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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|"''Nothing will remain of you: not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|You will never have existed]].''"
|''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', George Orwell}}
When some group systematically removes evidence of a character's existence, either through mundane conspiracy, or a little bit of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] (such as [[
In [[Real Life]]
Compare [[Ret-Gone]], where the affected person is ''literally'' erased from existence. See also [[Expendable Clone]], where clones either aren't given
{{examples}}▼
[[I Thought It Meant|Not to be confused with]] a [[United Nations|UN person]], nor with so-called "cancel culture" - this is generally a modern expression of the age-old practice of community shunning/shaming of miscreants.
== Anime & Manga ==▼
▲{{examples}}
* In ''[[Code Geass|Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Rebellion R2]]'', {{spoiler|the Emperor}} erases all knowledge of {{spoiler|Nunnally Lamperouge}} from Ashford Academy, replacing her with {{spoiler|Rolo Lamperouge}}.
* In the end of the Clow Card arc of ''[[
* This is the whole plot/premise of ''[[Madlax]]''.
* {{spoiler|Suou}} has this happen to her in the second season of ''[[Darker
* Johan from ''[[Monster (
* In ''[[Shakugan no Shana]]'', a large amount of people have had their power of existence consumed and turned into torches. When a torch's flame dies out, they disappear completely, and no-one ever remembers they existed.
* In ''[[One Piece]]'', the prison Impel Down has six levels. The sixth level of the
* ''[[Tiger and Bunny]]'' has a variation on it: neither {{spoiler|[[Superhero|Wild Tiger]]}} nor {{spoiler|[[Secret Identity|Kotetsu T. Kaburagi]]}} were stricken from record and memory, but any indication that they're the same person was. Thus, it becomes much easier for {{spoiler|Maverick to frame Kotetsu for the murder of Samantha Taylor and have him hunted down by all of his former friends}}.
* In ''[[
* The characters in ''[[
* ''[[Suicide Island]]'': Any attempted suicide patient who consents to being put on the titular island will be considered this by the Japanese government. The island is apparently isolated, and there seems to be little chance of getting off it in the first place, even if the characters wanted to. Furthermore, the characters find themselves handling a number of issues coming from both themselves and the island to even worry about the outside world!
* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam
* A minor case occurs in ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' when a character returned to America to find the real Eyeshield 21, everyone seemingly didn't recognize the name or refused to speak about said person. It turns out that {{spoiler|Mr Don filed charges against Yamato that didn't exist and had him expelled from Notre Dame.}}
* Friday Monday from ''Madlax'' seems to be able to do this to people, such as one poor detective who got too close to the truth. Eventually even he forgot who he was as well as everyone who once knew him.
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== Comic Books ==
* [[Brightest Day|Max Lord]] did this to himself with his [[Psychic Powers]]. Anybody sees a photo of him? They see someone else. They are asked about anything from his past? Whatever it was, they don't remember him. When confronted with what the man did? They blame someone else. The reformed JLI has been shoved into confrontations with the biggest guns of the DCU as a direct result of this, and they still couldn't prove anything... until Batman came back, and he wasn't around at the moment of the mindwipe...
* ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' universe makes use of this trope extensively, outright stating that an incredible number of "fictional characters" are in fact Unpersons, including [[Sherlock Holmes]], [[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea|Captain Nemo]], and [[Fu Manchu]]. The third book increases their ranks a great deal, going so far as to imply {{spoiler|[[
** {{spoiler|Lovecraftian Horrors}} were involved in the supplementary material for volume 1.
* In ''~300~'', Xerxes threatens to do this to Leonidas and Sparta when Leonidas refuses to bow to him in subjugation. [[Foregone Conclusion|Obviously]], it didn't ''quite'' work out.
* [[Batman]] becomes (or always was?) this in ''Batman: Year 100'' as [[Identical Grandson|James Gordon III]] tries to find any information about him. Arkham Asylum and the Bat's vaudevillians all exist and are widely-known... but Lieutenant Gordon can only find 3 [[Mythology Gag|witness reports]] from wildly different [[Art Shift|periods]] of a strange cloaked figure who was once famous enough to attend charity functions {{spoiler|He later burns all the evidence after reading his grandfather's secret laptop, proving [[Frank Miller|the Gordons are ALWAYS hardcore about protecting Bruce Wayne]]... whatever he is after over a century of crime fighting.}}
* A [[Daredevil|Daredevil Villain]] called the Mauler was an accountant who wanted revenge on the CEO who'd kept him from receiving his pension due to an accidental erasure of his work record. He tracked the guy down in a suit of [[Powered Armor]] and, instead of killing him as Daredevil had expected, [[Hoist
* A real-world cross-media example originating in comics: Live-action and animated adaptations of [[Alan Moore]]'s comic book work routinely include ''no'' credit for him, at his insistence. He regards adaptations with horror. Of course, he only made such an insistence because [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Hollywood burned him over an earlier adaptation deal]].
