History Main / BackstoryInvader

[[folder:Fan Works]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' introduces a few new characters this way in the season 4 episode [[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS4E4TheOthers The Others]]. Since Gumball is so self-centered that he believes the entire world revolves around him, he (and thus, the audience) only ever saw the students of his own class. After [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHknXuwuWJU&t=45 opening his mind]], he realises that there are dozens of students and several faculty members he never noticed before.

* ''Anime/TenchiInTokyo'': Sakuya Kumashiro was created by the BigBad Yugi and inserted into the school Tenchi goes to in Tokyo, with all her classmates getting false memories of her. Since Tenchi was new in town to begin with he never had the opportunity to even suspect anything was different. Ultimately, once Yugi decided that Sakuya had [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived her usefulness]], Sakuya was reabsorbed back into her and all the other students besides Tenchi forgot she'd ever existed - she even disappeared from photographs.

!!!'''In General:'''
* DC's Moon Maiden and Triumph, and Marvel's Comicbook/TheSentry. All three are modern characters retconned as heroes from UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} who happened to save the world in a way that [[LaserGuidedAmnesia erases everyone's memories of them]]. Leading up to the series that introduced the Sentry, Marvel got comic news sources in on the joke; they ran stories about how he really '''was''' a Silver Age hero who was created back then but never used and promptly forgotten. Nor was this the first time Marvel had tried this tactic. 3-D Man was made in the Seventies but his story had him as active since the Fifties. There was even a ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' story where he was present as a founding member of a 50's version of ComicBook/TheAvengers[[note]]this story would later inspire ''ComicBook/AgentsOfAtlas'', which consisted of the same team minus 3-D Man, but had his LegacyCharacter, the second 3-D Man, [[MythologyGag join up later]][[/note]].
!!!'''Specific Examples:'''

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', Kevin's father, Devin, was retroactively added in as a postmortem character from Grandpa Max's past. But ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' retconned this again by revealing Devin never really existed in the manner portrayed in Alien Force. It was a fake memory implanted in Max's mind during the year before Alien Force occurred.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', Kevin's father, Devin, was retroactively added in as a postmortem character from Grandpa Max's past. But ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' retconned this again by revealing Devin never existed and was a fake memory implanted in Max's mind during the year before Alien Force occurred.

* In ''Grinny'' by Creator/NicholasFisk, the title character has this as an explicit power: by saying "You remember me", she can make adults (but not children) think they've known her all their lives.

* In ''Anime/MajokkoMegChan'', Meg is a young witch who has been sent to Earth where is adopted by former witch Mami Kanzaki. In the first episode, Mami bewitches her husband and their two children, Rabi and Apo, into believing that Megu has always been the eldest child of the family.

* ''Anime/TenchiInTokyo'': Sakuya Kumashiro was created by the BigBad Yugi and inserted into the school Tenchi goes to in Tokyo, with all her classmates getting false memories of her. Since Tenchi was new in town to begin with he never had the opportunity to even suspect anything was different. Ultimately, once Yugi decided that Sakuya had [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived her usefulness]], Sakuya was reabsorbed back into her and all the other students besides Tenchi forgot she'd ever existed- she even disappeared from photographs.

* DC's Moon Maiden and Triumph, and Marvel's Comicbook/TheSentry. All three are modern characters retconned as heroes from UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} who happened to save the world in a way that [[LaserGuidedAmnesia erases everyone's memories of them]]. Leading up to the series that introduced the Sentry, Marvel got comic news sources in on the joke; they ran stories about how he really '''was''' a Silver Age hero who was created back then but never used and promptly forgotten. Nor was this the first time Marvel had tried this tactic. 3D-Man was made in the Seventies but his story had him as active since the Fifties. There was even a ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' story where he was present as a founding member of a 50's version of ComicBook/TheAvengers[[note]]this story would later inspire ''ComicBook/AgentsOfAtlas'', which consisted of the same team minus 3D-Man[[/note]].

* ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'': Following the CosmicRetcon (and real-life lawsuit) induced ContinuityReboot, numerous characters have shown up who have histories with the preexisting characters that are completely new to the audience. Possibly lampshaded in the case of Breezie the Hedgehog, whom Amy points out Sonic and Tails have never mentioned to the rest of the team before.

* A major plot point in the ''ComicBook/AvengersNoSurrender'' crossover involves the return of Voyager, a former Silver Age Avenger who was supposedly lost in time after a battle with Squadron Sinister. It's eventually revealed that Voyager is really the Grandmaster's daughter, and that she used her powers to infiltrate the team by worming her way into everyone's memories, thus making them all believe she was a founding Avenger. She eventually does a HeelFaceTurn and restores everyone's memories voluntarily.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' tie in mini-series of the IDW comics crossover event ''Infestation'', Galvatron has his loyal crew of Cyclonus, Scourge and... Bayonet, a female helicopter transformer we've never seen before and is part of the crew. She is the BigBad Britt, disguised as a transformer who used her powers to mess with everyone's memories to make them all believe that she was there all along. Kup, who's going crazy by this point, is the first to notice, and when trying to write it off as paranoia fails, she [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impales him]].

* In ''Fanfic/HarryPotterAndTheNatural20'', Milo is a {{Munchkin}} with the standard ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' PlayerCharacter ability to add details to his backstory at will. So naturally, he exploits this trope for all its worth.

