Victory-Guided Amnesia/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: After having a grand adventure, the hero is made to forget that adventure ever happened.

  • Straight: Jenny saved a Magical Land from the Big Bad, but she's only 11, so The Powers That Be make her forget so she can go home to live a normal life.
  • Exaggerated: Jenny not only forgot her adventure, but also about normal concepts like magic, gods, what dragons are, et cetra--they took out every fantasy-related thing she knows.
  • Justified: Jenny has seen things that would certainly traumatize an 11-year-old for life.
  • Inverted: The Powers That Be grant Jenny the ability to photographically remember every single aspect of her trip, so she can share her story.
  • Subverted: The Powers That Be erase Jenny's memory, but forgot to take away the journal she wrote, so she actually has a way to remember everything.
  • Double Subverted: The Powers That Be planted that journal. She actually went on a different adventure (possibly the Rape and Murder one).
  • Parodied: The Powers That Be spend so much time quibbling over whether or not Jenny should have her memories erased that she practically screams at them to do it: "Get On With It Already!"
  • Deconstructed: The Powers That Be erase Jenny's memory, only to realize that she gained a lot of new knowledge on her journy and made friends that may be vital to the Magical Land, in terms of alliances. Also, the Big Bad's minions are still around, and only she knew their weak spots. Unfortunately, she no longer has that knowledge.
  • Reconstructed: After trying to fix their mistake, the come upon the cure for her memory loss, and find out that it works on others. While Jenny is protecting the land and keeping up alliances, others are getting their memory back by the new cure, helping in more ways than originally intended.
  • Zig Zagged: Some of the other Kid Heroes in Jenny's party get their memories erased, but Jenny doesn't; The Powers That Be went through every kid individually to decide who could "handle it."
    • Or: Jenny remembers that she went on a magical adventure, but not anything that happened during it.
  • Averted: Jenny gets to keep all the memories of her adventure, with no extra strings.
  • Enforced: "We can't just let her go back to Earth with her magical knowledge! The World Is Not Ready! Let's erase her memory!"
  • Lampshaded: "Is this the part where you're going to erase my memories so I can live a normal life?"
  • Invoked: The Powers That Be weren't planning on erasing her memories, but Jenny is Genre Savvy and asks for it, because she went on the Rape and Murder adventure.
  • Defied: The Powers That Be were planning on erasing her memories, but Jenny is Genre Savvy and coerces them into letting her keep them because she doesn't want to go back to being an ordinary, blah Muggle.
  • Discussed: "Hey, Jenny, you know how we always used to play we were on magical adventures as kids? Why do you think we stopped? ...Do you think maybe we actually had one, but they made us forget?"
  • Conversed: "My phone number is one of those things I never remember--like my parent's anniversary, or that magical adventure I went on."
  • Played For Laughs: Jenny keeps being called back to the Magic World because it turns out there's another threat only she can handle, but her memory is erased each time, so the summoners have to waste time recapping the increasingly long events of previous adventures each time Jenny is called. Eventually, they resort to a Powerpoint presentation.
  • Played For Drama: Jenny had a wonderful adventure and had lots of Character Development. But since they took away her memory, she went back to being a Spoiled Brat who forever had Wistful Amnesia.
    • Jenny gets called back to the Magical Land because it turns out there's another threat only she can handle. The summoners explain her previous adventure to her...And, horrified by how they treated her after she saved their entire world, Jenny refuses to help them again.
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