== Films
* ''[[
* In ''[[Power Rangers]]: [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (
{{quote|
* ''[[
* ''[[Capricorn One]]'' has the bad guys try to remove all traces of NASA technician Elliot Whittier. They move someone else into his apartment and she pulls out rent receipts to "prove" she has lived there for years. However, they are unable to change every phone book in the city, so the astute reporter finds Whittier still listed as living there.
* In ''[[Men in Black (
** Until retirement/resignation/dismissal, where they're promptly [[Mind Wipe|neuralyzed]] and given their old life and previous history back with a bizarre tabloid [[Hand Wave]] that they just came out of a long coma.
** Although in the series it's shown they don't erase people's memories of them; on two separate occasions an old acquaintance of J's recognized him as James Edwards.
* In ''[[
* Quoth the [[Big Bad]] Amon Göth in ''
{{quote|
* This is the premise of [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[
* In ''[[Eraser]]'', the participants in the Witness Protection Program acquired a new identity and had all the fixings of their old one destroyed.
* In ''[[Harry Potter (
* In the ''[[A Nightmare
* In ''[[Coco]]'', much effort was made to erase the name and existence of the titular character's father, who allegedly abandoned the family back when she was a child, to the point that Miguel, her great-grandson, upon stumbling into the only photographic proof that the men existed (albeit with its head [[Plot-Based Photograph Obfuscation|conveniently ripped]]) can believe {{Spoiler|falsely}} that the man was his musical hero and no one of his immediate preceding generation can correct him because they aren't sure either.
== Folklore ==
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* The [[Forgotten Realms]] ''Finder's Stone Trilogy'' of novels features the Nameless Bard, made an Unperson by the Harpers as punishment for the accidental death of an apprentice caused by his hubris.
* "Negation of Being" in ''[[The Assassins of Tamurin]]'', the third most severe punishment for a crime, after mutilation and execution.
* In the Lois Lowry novel ''[[The Giver]]'', the story's [[
** There's a variant that is ''almost'' kinder: A young child dies, his parents are given a new child, same gender, and the same name, in order to "[[Replacement Goldfish|replace]]" the child that died. Because everyone's emotions are so dulled, this is an effective emotional replacement, rendering the original child meaningless.
* Another ''[[Star Trek:
** Peter David did this again in ''[[Star Trek: New Frontier]]'': When the New Thallonian Protectorate is attacked, Si Cwan finds that one Thallonian was away from his post at the time ({{spoiler|actually, he was killed by the doppelganger impersonating Si Cwan's sister}}), and decides to Unperson him as punishment.
* In ''[[Tigana]]'', the residents of the titular country put up so much resistance to invading sorcerer-king Brandin of Ygrath (especially in killing his only son), that when he wins he casts a spell that erases Tigana almost completely. It disappears from all written record and living
* In Stephen Baxter's ''[[
* Jason Taverner in [[Philip K. Dick]]'s ''Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said'' is a [[Genetic Engineering|genetically engineered]] singer and TV star who goes from global celebrity to Un-person literally overnight.
* In ''[[His Dark Materials|Northern Lights]]'' [[The Evil Prince|Iofur Raknison]] vows to do this to [[Badass Abnormal|Iorek Byrnison]] by making speaking his name a capital offense and writing him, [[Fisher King|and his idea of what a Panserbjorne should be]], out of history... Just as soon as he [[Leave Him to Me|defeats Iorek]] [[Contractual Genre Blindness|in their ritual one-on-one combat that Iorek cannot possibly win...]]
* The hero and narrator of ''[[Roger Zelazny|My Name is Legion]]'' did this to ''himself''. As one of the few people with a trapdoor into the global identification database, he could at will input specifics for a new identity and then erase it when he no longer needed it. The people in his 'Verse were awfully ''trusting'' about information they got from their computers...
