Laser-Guided Amnesia: Difference between revisions

In TV, it's very weird too, but it's much more specific. Amnesia has several basic attributes in TV land:

 

 

 

'''2.''' In a series with [[Plausible Deniability]], amnesia typically also erases all knowledge of the [[Masquerade]]. The character will completely forget that aliens, monsters, vampires and such are real, but will remember that normal people don't believe in such things. This can seem especially odd if that's the sort of thing the character never believed in the first place: if you don't remember anything, how do you know that aliens and werewolves are any stranger than the sun coming up in the morning and setting at night? Even more odd if the character is himself an alien or supernatural being and subsequently "defaults to [[Muggle]]" after losing his memory. Occasionally, this is paired with [[Fake Memories]] to create an elaborate deception.

'''3.''' With very few exceptions, amnesia is always entirely retrograde: memory loss extends backward from the moment of injury. Anterograde amnesia (the inability to accumulate new memories) has only started to come up in recent years, usually in comedies. Amnesia usually extends back clean to birth. Real amnesia resulting from head trauma or drugs is usually confined to a short period on ''both sides'' (before and after) of the incident.

 

 

Very useful in maintaining that things are [[No Big Deal]]. To this end, it's pretty standard for [[The Men in Black]] to use this on anyone who's seen too much, often employing a [[Memory-Wiping Crew]]. Contrast [[Exposition Beam]]. Can cause an [[Amnesiac Hero]] to be born.

* In ''[[The Big O]]'', a major part of the original plot is that ''everyone'' in Paradigm City -- and apparently whatever is left of the world, as well -- has amnesia of unknown origin. Unable to recall who they were before the incident (but still retaining most of their day-to-day survival skills), everyone begins life anew. Then odd and disturbing reminders start appearing, many years later... {{spoiler|The finale implies that they're all characters in an anime series.}}

** {{spoiler|What do you mean ''implies''? [[Captain Obvious|They]] '''[[Captain Obvious|are]]''' [[Captain Obvious|all characters in an anime series]].}}

* ''[[Bleach]]'' has a similar memory erasing plot device, with the downside that the blank is generally filled in by something random from the person's imagination. It has fun with what the blanks are filled with, such as a [[Cloudcuckoolander|particularly strange]] character who "remembers" that the reason there is a hole in the classroom and a missing student is because an army of monkeys burst into class and dragged him away.

** They later gain an upgraded version without that particular problem, but by this time half the cast has some level of spirit power, and thus the memory modification fails to one degree or another on them.

* Happens to a lot of ''[[Kanon]]'' characters, all for reasons relating to the town's miracles and the tragedy seven years ago.

* In ''[[Ranma ½]]'', Shampoo uses a technique on Akane to erase all memories of Ranma. She remembers every other person and thing, even when not knowing Ranma means she wouldn't know how she became familiar with them. Apparently, Ranma's father is living with her for no discernible reason.

** After accidentally smacking his head with a watermelon in a training accident, Kuno retains the formidable skills he gained through his watermelon training, but forgets his name, his pompous demeanor, and how much money he owes to Nabiki (none, but she's not going to say that). Worst of all, his self-restraint is gone, turning his infatuation with the Pigtailed Girl into a stalker obsession that nearly [[Attempted Rape|ends badly for her]].

** One anime episode goes beyond this into [[Loss of Identity]]; after falling into the pond and hitting his head, Ranma starts thinking of himself as really being a girl. "She" hates violence, wants to give up martial arts, faints at the sight of blood, freaks out and starts crying after being returned to male form, talks about becoming a bride and goes bra shopping with Akane, has to have Akane help her go to the toilet because "she" can't deal with either set of body parts, rebukes Akane for her tomboy ways and, after Akane finally breaks down and [[We Want Our Jerk Back|admits that this isn't Ranma and she wants the real Ranma back]], "she" tells her that it can't happen. Fortunately, as with [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]], Ranma is restored to normal after Akane knocks "her" back into the pool and makes him hit his head again.

