History Main / AmnesiacDissonance

* In ''VisualNovel/CrossChannel'', [[spoiler:Yutaka Shinkawa was, like most of the Shinkawa family, one nasty piece of work. More specifically, he was a violent and sadistic bully and rapist, and the PlayerCharacter, Taichi Kurosu, was the main target of his depravity. After years of abuse at the Shinkawa family's hands, Taichi eventually snapped and massacred the family, and though Yutaka ultimately survived Taichi's murder spree, [[SoleSurvivor as the only one to do so]], he was crippled and lost his memory in the process. The amnesiac Yutaka was adopted into the Sakura family, and freed from the influence of his rather monstrous family, he would turn out to be [[NiceGuy a kind and decent young man]] and an upstanding big brother to his adoptive sister, Kiri. Years later, however, Yutaka's memories of his past began to reemerge and remembering what an awful person he was before ''broke'' him, sending him into a despair-incuded mental breakdown and eventually causing his suicide.]]

** Zero suffers this again in the transition between the ''X'' and ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' series. While he stays a hero in between both series, his memory was lost during hibernation, including one crucial detail: [[spoiler:that the body he was inhabiting was a duplicate.]] Though there's very little of the "dissonance" part in the ''Zero'' series though, since most of the few people who knew that Zero used to be evil have been dead for hundreds of years. Almost everyone remembers him as a mythical hero [[spoiler:and almost no one knows that "Omega" is in fact Zero's original body]]. The exceptions would be X (who doesn't care since he knows who his best friend really is) and [[BigBad Dr. Weil]].
* Debatably Venom Snake in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain''. [[spoiler: He starts as a Medic who is simply trying to save Paz's life during GroundZeroes. He ends up becoming the vengeful leader of a ruthless and nearly cult-like mercenary group that is destined to make a super weapon & die in Outer Heaven after being labeled a terrorist... all as a cover for the actual Big Boss. Made slightly more bitter when revealed that the avatar the player makes at the beginning is the real face of Venom Snake tricked into thinking he's the real Big Boss.]]

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The unique[[note]]If you don't choose him during character creation, he dies off-screen[[/note]] player origin "The Dark Urge" begins as an amnesiac whose only link to the past is their psychotic urge to brutally murder everything around them. After your manservant tracks you down and reveals that you were a serial killer, you'd think that losing your memories mattered little in the end. You'd be wrong: [[spoiler:the Dark Urge was ''worse''; as the former leader of the Cult of Bhaal, they were ''so'' monstrously insane and irredeemable that Bhaal himself ''seriously considered naming them his heir''. Put it into perspective: the evil guy that was so afraid of dying that they had sex with everything and then ordered their bastard children to devour one another with the intention of inflicting GrandTheftMe upon the survivor, looked upon the nation-destroying carnage of Dark Urge and ''treated them like an actual son'' because they were ''that'' impressively evil. In losing their memories, they are capable of choosing to defy Bhaal and atone for their past sins, where they would be incapable of even thinking about regret in their past life.]]

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The unique[[note:If you don't choose him during character creation, he dies off-screen]] player origin "The Dark Urge" begins as an amnesiac whose only link to the past is their psychotic urge to brutally murder everything around them. After your manservant tracks you down and reveals that you were a serial killer, you'd think that losing your memories mattered little in the end. You'd be wrong: [[spoiler:the Dark Urge was ''worse''; as the former leader of the Cult of Bhaal, they were ''so'' monstrously insane and irredeemable that Bhaal himself ''seriously considered naming them his heir''. Put it into perspective: the evil guy that was so afraid of dying that they had sex with everything and then ordered their bastard children to devour one another with the intention of inflicting GrandTheftMe upon the survivor, looked upon the nation-destroying carnage of Dark Urge and ''treated them like an actual son'' because they were ''that'' impressively evil. In losing their memories, they are capable of choosing to defy Bhaal and atone for their past sins, where they would be incapable of even thinking about regret in their past life.]]

** This is quite possibly a CallBack to the first game in the series, which ''Re;[=Birth1=]'' is a ReMake of. In that game, Neptune ''does'' have the possibility to regain her memories, and doing so is actually a neccessary step to get the True Ending. Upon doing so, Neptune does indeed remember the milennia she spent battling against the other [=CPUs=], whom she had become friends with during her amnesiac journey. This, combined with TheReveal that [[spoiler:Arfoire is the previous True Goddess and the creator of the four CPUs]], causes her to have a minor FreakOut. However, [[TrueCompanions Compa and IF]] are able to make her calm down, and due to having regained her memories, Neptune is able to convince the other [=CPUs=] to join her cause in defeating Arfoire (after [[DefeatMeansFriendship defeating each of them in a one-on-one duel]]).