* Cleverly handled by [[Brian Stableford]] in [[Rhapsody In Black]]. The subterranean theocracy of God's Nine Splinters has no place to actually banish offenders... so they are simply declared nonexistent. Both loyal and criminals live in the same dismal environment, but nobody will acknowledge that the criminals are there.
** This is circumvented on occasion when guards decide to do target practice by shooting at the space which "just happened to be occupied by us nonexistent people", and when Grainger tells a captive he can pass the time by talking to his "imaginary" guard.
* In a few ''[[Choose Your Own Adventure]]'' books, this was the worst, and most disturbing, fate.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' the Seachan strike the names of all damane from the records upon discovery.
* Happens in the ''[[
* A threat by King Haggard in ''[[The Last Unicorn (
{{quote|
* This was considered to be the ultimate punishment in ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'''s Eastern Empire. It was enacted on Grand Duke Tremain, for his forging of the Imperial Seal and using fake documents marked with that seal to loot a military supply depot (which he had needed to do in order to get critical supplies his troops needed to survive after being cut off from the Empire by the Mage Storms). {{spoiler|Since Tremain had no intention of ever going back home after looting that depot, and ended up getting made king of the nation he was supposed to conquer for the Empire, it sort of fell flat as a punishment. In fact, due to his being totally out of contact from the Empire, he never even found out about it.}}
* This is the harshest form of punishment the dawrves of The [[Inheritance Cycle]] can bestow.
** [[Up to Eleven|Also, the dragons wiped every single memory of the forsworn's dragon's names.]] The names cannot be read, remembered or spoken, and the most dramatic effect this had was reducing the minds of the unfortunate dragons to that of an animal, due to not being able to think anything involving themselves.
* In ''Seven Sorcerers'' by Caro King, Bogeymen have this as a power. They force people who knew a child to forget him/her, and any document/photo with them is altered. Then they make all things belonging to the child disappear. And then they '''kidnap''' the child, and nobody is going to miss him/her!
* In ''[[
* As noted in the Film section above, Hermione does this to herself in ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Deathly Hallows'', forcing her parents to forget that she exists. It's not as much of a [[Tear Jerker]] in the book as it is in the film, however, because it only gets mentioned several weeks after the event has taken place, when Harry asks Hermione if her parents will be okay. She explains that she not only wiped her own existence from their minds, but also gave them false identities and an overwhelming desire to move to Australia, which is where they remain for the entirety of the book. {{spoiler|([[Word of God]] has promised us that after Voldemort is defeated, Hermione gets her parents back.)}}
* The purpose of the Oblivion War in the ''[[Dresden Files]]'' is to render certain paranormal nasties into unpeople, as they can only interact with this plane if people know about them.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]] is a television example of making someone an "unperson" – a character that has some importance to the show's main premise will be dropped, with no proper farewell or explanation, and are not referred to again. [[Retcon|Even "dated" photographs will have the ex-family member cropped out]]. This "unperson" trope was named for a ''[[Happy Days]]'' character who was Richie Cunningham's older brother, Chuck. Chuck ended up being a superfluous character who usually appeared only in transitional scenes, was never given any meaningful dialogue, and was eventually written out without explanation. In fact, in the series' 1984 finale ("Passages," where Joanie and Chachi are married), Cunningham patriarch Howard toasts his family and mentions that his '''two''' children have married well ... leading longtime fans of the show, who were aware that originally there were three children, to scratch their heads and wonder "Where's Chuck?" (In a blooper reel, Tom Bosley indeed asks that question after the final cut.) Numerous other "unperson" examples of the [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]] exist; see that page for more details.
* ''[[
* ''[[Step
* ''[[Alice
* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'': Coy and Vance, who were "unpersons" before their arrival in Hazzard in 1982 – to replace Bo and Luke, after John Schneider and Tom Wopat sat out most of Season 5 as part of a dispute – and became "unpersons" ''after'' Bo and Luke returned. Indeed, the two "fake Dukes" are never spoken of again (in first-run episodes, anyway; their legacy remains in reruns) ... and it is as though they never existed.