* {{spoiler|Asuna}} of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' did this to ''herself'' so [[I Just Want to Be Normal|she could live a normal life]]. Apparently, she didn't notice not having any memory of her past ''or the planet she was living on'', although her [[Older Than They Look|apparent]] age may have allowed her to [[Hand Wave]] the bit about her own past.

** Happens later on {{spoiler|to Yue after the Gateport incident randomly scatters Ala Alba across the Magic World.}} She has the bad luck to land right in front of a magic student on a broomstick, who not only gives her a knock on the head, but accidentally discharges a memory erasure spell, causing her to lose all of her memories except her name.

*** [[Playing with a Trope|Hmmm...]] As of chapter 337, {{spoiler|Yue [http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sensei_negima/v37/c337/12.html has still not recovered ALL of her memories.] She ''does'' remember Negi, Nodoka, her classmates and new friends, but can't recall anything that happened in between the school trip and her arrival to the Magical World... which is actually the time period in which she fell in love witrh Negi. This causes her noticeable angst in that chapter, since she thinks she's not worthy of confessing to Negi until she remembers ''how'' she fell for him.}}

** At the start of the series, Negi attempts this on Asuna when she finds out he's a mage. [[Fan Service|It does not go as planned.]] Otherwise, ''Negima'' avoids this by having the [[Masquerade]] instead of removing memories of crazy happenings, just prevent them from noticing all the craziness going on.

*** At least, not of the hypnosis event itself. If it's a long-term multi-activate compulsion, some of them figure it out--Suzaku, for example. He does ''not'' like having to {{spoiler|'LIVE!'}}

* ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' ''appears'' to do this to Princess Sakura regarding her relationship with Syaoran; the truth is [[Gambit Pileup|much]], [[Mind Screw|much]] [[Send in the Clones|more]] [[Mind Screw|complicated]].

* In ''[[Interstella 5555]]'', the main characters, an alien music group, are put in a machine that changes their memories to make them believe they are human.

* Done very literally in ''[[Vampire Knight]]'' {{spoiler|Kaname uses his vampire powers to wipe out Yuki's memories of Maria being in fact Hio, the vampire responsible for the slaughtering of Zero's family. It does not last long, though, as the effects are almost immediately canceled by Hio herself.}}

*** She's also a clinical psychopath, like Light and possibly L (who may just be in the autistic spectrum, or schizoid), and not nearly as much of an idiot as she makes herself be, though she looks pretty dumb compared to the resident geniuses even at the start, when she's making an effort.

*** ''As'' a clinical psychopath, Light wouldn't necessarily have done anything especially evil if he hadn't gotten the Death Note; he had a self-image as righteous to uphold and lots more to gain by remaining the golden boy, boring as it was, and the laser-guided-amnesia Nice Light is zapped right back to that--more than factual memories are removed; his considerable character development related to the Note gets reset. He keeps what L-related developments weren't actually part of Kira-hood, and the fact that his life is no longer boring because of the Kira investigation, but forgets about his break with normative humanity. Lots of clinical psychopaths interact perfectly normally in society, and the smarter ones tend to wind up in its upper echelons. He would have, too, ''if'' he didn't crash and burn from frustration with it all being too easy and meaningless.

** The persons affected can't be consciously filling in the holes based on logic, because then Nice Light would ''know'' from looking at the holes in his head that L's theory about amnesia is completely correct, and he doesn't buy it. The magic at work is obviously complicated stuff.

* [[Ridiculously-Human Robots|The Wolkenritter]] of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' appeared to have been programmed to forget [[Omnicidal Maniac|what really happened]] whenever the [[Artifact of Death|Book of Darkness]] filled all [[Number of the Beast|666 pages]]. This gap in their memories greatly disturbed Vita when she realized that she couldn't remember what became of their previous masters.

