My Skull Runneth Over: Difference between revisions

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Compare [[Deadly Upgrade]]. Also compare [[The Fog of Ages]], where an immortal being has been collecting memories for so long that they're overwriting the oldest ones. Not to be confused with [[My Brain Is Big]], where the skull ''literally'' runneth over and the brain shows outside it. See also [[Super Intelligence]].

== Anime & Manga ==

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* In [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''World Without Stars'', humanity has achieved near immortality, but because our brains weren't designed to hold centuries of memories, every hundred years or so, people have to go in and decide what memories they want to keep, and what they want to forget.

* In ''The Ellimist Chronicles'' (an ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' prequel), Toomin (The Ellimist) is captured by "Father", a giant squid-like alien who connects his tentacles into the brains of his victims, and thus, having a network of hundreds of minds, has ridiculous intelligence (and the faculties to handle it). After decades of Father using Toomin as his plaything, Toomin finds a way to defeat him by absorbing all the thousands of minds that Father uses... into his ''one'' brain. The strain of having so many minds meant for so many body types caused him to hallucinate. Rather than finding a way to return to normal, however, he spends years building a spaceship/supercomputer to plug himself into (and escape Father's planet), which makes him capable of handling his newfound superintelligence. He is still mostly Toomin, however.

* ''[[The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel]]'' series has Gilgamesh. Yes, ''the'' Gilgamesh from the earliest written story. He has [[Added Alliterative Appeal|many millennia of memories]], [[Who Wants to Live Forever|causing him to go slightly nuts and lose track of some of them]]; he talked with one person for five minutes before remembering he wanted to kill that person.

* ''[[The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel]]'' series has Gilgamesh. Yes, ''the'' Gilgamesh from the earliest written story. He has [[Added Alliterative Appeal|many millennia of memories]], [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|causing him to go slightly nuts and lose track of some of them]]; he talked with one person for five minutes before remembering he wanted to kill that person.

* A [[Science Fiction]] story released in one of Asimov's anthologies had people suddenly going catatonic because the new invention of TV stored a memory for every frame shown on-screen, causing people to run out of storage space. The President, advised of the problem, held a live teleconference to warn people of the problem and froze up while watching himself on the monitor opposite him.

* In ''[[Foundation]] and Earth'', {{spoiler|Daneel}} is revealed to suffer from a bad case of this.

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== Video Games ==

* In ''[[Wizardry (Video Game)|Wizardry]]: Bane of the Cosmic Forge'', one NPC is a moderately evil wizard who wished on the Cosmic Forge that "I shall know everything." The artifact's solution to the trope was to split him into two consciousnesses and divide the knowledge between them. However, as it chose to concentrate data in the one that got the body, he went insane anyway. The one who got the understanding (the "hows" and "whys") relates the story to your party.

* It has become an open secret that that Arakune of ''[[Blaz Blue]]'' [[Was Once a Man]], but a good portion of his dementia comes from a [[Buffy Speak|Runneth Overing Skull]]. {{spoiler|He acquired so much knowledge that his mind began dumping random parts of his psyche, and the process is ongoing. Of course, that means the knowledge he possesses about everything--including himself--is essentially random at all times.}} This makes all the attempts to save him with [[The Power of Love]] more tragic.

* It has become an open secret that that Arakune of ''[[Blaz Blue]]'' [[Was Once a Man]], but a good portion of his dementia comes from a [[Buffy-Speak|Runneth Overing Skull]]. {{spoiler|He acquired so much knowledge that his mind began dumping random parts of his psyche, and the process is ongoing. Of course, that means the knowledge he possesses about everything--including himself--is essentially random at all times.}} This makes all the attempts to save him with [[The Power of Love]] more tragic.

* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII-2]]'' - {{spoiler|Serah}} and {{spoiler|Yeul}} will experience a vision of the future every time {{spoiler|the timeline is changed by resolving or causing paradoxes}}. While that may sound alright, [[Power Degeneration|each vision effects them worse and worse]] (it begins as a small migraine, and eventually causes them to faint each time) until they {{spoiler|eventually [[Downer Ending|keel over and die]].}}

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* ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' example: Jérémie once tried to use the same quantum memory technology that powered the Supercomputer to enhance his own brainpower. Of course, it backfired due to both the immense physical strain and the fact that XANA introduced the possibility of that maneuver as a [[Red Herring]].

* In an episode of the ''[[Men in Black (Animation)|Men in Black]]'' animated series, [[ET Gave Us Wi Fi|aliens bring to Earth a "Cerebral Accelerator" that boosts human intelligence]]. Agent J tries it on before MiB has a chance to safety-test it for side-effects and learns the device gives him [[Ripple Effect Proof Memory]] but will eventually make [[Your Head Asplode|his head a splode]].

* The episode of ''[[Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius]]'' where Sheen, who is somewhere between [[The Ditz]] and a [[Cloudcuckoolander]], is hit with Jimmy's brain-gain helmet, [[What an Idiot|without fixing the issue of the original brain-drain helmet]], a limiter. Sheen gets outstanding [[Psychic Powers]], an [[A God Am I]] complex, and [[Refuge in Audacity|a head the size of a]] ''[[Refuge in Audacity|house]]'' before the [[Reset Button]] is hit.

* The episode of ''[[Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius]]'' where Sheen, who is somewhere between [[The Ditz]] and a [[Cloudcuckoolander]], is hit with Jimmy's brain-gain helmet, [[What an Idiot!|without fixing the issue of the original brain-drain helmet]], a limiter. Sheen gets outstanding [[Psychic Powers]], an [[A God Am I]] complex, and [[Refuge in Audacity|a head the size of a]] ''[[Refuge in Audacity|house]]'' before the [[Reset Button]] is hit.

** At one point, Jimmy calculates the maximum possible number Sheen's IQ could grow to. ''[[Serial Escalation|It hits infinity.]]''

* This is used against a villain in one episode of ''[[Darkwing Duck]]''. In the final showdown, DW and Launchpad get their hands on the [[Shout Out|Norma Ray]], a device that increases your IQ as long as you clear your mind of all thought (but gives the user the nasty side effect of having a [[My Brain Is Big|literal]] [[Insufferable Genius|and figurative]] "swelled head"). They bombard the villain with rays while asking him a bunch of tough questions at once, causing him to lose his concentration and [[Your Head Asplode|make his head so big that it blows up]].

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[[Category:Memory Tropes]]

[[Category:My Skull Runneth Over]]

[[Category:Trope]]

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