* ''[[The Price Is Right]]'': Bob Barker's ill-will toward the classic Barker's Beauties – Janice Pennington, Dian Parkinson, Holly Hallstrom and Kathleen Bradley – has grown to the point where he refuses to talk about them in interviews, and in his autobiography doesn't even acknowledge they were even on the show; their work has gone completely unacknowledged by Barker, in essence making them, in his view, "unpersons." For instance, in commentary about the pricing game Cliff Hangers, he remarks simply that "one of the models" – giving no indication that the model in question was Pennington – ran off the set crying after that game's first playing when nighttime host Dennis James unwittingly and unknowingly referred to the "mountain climber" as Fritz. (Pennington's husband – Friedrich "Fritz" Stammberger – had disappeared in Afghanistan while mountain climbing a year earlier). Barker's dislike for Hallstrom in particular has led to speculation that he refuses to [[Keep Circulating the Tapes|allow reruns of shows featuring Hallstrom as a model]].
* ''[[Jeopardy
* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the Doctor gives Mickey Smith a disc that contains a virus that will erase all existence of the Doctor from the [[It's a Small Net After All|internet]], as if he never existed.
** [[Expanded Universe]] gives us [[Faction Paradox]], an especially vicious [[Cult]] where Step One in your initiation ceremony is to hop into a timeship and go kill Grandpa. [[Temporal Paradox|Before Daddy was ever born.]] This has the effect of erasing your existence in its entirety, making you a [[Humanoid Abomination|living paradox]] and making you ''extremely'' hard to destroy.
** Companion of the eleventh doctor {{spoiler|Rory Williams fell into a crack in the universe and was eradicated from all time and space.}}
** The [[Big Finish Doctor Who|Big Finish]] audio "Neverland" introduces us to a world of Neverpeople, Gallifreyans who were thrown into the Oubliette of Eternity for crimes of "treason" ([[He Knows Too Much|they knew too much]]) and erased from Time.
* ''[[Nowhere Man]]'': Tom Veil's identity is scrubbed from all records by the conspiracy, and his family, relatives and friends no longer recognise him. Over the series, he meets a number of other people who have suffered this too - even a whole town of them.
** Subverted when {{spoiler|it's revealed in the final episode that Tom Veil never existed in the first place; it was simply a false memory given to the protagonist and presumably the other unpersons he'd encountered in the series.}}
* In ''[[
* In the last season of ''[[Blake's
* Lex Luthor threatens to do this to a corrupt journalist in an episode of ''[[
* In ''[[
** The original series episode "Person or Persons unknown" concerned an average man who wakes up one morning and finds that no one recognizes or has any memory of him. Not his wife, his boss and coworkers or the bartender he sees once a week. He knows all of Them and the facts are unchanged but no memory of him (Pictures with his wife have him standing alone) exists. The episode ends with an Inversion: The man wakes from his nightmare only to find that he doesn't recognize his wife.
* In "To See The Invisible Man," an episode of the '80s revival of ''[[
* A very localized version occurs in an episode of ''[[
* The Syndicate in ''[[
* Played for laughs in an episode of ''[[
* Even TV shows can be unpersons: Mystery Science Theater is this in the eyes of Comedy Central; this was most blatantly on display during a 13th Anniversary special the network had. Not only was the show utterly ignored, but what was the network's first major hit was ignored in favor of "Politically Incorrect" (the network's second major hit), which was declared the network's first big hit.
== Music ==
* [[Machinae Supremacy]]'s ''The Wired'' is entirely about this, due to [[Word of God|being inspired by the ending of]] {{spoiler|[[Serial Experiments Lain]]}}.
* This is commonplace in bands and music ensembles when members who were with the band before they hit it big, leave or are kicked out prior to the group becoming famous.
** [[
* One particularly infamous example is the 2002 "remasters" of [[Ozzy Osbourne]]'s first two albums. In an effort to avoid paying royalties to Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake (the original bassist and drummer), the rhythm tracks were rerecorded by Ozzy's current bassist and drummer, Daisley and Kerslake's names were removed from the songwriting credits, and they were completely removed from the photos in the liner notes, all without any indication that the albums were anything but straight reissues. The move caused massive backlash, and the subsequent ''Bark at the Moon'' reissue contained Daisley's original bass track (Kerslake had left the band by that point).
* Ever since Dave Holland's arrest for having sex with a minor, [[Judas Priest]] prefer to pretend he was never in the band, including editing him out of band photos from that era.
