Ret-Gone: Difference between revisions

[[File:retgone final2 vertical 2 9231.jpg|link=Crisis on Infinite Earths|frame]]

 

 

A character seems to vanish off the face of the earth. Sometimes people just disappear, but this is something more. People who should know about it aren't even sure who the person was. Photos look the same, but without them in. Their loved ones either don't exist at all, or are in love with someone else. They never existed. They're not just gone, they're Ret Gone.

 

{{examples}}

* This is the fate of {{spoiler|Enrico Pucci}} at the end of Part 6 of ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|Jojo's Bizarre Adventure]]''. By using his newfound power of {{spoiler|speeding up time, he speeds up time so much that}} the universe loops back on itself and reality is reset. However, as he is killed before completing the loop, the universe snaps back into a slightly altered version, and {{spoiler|Enrico Pucci}} is nowhere to be seen.

* In the end of the Clow Card arc of ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'', Sakura is threatened with something like this should she fail: no one will actually be gone {{spoiler|except Yukito in the anime, who disappears with Kero, Yue, and the Cards}}, but everyone will forget that their most beloved person ever meant anything to them.

** It's frighteningly easy for Ain - from the 12th movie - to RetGone a foe. Her Devil Fruit power can make someone 12 years younger with each use (and she does ''not'' have to touch a victim to use it), and can potentially erase a person from existence via multiple uses by reversing them past their birth. While she's never done so on-screen, she tends to use it as a threat after displaying what it can do. And it ''works''. Even the Straw Hats, who usually don't fear death, backed off after she reduced Nami to an eight-year-old and explained what would happen if she did it again.

* In ''[[Dragonball|Dragonball Super]]'', Beerus does this to [[Arc Villain|Zamasu]], eradicating him in Universe 10 and splitting the timeline, undoing all the damage he did in the current timeline. Course, [[Asshole Victim| the guy was ''really'' asking for it.]]

 

== Comic Books ==

(For a moment, he thinks that he sees a twitch of a smile under that burlap hood.)

'''Hanged Man''': ''No one forgets. No one. Good night, Michael Tenicek. Sleep well.'' }}

*** In fact, two of the stories featuring Samaritan strongly hint that the reason why he's been obsessively doing good acts ever since the success of his first mission is to make up for deleting the loved ones of his original timeline. Talk about [[Survivor Guilt|Survivor's Guilt]]!

* This was the origin of Waverider. In a dark future ruled by a tyrant named Monarch, scientist Matthew Ryder time-traveled to the past to defeat him, suffering an accident that turned him into the time-travelling superhero. Waverider ultimately prevented Monarch from conquering the world, but in doing so history was altered, so that Matt Ryder never went to the past and never became Waverider. However Waverider still existed, and eventually joined forces with the Matt Ryder of the new timeline to form the [[Time Police|Linear Men]].

* Implied in ''[[Fables]]''. The Jack of Fables and Fables crossover even has the villain doing this to [[Little Black Sambo]]; after Revise had more or less done this to him by censoring his myth.

* Invoked once by [[Doctor Strange]]—to clear his schedule so that he could chase down and defeat a mystical enemy, he cast a spell which made the ''entire world'' believe that he had died years ago, and that the physical man they saw was a harmless occult expert named "Stephen Sanders."

 

== Film ==

* Done in ''[[The Net]]'', where hackers erase a woman from reality. [[Hollywood Hacking|With hacking.]]

 

* A popular [[Urban Legend]], usually referred to as "The Vanishing Lady" or "The Vanishing Hotel Room", tells of a woman who stayed at a hotel with her ill mother. The daughter goes out to get medicine for her mother, but returns to find her mother and the room she was staying in no longer exist. She asks the hotel workers for help, but they claim to have no memory of her mother. There are [[Multiple Endings|two endings to the story]]. In the first, the frantic daughter is thrown out of the hotel, never to see her mother again. In some versions, this is followed by her going insane and being committed to an insane asylum. In the second ending, it's revealed the mother had died of the Black Plague while the daughter was out and that her death had been covered up to avoid a city-wide panic. Of course, there's a [[Plot Hole]] in this ending. If the authorities had wanted to avoid a plague outbreak, why didn't they quarantine the daughter and everyone else who had come into contact with the mother? A particularly cruel variation is to use both endings, so that the daughter ends up committed and only the audience learns what happened to the mother. The story is frequently set during the 1889 Paris Exposition with the mother and daughter portrayed as British tourists. The legend is the basis for the following fictional works:

** The 1950 film ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120510204129/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8164797933268590057 So Long at the Fair]'', which replaces the mother with a brother and {{spoiler|uses the second ending}}. Jean Simmons plays the woman and Dirk Bogarde plays the obligatory male hero who helps her solve the mystery.

** The episode "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM5Bt2H3mok Into Thin Air]" of ''[[Alfred Hitchcock Presents]]'', {{spoiler|which also used the second ending}}. In the opening of the episode, Hitch says that his film ''[[The Lady Vanishes]]'' is also based on this legend, though, if so, it's pretty loosely.

** Alvin Schwartz's ''[[Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark|Scary Stories]]'' series includes a version of this story titled "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMHd6OMxkeA Maybe You Will Remember]". {{spoiler|Again, the second ending is used.}}

 

== Literature ==

* In the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' novel ''Dragons of Summer Flame'', those who die while fighting the forces of All-Father Chaos are eliminated completely from existence, including the memories of the entire world. The only evidence they were ever there at all is the empty clothing and suits of armor left behind. Their method of doing so? All they need is for you to see them, and listen to them for a few seconds, so their words can steal your will to exist away. Or touching them will do that too. Chaos The All-Father was not a nice person, and his creations express this very well.

** In a later book, a group of shadow-wights survive by feeding off the memories of a small village, rather then wiping the villager from existence, allowing the wights to survive indefinitely with their victims none the wiser.

* All Travelers in ''[[The Pendragon Adventure]]'' are Ret Gone from their specific worlds after they take their first trip to another territory. They have no histories, no traces of evidence, no sign they ever existed. The people they knew still remember them, but there are no physical records of them and their journals serve as the only other proof of existence. Bobby Pendragon gets this in full, including having his house and family vanishing. Though the fact that Travelers are Ret Gone has helped the Travelers a few times in discovering that someone is [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|Saint Dane]].

* This happens in the anthology book connected to ''The Black Jewels'' trilogy. The character Saetan wipes out an entire people in response to his son's death. However, an incredibly minor character, an inn owner, remembers that a merchant from that island was there, but him and everything the man had brought with simply weren't there anymore. Also, his wife, Heketeah, the one actually responsible for the death, remembers them and is utterly terrified at the power it takes to simply erase a whole people. Saetan's friend goes to find the island only to find it's completely gone.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s novel ''[[The Number of the Beast]]'' has this happen to the heroes. Fortunately, the reason it happens is also the means of their escape—a [[Time Travel]] device that allows access to [[The Multiverse]] and establishes that they live in a [[Mutually Fictional]] [[Massively Multiplayer Crossover]]. Within the work's [[Recursive Canon]], a rival "Author" deleted them from their home universe in an act of revenge.

* The protagonists try this on Hitler in [[Stephen Fry]]'s ''Making History''. [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act|It backfires.]]

* In the short story "The Edge of the World" by Michael Swannick, three high school kids, one girl, two boys, full of hormones and teenage angst, blow off school one day and decide to go look at the edge of the world, which is not far from the American military base where they live. While there they look at caverns carved into the cliffs by ancient monks. They each make a wish - and one boy wishes he had never been born. They get their wishes. They only trace left by the boy is a quickly fading dream-like memory in the mind of the girl.

* A variant in the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series: If a wizard breaks the Wizards' Oath, he loses his wizardry and everyone in the world forgets he was ever a wizard.

* This happens to Kahlan in the last three novels in the [[Sword of Truth]] series. Richard is the only one who remembers her, including herself; Kahlan, in an interesting twist, is rendered amnesiac and is kept as a scullery maid by those who Ret Goned her.