* ''[[Gundam Wing]]'': ({{spoiler|Trowa Barton}} survives a terrible fight against {{spoiler|his best friend Quatre (who was under the effects of the Zero System)}}, but loses his memories. {{spoiler|Don't worry, Quatre helps him get them back. Best friend? Some would say [[Ho Yay]]!}}

* {{spoiler|Watanuki}} from ''[[xxxHolic]]'' is a very interesting case. His magically induced amnesia is not only partially anterograde (for example, he can't remember the taste of anything he eats, or even remember if he ate it), but it's also done in such a way that he didn't even ''notice'' he had it for quite some time. The discovery gave him a [[Tomato in the Mirror|tomato related]] nervous breakdown.

* Used regularly in ''[[Fruits Basket]]'', whenever someone learns too much about the Sohma family, thanks to the local doctor and family member Hatori Sohma. Tohru is threatened with this, Momiji's mother chose to forget him because she could not cope with the curse, and Kana had to go through it after being put through [[Mind Rape]].

* Implied in ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' with {{spoiler|Ludwig aka Germany.}} If this is the case, {{spoiler|he probably lost his childhood memories of being the Holy Roman Empire as time passed and he fought in too many wars.}}

** Second, as {{spoiler|Amiboshi}} turns out to be [[Not Quite Dead]] but doesn't remember his past at all. The amnesia was guided by his new family, who are big fans of this trope and try to "help" Miaka by pointing some amnesia her way, too.

*** Although {{spoiler|Amiboshi}} was largely faking it; he preferred his new family.

** Third, in the OVA series, Tenkou uses [[MacGuffin]] Spheres to systematically erase Taka/Tamahome's memories of his allies.

* In ''[[Red Garden]]'', the [[Four-Girl Ensemble|four main girls]] remember little more than brief, vague flashes of the night they died and certain events connected to this. {{spoiler|This gets resolved later, but it turns out that [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]] is a side effect of [[Back From the Dead|revival]] in general.}}

* [[Double Subversion]] in ''[[Tekkaman Blade]]'': {{spoiler|D-Boy turns out to have been lying about having amnesia, and remembers everything. Then later, he starts losing his memory for real.}}

** Their mindwiping wasn't just limited to villains; {{spoiler|[[Batman]]}} was also mindwiped.

*** Only of the fact that they were mindwiping villains, though--but since ''he can't be sure of that,'' the emotional factor is...ouch.

* Before ''[[Planetary]]'' recruited him to become the third man, Elijah Snow lived in a shack in the desert with gaps in his century-spanning memory you could "chuck a nuke through". His work with the field team leads him to prod at these gaps and learn that the mysterious Fourth Man behind Planetary is {{spoiler|him, and that [[Big Bad|The Four]] forced him to allow the memory blocks after they captured him and his team.}}

* In [[Don Rosa]]'s ''Uncle Scrooge'' story "Forget It!", Magica uses a wand that causes anyone hit by it to start forgetting things related to words they hear after they hear their name, and uses it on Scrooge and [[Donald Duck]] in her latest effort to steal Scrooge's [[Number One Dime]]. [[Hilarity Ensues]] as Donald and Scrooge forget how to use doors, stairs, and even how to stand up and walk due to Magica's spell.

* [[Mandrake the Magician]] has had parts of his memory erased several times, usually by well-meaning, but condescending aliens and time-travellers who thinks it's too dangerous to let him remember all the fantastic things he has seen. The poor guy's had a lot of amazing adventures that he will never know about.

* Not so long ago it happened in ''[[Thunderbolts]]'': {{spoiler|When they have to kill Songbird, Headsman, Ghost and Paladin betrayed and defeated Scourge and Mr. X, and left her escape. Then Ghost removes this even from Scourge's and X's short-time memory}}

== Fan Works ==

* In ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'', {{spoiler|Nagato}} does this to {{spoiler|Kyon, Mikuru, and Kanae}} ''every night'' to stop them remembering [[Year Inside, Hour Outside|years and years of training]]. {{spoiler|It's also hinted she does it to stop Kyon remembering kissing her...}}

* In ''Speechless'', a ''Death Note'' fic, this shows up.