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== Professional Wrestling ==
* The [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] tried, and did a pretty good job of this, after [[Chris Benoit]]'s murder of his family and suicide. You can find examples of this in WWE.com's title history section where articles on Benoit's championship reigns have been deleted - Benoit is still listed in the title histories, but you can no longer see the summary of the title win. As far as archive footage goes, the WWE will no longer show Benoit matches or segments, unless Benoit's just a background figure, and will mute any audio referring to him. On DVD, if the match features Benoit but needs to be highlighted (Such as the first 'Money in the Bank' ladder match on an [[Edge]] DVD) will be cut down to highlights & either completely edit Benoit out of the match, or at least acknowledge that he was in the match, even if they don't show his in-ring performance.
* [[Vince McMahon]] tried to invoke this with [[CM Punk]] after he left the company after winning at the Money in the Bank PPV, and taking the WWE Championship with him. Off course this only lasted one or two weeks as he came back after they had held a tournament to crown a new winner.
== Tabletop Games ==
* Alluding to this trope, when the [[Tabletop RPG]] ''[[Paranoia]] Fifth Edition'' was thrown to [[Canon
** In the second edition's post-MegaWhoops period, there were still information terminals hooked up to The Computer's old personnel database, but due to data corruption, a few clones weren't recognized (the terminals would glitch and cough up random unrelated data instead, both a blessing and a curse).
* This happens from time to time with people the Inquisition of ''[[Warhammer
** GW's actions regarding the Squats are eerily similar to this trope. The official stance
*** While it was still active, the mentioning of Squats on the GW forums would get your account banned and the thread shut down and subsequently deleted. Asking questions about Squats at GW-sanctioned events would have security remove you from the event. GW really, really did not like the Squats.
** The two most significant Unpersons in the Imperium are the "Lost Legions"; the 2nd and Eleventh Legions of Space Marines and their Primarches. Whilst the [[Horus Heresy]] novels drop hints as to some great tragedy or accident (or even that they were the very first Space Marines to ever be corrupted by Chaos), absolutely nothing is known about them.
*** Chapters from the Cursed 21st Founding have been given this treatment as well, due to the bad luck and horrific mutations that plague
* The "Zeroed" advantage in ''[[GURPS]]'', available to secret government operatives, [[The Men in Black]] and the like.
* ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'': Back during the days of Rome, it turned out an entire clan was suspected of working with [[Owl Be Damned|the strix]]. The clan was wiped out down to a man, and all references to their name
* ''[[Magic:
** Let's not forget the card Door to Nothingness; "All memory of your existence will be wiped from reality. You will die, and no one will mourn."
* In the [[Points of Light]] D&D setting, [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|Asmodeus]] erased the name of the god that he rebelled against from history. Very few people know the god existed, those who do know him only as He Who Was. This is because Asmodeus feared what would happen if [[Speak of the Devil|someone said the slain god's name even once]].
* The story of ''Shane the Shy'' ends with this because the players didn't want leaving something behind to result in that slippery weasel coming back or getting worshipped.
== Video Games ==
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* In ''[[Quest for Glory III]]'', being deemed "Without Honor" in Tarna does this: No one will trade, or even talk with you. The hero catches a thief at the beginning of the game. Said capture leads the thief to being declared honorless. The hero showing kindness to the thief and giving him food leads to said thief becoming [[Big Damn Heroes|an ally at a crucial moment]].
* ''[[Freelancer]]'' has the forced disappearance and the deletion of all the records of anyone that had something to do with alien artifacts. Juni finding this out is the moment that kickstarts the [[Conspiracy Theory]] plot.
* The first story arc involving Crey Industries in ''[[City of Heroes]]'' involves the attempted assassination and
* Featured in ''[[
* In ''[[Arcanum]]'' there is this disturbing quest involving a [[Government Conspiracy]], which among other things standard for this sort of story, also includes the man-disappears-and-is-replaced motif.
* [[Touhou|Rin Satsuki]] has barely made any appearance in any game, and has left traces of her existence behind. She was supposed to be one of the new playable characters for the then-new Windows series, even with proof of what the source code left [[Dummied Out]]. Fans have even made wide [[Epileptic Trees]] about whether or not Keine [[A Wizard Did It|did it]] due to Keine's power being this trope. There is also speculation that the PC-98 might have been hidden by Keine for similar reasons.
* In ''[[Command
* In ''[[Dragon Age Origins]]'', in the Dwarf Noble origin, the player character's record is "deleted from the memories", so, for Dwarven society, he never existed.
