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Fake Memories: Difference between revisions
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** Later on, {{spoiler|Shiori secretly takes Asuna's place by copying all of Asuna's memories, so that Shiori believes that she's Asuna. Yes, she has fake memories of fake memories.}}
* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' has {{spoiler|Fate}} and her memories of a happier childhood with {{spoiler|a kinder [[Evil Matriarch|mother]]. The memories themselves ''are'' real, but they belonged to someone else: Alicia Testarossa, the little girl [[Cloning Blues|that she was cloned from]].}} [[Heroic BSOD|She doesn't take the realization that they're not her own very well]].
* In ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' {{spoiler|Fei Wong Reed did this to Fay as a part of his [[Gambit Roulette|crazy elaborate plan]]. He made Fay believe that he sacrificed his brother's life to escape from the hellish imprisonment the two had endured for most of their childhood.}} Though in reality {{spoiler|Fay's brother gave his life willingly in exchange for Fay's freedom.}}
** Also used in the anime, during the filler episodes, where Chaos uses fake feathers/memories to convince Sakura that she's known Chaos since she was a child. {{spoiler|Of course, then it turns out that Chaos is actually just a big bunch of Sakura's feathers.}}
* Rosamia from [[Zeta Gundam]] is eventually brainwashed into believing Kamille is her long-lost brother, and then has her memories altered again to think that her classmate Gates is her brother instead.
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Barry the Chopper taunts Al with suggestions that his memories aren't actually real, and he's just an artificial being created by Ed. {{spoiler|His memories are, in fact, real, but it takes several episodes until he finds out.}}
* In ''[[Kikaider]]'' in the four part OVA {{spoiler|It is revealed that Reiko was actually a robot without anyone, including her, knowing. All of her memories were made up and the false memories was purposely made to lead her and her friends to their doom.}}
* Chibiusa does this with disconcerting frequency to Usagi's family in the second season of ''[[Sailor Moon]]''. Somewhat justified as she doesn't alter their memories ''too'' badly and doesn't alter their personalities either: she only makes them believe she's the family niece, rather than Usagi's [[Kid From the Future]].
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* In ''[[Scott Pilgrim]]'', the reason why Scott thinks that he was a blameless paragon of virtue in high school, even though he was a dick, was because {{spoiler|Gideon Graves "spiced up" his memories.}}
** Though {{spoiler|part of that was Scott's own fault as well. It was mainly his "beating up Kim's former boyfriend" part that Gideon messed with.}}
* [[The Falcon]] was originally a professional criminal, gang member, and pimp. He is captured by the Red Skull who uses the Cosmic Cube to alter his memory to make him believe he was social worker all along.
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* Used in the movie [[Push]], by people called [[Department of Redundancy Department|Pushers]]. At one point Kira is made to think that her entire relationship with Nick was a false memory that ''she'' gave ''him'' and she's been pushing his thoughts the entire time they were together. She even believes that ''she made up the existence of Coney Island''. The reality of a photo taken at Coney Island is the key evidence that causes her to realize that this was a fake memory.
** Kira is a very powerful Pusher do and once causes one of the guys guarding her to kill his partner by convincing him his partner killed his little brother in a rather gruesome way. The kicker? He never had a brother.
* In ''[[Blade Runner]]'', the new experimental replicants have literal [[Fake Memories]] to give them a semblance of a childhood and more humanity than older models. When they find out, [[Tomato in the Mirror]] occurs.
* In ''[[Total Recall]]'', the main character has visions of a life on Mars that contradicts his memories of a quiet blue-collar life on Earth. He starts to regain his earlier memories with the help of a [[Note to Self:]], but it turns out ''those'' were fake memories, too, all part of an [[Gambit Roulette|elaborate]] [[Manchurian Agent]] plot. But then, you never really know whether it was [[All Just a Dream]] anyway.
** And in the book it was based on, people could ''buy'' as entertainment, fake memories of being an action hero working for the government. Problems arose when those memories turned out to be real for the protagonist... Or were they?
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** And in ''[[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows|Deathly Hallows]]'', Hermione gives her parents fake memories to protect them from Death Eaters during the Second Wizarding War. After the war ended, Hermione found her parents in Australia and restored their memories.
* A peculiar version occurs in Orwell's ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'': the citizens of Oceania alter ''their own memories'', in a way, whenever the Party [[Retcon|RetCons]] the past. Through the process of doublethink, they can recall past events if need be (hence, if the Party "tells" them to).
** -and of course, recall the previously forgotten and forbidden memory when required by the party to do so. The definition of 'doublethink' and a common ability of non-fictional political animals. One of the points of the book. Monday: 'We are at war with Eastasia and have always been at war wih Eastasia'. Tuesday: 'We are at war with Eurasia, and have always been at war with Eurasia'.
