Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,737
edits
The Fog of Ages: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
prefix>Import Bot (Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.TheFogOfAges 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.TheFogOfAges, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
No edit summary |
||
| (17 intermediate revisions by 7 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Treebeard''': I don't suppose you've seen Entwives in the Shire?
'''Pippin''': [''shakes head''] What do they look like?
'''Treebeard''': I don't remember now.
|[[The Two Towers]]}}
So, it has been clarified, [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|immortality
Well, hold on a second... see, one could argue that [[My Skull Runneth Over|there's only so much space the brain can hold, like a video cassette]]. Which means that, if you live long enough, your brain's going to start recording over itself. You might forget where you were born, what your parents looked like, hell, maybe even what your real name is. And it'll be lost forever to the sands of time.
[[Blessed
Unless, of course, the immortal character in question records everything in a diary/volume of books or something, but how often does this happen?
A common partial aversion is to have the
Not to be confused with [[Shrouded in Myth]].
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime and Manga ==
* Killy of ''[[Blame]]!'' is a cyborg who has existed probably as long as the strange machine world of the manga. He is so old that he has forgotten even that he is a cyborg. At least, it seems so. It's hard to tell.
** Probably exacerbated by the number of times he gets [[Boom! Headshot!|shot in the face]].
* The Abh touch upon this in ''[[Crest of the Stars]]'' and its sequels. They live for between 200 and 250 years and their genetic engineering technology is such that they can live ''much'' longer. It's not enough to stop
* An [[Immortality|immortal]] from ''[[
* Invoked in some [[Bleach]] [[Fanon]] to explain why Shinigami generally don't remember their mortal lives- they measure their ages in hundreds.
* The manga ''[[
* C.C. from [[Code Geass]] suffers from this, {{spoiler|until Lelouch has a [[Journey to
* In the [[Samurai Deeper Kyo]] manga, this is the [[Start of Darkness]] of [[Magnificent Bastard]] Chinmei.
== Comic Books ==
* An issue that explores all the back stories of the minor characters in ''[[
** Also in an alternate future Invincible had been taken to where the Immortal took over the world, he barely recognized Invincible and didn't remember his own wife.
** He had trouble recognizing Invincible because Invincible was still alive in that future, but had changed over the years. And judging from his reaction to the mention of his wife, he may not have forgotten so much as repressed the memory of her.
Line 35:
** Played straight in an early post-crisis story where he laments how much advanced medical knowledge (from forgotten civilizations he used to rule) he has lost over the ages. When a modern geneticist hesitates in assisting him with some human testing, he bellows that he has 'forgotten more than you'll ever learn!'
* Det. Christian Walker, the main character of ''[[Powers]]'', is actually an [[Immortality|immortal]] who's been around since caveman days. He just doesn't remember anything before the early 20th century. His [[Arch Nemesis]]/[[Evil Counterpart]] who has been around just as long, on the other hand, seems to remember most of it. However, at the final tragic confrontation between the two, Walker demands to know why the nemesis has done the things he's done, and why the two have been fighting all this time. His enemy pauses, then admits that he can't remember anymore.
* [[Wolverine]], although some of this is due to [[Laser
== Film ==
Line 42 ⟶ 41:
** Could be it's not really this trope, as the "ups and downs" are generally what ''everyone'' remembers, ancient or not.
* Max Schreck, the vampire actor in ''[[Shadow of the Vampire]]'', suffers from this; most of the memories of his early life and his sire have faded, and throughout the film he claims to have forgotten killing members of the film crew less than a few hours after doing so. However, it's implied that Schreck isn't a "complete" vampire, given that he has continued [[Age Without Youth|aging despite being immortal]], and that he was never capable of siring vampires of his own.
== Literature ==
* [[Meaningful Name|Professor Urban Chronotis]] from ''[[Dirk
** In particular, he believes he will always remember Cleopatra.
*** In particular, her ears (attractive ones, with big dangly blue earrings) and smell (from living in ancient Egypt, and possibly bathing in asses' milk).
Line 51 ⟶ 49:
* In David and Leigh Eddings' ''[[Belgariad]]'', Belgarath the Sorcerer has lived for 7000 years. He can remember sensations of his mother, but not her face. Nor does he remember exactly which God's peoples he belonged to.
** He does state, though, that he's not sure if this is because of how very old he is or because he just didn't consider it important enough to really notice at the time; he does mention that until he met Aldur properly, he didn't really consider religion to be important. Plus, his mother died when he was ''very'' young.
