains his memories, Light reverts back to his evil self.
** Even without his memories he notes that Kira thinks a lot like him, and acts the same way he would act. The evil Light is not so much a different person, as the same person under a different set of circumstances.
* In ''[[Fate/stay Stay Nightnight]]'', Tohsaka messed up in her summoning preparations and got an Archer who can't remember WHICH legendary hero he's supposed to be.
** Though in this case amnesia is just an excuse, since Archer doesn't want Rin to know neither his identity ({{spoiler|since he is the [[Future Badass]] version of Shirou, a heroic spirit called EMIYA}}) nor his real goal ({{spoiler|which is to kill Shirou to create a paradox which would hopefully erase himself from existence}}). He doesn't remember everything about his past life since he would have spent too much time trying to save people and then fighting as a Counter Guardian, but he know who he is, and the only consequence Rin's messing up summoning preparation had was wrecking a room.
** One particularly [[Hilarity Ensues|hilarious]] doujin had Shirou and Rin switch bodies. Rin completely believed she was Shirou Emiya because {{spoiler|Saber [[Tap Onon the Head|whacked her/Shirou's body on the head]] with a kendo stick to wake her/him up}}.
* Elie, one of the main characters in ''[[Rave Master]]'' is actually {{spoiler|[[Dark Magical Girl]] Resha Valentine, who faked her death and put herself into a deep magic induced sleep to defeat an enemy predicted to appear 50 years in the future}}. Not that she remembers this thanks to either {{spoiler|possibly erasing her own memories as a side effect of her deep sleep}} or Sieg Hart blowing up the building she was in. When she's introduced she tells Haru that she's actually looking for someone who knows her.
* Senri from ''[[Plus Anima (Manga)|Plus Anima]]'' {{spoiler|gets this. TWICE. Once while he was young and went berserk}},({{spoiler|This prompted Crystala to give him his pressed flower book to remember people}}.) {{spoiler|the other time he goes berserk with Husky, Nana, and Cooro there. He can't remember them and tries to attack. He is eventually stopped when Cooro slaps his [[Eyepatch of Power]] on}}.
* ''[[Ayashi no Ceres]]'''s Tooya is the victim of this trope. {{spoiler|A plot point, as he is later revealed to be the [[MacGuffin Girl|personification of the highly-coveted hagoromo]].}}
* Averted in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''. Although {{spoiler|Asuna Kagurazaka}} is shown to have a drastic shift in personality between her self-induced amnesia at the conclusion of the backstory and the kicking off of the plot (she went from [[Emotionless Girl]] to a [[Hot-Blooded]] [[Tsundere]]), it is shown to have happened over the course of several years, implied to be the consequence of frequent interactions with a [[Rich Bitch]] [[Ojou]].
Line 50:
* 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 (Animemanga)|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}}.
* [[To Aru Majutsu no Index|Kamijou Touma]] forgot a lot about who he was when he took a feather of St. George’s Sanctuary to the face and it is irrecoverable. He forgot a lot of people he knew; he forgot why he said people were indebted to him; school; he even forgot what his parents looked like ({{spoiler|plot point}}). While a thank you letter had allowed him to obfuscate competence and convince everyone that he's fine, at least twice he had to gamble that he should have known someone because they [[Highly-Conspicuous Uniform|dressed weirdly]]. {{spoiler|Eventually, he fesses up to someone about it.}}
* ''[[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.
Line 64:
* Happens with Getafix in one of the ''[[Asterix]]'' books.
* The recent ''Taskmaster'' mini reveals that Tasky suffers from this because of his photographic reflex ability. When he finally does remember who he was(A SHIELD agent named Tony Masters, oddly enough a named he used as an alias in the Agent X days) and thet he has a wife named Mercedes Merced. He loses his memories again when he's forced to copy the abilities of another fighter to save Mercedes' life.
* In an issue of ''[[Young Justice (Comic Bookcomics)|Young Justice]]'', Impulse takes a pretty severe blow to the head and comes to believing himself to be Batman. Unfortunately for Robin, he's more a Silver than Modern age Batman, and is perplexed that his "old chum" doesn't recognize him. He's quickly cured when...