* The end of ''[[Stardoc|Dream Called Time]]'': {{spoiler|Cherijo and Duncan}} end up in an alternate timeline where they never existed, due to {{spoiler|their [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|setting right]] [[Cosmic Retcon|what once went wrong]] with the [[Abusive Precursors|Jxin]]}}. ''They're'' fine—although, obviously, [[Unperson|there's no record of them]] aside from a few people's [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory|ripple-effect-proof memories]] and the fact that they're, well, ''there''...{{spoiler|and so, as it turns out, [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|is their daughter Marel]]. ''[[Bellisario's Maxim|Somehow]]''.}}

 

== Live Action TV ==

** ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'': "Children of Time" (the crew find out they started a colony 200 years in the past and to prevent the non-existence of several thousand people they agree to go back and strand themselves. However, Odo, having lived those 200 years and was distressed that Kira was going to die in this timeline from some severe injury. So he fixed the Defiant and causes the non-existence of those thousands of people.

** The same plot, with a research facility substituted for the ship and virtual reality goggles substituted for a [[Negative Space Wedgie]], appeared in the ''[[Eureka]]'' episode "Games People Play." Much like the TNG episode, it comes down to the ludicrous yet creepy statement that the population of Eureka is "two."

** Similar to the ''[[Torchwood]]'' and ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy]]'' examples below, [[Stargate SG-1|SG-1]] also inverts this in an episode where a new character who the audience doesn't remember appears.

* ''[[Alice]]'': What Mel fears has happened to him in the 1983 episode, "Sweet, Erasable Mel" (after Vera accidentally erases his financial records from his new computer). Things temporarily get worse for Mel when he and Alice go to the bank and try to resolve the issue – the banker accidentally presses the "delete" key, not only double-erasing Mel but the banker's information as well! (The banker famously sings, mournfully, "I don't exist!")

* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'': Coy and Vance, the "replacement Dukes," after John Schneider and Tom Wopat returned to the series in their original roles as Bo and Luke. While the departures of actors Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer were explained – they were leaving to "tend to a sick relative" – and there was one quick scene with all four Dukes before Coy and Vance left, the "fake Dukes" (as they were sometimes known to fans) are never referred to again, and it is as though they never existed.

* Inverted on ''[[Buffy]]''. Dawn popped into existence, leaving the viewers scratching their heads for a while since all the characters acted as if Dawn had always been with them. It turns out that Dawn is fabricated and all the characters have false memories. Just what their memories of the first four seasons were changed to is never specified, but they all remember Dawn being there alongside them the entire time.

** A number of the official comics set during the first four seasons have Dawn as a character, with notes attached saying, in effect, "Yeah, she didn't exist back then, but everyone remembers her being there, so..."

* In one episode of ''[[Quantum Leap]]'', Sam's actions accidentally cause Al to be convicted of murder and executed in the 1960s. Al is immediately replaced by another character (played by Roddy MacDowell) who in the new time line has always been Sam's connection to the Project. When Sam fixes things, Al comes back, with no idea that he had ever stopped being there.

* The ''[[Torchwood]]'' episode "Adam" both inverts this {{spoiler|(Adam inserts himself into the memories of the other team members to be able to exist)}} and plays it straight {{spoiler|as a means to get rid of him Jack gives everyone a memory pill and erases the record of Adam from their database}}

** There's also Caitlin. Peter utterly ruins her life just by crossing paths with her and for all her trouble she gets left behind in a [[Bad Future]] that's subsequently erased from existence, again thanks to [[Idiot Hero|Peter]].