* A ''[[Star Wars]]'' fanfic called ''Innocence'' sees Vader suffering brain damage after a crash into Rebel territory. When he learns the facts of [[Complete Monster|his career]], he decides he'd rather start as a new man. {{spoiler|While he's unsuccessful in getting rid of his breathmask, he adopts some less intimidating prosthetics and swaps his [[Dark Is Evil|black cape]] for green coveralls.}} He rediscovers his engineering talent with Han as a mentor/bodyguard, {{spoiler|and after helping the pilots get even with an obnoxious commander, [[Alternate Universe Fic|is ultimately accepted as a comrade]]}}.

* ''[[Mistakes]]'' depicts the nation-tans of ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' as unable to disobey a direct order from their human leaders. Thus, {{spoiler|when Japan finds out the horrible things being done to his brothers and his boss tells him to forget about it, not even meaning it entirely literally, Japan ''does''}}.

 

*** He did. And it wasn't so much laser-guided in that he forgot about the Weapon X project; after his brain healed up from ''three adamantium bullets being shot into it'' he had a few cloudy memories of being Canadian, lifelong skills (like how to speak at least English), and a few dribs and drabs here and there. Other than that he's either blank or completely stilted, he doesn't even remember the fact that he has ''claws that pop out of his fists''!

* The Neuralizer from ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'', also known as the [[Buffy-Speak|"flashy thing"]]. It can be set for a specific length of time and leaves the victim in a brief trance so a cover story can be planted to maintain [[Plausible Deniability]]. Agents are also issued special sunglasses to prevent accidental self-neuralization.

* In ''[[Superman (film)|Superman]] II'', among many other superpowers that [[New Powers as the Plot Demands|pop up]] [[Ass Pull|out of]] [[Deus Ex Machina|nowhere,]] Superman is revealed to have the ability to remove specific memories with a kiss. This becomes a bit more disturbing in ''[[Superman IV]]'', where he comes pretty close to using this power as a date rape drug.

* Notably inverted in ''[[Memento]]'', in which the protagonist has ''anterograde'' amnesia, rendering him unable to form memories. While investigating his wife's murder, he records information by means of photos, notes, and tattoos, but remembers everything prior to his injury quite clearly. [[Shown Their Work|Several prominent neurobiologists praised this portrayal.]]

* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Gaunt's Ghosts]]'' novel ''Traitor General'', {{spoiler|Sturm}}'s "mind-lock" prevents him from remembering his life before his capture, though he has formed memories since.

* Subverted in ''[[Foundation|The Currents of Space]]'' by [[Isaac Asimov]].

** Bagley had previously used the amnesia motif in ''Landslide'' (1967), whose protagonist has forgotten all personal information, ''including'' [[Mistaken Identity|his own name]], in a car accident. That he hasn't forgotten the geology he studied before the accident becomes a minor plot point.

* Subverted in ''The Wrong Reflection'' by Gillian Bradshaw. [[The Hero]] wakes up not knowing his own face or history and not fully able to operate in society. He needs help in figuring out that he has basic human rights and in one example, doesn't know what an 'oak tree' is. He knows science inside and out but the concept of 'muzzling' is a mystery.

** Interestingly, Lockhart's amnesia follows type one to a T, except for the fact that he apparently forgets [[Functional Magic]] is real. Even if he's Muggle-born, he would have presumably lived in the wizarding world long enough that it would be his "everyday" world.

*** Alternatively, the malfunction might've caused the Obliviate effect to do to Lockhart exactly what it's designed to do ''to Muggles'': wipe out all recollection of the wizarding world or its magics. If Lockhart ''isn't'' Muggle-born, this would erase his entire past, which is precisely what happened.

** The Obliviate doesn't seem to be especially tailored for Muggles. It just makes forgetting happen, subject to the will of the caster.