* ''Literature/DanganronpaZero'': {{Exaggerated|Trope}}. The protagonist, Ryouko Otonashi, is a somewhat ditzy girl who is [[SmittenTeenageGirl hopelessly in love]] with her childhood friend, Yasuke Matsuda, and suffers from severe anterograde amnesia to the point of having to write down her memories in a notebook. [[spoiler:When the amnesia wears off at the end, she finally remembers that she is actually [[Characters/DanganronpaJunkoEnoshima Junko Enoshima]], the insane [[HopeCrusher despair fetishist]] whose murders and machinations not only kickstarted the entire ''Danganronpa'' franchise, but caused "[[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history]]".]] To say the contrast is a stark one is a severe {{understatement}}.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Medium}}'' centers around a former serial killer whose modus operandi was to hire a prostitute, smother her with a pillow after having sex, and bury her in the desert. But one night his plan goes awry when the woman's pimp breaks into his house as part of a planned robbery, and the killer is shot in the head during the ensuing scuffle. When the prostitute visits him in the hospital, she finds that he has amnesia, and remembers nothing about his murders. Once he is discharged from the hospital, he continues his life minus the murders; the woman leaves her life of prostitution and eventually the two end up married. Despite learning all this from the former prostitute, Allison continues to pursue the issue so the bodies can be found. When pressed, the former killer seems to vaguely remember the murders, and it is implied that he leads the police to the bodies. It's never made clear when the memories began to come back, how many of them came back, or even if he ever truly forgot.

See AmnesiacHero (one common recipient of this), IdentityAmnesia, LossOfIdentity, and AmnesiacLiar. DeathOfPersonality is often what an [[AvertedTrope aversion]]] of Amnesiac Dissonance can turns out to be. Compare LostInCharacter or PreInsanityReveal.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'' episode "Rabble", Rex is hit hard with this as he meets up with three old friends of his - who he doesn't remember at all - who are stuck working for a crime boss named Quarry. It turns out that in a former life, [[spoiler: Rex literally ''sold out'' his friends to Quarry in the first place]], and Quarry uses this fact to turn Rex's old friends against him.
* In ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' animated series, there are two [[VoluntaryShapeshifting ShapeShifters]], one on each side, who undergo processes to forget themselves and become one of the other side's members in order to gain intelligence. Chameleon Boy [[spoiler:ends up stuck as Persuader]] before finally remembering who he is. And [[spoiler:Superboy]] ends up revealing he's actually [[spoiler:Ron-Karr]] in the process and is shocked to discover he'd forgotten who he really was.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': in the episode "The Fool Monty" Mr. Burns gets amnesia and acts genuinely nice until Lisa takes him to his mansion here he remembers his true identity.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Action Figures", villainous cyborg Metallo turns up on a volcanic island with no memory of himself; he saves a young girl's life and does other good deeds, but eventually he remembers his battle with Franchise/{{Superman}} and turns evil again.

* Douglas Quaid, the central character in ''[[Film/TotalRecall1990 Total Recall]]'', discovers that before he had his memories rewritten he was Hauser, TheDragon to the movie's BigBad, and that he had been on a mission to destroy the people on whose side he had since come to fight. Quaid is shocked and disgusted by this revelation and refuses to become Hauser again, going as far as calling his former self an "asshole".

See AmnesiacHero (one common recipient of this), IdentityAmnesia, LossOfIdentity, and AmnesiacLiar. Compare LostInCharacter or PreInsanityReveal.

* Inverted on ''Series/GeneralHospital'' in 1995 after Jason Quartermaine wakes from his coma with no memory of his life. All of his family and friends' efforts to educate him result in him being inexplicably disgusted with how much of a PuritySue he was--straight-A pre-med student, varsity athlete, steady girlfriend, etc. He turns into a very different character as "Jason Morgan", becoming local mob boss Sonny Corinthos's enforcer, and this new identity sticks for the rest of the series.