** The Casteless were never written into the Memories to begin with, and thus actually ''start out having never existed,'' as far as greater Dwarven society is concerned. Czibor even outright tells the Dwarven Commoner Warden that their ever having been to Orzammar ''at all'' are "delusions," and that s/he does not exist.
* In ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'', you can get yourself declared "in damnatio memoraie" by Caesar's Legion, like the Real Life instance of the trope below. Not that you'd care what they'd think of you if you got to that point...
** This also applies to Joshua Graham, who is just the Burned Man to the Legion, due to leading the Legion to their first major military defeat at the First Battle of Hoover Dam.
* This happened in the backstory of ''[[Dark Souls]]'' to Gwyn's firstborn, the God of War after his foolishness allowed the destruction of annals of ancient history, with his deity stripped from him, his name stricken from history, and his altars destroyed.
* This was actually one of the devices used by the Five Gods in ''[[Guild Wars]]'' to imprison their fallen brother, Abaddon. His followers and any literature, art, or structure associated with Abaddon was banished into the Realm of Torment. Even long after his defeat, souls touched by Abaddon's power were taken to the Realm to be cleansed. Unfortunately, enough escaped their efforts to guide new followers in bringing about Nightfall.
** In the case of Abaddon, it was actually very important this happen. He was the God of Secrets, so a mortal simply possessing knowledge of his existence was enough to give him a connection to Tyria.
* In ''[[Nancy Drew|The Captive Curse]]'', it's implied that tales of "the Monster" had their roots in the case of a medieval criminal who'd been declared an
* In the [[Mega Man Zero]] series, Dr. Weil is said to have been so heinous (having kicked off a war that wiped out 60% of mankind and 90% of [[Ridiculously Human Robot|reploidkind]] ) that all records of him have been suppressed by Neo-Arcadia, to the extent that libraries containing records of his actions have been flooded and anyone who finds out about him is declared a Maverick. Of course, this is intended to prevent anyone from doing what he did again.
==
* In ''[[Walkyverse|It's Walky]]'', it is revealed midway through the story that the [[Government Conspiracy]] that employs the main characters is frequently infiltrated by an even shadowier conspiracy who edit their records and memories and then vanish again. If anyone has to be killed: "Well, they never existed."
* The Eastern Gods and the First World of ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' were completely destroyed by the Snarl. The surviving gods don't tell anyone about them lest they get the bright idea to try and harness its power. Similarly, the Paladins of Azure City traveled the world to purge all mention of the Rifts. Given Girard's bitter comment to Soon regarding Kraagor, there is a hint that their dead friend would be part of this purge.
* In ''[[
** It later turns out that {{spoiler|they actually killed Jeanne's forest elf boyfriend}}, who is also written out of existence by the Court. Even Diego's secret record mostly ignores that "detail," probably because {{spoiler|Diego was jealous of him. Jeanne herself died of grief.}}
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'', Earth is part of the Nemesite Empire but is a nature preserve, and the Nemesites regard humans as "wildlife". Jean takes offense at this, and Voluptua points out that, considering what citizenship in the Empire would entail, their unpersonhood [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100323.html is actually a blessing.]
* The hyenas of ''[[
* In the backstory of ''[[
* ''[[Goblins]]'' has psion Minmax devoting the endless maze to oblivion. Any one or anything that falls into one of these holes never existed, and nobody remembers the person or thing.
== Web Original ==
*
* The careful and systematic removal of That Aussie Guy from the website, wiki, and all other things related to ''[[That Guy With
* In ''[[Red vs. Blue]]: Reconstruction'', the Red Team "deletes" the Blue Team from the Command database, allowing them to achieve "victory". While this doesn't directly affect most of the Blues, it prevents Church from proving his identity when it comes into question.
{{quote|
** This also {{spoiler|prevented the Epsilon unit from being detected by the UNSC, as Caboose was the last one to have it, and because the Red Team "deleted" the blues, the UNSC had no knowledge of them.}}
* Hitomi Chris from [[wikipedia:Hololive Production|Hololive Production]] has never been mentioned in any capacity by members of the agency, both before and after her dismissal, and information about the character has been purged following her dismissal. Furthermore, any reference or discussion regarding Hitomi by members or by fans is verboten.
* For a few years post-[[TV Tropes/The Second Google Incident|Second Google Incident]], [[TV Tropes]] applied this treatment to both [[All The Tropes]] and the [http://tropes.wikia.com Tropes Mirror Wiki] - both sites were considered troll sites when they are brought up at all, and any mention of them was deleted by the moderators.