{{quote| '''Impulse:''' Great Scott! I'm moving at superspeed! Oh, yeah; I'm Impulse.}}
* 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.
Line 78:
** The [[Fridge Logic]] kicks in when you realize Stan was a student there to begin with, and that the "snob" persona is his REAL old self, whereas his regular foolish self is a product of amnesia. And Ollie knowingly keeps him in this state, with no recollection of his friends, family and old life, simply because Stan is easier to deal with that way. (Of course, [[Negative Continuity]] is in effect.)
** And Stan Laurel had an English accent anyway, being from Northern England.
* In ''[[Primal Fear (Filmfilm)|Primal Fear]]'', Richard Gere plays a lawyer investigating Edward Norton and the Father at his church, Norton has killed someone in response to the Father at his church taping Norton being forced to rape some girl he knew. At Norton's criminal hearing, Gere calls out Norton's psychotic side with belittling taunts, to prove that Norton had no memory of the attack.
** Subverted because {{spoiler|Norton's character didn't have amnesia/split personality at all}}.
* In ''[[Resident Evil (Filmfilm)|Resident Evil]]'', both Alice and Spence Parks lose their memories of who they are after being rendered unconscious by sleep gas.
** Interestingly, both regain their full memories at the same instant.
* ''[[Dark City (Film)|Dark City]]'' opens with the protagonist, John Murdoch, waking up in a hotel bathtub with a bleeding puncture wound in his forehead and no memories whatsoever. He spends the rest of the film trying to piece together his past and identity while trying to evade strange pale men in trenchcoats and the police simultaneously, believing he is a serial killer.
* In [[The Addams Family (TV)|The Addams Family]] film, {{spoiler|"Gordon", the son of the film's [[Big Bad]], who was posing as Fester, is revealed to actually be an amnesiac Fester}}.
* The whole plot of ''[[The Bourne Series (Filmfilm)|The Bourne Identity]]'' revolves around Jason Bourne who lost all memory of his previous life (although he has some flashbacks).
* In the 2011 film [[Unknown]], Liam Neeson's character awakens from a coma after a car accident only to find that no one, not even his wife, recognizes him. Turns out that {{spoiler|he's actually an assassin, and the person that he thinks he is is actually only the cover identity given to him for this particular mission.}}
** And in the ''2006'' film ''Unknown'', the entire cast awaken in a warehouse with no memory after they were exposed to a toxic gas. Figuring out who's who becomes a pressing matter when they discover that A) they're all locked inside, B) some of them are kidnappers who'd abducted the others, and C) the kidnappers' armed and ruthless accomplices will be arriving in a few hours.
* 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 Nini|''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]] ==
* ''The Recognition of Shakuntala'', an episode from the [[Older Than You Think|Ancient]] [[Indian Languages|Sanskrit]] epic ''[[Mahabharata]]'' that was later [[Ascended Extra|Expanded]] into a theatrical drama by the Indian playwright Kalidasa around the 1st century BC, is probably the [[Ur Example]] of this trope. It's a [[Boy Meets Girl|Girl Meets Boy]] story about a woman named Shakuntala who meets Dushyanta and marries him, only for him to get cursed with [[Lase Guided Amnesia|Amnesia]] and completely forget her. The only way to lift the curse is to show him the ring that he gave her, but she loses the ring in a river. She eventually finds the ring by the end of the story, makes him remember, and then they live [[Happily Ever After]].
* Subverted in the [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] novel ''Father Time''. It seems that the Eighth Doctor, of whom it was once said that "he [[Why We're Bummed Communism Fell|lives in hope]]" of a communist revolution, and reacts worse to accusations of being bourgeoisie<ref>the [[Gorgeous Period Dress]] is not helping your case, Doctor!</ref> than threats against his life, but now has amnesia, has become "[[Margaret Thatcher|Thatcher]]ism personified", and has a proper 9-to-5 job eliminating redundancies from companies, which is to say, getting people laid off<ref>[[Karl Marx Hates Your Guts]] is not actually applicable, but he sure does</ref>. However, it is in short order revealed that he's doing it because he has [[Children Raise You|adopted a young girl]]<ref>a la [[Monster Is a Mommy]], if you, like him, would probably [[Why Don't You Marry It?|marry]] Karl Marx given the chance</ref>, and, [[Ditzy Genius]] that he is, doesn't see the full implications of what he's doing and merely sees it as a fun challenge. As in the rest of the novels in which he has amnesia, his personality remains fundamentally the same as before.