* ''[[
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s Lazarus Long comments in ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' after over two millennia of existence: "I told you my memory was playing tricks. I've used Andy Libby's hypno-encyclopedic techniques - and they're good - and also learned tier storage for memory I didn't need every day, with keying words to let a tier cascade when I did need it, like a computer, and I have had my brain washed of useless memories several times in order to clear those file drawers for new data - and still it's no good. Half the time I can't remember where I put the book I was reading the night before, then waste a morning looking for it - before I remember that that book was one I was reading a century ago."
* In the [[Harry Potter]] books, very old wizards like Dumbledore avoid this by storing important memories in an enchanted chalice called a Pensieve. Which is useful in other ways as well, such as making it possible to [[Exposition Beam|pass those memories on to other people as needed]].
* Crystal Singers in [[Anne McCaffrey]]'s series of that name have this problem, though it's brought on more by long-term exposure to Ballybran crystal than actual age. {{spoiler|Killashandra eventually finds a solution to this problem, accidentally.}}
* Age appears infinitely extendable in [[
* In the ''[[
* In Kim Stanley Robinson's ''[[Red Mars Trilogy]]'', advances in medicine let people live to over 150, but their memories start showing significant deterioration.
** This is pretty much cured by a drug cocktail that apparently 'refreshes' the taker's memory, to the point where they have highly detailed recall of practically their entire lives.
* In Robert J. Salyer's novel ''Starplex'', the protagonist meets {{spoiler|himself from eons in the future}}, who has forgotten {{spoiler|his own middle name}}.
* The Minotaur is still alive today in Steven Sherrill's ''The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break'', five thousand years later. His days in the Labyrinth are very vague to him.
* A point of ''Glasshouse'' by [[Charles Stross]]. Immortality means that humans need to periodically erase their memories to make things more interesting. The protagonist has just done this when the book begins.
* The Struldbruggs in [[Jonathan Swift]]'s ''[[
* Explicitly ''averted'' in [[Stanislaw Lem]]'s ''Observation on the Spot'' where ectocs have a photographic memory and can easily remember anything that happened centuries ago, with them being made of [[Nanomachines]]. But that's just another reason why [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|there's just]] ''[[Who Wants to Live Forever?|six]]'' [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|of them left]].
* In [[Stephen Baxter]]'s ''Exultant'', Luru Parz is one of a group of immortals who have survived more than 20,000 years. She claims that they can remember events from throughout their lives, but no more or less clearly than a normal person. Sometimes, events may bring forth a distinct memory that hadn't been recalled in several thousand years. Even so, they must "edit" their memories, but it isn't explained how this is achieved.
* ''[[
* In [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''World Without Stars'', Humanity has cracked the immortality problem, so that no one dies of old age anymore. Every century or so people have to have old, unwanted, memories wiped, in order to make room for new memories.
* Many of the beings from the far future in the novella ''Starplex'' suffer from this. A species known as the Ibs suffers from a related
* The eponymous character of ''The Vampire Tapestry'' loses his memory each time he passes into hibernation, and speculates that this is a defense-mechanism against this trope. {{spoiler|At the end of the book, he realizes it's more likely to be a defense against his becoming emotionally attached to the humans he has to prey upon.}}
* Oddly, this trope seems to apply to Hazel-rah in the epilogue to ''[[Watership Down]]'', in which the venerable Chief Rabbit can't recall if the adventures attributed to him in his youth were real or not. On the one hand, said adventures couldn't have happened so long ago by human standards; on the other, Hazel is implied to have vastly outlived what's normal for wild rabbits, suggesting that his lapine brain's memory capacity has indeed reached its limit.
Line 76 ⟶ 74:
** Flamel himself suffers from this sometimes. He once forgot how to speak English.
* Khayman in ''[[Queen of the Damned]]'' suffers from this. As the third vampire ever in existence, he has spent the last 6000 years continuously active, alternatively losing and regaining his mind over the centuries, thus remembers little of his own life. It's been implied that during his periods of sanity, he engages in a game of manhunt with the Talamasca, who study the supernatural, while simultaneously writing many treaties on the origins of the vampire race as a ''member'' simply because [[Refuge in Audacity|he likes to mess with them]].
* Vampires in ''[[Twilight (
▲== Live Action TV ==
* In the last episode of ''[[Angel]]'', the eponymous character asked Harmony if she remembered what it was like being human because he no longer remembers himself.