** The ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S3E11PastAndPresent Past and Present]]" has Daniel Jackson fall in love with an amnesiac named Ke'ra, who's a doctor working to reverse a global pandemic that caused the entire population to suffer amnesia. It's later revealed that she is actually [[spoiler:a de-aged Linea, an elderly psychopathic MadScientist whom the team unwittingly helped escape a just imprisonment last season in "Prisoners"]], also known as "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Destroyer of Worlds]]", who created the very plague in the first place to regain her youth and the amnesia was an unforeseen side-effect. When her cure causes her to start regaining her memory, she tries to kill herself, but Daniel stops her and reinfects her with the virus, which unfortunately [[RelationshipResetButton erases her memories of him]].
** The ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' episode "[[Recap/StargateAtlantisS02E18Michael Michael]]" features previously unknown Lieutenant Michael Kenmore [[spoiler:having nightmares of being a Wraith. As it turns out, he was subjected to an experimental treatment to turn wraiths human, giving him a grudge against both the wraith and humanity, both of whom he later attempts to exterminate]].

* Inverted on ''Series/GeneralHospital'' in 1995 after Jason Quartermaine wakes from his coma with no memory of his life. All of his family and friends' efforts to educate him result in him being inexplicably disgusted with how much of a PuritySue he was--straight-A pre-med student, varsity athlete, steady girlfriend, etc. He turns into a completely different character as "Jason Morgan", becoming local mob boss Sonny Corinthos's enforcer, and this new identity sticks for the rest of the series.

* Inverted on ''Series/GeneralHospital'' after Jason wakes from his coma with no memory of his life. All of his family and friends efforts to educate him result in him being inexplicably disgusted with how much of a PuritySue he was--straight-A pre-med student, varsity athlete, steady girlfriend, etc.

A variation may be that the person never gets their memory back directly, but does find out who they were previously and has to deal with the implications; be they [[OutDamnedSpot crippling guilt]] over past evil, or longing for [[VillainsOutShopping the simple pleasures]] after [[PetTheDog petting the dog.]]

** "Passing Through Gethsemane" centers around a mind-wiped SerialKiller who lives as [[spoiler:a monk in a religious order.]] Upon discovering his past, he's aghast. How can he pray for forgiveness when he doesn't even know his sins? Ultimately, he decides the only way he can atone is [[spoiler:[[RedemptionEqualsDeath through death]]. And so, despite his superior's pleas that he accept the mercy of a new life, he allows himself to be crucified by the families of his old victims.]] In an [[{{Irony}} ironic]] TwistEnding, [[spoiler:the leader of the lynch mob is sentenced to mind-wipe, and joins the same religious order. The aforementioned superior requested him specifically so as to exercise forgiveness for Brother Edward's murder]].
** In "Divided Loyalties", Lyta Alexander arrives on Bablyon 5 to tell captain Sheridan that someone onboard the station is a sleeper agent and that only by sending a specific word into their minds to activate the agent can she find out who it is. [[spoiler:Turns out it's Talia Winters, whose sleeper personality seems to be as chaotic and malicious as Talia was formerly calm and helpful]].

* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "Blank Slate", an amnesiac is being helped by a woman he met while they are being chased by unknown people. Every so often, he gets an injection of liquid that appears to hold his memories, remembering more and more each time. In the end, he is revealed to be the evil boss of the people chasing them and uses the same procedure to erase the woman's memories.

* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Back to Reality", the crew wake up from the virtual reality game they were playing, and discover that their real personalities are very different from the people they thought they were. Dave Lister, who likes to think he's a good guy who will usually do the right thing, discovers that he's really a brutal fascist officer; Arnold Rimmer, who thinks he's better than Lister, discovers that he's really Lister's less successful brother; Kryten, who thinks he'd never harm a human being, discovers that he's capable of murder; and the Cat, who defines his whole existence by his sense of style and good taste, discovers that he's really an awkward, buck-toothed, fashion-deficient nerd. Subverted when [[spoiler:it turns out this is all a hallucination created by the Despair Squid, and their "game" personalities are their real ones after all, with the hallucinations specifically intended to drive them to suicide.]]
** The episode "Psirens" begins with Lister waking up with total amnesia after six hundred years in stasis, and is increasingly disgusted by Kryten's description of him as a "randy, blokish, uncouth, tone-deaf semi-literate space bum".

