The Fog of Ages: Difference between revisions

* An [[Immortality|immortal]] from ''[[Ghost Sweeper Mikami]]'' who has forgotten [[Immortality Inducer|the formula that made him immortal]].

* Invoked in some [[Bleach]] [[Fanon]] to explain why Shinigami generally don't remember their mortal lives- they measure their ages in hundreds.

* C.C. from [[Code Geass]] suffers from this, {{spoiler|until Lelouch has a [[Journey to the Center of the Mind|journey to the center of her mind]] and then Marianne returns all her memories.}}

 

 

== Comic Books ==

** 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.

* 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]].

* Age appears infinitely extendable in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Strata]]'', and "memory surgery" prevents brain overload.

* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' book ''[[Discworld/Pyramids|Pyramids]]'', the high priest Dios prevented himself from dying by reversing time by sleeping in a pyramid, but mentions that the process doesn't preserve memory. Instead, he refers to the written history of the the kingdom as his memory. As a result, he can't escape a millenia-long [[Stable Time Loop]]. By the time it comes around again it's a surprise.

** 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}}.

*** 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.

* 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.

** 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).

* The 'World on Fire' campaign setting from ''Spycraft'' has the Immortals as one faction. They succumb to this—at least, the ones who don't die from 'live fast, die old'.

** 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.

** 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-Guided Amnesia]] that makes him more easy to manipulate.

* In ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'', this is implied to have happened to Ravel Puzzlewell—she's certainly not 'all there' when you meet her. As for The Nameless One himself, he is immune to this trope: He ''does'' suffer heavily from memory loss, but it's caused by him repeatedly dying and coming back instead of from living too long.

** 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 diaglog—it was meant to be spoken by another one of Ravel's "selves")

[[Category:Memory Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Will Live Forever]]