* In ''[[The Bourne Series (Literaturenovel)|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 (TV)|The Addams Family]]'' involved Gomez becoming an ordinary '50s-style breadwinner whenever he took a blow to the head.
* An ''[[I DreamofDream of Jeannie]]'' episode has Jeannie getting a bump on the head and forgetting she's a genie.
** Other episodes had Major Nelson getting the bump on the head and forgetting who Jeannie was.
* On ''[[Family Matters]]'', several episodes revolved around Steve Urkel's cool, sophisticated alter-ego, Stefan Urquelle. He was created via [[Applied Phlebotinum]], not accident, but the plot is the same. Eventually, a clone of Urkel was transformed into a permanent Stefan.
* Parodied/subverted in a sketch from ''[[The Kids in The Hall]]'', where a rural rube (Dave Foley) is kicked in the head by a cow as he reaches for a penny. He becomes a bit "off" from the experience, so his brothers try to re-create the accident. Unfortunately, the second blow to the head kills him.
{{quote| '''Mark McKinney:''' I don't know what went wrong. Always seemed to work on ''[[The Flintstones]]''.}}
* On ''[[GilligansGilligan's Island]]'', a bump on the head made Mary Ann think she was Ginger, meaning Ginger must be Mary Ann. This resulted in Mary Ann shortening all of Ginger's dresses and trying to put on a show.
* In an episode of ''[[The Dick Van Dyke Show]]'', Rob Petrie was demonstrating a breakaway violin to Buddy and Sally, but accidentally smashed a real violin on his head. Later we discover that he was missing the whole evening, because he was hanging out at some party with a girl under the name "Strativarius".
* On ''[[Married... Withwith Children]]'', Peg gets amnesia after being hit on the head, and Al molds her into his vision of the perfect housewife. In a subversion, Peg recovers her memory not from another blow to the head, but when Al starts liking the new Peg "too much" and has sex with her.
* In the episode "Slowly I Turn" of ''Dr. Shrinker'' (one of the features of the Krofft Supershow, 1976-77), the fat loser character Gordie hits his head and is convinced by the bad guys that he is the mad scientist, Dr. Shrinker. Even numbered blows to the head revert him back to normal; additional odd-numbered blows turn him back into the Dr. Shrinker persona.
* This is pretty much the premise of ''[[Samantha Who]]''.
Line 120:
* 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}}.
* 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.
 
 
Line 136:
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The Nameless One in ''[[Planescape Torment|Planescape: Torment]]'' has gone through this literally ''thousands'' of times, such is the nature of his existence -- he never ages, and every time he dies (which is surprisingly often), he comes back to life with no memories of his prior existences and with a completely new and random personality. However, the Paranoid Incarnation managed to seek out an expert who was able to diagnose his condition and develop a temporary remedy for it. Unfortunately for the Paranoid Incarnation, the remedy would only kick in three deaths later, long after the Paranoid Incarnation had himself "died"... so the Paranoid Incarnation [[Murder Is the Best Solution|reacted the way he always does]], and in your current incarnation there's no one left in the planes who knows anything about how your head works.
* In ''[[Escape Fromfrom Monkey Island]]'', you have to bonk Herman Toothrot of on the head not once, but ''three'' times to unravel his convoluted amnesia. Not only that, but you have to track down the specific items he was hit by in the first place if you want to cure him.
* In [[The Legend of Zelda]] game ''Twilight Princess'', your childhood friend/possible love interest Ilia loses her memory from getting hit with an arrow.