** The Obliviate Charm is played for laughs again in ''[[Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire]]'' when the very perceptive and suspicious Muggle groundskeeper that is unknowingly renting out space for the International Quidditch Cup fans has to be ''repeatedly'' charmed to ''keep'' him unknowing. {{spoiler|Played for drama again when it's revealed that Crouch Sr. erased Bertha Jorkins' memory of Barty Crouch Jr. with a Memory Charm powerful enough to damage her memory permanently, leaving her an absentminded and bumbling shadow of her former self}}.

** Subverted in the episode "The Pack". Xander, under the influence of a hyena spirit, alienates his friends, devours a pig alive, and tries, ineffectually, to rape Buffy. Afterward, he claims selective amnesia, convincing his friends that he won't have any lasting trauma. When they've gone, however, Giles points out that none of his possession lore mentioned ''anything'' about amnesia. Turns out Xander's been fibbing.

** For a show whose protagonist has a [[Secret Identity]] and which involves a [[Masquerade]], ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' uses this trope admirably rarely. This may be because maintaining the pretense of normalcy through shaky excuses and the [[Weirdness Censor|willful delusion of Sunnydale residents]] is funnier.

* ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'': Divatox gets amnesia and starts acting like an ordinary, if uncouth, human -- and she isn't even human, nor has she ever lived like one. Her amnesia was the side-effect of a ''laser'' beam.

** ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'' has Dillon, whose memory was wiped as one of the [[Big Bad]]'s unwilling test subjects prior to the series.

** ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'': In one episode, Lord Zedd turned a caleidoscope into a monster with memory-erasing powers to make the Rangers forget who they are and how to use their powers. They were saved by Bulk and Skull, who tricked the monster into making the monster hit two prisms with his memory-erasing beam, (by passing a prism, it becomes a memory-restoring beam) and restoring the Rangers' memories. The monster made Bulk and Skull forget their recently-acquired knowledge of the Rangers' identities.

* In the [[Super Sentai]] series ''[[Mahou Sentai Magiranger]]'', a [[Monster of the Week]] puts a spell on [[The Chick]], causing her to forget not only the plot she'd stumbled upon, but ''everything'' to happen since she became a Ranger. Every hour, all new memories are erased, too. Thanks to the broad amnesia, nobody suspects that the intent was to erase ''one specific memory''. Still this trope, since the cutoff point for her memories seems pretty precise.

** In an aversion of #4, it's revealed late in the first series that {{spoiler|Suzie Costello, before she died, had been going to a support group and gushing to one man about everything she needed to get off her chest from her job, then retconning him ''every week, for years.'' Given that [[Retcon]] isn't generally applied more than once to anyone for fear of unknown overdose effects, and the guy is pretty nuts by the time they find him, this is horrifying.}}

* ''[[Smallville]]'' erases the memories of anyone who finds out about Clark's real identity. Really. It doesn't matter how you found out, what you saw, or what he did under the influence of this week's [[Phlebotinum]]. Your memory ''will be wiped'', often without explanation. Amnesia is the Smallville Flu.

** We've lost count of the number of times a bump on the head has wiped Lana's memory of seeing some super heroics.

** An illegal immigrant gets to find out and doesn't get amnesia by the end of the episode, however.

** In a rare example of plot-central, rather than "convenient", amnesia, Season 3 has Lex undergo a mind-wipe disguised as electroshock therapy for his supposed schizophrenia. [[Did Not Do the Research|The writers apparently didn't know]] that electroshock therapy is an extreme treatment for depression, not schizophrenia, and that it only removes ''minutes'' of memory, not months.

*** ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy) can indeed wipe months or even years of memory--though it's not supposed to--and this side-effect is not unusual. Hemingway offed himself after losing so much of his memory he couldn't write anymore. Docs claim newer machines or techniques make this less likely, but the evidence suggests it's a scattershot procedure. It '''is''' supposed to be used only for depression, a fact ignored by more storytellers than I can count.

* The Haitian from ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' has the power to erase temporary memories, and at one point {{spoiler|someone's entire life history}}. There's also a subversion as one character suffers major head injuries as a result of his erasures.