** The ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "Past and Present" had Daniel Jackson fall in love with an amnesiac named Ke'ra, who's a doctor working to reverse a global pandemic that caused the entire population to suffer amnesia. It's later revealed that she is actually [[spoiler: a de-aged Linea, an elderly psychopathic MadScientist whom the team unwittingly helped escape a just imprisonment last season in "Prisoners"]], also known as "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Destroyer of Worlds]]", who created the very plague in the first place to regain her youth and the amnesia was an unforeseen side-effect. When her cure causes her to start regaining her memory, she tries to kill herself but Daniel stops her and reinfects her with the virus, which unfortunately [[RelationshipResetButton erases her memories of him.]]
** The ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' episode "Michael" features previously unknown Lieutenant Michael Kenmore [[spoiler:having nightmares of being a Wraith. As it turns out, he was subjected to an experimental treatment to turn wraiths human, giving him a grudge against both the wraith and humanity, both of whom he later attempts to exterminate.]]
* Played with in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Frame of Mind": Commander Riker finds himself in an alien BedlamHouse. The wardens tell him that he has gone crazy and has brutally stabbed another person to death. But Riker doesn't remember having ever done this, and is of course reacting quite aghast. (It is even implied that he never was the respected Starfleet officer he considers himself, and any memories of his time on the ''Enterprise'' are just part of his delusion.) [[spoiler:In the end, all this turns out to be just an elaborate ruse by the aliens, as an attempt to extract information from the mind of the Starfleet officer, with Riker protecting himself by focusing on his own memory of a play he was taking part in before this mission.]]
* Some episodes of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' had Jadzia and Ezri Dax struggling to deal with the revelation that Dax had a host who was erased from their memories after he murdered people.

* ''Series/TheIncredibleHulk'': In the pilot, David Banner cannot remember what happened when he Hulked out, and worries that he killed someone.

* In ''LightNovel/ExpectingToFallIntoRuinIAimToBecomeABlacksmith'', after both undergoing a HeroicSacrifice, Kururi and Eliza lose their memories. After getting a magical treatment to 'loosen' their memories so they can return gradually, Eliza has a crisis where she essentially reverts to her childhood self before her BreakTheHaughty and DefrostingIceQueen developments alongside Kururi take place, since she recalls those memories and not those with him, and thus she returns to being a petulant RoyalBrat, instead of her current YamatoNadeshiko {{Housewife}} persona Eli, splitting up with Kururi and trying to go back to her now ruined parents. After a HostageSituation where Kururi rescues her, the trauma of seeing him stabbed InTheBack returns the rest of her memories all at once and they make up.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/DeadInVinland''; [[spoiler: party member Brother Angelico is a sweet, gentle, idealistic, and devoutly religious monk, but he doesn't remember that he's a SelfMadeOrphan and also a SerialKiller. He's committed all his crimes in a dissociative state or possibly demonic possession -- it's left MaybeMagicMaybeMundane -- and the only thing he's aware of is that he has recurring nightmares about blood and an awful lot of people he's known have died mysteriously.]] Unlike most examples, these evil deeds aren't only in the past; [[spoiler: if you keep him in your party long enough after you've accomplished one of the major quests, he murders another party member, and his true nature is revealed some time after.]] It's a one-two PlayerPunch, especially if [[spoiler: you played out the RomanceSidequest between him and Kari so that TheyDo]].

* In ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess'', Sim, a cute little amnesiac waif, is taken in by the main characters. She is later abducted by the Peacemakers, ancient humanlike machines out to kill the protagonists, and revealed to be one of them who had been uncompressed from her storage state erroneously. When she is fully uncompressed, she is called 'Cz', has the form of an adult and remembers her original function as the protagonists' enemy, though she retains her 'Sim' memories.

* Catarina in ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'' was a bitchy spoiled brat until she accidentally hit her head and got knocked out for a few days, after which she woke up with memories of her past life and could no longer take herself so seriously. She instantly reformed only to realize that she had somehow reincarnated into an otome game villainess with terrible fates in store for her.

* ''Series/DarkMatter'' starts out with six people waking up from stasis on a spaceship with no memories, then finding out that they (apart from Five, [[MysteriousWaif a teenage girl]] who, unlike the five adults, has no wanted file in the ship's database and it's a mystery what she was doing among them) were ruthless mercenaries hired by corrupt [[MegaCorp Mega Corps]] to wipe out planetary populations. They decide to help the people they were hired to kill instead. Despite learning their given names from their wanted files at the end of the pilot (again, apart from Five), they continue to call themselves [[YouAreNumberSix One through Six]] based on the order they woke up, since they [[ThatManIsDead don't consider themselves to be the same people]] anymore. One, Two and Six are particularly horrified to learn their original selves were criminals, while Three and Four are more indifferent but still not eager to do things that are outright evil.