* In one episode of ''[[Smallville]]'', Clark casually says life would be so much easier to everyone [[Wonderful Life|if he had never existed]]. Only he's holding the [[Magic From Technology|octagonal key]], which then goes on to [[Retcon]] the world without him. At first everybody is indeed happier, until he finds out that [[President Evil|President Luthor]] is about to destroy the world. Luckily, as Brainiac kills him with a kryptonite bullet, he {{spoiler|says farewell with Jor-El's voice, and then it all fades away. It was an illusion created by the disc, to move Clark into [[Time Travel|saving himself in the past]].}}

** And Stephen Moffat [[Word of God|has reportedly said that]], as a result of what was necessary to fix this crisis, a number of major events of the preceding seasons {{spoiler|(most notably, the several alien invasions and other incidents that attracted widespread public notice)}} have been erased from history, {{spoiler|leaving an Earth that is once again (almost) entirely ignorant of the existence of alien beings}}. What this means for the past Companions whose travels with the Doctor hinged on those events is anybody's guess.

** In the [[Big Finish]] ''[[Doctor Who]]'' audio drama ''Neverland'', the Time Lords are revealed to have a device called "The Oubliette of Eternity", which is a dispersal chamber combined with an erase-from-history device. The really horrifying thing that is that until they look at the [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory|Ripple Effect Proof]] records, even a person who has authorized its use many times over is under the impression that it has never been used.

** During the Sontaran invasion of Gallifrey, the De-Mat Gun worked like this. [[Expanded Universe]] implies the Eighth Doctor {{spoiler|used a massively magnified version of the Gun to create the Time Lock to imprison everyone in the [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Last Great Time War]].}}

{{quote|'''Salem''': Ah, the days of Bobunk...}}

* In the season 3 finale of ''[[Fringe]]'', {{spoiler|this happens to Peter Bishop}}. {{spoiler|He eventually gets better}}. The trope is apparently played to full effect regarding {{spoiler|Peter's infant son Henry}}, though.

* In an homage to ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]'' in ''[[Dallas]]'' a demon shows JR Ewing what everyone's life would be like had he not existed. After seeing how well off everyone would be it convinces JR to shoot himself which concludes the series.

* In ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]'', {{spoiler|the Greatest Treasure in the Universe has the power to do this to Zangyack, which would retroactively undo all the damage they've done to the universe. However, using it would also erase the history and legacy of the [[Super Sentai]], so the Gokaiger ultimately decide not to use it.}}

 

== Music ==

* "Hands of Doom" by [[Manowar]]:

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Speaking of ''Dungeons and Dragons'', the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' setting has rules for fighting the minions of Chaos (also mentioned under Literature.) Die to them, and all you'll leave behind is empty armor and any books that were written about you (the latter of which will be assumed to be fiction.)

* In core ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', the LeShay are an ancient (as in, [[Time Abyss]]), very powerful (as in, epic-level) race of [[The Fair Folk|fey lords]] who claim this happened to their entire society. Supposedly, they had a vast inter-planar empire that existed ''before the current multiverse'', but some sort of cataclysm not only wiped it out, but erased its history from the memories of all other sentient beings. They do not say exactly how his happened or who was responsible, but they do say that trying to restore it would result in an even ''worse'' cataclysm that would erase countless billions of lives. They aren't eager to make the attempt.

 

== Video Games ==

* This is a fairly standard tactic in ''[[Achron]]'', due to the time travel game mechanics. Not only do you have to defend your base in the present, you have to defend it in the past lest another player decides to retroactively attack you and retcon your army away.

* This is also the fate of Serge in ''[[Chrono Cross]]'' if your party is wiped out.

* In ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]: Explorers of Time/Darkness'', {{spoiler|this is what will happen to all the Pokémon from the future once the world is saved. This includes both Grovyle and the main character, though in the latter's case, Dialga comes to the rescue. This is also, presumably, why Dusknoir and Primal Dialga try to stop the heroes from changing the past.}}

** In the [[Updated Rerelease]] ''Explorers of the Sky'', {{spoiler|the same charity extended to the main character is granted to everyone in the future. Including a [[Heel Face Turn]]ed Dusknoir.}}

** The Allies in ''Red Alert 2'' developed the Chrono Legionnaire which could erase units from the timestream completely [[Nightmare Fuel|over a few seconds while they're left utterly helpless and untouchable]]. Weaponized Retgone anyone?