** Also, in the Season 3 finale, {{spoiler|Sylar basically gets his mind rewritten to make him think he's really Nathan Petrelli, after the real Nathan is killed.}} This being ''Heroes'', there is pretty much no way that this doesn't go south.

** Used with a twist in one episode, in which a woman who wants to kill her husband gets the amnesia treatment after killing a UFO pilot instead - but the amnesia doesn't affect her desire to kill her husband, and SHADO can't interfere without revealing their secrets.

* In ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'', mortal who are exposed to magic will often be forced to lose all memories of the magic.

** However, given the nature of his injury, it's likely that he would soon forget what she told him.

* On ''[[Bones]]'', Dr. Brennan suffers from amnesia about the events of a single night. It may have been caused either by drugs or a [[A Wizard Did It|voodoo curse]].

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has the "Forget" spell as its most basic, and a whole slew of other memory-erasing or memory-rewriting spells from non-core books, like "Forget Past" (''Oriental Adventure''), "Otto's Tones of Forgetfulness", "Rary's Memory Alteration" (''Greyhawk Adventures''), "Modify Memory", "Memory Wrack" (''Tome of Magic''), "Brainkill" (''The Complete Book of Necromancers''), the psionic science "Mindwipe" (''The Complete Psionics Handbook''), etc.

** Holy slayers (assassins) in ''Al-Qadim'' sometimes use a "Blade of Forgetfulness": everyone seeing it swung in a certain pattern suffers a complete memory lapse regarding everything that just happened and is about to happen (up to 3 rounds before and after). Not too hard to guess what sort of events tend to be forgotten this way, is it? Those attacked with such swords are very likely to shake off this effect, but usually this doesn't matter anymore.

 

== Video Games ==

* In the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' series, Cammy's amnesia erases all memory of her being a doll of Bison, but doesn't erase her fighting skills. This, despite the fact that she wasn't born, but created simply to be a vessel of Bison's soul.

** That's not too hard to figure out. Once a muscle has learned something after doing it enough times, it can become pretty much reflex. And Cammy most definitely used those moves a lot back when she was Killer Bee....

*** Of course, why would she have any memory of a normal life if she never ''lived'' one?

** A similar, more recent ''[[Street Fighter]]'' example of an amnesiac is the French soldier Abel. {{spoiler|Much like Cammy in the previous example, Abel is actually a cloned Shadaloo soldier and potential candidate for an alternate body container for Bison. Also parallel to Cammy, Abel is rescued from Shadaloo by a mercenary team.}}

* People who have recently died in ''[[Ghost Trick]]'' lose their memories, and recover them again with varying degrees of speed and depth. Sissel forgets not only his identity, but the meaning of many basic concepts such as 'prison cells' and 'science', as well as how to read. {{spoiler|Except he hasn't. Sissel can't remember them because he's even forgotten what he originally looked like...a cat, who never understood those concepts in the first place.}}

* In ''[[Chain of Memories]]'', Sora gradually loses some memories and has others rearranged. Recovering them leaves him in a coma for a year, causing him to forget everything that happened while his memories were scrambled. And for some reason, when Sora doesn't have his memories, everyone who knew him doesn't remember ''him'', either! (Although given the way memories seem to work in ''Kingdom Hearts'', this makes a certain degree of sense.) This is clarified in ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', where Kairi is barely able to remember that there was a second boy she hung out with. Selphie cannot even recall that there was ever somebody Kairi hung out with other than Riku.

* [[Troubled but Cute|Neku]] in ''[[The World Ends With You]]'' starts out with mainly Type #1, not remembering anything before him waking up on the Scramble Crossing. {{spoiler|It later turns out that Neku's memories were his entry fee, but even then he still has some missing. This is later explained when Joshua, the resident [[Magnificent Bastard]] reveals that he'd 'held on' to some of Neku's memories -- namely the missing ones, which showed Joshua killing Neku.}}

* In the RPG ''[[Hype the Time Quest]]'', the Titular character is turned into stone and sent 200 years in the past. And when he wakes up, he doesn't even know what button to push to draw his sword!