* [[Uncyclopedia]] was forked in January 2013 by some members who were unhappy with the way [[Wikia]] ran the site. They intended this to be a move, but a significant portion of the community remained at the original Wikia wiki. Nonetheless, supporters of the fork claimed that it was the "real" Uncyclopedia and "the community" as a whole had moved there, and they replaced links to the original with links to the fork on the [[Wikipedia]] entry and some foreign-language editions. When the original was closed in May 2019, the content and editors moved to a new independent wiki, but fork supporters claimed that the two wikis had merged and [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uncyclopedia&diff=898542969&oldid=898495796 tried to suppress mention of the new site].
== Western Animation ==
* An episode of ''[[Batman:
* An episode of ''[[
* In one promo for [[Cartoon Network]], [[
* In the ''[[Double Dragon]]'' cartoon, the Shadow Master intends to destroy the Dragon Dojo (the Dragon Warriors have been banished to the Shadow Mural, and the Lees are in another dimension), saying that once it occurs, "it will be as though (the Double Dragons) never existed."
* Happened to Ron in one ''[[Kim Possible]]'' episode after he angered a [[Large Ham|hammy]] supervillain called the Mathter (yes, really). It was relatively easy for [[Mission Control|Wade]] to fix, however.
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== Real Life ==
* Adobe
** Usually, someone will request such photos be altered only in extreme cases – for instance, a professional photo of single mother, her children and her boyfriend ... but then the couple has a big falling out, and it is obvious the man will never have any contact with anyone in the family again. Yet, the photo – with or without him – is perfectly good to display (as opposed to disposing of them in a burn barrel), and the woman wants to do just that ... only she doesn't want anything with the jerk (the now "unperson") hanging on her walls.
** In addition, some people remove unwanted people from other types of photos, such as a high school sports team photo where several members are no longer part of a team. It can be a hassle to have a new picture taken, and rather than use other techniques (such as simple cropping or using blocks to cover up the ex-teammates), the photographer simply PhotoShops the ex-players out of existence ... as far as that picture is concerned. Usually, this will be done only if the player(s) are kicked off a team for severe offenses, such as drinking or serious crimes; if one simply leaves the team, even if on not the best terms, the original team photo will be left intact.
* Most restaurants have policies where the waitstaff can refuse service to a particular individual for any reason, sometimes by refusing to acknowledge them (and thus, fitting the trope). Usually, this is done to customers who have been particularly rude or obnoxious, drunk or acted "creepy" toward waitresses in the past.
* The Romans
* The Soviet Union did this often
** [[Josef Stalin]] was the biggest practitioner of this as alluded to in the main article, manipulating historical accounts and photographs to remove certain people, or, more rarely, insert people (usually himself). [[Leon Trotsky]], former head of the Red Army, is probably the most famous case of this.
*** This continued even after the
** Soviet actions frequently utilized this in Warsaw Pact countries, usually when leaders in nations such as Hungary dared to propose a more efficient form of communism that dealt with problems through means other than repression.
** Soviet relocation policies attempted to dilute the many different ethnic groups within its borders by bringing in large numbers of Russians in hopes. 20 years after the collapse, this proves to be a difficult situation in many former soviet republics with large Russian minorities.
** Everyone who did not agree with collectivization policies, along with anyone associated with a suspected rebel was subject to relocation to the Gulag. This led to huge numbers of people in the western regions of the Soviet Union (the Baltic states and western Ukraine in particular) falling to this.
* The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was burned down in 356 BC by a guy named [[wikipedia:Herostratus|Herostratus]]. He had done this specifically to get his name in the history books, and the Ephesian authorities, in an attempt to deny him this goal, executed him, erased his name from all their records, and made it a crime to mention his name on penalty of death. As you can well imagine, it didn't work ''that'' well, as people needed to know what the name was in order to know which one not to say on pain of death. [[Thanatos Gambit]] much?
* After the end of Conan O'Brien's run on ''[[The Tonight Show]]'', NBC proceeded to remove every single trace of his career at the network from their website and video sites across the internet. With the exception of an episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' he hosted and a first season episode of ''[[
* ''[[Archie Comics]]'' did this to Dan DeCarlo after he attempted to sue them over ownership rights to ''[[Josie and
** As we can see at this [http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics91.html link], DeCarlo: There were two panels of two editions of a comic where Bety was visiting a museum with the gang and she is asked about his favorite writer: In the first panel she said '''"Dan DeCarlo, because, where would we be without him?"'''. In the second, (maybe from a compilation) she said '''"Archie comic’s staff, because, where would we be without them?"'''