* The "screen memories" experienced by people after they encounter aliens in ''[[More Information Than You Require]]''.
* ''[[The Princess 99]]'' has an example of altered ''and'' fake memories since [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] group Birds of Prey does this to their assassins. {{spoiler|Their method is glossing over bad, violent memories with sparkly good ones so that their assasins remain loyal only to them.}}
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' has the "death of personality", an alternative to capital punishment in which the convict's memories and personality are erased by telepaths, and replaced with something that will make him useful to society. In the Season 3 episode Passing Through Gethsemane, a character discovers that he is actually a serial killer whose previous identity was erased in this way, and he has a breakdown.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'':
** In "Superstar", everyone gets fake memories of Jonathan being Sunnydale's own resident [[Marty Stu]].
** The introduction of Dawn at the start of Season Five. Not only does she believe she's Buffy's little sister, everyone else believes it, too. "You've always had to take care of Dawn."
** Connor is given a set of fake memories when he's removed from the cast of ''[[Angel]]'', as are most of the other characters he interacted with during seasons 3 or 4.
* An early ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode, the whole team was made to believe Daniel was dead. Naturally, the truth was uncovered through hypnosis.
** Another example - "The Fifth Man" in which an alien with this as a power becomes the fifth member of the team, there all along. Unusually, he's a friendly alien seeking to ally with them, and the pheromone that lets his species do this is extracted and used in a later episode to allow Daniel to infiltrate a Goa'uld summit.
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** In "Course: Oblivion" the ''entire crew'' discovers their memories are fake. {{spoiler|They're actually not the ''Voyager'' crew at all, but Silver Blood duplicates who ''think'' they're the originals.}}
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'': "I'm not a Cylon, I'm Sharon Valerii. I was born on Troy, my parents were Katherine and Abraham Valerii." BUZZ - Wrong. {{spoiler|"I am Samuel T. Anders. I was born on Picon, I went to Noyse Elementary School." BUZZ - Wrong.}}
* The point of the [[Dollhouse]]. Its a company which takes operatives called 'Dolls' who they can program to be whomever they want; prositute, spy, medical officer, the list goes on. Each time the Doll has a full set of memories, at least until its wiped an a new set is downloaded. Except, what happens if a Doll begins to keep his or her memories?
* In mid '90s TV series ''[[Nowhere Man]]'' a man comes out of the bathroom to rejoin his birthday party. No one knows who he is. It's a conspiracy. He travels around much like the Fugitive, even visiting his mother at one point. She doesn't know who he is. All the while he is being pursued by some secretive organisation who clearly must have manipulated everyone. In the end we learn he isn't who he thought he was. Everything up until he left the bathroom were implanted memories.
* As of the end of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' Volume 4 {{spoiler|Sylar has been implanted with the suggestion that he is Nathan Petrelli, if not with the man's actual memories. His ability to read the history of any object he touches, and his ability to shapeshift will presumably fill in the blanks}}.
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* This is done to John in an early episode of ''[[Farscape]]''. A group of Delvians make him think he is married and his wife is with him on the planet, complete with fake memories of her being involved in all of his adventures. The point is to distract him and fracture his mind so they can get to Zhaan. Interestingly, he doesn't discover the truth on his own and is only released from the delusions when one of the bad guys has a change of heart.
* In one episode of ''[[Legend of the Seeker]]'', this was used by a murderer to make someone else believe they had committed the crime. Especially tricky because not only would the person with the fake memories admit to the crime under Confession, but once the heroes had figured out that fake memories were involved, the killer ''planted the memories of planting the previous false memories'' in yet another innocent person.
* Integral to ''[[Blake's Seven|Blakes Seven]]'''s first episode (and unfortunately dropped after that). [[Blatant Lies|Ordinary civilian]] Blake [[Tomato in the Mirror|discovers that he was once a famous revolutionary]] who got captured, was forced to renounce the rebellion he'd led and had his memories replaced in order to turn him into a model citizen. Later, [[The Empire|the Federation]] gets Blake convicted of child molestation by [[Complete Monster|modifying the memories of children so they'd remember being attacked by Blake]].
* ''[[Starsky and Hutch (TV series)|Starsky and Hutch]]'': The evil conspiracy in "The Set-Up" manufactures untraceable assassins by [[Brainwashed and Crazy|brainwashing]] random people and giving them memories that make them want to kill the target.
* Season 2 of ''[[Haven]]'' appears to indicate that {{spoiler|Audrey's memories are fake and that she's really Lucy, when the real Audrey Parker shows up}}.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' 3.5 has a spell called ''Programmed Amnesia'' which allows you to remove and add memories on the affected target. The caster could give the target a whole new life and new personality.
** There is also a less powerful spell call [http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/modifyMemory.htm modify memory] that still has power perversion possibilities.