* In the bad ending of ''[[Mega Man X]] 5'', this was inflicted on {{spoiler|the title character by Dr. Light}} so the former will not have any memories of {{spoiler|Maverick Zero}}. Furthermore, {{spoiler|any information regarding Zero will be rejected by the same programming that erased X's memory in the first place}}.

* Played painfully straight in the campaign mode of ''[[Tekken]] 6'', where protagonist Lars Alexandersson has his memory wiped by an explosion in the lab where he found Alisa and it only returns after {{spoiler|he squares off against Heihachi Mishima, his father}}.

* In ''[[Bob and George]]'', this is [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/041208c why some characters don't remember encountering their future selves.]

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'': Petey (the AI of a space battleship) is ordered to "repress and deny" all instances of the "ghost in the plumbing" incident, so that he doesn't {{spoiler|go insane an kill everyone on board}}.

* ''[[Impure Blood]]''. [http://www.impurebloodwebcomic.com/Pages/Chapter001/ib008.html Why bribe them when you can just take their memories?]

* In ''[[Spacetrawler]]'', one of the ways the underground Mihrgoots hide their existence from outsiders is by erasing the memories of anyone who encounters them.

* In ''[[Code Lyoko]]'', Aelita has no memories of her life before the Supercomputer was turned back on and she woke up on Lyoko -- including the fact she was human, thus believing to be an A.I. {{spoiler|It is revealed at the end of Season 2 that XANA had stolen those memories, and uses them to [[Synchronisation|link Aelita's life]] to the continued working of the Supercomputer.}}

** Also, in Season 1 episode "Amnesia", [[Nanomachines]] created by XANA are causing memory wipes typical for this trope, affecting Ulrich among others.

** Also, Puck's first appearance where he eventually reverses the entire city's human/gargoyle status. Everyone thinks their current body is the one they've always had, but all their other memories remain intact and our heroes quickly figure out something is up just by logical reasoning, like the former gargoyles remembering being able to fly and humans-turned-gargoyles insisting they can't despite having wings.

* Captain Hero from ''[[Drawn Together]]'' appears to be able to do this by stripping unconscious bodies and violating them.

{{quote|[[Black Comedy Rape|"And now to make you forget the whole thing..."]]}}

* Jorgen Von Strangle of ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' often uses this to erase kids' memories when they reveal the existence of their godparents.

* Parodied in ''[[Family Guy]]'' when Lois used the neuralizer on Chris when he doesn't stop saying "boobies" after the Griffins visited the nudist family's house.

* Spoofed on an episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]:''

'''Burns:''' Precisely. Be sure to wipe your own memory clear when you've finished. }}

** Also invoked by Homer in a newer episode, who wakes up with no memory of only the night before {{spoiler|so he can forget the planning his family was doing to create a surprise party for him}}.

** In "Six Minus Six" Agent Six loses six years of memory saving Rex from a machine that was going to delete Rex's instead (because Rex apparently goes crazy if he resets, and if that happens Six has to kill him). It has so far not been fixed via [[Reset Button]] and might not be. That means not only does he not remember Rex, Holiday or Bob, but he doesn't rememeber White Knight or even the Event that caused the EVOS (heck, he barely knows what an EVO is). He only stayed with Providence and is trying to be the man he used to be because of Rex's unwavering trust him, even as he was six years ago (an unrepentant, mercenary [[Jerkass]]).

* In ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'', Dexter is shown erasing his parents' memories of his lab after enlisting their help in defeating a giant monster in the presumptive [[Grand Finale]]. Later, his pet monkey erases Dexter's memory of monkey's superpowers. In an earlier episode, Dex accidentally says that he has a lab, prompting Dee Dee to respond "Smooth move, Dexter. Now you'll have to erase Mom and Dad's memories...''again!''"