** [[Fridge Logic|Whereas you get hit in the head with a club and are just fine.]]
** [[Hand Wave|Link is too]] [[Badass]] [[Hand Wave|for amnesia.]]
* ''[[Overlord]]'': {{spoiler|The Overlord himself is one of the heroes who defeated the previous Overlord, but lost his memory after taking a nosedive of the nobody-could-survive-that variety. In a subversion on par with the theme of the series, the Overlord makes no efforts to redeem himself or return to his old self after the reveal.}}
* A controlled form of this process is used as an alternative to capital punishment in the world of ''[[Xenosaga (Video Game)|Xenosaga]]'', erasing a killer's memories & personality & replacing it with a new one that will hopefully be less murderous. Needless to say, this doesn't always work.
* ''[[Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World (Video Game)|Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn Of The New World]]'': {{spoiler|Because he gets prematurely revived by Marta, Ratatosk wakes up as a blank slate and creates a new identity (Emil) by filling in the blanks as he goes along. His original personality is a ruthless [[Blood Knight]]; his new personality is a wussy but strong-hearted [[Idiot Hero]]}}.
* Sophie in ''[[Tales of Graces (Video Game)|Tales of Graces]]''. {{spoiler|She loses her memories ''twice'' during the story, and regains them gradually.}}
* [[Knights of the Old Republic]] {{spoiler|This is pretty much the premise of the player character, if intentionally invoked on the part of the Jedi Council.}}
* ''Infinity'' series:
Line 153:
* ''[[Manhunt]] 2'' has Daniel Lamb, a scientist in prison with no memories of his life. He's been given help by Leo Kasper, an inmate. {{spoiler|In the end, it is revealed that the latter is a [[Split Personality]] implanted by Danny himself. By the time Danny woke up in his battle with Leo, he has no memories again of who he is, so Dr. Whyte gave him a new name and address so that no one would come after him again}}.
* Drek in [[Diver Down]] has this. He doesn't remember his name, his purpose, or why he's being chased, which drives most of the plot.
* Ysuran, an elven necromancer in [[BaldursBaldur's Gate: Dark Alliance]] 2, {{spoiler|forgets that he's a member of the Eldreth Veluuthra, an elven supremacy group that wants genocide against humans, after a magical accident. When his past becomes apparent to him, he swears it off and becomes [[The Atoner]].}}
* The fairy-like Riftwalkers in [[OtherspaceOtherSpace]] are actually {{spoiler|the crystallized intelligences of rift-destroyed sapient beings, stripped of their physicality}}, and thus while they can speak and have unique frames of reference, all memories before that event are permanently gone.
* [[Umineko no Naku Koro Nini]] 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.}}
 
Line 167:
* In ''[http://www.melonpool.com Melonpool]'', severe bonks to the head cause Mayberry to believe he is any number of characters from the original ''[[Star Trek]]''.
* 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 (Webcomic)|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 Withwith Suck|this is not a rare occurrence]] for a [[Reality Warper]] for [[Power Incontinence]].
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', Lil Evil drinks from the Lethe. Reaction? [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4035 Agh! Who's that weirdo in the river?]
 
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Flintstones]]'' often had Fred switch to an alternate persona as a result of a bowling ball to the head. Years later, an episode of ''[[Harvey Birdman, Attorney Atat Law]]'' ("The Dabba Don") would reference this, as Harvey uses the Bowling Ball To The Head defense to explain Fred's apparent Mob connections.
* An episode of ''[[Tom and Jerry (Animation)|Tom and Jerry]]'' had a blow to the head cause Tom to think he was really a mouse.
* In the ''[[Danger Mouse]]'' episode "Lord of the Bungle", during a mission in Africa Penfold takes a blow to the head and briefly believes himself to be a Tarzan-style "king of the jungle".
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Cow Days", Cartman hits his head after being thrown from a bull, and believes himself to be a Vietnamese prostitute.
* 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 ''[[Duck TalesDuckTales]]'' 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 [[EV Os]] 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 (Animation)|Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' had Scratch losing his memory and thinking he was TV superhero Edgar Eagle.
 
 
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/894338"