** Earlier Darla, resurrected human, realized she no longer remembered what her name had been before she became a vampire.
* Methos from ''[[Highlander the Series]]''. When he tells MacLeod that he's over 5000 years old, he explains that's when he took his first head and "before that, it all starts to blur." Methos therefore has no idea ''how much'' over 5000 years old he is; for all he knows he could've gone for thousands of years before meeting another Immortal for the first time and killing him.
* ''[[The X
* Death from ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' can't remember if he is as old, ''or older than'', [[God]]. God, apparently, doesn't know either.
* ''[[
** In the episode ''World War III'' it's a plot point that his memory is so crowded and cluttered he needs help to remember the species the Slitheen come from, and their [[Weaksauce Weakness]].
*** Heck, he does that a lot of times. It can't help that he also remembers multiple timelines.
** Also explicitly mentioned in ''Silence in the Library'' when it takes the Doctor a while to recognize the Vashta Narada.
{{quote|
** At least he remembers the important things. In the short ''Good Night'' he has this to say when Amy comments that his companions are such tiny parts of his life that he must hardly notice them:
{{quote|
*** Earlier episodes from the original series back this up. When in regeneration psychosis, The Doctor often mentions previous companions, either for no reason, or referring to his current companions by some other name.
* According to Seven of Nine from [[Star Trek: Voyager]], the Borg also suffer from this, as their memory from over 700 years ago is beginning to fragment.
* An episode of ''Curiosity'' featuring [[
* Parodied on Canadian teen sitcom ''Mr. Young'' with Mrs. Byrne, who has a memory span of a few seconds due to having lived through an ice age.
* According to the fan favourite episode [[Musical Episode|"Brigadoom"]], the Brunnen-G of ''[[Lexx]]'' suffered pretty heavily from this trope, after retreating behind a nigh-impregnable shield on Brunnis II and cracking the immortality problem. It's implied this contributed to their insular behaviour and eventual downfall.
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Vampire: The
** There is a bloodline known as the Agonistes, introduced in ''Bloodlines: The Chosen'', who have devoted themselves to subverting the trope. Elders hire them when they prepare for torpor, and the Agonistes first record everything they can before using their special devotions to drive out as much of the fog as they can. They are ''very'' good at their jobs... and have received no end of persecution, as many vampires would prefer certain facts to be lost to the ages.
*** The Usiri of ''Ancient Bloodlines'' can also protect the memories of torpid vampires. Unfortunately, their true power is in pumping the spirits of torpid vampires for anything they can learn.
Line 107 ⟶ 103:
** The base book also goes into another reason why not every vampire writes things down to avoid this - due to [[Properly Paranoid|the paranoia that pops up after dealing with other predatory monsters for countless years]], they're not always certain that their diaries, records, and the like will be unaltered when they do wake up. They could try writing in code, but there's ''also'' no guarantee they'll remember the code, either.
** ''Immortal Sinners'', the Night Horrors book for Requiem, also shows the rare subversions-certain very old, very powerful vampires, called Methuselahs, have learned to cheat the Fog of Ages, meaning they remember everything they care to. The example still makes grandiose claims about who he is, but that's because he's a habitual liar and [[Trickster Archetype]] for mainly does things [[For the Lulz]] (and his ''real'' origin story is still pretty unbelievable).
* In a [[Warhammer
* The 'World on Fire' campaign setting from ''Spycraft'' has the Immortals as one faction. They succumb to
* In Classic [[Dungeons
** Kaa may be a justified exception: his focus is the preservation of cultures, knowledge, etc., that would otherwise be destroyed.
* The Sindar (elves) of Hârn suffer from an extreme form of this, to the point where they will completely forget friends after a long absence. Often an elf will remember songs and tales of events he took part in but have no memory of the actual events.