* The Fetch from ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'' are magical doppelgangers created by the True Fae when they abduct a human. The Fetch live out the lives of the people they've replaced, oblivious to the fact that their whole life is a shame...until the taken human, now a Changeling, escapes from Faerie. Most Fetch aren't aware anything's amiss until this happens, and most take the news they are fakes with memories stolen from a small piece of a person's soul poorly. Of course, sometimes the Fetch's memories are imperfect to begin with...
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The main issue driving James Sunderland through ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'' is that he has immersed himself in a fantasy quest based completely around a fabricated recollection of his wife's death, which has replaced the truth in his mind.
* Halfquake (including the comics): All victims (including the portoganist) are clones with artificial memories
* This is the premise behind ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'s'' [[Tomato in the Mirror]]: {{spoiler|the [[Player Character]] is former Sith Lord Darth Revan, reprogrammed to act as a Jedi agent and pursue the [[Artifact of Doom|Star Forge]].}}
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* ''[[Klonoa]]: Door to Phantomile'' has a [[Tomato in the Mirror]] moment at the end to give it a last-second [[Bittersweet Ending]].
* Part of the conflict regarding the "School Kids" storyline in ''[[Super Robot Wars]] [[Original Generation]] 2'' is that the kids on the bad guys' side of the fight are having their memories altered to not only forget their friends, but to see them as enemies.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', the hero Cloud came back from [[Heroic BSOD]] with a set of memories half-borrowed from his now dead best friend, Zack. Zack's former girlfriend becomes a potential [[Love Interest]]. [[Hilarity Ensues]]. Surprisingly subtle [[Foreshadowing]] occurs despite Tifa trying to keep the truth from him, leading to one of videogame history's perennial [[Tomato in the Mirror]] scenes.
* In ''[[Vagrant Story]]'', main character Ashley's generic tragic [[Backstory]] is picked apart through the game to explain his [[Cursed with Awesome|incredible fighting prowess]], but neither one seems to quite add up. Ultimately he chooses to leave his past behind him, and [[The Un-Reveal|we never find out which one is true]].
* As in the page quote, there's some questions throughout the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' series about whether the Shadow you play as is in fact the "real Shadow". In ''Sonic Adventure 2'' these questions come about when Rouge finds information on the original Project Shadow, the Biolizard. The question is never actually answered, but the caption before fighting Biolizard refers to it as "the prototype of the ultimate life", meaning that there is a final product: Shadow the Hedgehog. In ''Sonic Adventure 2 Battle'', this is modified to suggest that the ultimate lifeform is either Shadow or Sonic the Hedgehog, although only Shadow has reason to suspect this. In ''Sonic Heroes'', it comes up again, as several Shadow Androids are discovered, leading Rouge to believe that Shadow is a robot himself. It's finally settled in (what else?) ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'', but only if you take long enough at the final boss to hear Eggman tell you that you're the real Shadow. The various endings throughout the game vary between Shadow accepting himself as real, or as an android.
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** Human visual analysis was proved to be error-suppressing. If a little part of the eye's field of vision is partially blocked by something immovable ''relative to the eyeball'', this part is filled with "repaired" texture extrapolated from the rest of the scene. Sorry guys -- error tolerance, lack of artifacts, good signal-to-noise ratio and high sensitivity seem to not to be fully compatible qualities.
** The reverse can also happen. A person can see completely, but is fully convinced they are blind. (It's tested by having people who are actually blind/them go through a room. They either have close to 0% success, or close to 100% success at key tasks, while people who are actually blind have about 50% success.)
* While it's not clear exactly how much of the events fall under this trope, a number of the 1980-1995 accusations of Satanic ritualistic abuse of children in the United States and elsewhere involved testimony that was simply impossible, which the individual did not remember until after being questioned.
** Much of the "recovered memory" testimony was discredited after a psychologist testified that the techniques used for "recovering suppressed memories" were exactly the ones she had been using in research to create false memories.
** Furthermore, extensive police research produced no evidence whatsoever, despite of that according to the testimonials the conspiracy worked almost openly, using easily recognisable vehicles and facilities. Many real-life "Satanic" organizations - occult lodges, and suchlike - were forced to divert a great deal of their limited resources to protect their members from the phenomenon with varying levels of success. Needless to say, they weren't the least bit amused. Poor Satanists.
** What's worse, many of these testimonies provided by children were produced by essentially ''brainwashing'' the child. They were often asked leading questions about ''how'' they were abused, rather than ''if'', or suggesting answers to them when they couldn't think of anything, or even just telling the kid that they'd been abused even when they denied it. If the child didn't give them anything, they would simply repeat this process over a number of days or intermittently over weeks, until the child began to believe it.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Mind Manipulation]]▼
[[Category:Memory Tropes]]
[[Category:Fake Memories]]
▲[[Category:Mind Manipulation Tropes]]
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