* In ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'', over the course of the game, Mary's letter turns blank, then disappears from the envelope, and finally the envelope disappears as well; it was a creation of his mind. Or was it?

* One possible way to die in ''[[Space Quest|Space Quest V]]'' is via time paradox.

{{quote|Bea is dead. In an alternate future she would've borne your son. In the future past of Space Quest 4, your son would've saved your life. But she didn't so he couldn't - therefore you aren't.}}

* One of the many ways to die in ''[[The Journeyman Project]]'' is to be "uncreated" by the reality distortion wave, which happens if you go to the wrong place in the Global Transporter, or wait too long at the TSA.

* Pretty much the entire plot of ''[[Time Hollow]]''.

* ''[[The King of Fighters]] 2003 - XIII'': {{spoiler|Ash Crimson planned to do this to himself all along.}}

* Happens with {{spoiler|the Guardians/Celestrians}} of ''[[Dragon Quest IX]]'' after {{spoiler|Celestia ascends them all for accomplishing the purpose they were created for. All the Guardian statues in the world lose their inscriptions, and everyone (except the ghosts) treat their presence as a minor mystery.}}

* The ''[[Prince of Persia]]: Sands of Time'' trilogy has this on a rather grand scale: {{spoiler|The climax of the first game has the Prince reseal the Sands, which sends him back before they were released in the first place and lets him defeat the Vizer who started the whole affair. The [[Road Cone|canon ending]] for the second game has the Prince prevent the Sands from being made in the first place, meaning that last Ret-Gone is undone, the Vizer is alive, and he takes over Farah's country before marching on Persia as part of his plan to [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|re-create the Sands in the first place...]]}}

* In ''[[Mortal Kombat|Mortal Kombat 11]]'', {{spoiler|all the Kombatants are in danger of this, due to having to work with their younger selves; eventually, it does happen to Kano.}}

** Also, in the canon ending, {{spoiler|it happens to everyone except Liu Kang, Kitana, and Raiden, although one assumes their plans to rebuild the world [[Hope Springs Eternal| will include restoring their friends and allies]].}}

** Chromie herself is the target in the far-more-complex "Deaths of Chromie" scenario. Chromie has pretty much memorized how and when she will die (being a [[Time Lord]] and all) and realizes she's a target when her views of it change drastically. Fortunately, given her ability to [[Time Travel]] the player has an unlimited number of chances to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]], and can learn and expand on each failed attempt.

 

** After insistence from John Allison for over two years that she would never return, Erin had a print minicomic, "Erin Winters and the Bone Throne (of Bones)" and has now popped up in his new comic ''[[Bad Machinery]]'' as a rookie journalist. She's yet to interact with anyone she knew in her old existence, though!

* ''[[8-Bit Theater]]'' once had a comic that suggested [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2008/03/29/episode-972-department-of-un-history-item-d-36/ there was a fifth Light Warrior named Bard] that [[Trickster Mentor|Sarda]] erased from existence for some (likely stupid) reason.

** Part of the concern for our heroes is some of the positive changes that this change has wrought. Ash has a better relationship with both parents, and Emily barely avoided being in a severe car accident that could very well have killed her (and this is before getting into their attraction to each other).

* In ''[http://www.tru-lifeadventures.com TRU-Life Adventures]'', Scarlett places Jack in a coma-like stasis so he won't {{spoiler|exist in the new timeline she's constructing}}''. It works.

* In an arc of ''[[Gaming Guardians]]'', two new recruits are visiting the Guardians' facilities when one is snatched away by an enemy... and no one remembers him being there in the first place. Except for the other recruit, who has hazy memories but don't know why the other person isn't there. The others thinks it's cute that he has an imaginary friend...

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', in the ''Torg Potter'' parodies of ''[[Harry Potter]]'', it is eventually revealed that the reason everyone keeps talking about [[The Trope Without a Title|"You-probably-don't-know-who"]] and such is because the character in question accidentally erased himself from history and everyone's memories, so that no-one really did know who even though they knew there had been someone.