== Web Comics ==▼
* Immortals in ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'' have this as inherent to their nature, with a slight variation. Every couple of centuries, they "die" and [[Loss of Identity|lose the vast majority of their memory]] and power. They can apparently choose the time of their death, or even postpone it indefinitely, but this has [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|exactly the result you'd expect]].▼
** It's actually said to be a willful decision. Living forever without any kind of reset, besides the possibility of going crazy, can be just plain old boring. As such, it's less something that happens that they can postpone, and more something they simply decide to do to avoid madness and soul-crushing boredom. They do retain their memories, but memories from past 'lives' are described as though they were being read out of a book, and as a result, probably suffer from the Fog of Ages.▼
* According to the background info for ''[[Dan and Mabs Furry Adventures|DMFA]]'', the oldest living demon is tens of thousands of years old (a normal demon life span is 1500 years) but a side-effect of whatever forgotten process that granted her such longevity is that she cannot remember back further than 100 years before the current day.▼
* The Branthicor in ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'' [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2007-09-02 intentionally designed their own brains to work this way]. Their normal brains couldn't handle becoming functionally immortal due to problems with long-term/short-term memory storage, but their new brains can... If only by intentionally 'compressing' long-term information to the point where they suffer from this trope. [[Ax Crazy|It beats the alternative.]]▼
* Jin of ''[[Wapsi Square]]'' has lived for over 80,000 years due to immortality and a [[Groundhog Day Loop]], and, as a result, she often has difficulties remembering details from previous cycles. She often entrusts people with information to help her remember.▼
== Video Games ==
* The earliest known example of this in a video game is ''[[Glory of Heracles|Glory of Heracles III]]'', for the [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System|Super Famicom]], where the protagonist of the game is an immortal who suffers from amnesia. This plot element is used again in one of the sequels, ''[[Glory of Heracles]]'' for the [[Nintendo DS]], where the protagonist is also an amnesiac immortal.
* Ellen from ''[[Touhou Project]]'' is an immortal witch who loses her memories blocks at a time, and so she acts as childish as she looks.
** Fairies in general, and Cirno specifically, fall into this category - as [[Anthropomorphic Personification
** Fujiwara no Mokou, an immortal, somewhat played this trope straight. In a supplementary material for a manga, it's explained that her rivalry with another immortal that's often thought to have driven her to take the immortality elixir wasn't - she had forgotten about her by the time she was tasked to dispose of the elixir and was more interested in the prospect of, er, being immortal. Her rivalry is more out of a sense that she has something constant in her life, now.
* Used in part in ''[[Lost Odyssey]]''. The main character is an amnesiac immortal who's lived for a thousand years; most of his memories are recalled through dreams as the game progresses. It's not a natural side effect of the immortality, though, but rather a case of [[Laser
** Another character in ''[[Lost Odyssey]]'' does in fact keep journals; when that character experiences amnesia, the journals prove to be very helpful.
* In ''[[
** According to [[Chris Avellone]], Ravel's apparent senility actually stems from the fact that due to her nature and having all of her "branches" (including Mebbeth, Marta and Ei-Veine), she sees across many planes and time periods all at once and she sometimes has trouble distinguishing exactly where or when she is (hence some of the strange
* In ''7th Saga'', the robot Lux was built with a finite amount of memory and as a result has forgotten who built him and why.
▲== Web Comics ==
▲* Immortals in ''[[
▲** It's actually said to be a willful decision. Living forever without any kind of reset, besides the possibility of going crazy, can be just plain old boring. As such, it's less something that happens that they can postpone, and more something they simply decide to do to avoid madness and soul-crushing boredom. They do retain their memories, but memories from past 'lives' are described as though they were being read out of a book, and as a result, probably suffer from the Fog of Ages.
▲* According to the background info for ''[[Dan and
▲* The
** Even [[Deus Est Machina|the local computer "god"]] is [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2016-02-05 concerned].
{{quote|'''Petey''': I might - MIGHT - be [[Body Backup Drive|immortal]], but on galactic time I'm still a baby. Look around! [[Fridge Logic|If it's this easy to live forever, where]] are all the [[Precursors|grown-ups]]? }}
▲* Jin of ''[[Wapsi Square]]'' has lived for over 80,000 years due to immortality and a [[Groundhog Day Loop]], and, as a result, she often has difficulties remembering details from previous cycles. She often entrusts people with information to help her remember.
== Web Original ==
* In [[
* [http://www.furaffinity.net/user/-three-/ Three] (aka [[I Have Many Names|Clarion, Silver, Assistant...]]) has been jumping from universe to universe for about 30-50,000 years, give or take. She can't remember exactly how old she is. She's also forgotten what her species or homeworld was called and possibly even her original name. She does try to hold on to certain memories, particularly those of close friends, lovers, and adopted children.
== Western Animation ==
* Paradox from ''[[Ben 10
** He also had a [[Bored
*** The fact that he exists outside of linear time probably doesn't help either.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Elders]]
[[Category:Memory Tropes]]
[[Category:This Index Will Live Forever]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
| |||