* The band The Spring Standards used to be called Old Springs Pike and had a forth member, actor John Gallagher Jr, who very suddenly quit the band a while back. Looking at anything official related to the band now, you wouldn't think they ever even knew him.
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** It's an especially strong punishment in Amish communities, since individual Amish often have no social connections outside the Amish community. Enough to drive the individual in question to suicide in severe cases.
** In the same way, exile could be a very severe punishment in tribal societies, not much better than execution.
** The phenomenon labeled "Cancel Culture" by those who don't like it is just a modern iteration of the same practice, though ''in'' practice it is less dogmatic than advertised by those same people - more often than not, it serves as a new label for the same power dynamics present in any given community and among various industries.
* After [[The Pope|Pope Benedict XVI]] confirmed that Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, was really [[Paedophile Priest|a pederast]]
* The government of the late Argentine President Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007) sought to discredit all former military rulers of Argentina by removing any official reference to their "presidencies" from government records and history, including the removal of several portraits from halls of presidents around the nation.
** Speaking of Argentina, the Perons were this for 16 years after the military junta that led to Juan Peron's exile. Eva's embalmed body was moved by the military to a tomb in Italy. The body was later returned to Argentina after the junta rule ended, and Juan Peron himself made a political comeback with a third election in 1973 (though he died just nine months into it), with Peronism still going strong today, even surviving a second military junta in the late '70s/early '80s.
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* After Goelitz purchased the rights to Jelly Belly, they removed any mention of the candy's inventor, David Klein, despite Klein having numerous television and magazine appearances in the 1970s as "Mr. Jelly Belly." Klein's son made the documentary ''Candyman'' to set the record straight.
* This is ''culturally mandatory'' in Japan, especially in corporate ambients for face-saving reasons, and we can tell about many cases about this:
** Noriko Sakai and her drug-abuse scandal caused her albums to be recalled, all her records about her career deleted by her agency and causing that her most known anime theme song
** Pierre Taki also saw his works being purged or edited to remove his performances due to his arrest over cocaine possession charges, most notably the ''[[Yakuza (video game)|Yakuza]]'' spinoff ''Judgment'', where his likeness and voice was removed and replaced with a different character model and voice actor, and in the Japanese dub of the 2013 animated musical ''[[Frozen (Disney film)|Frozen]]'' where he previously voiced Olaf; he has since been replaced with Shunsuke Takeuchi in subsequent installments of the franchise.
* After Stalin died, the Soviet Union did this to Stalin (to a limited extent) after they remembered how much they should hate him. For example say
* During the Pinochet regime in Chile from 1973 to 1990 people would randomly disappear; so much so that the verb "disappear" became transitive, as in "He was disappeared". Most simply never returned and their homes/possessions were taken by the government but in a few cases some of those who were disappeared would also lead to their family and anyone who spoke of them to disappear as well effectively removing a persons existence. Official estimates are around 3,000 people but some believe as many as 5-10,000 people had gone missing.
* Benjamin Cardozo (1870-1938) was a New York judge appointed to the Supreme Court by President [[Herbert Hoover]] in 1932. He and his family were Sephardic Jews, making him not only the second Jew to serve as a Supreme Court justice, but also the first Hispanic justice. But since the term "Hispanic" was not used to refer to people during Cardozo's lifetime, and since Cardozo was Portuguese (as opposed to Spanish) and white, he does not fit current perceptions of what a Hispanic-American is. As such, when President [[Barack Obama]] named a Puerto Rican woman, Sonia Sotomayor, to the Court in 2009, ''she'' was acknowledged the first Hispanic justice, effectively erasing Cardozo's existence, at least as a Hispanic-American.
* Jewish matriarchal decent has confusing roots. This Troper could not find something specific on the origin though at least one in the Chronicles seems to count both parents. Some google searches say, "the mother did most of the work". But one of the more common is that the father might have been a gentile though this was rare. And one folk tale This Troper remembers was that it was after Titus' siege, the (merely biological) father was a [[Rape, Pillage and Burn|Roman soldier]]. And as it would be unjust to honor-kill the mother they simply honor killed the father in records. This is an ambiguous example and one can take it or leave it.
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