* In ''[[Goblins]]'' the Psionic Minmax intends to do this to every version of his party that has entered the maze, creating holes that Retgone anything that falls into them. It quickly turns out that while people will have no memory of the object thus removed, they can notice something's going on. As "our" Minmax starts throwing his clothes into the hole, Kin considers the unlikelihood of someone going on an adventure without shoes or pants, and realizes what it must be doing.

 

== Web Original ==

** Also, SCP-3999, an evil creature with near-godlike [[Reality Warping]] powers and seemingly infinite cruelty. Presumably created (or at least discovered) by the Level-3 researcher James Taloran, the SPC broke free and mercilessly tortured Taloran in a variety of ways, including changing reality to cause Taloran's family to be executed by firing squad, then their corpses nailed to a wall and then set on fire, all while forcing the poor researcher to watch. Only some forensic evidence of its existence at the destroyed containment site remains, leading the Foundation to believe Taloran somehow managed to create a [[Grandfather Paradox]] that eradicated himself ''and'' SCP-3999;

* In the ''[[Paradise]]'' setting, humans are randomly, permanently changed into [[Funny Animal]]s by causes unknown—and some are [[Gender Bender|gender-switched]] at the same time. As the [[Weirdness Censor|"Reality Distortion Field"]] that keeps these changes [[Invisible to Normals]] begins to wind down, gender-bent Changed discover all extant documentation about themselves is [[retcon]]ned as reality itself is edited to reflect their new gender. Their driver's licenses and other identification have newly-feminine names, and all photos all the way back to when they were babies will show a girl instead of a boy (or vice versa). Hence, as far as the world is concerned, the character's original gender is "Ret-Gone"—records will show that the former "he" has always been a "she" (or vice versa). (Memories of those who knew them before are not affected, however. Also, while people who already know them will continue to see them as their original gender, strangers they meet will see them as the new one.)

{{quote|'''Grif:''' Come on dude, tell us more about the reality bending computer. I'm ''hanging'' on your every word.

'''Simmons:''' I don't wanna talk about it. }}

 

== Western Animation ==

** It was actually rather pleasant, up until Chode and Gus brought in the concept of evil with them, which caused an immediate death spiral for all life everywhere. The reason why? [[Rousseau Was Right|Well, with no God to tell people what NOT to do, no one ever had the idea of doing anything bad. No God, No Evil.]] But once the concept of "Evil" was brought in from the outside, with no fear of divine punishment for any crimes you commit, well, there's no reason NOT to do terrible things, up to and including senseless murder.

* ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'': This happens to Captain Hoek and Cadet Stimpy (and the narrator) in "Space Madness", after Stimpy pushes the [[Big Red Button|History Eraser Button]], which turns out to be [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].

* One episode of the ''[[Men in Black (animation)|Men in Black]]'' [[Animated Adaptation]] dealt with a crazed alien enthusiast finding a way to time-travel and going back to kill off the founding members of the eponymous organization. A photo displaying the meeting between the founders and a group of aliens has each human disappearing one by one, and everyone instantly forgets them except Jay, who's gained [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory]] via some Alien Phlebotinum which is also slowly killing him. {{spoiler|Jay manages to undo everything, including his own Phlebotinum exposure.}}

* Taken [[Up to Eleven]] on ''[[Family Guy]]'', when Stewie learns that his time machine accidentally created the universe, but Bertram kills Stewie's ancestor. Stewie sets everything right, though, since [[Status Quo Is God]] and they've already done the [[Gainax Ending]] to death.

== Real Life ==

* Do you remember the great dictator John Frost? The one that started World War III? No? Well, there's kind of a reason for that.

* Richard Calverbrough from Renley's Gap, NSW. Try googling him. See?

* A huge part of the operation to kill Osama Bin-Laden involved SEAL Team Six going back in time to prevent Barack Obama's assassination so he could order the mission in the first place.

* Remember the war of 1933 when the city of Atlantis sent the Titan Androlecisys to destroy the east coast of Tasmania? No? Good.

* It's possible a Ret-Gone has occurred multiple times, but since they never existed, we of course don't remember.