* Late in ''Fanfic/PerfectionIsOverrated'', Bachiko is introduced as a supposed childhood friend of [[Anime/MaiHime Mai]], and it's claimed that Mai has also known Bachiko's best friend Meiko when she first arrived at Fuuka, in a manner similar to the MarySue examples listed above. Natsuki is confused when Mai and the others assume she knows the two when she knows she doesn't. It turns out that Meiko, using her powers, altered everyone's memories so that they would remember herself and Bachiko as their friends, as part of an EvilPlan to manipulate everyone's relationships as they see fit with Bachiko's personality altering abilities, and they posed as Mai's friends in order to monitor their progress. Natsuki happened to be outside of Fuuka's campus at the time, and so was not affected by Meiko's power.

* ''Film/MenInBlack3'': After Boris alters the timeline by going back to 1969 to kill K. J gets on the elevator to go to work and he is joined by another agent, AA, who addresses J as if J is his partner. Neither J nor the audience has ever met this guy before, much less been partnered up with him. J naturally knows something's wrong.

** Possibly the first lampshaded use of this was during episode "Conundrum". The entire crew is hit with amnesia and forget their ranks. The executive officer, [=MacDuff=], is someone the audience has never before met. Turns out he is an alien intruder, trying to trick the ''Enterprise'' into attacking the enemies of his species.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', the episode "Total Rickall" has the family become infested by alien parasites that breeds via fake memories and take the form of wacky characters. This starts off with parodies of typical sitcom characters such as Uncle Steve and Cousin Nicky and eventually spirals into the house being filled with all sorts of fantastical characters. Most prominent is Mr. Poopybutthole, who is not only there from the start, but is also edited into the intro. Eventually they realize that the parasites can only create happy memories and that the real ones are the people they have horrible memories of. [[spoiler:However, Mr. Poopybutthole turns out to be real; he ''really'' is just that great of a guy.]]

* ''Series/StargateSG1'': The episode "The Fifth Man" starts with SG-1 having to leave Jack and new member Lt. Tyler behind as they flee a bunch of Jaffa, when they get to the SGC and say that Tyler was injured Hammond says "who?" Tyler eventually comes clean that he's an alien who secretes a pheromone that makes one perceive them as a familiar (even if fictious) figure they have always known. Since he was running from their mutual enemies they let him go. In later episodes, they use the memory-altering compound to infiltrate enemy organizations.

A new character appears in a work part-way through, but for some reason the established characters don't notice and treat them as if they've always been part of the team or community. Sometimes, they may even discuss the character's involvement in past events which the audience knows that they didn't play any part in.

* Yashiro Isana in ''Anime/{{K}}'' is an interesting example in that even ''he'' remembers having been there all along. By the time of TheReveal half way through the first season, everyone who was made to Remember The New Guy has forgotten him, which is what leads him to realize his memories had been tampered with. Everyone in the school not only remembered him, they loved him enough to eagerly share their food with him every day.

* In ''Manga/{{Servamp}}'', Mahiru believes he has been best friends with Sakuya since they were kids. In reality he has known him for only a year, and Sakuya is a vampire who created these fake memories to fit in with Mahiru and his other ChildhoodFriends. Mahiru remembers their real first meeting after the truth comes out.

* ''Comicbook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'': Following the CosmicRetcon (and real-life lawsuit) induced ContinuityReboot, numerous characters have shown up who have histories with the preexisting characters that are completely new to the audience. Possibly lampshaded in the case of Breezie the Hedgehog, whom Amy points out Sonic and Tails have never mentioned to the rest of the team before.
* This seemed to happen with Moonraker's sudden appearance in ''[[ComicBook/TheAvengers Force Works]]''. Everybody knew him and he even was in an ongoing relationship with ComicBook/SpiderWoman. However, Rachel (Spider-Woman's daughter) notices she had never seen him before. Some issues later, Moonraker reveals he was really implanted into the team's history via time travel to warn them and the Avengers about an upcoming attack by Kang.
* A major plot point in the ''Comicbook/AvengersNoSurrender'' crossover involves the return of Voyager, a former Silver Age Avenger who was supposedly lost in time after a battle with Squadron Sinister. It's eventually revealed that Voyager is really the Grandmaster's daughter, and that she used her powers to infiltrate the team by worming her way into everyone's memories, thus making them all believe she was a founding Avenger. She eventually does a HeelFaceTurn and restores everyone's memories voluntarily.
* ''Comicbook/Batgirl2011'' introduced Babs's old schoolfriend Greg, who turns out to be a memory-warping villain called Fugue, who Babs had never met before
* One of the ''ComicBook/FearItself'' tie-ins to ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' introduced Leonard Gary, a friend of Beast's with Omega-level RealityWarper abilities. Leonard is shown to be so powerful that he literally brings Washington D.C. to life to repel Red Skull's Neo-Nazi invasion, and yet we've never heard of him before. It is however justified since Beast implies that Leonard deliberately used his powers to hide himself from people like the Comicbook/XMen..

* In the short-lived ''ComicBook/{{Rogue}}'' solo series, Blindspot was retconned into being a friend of Rogue and a member of the Brotherhood, but since she has the power to manipulate memories, she was able to erase all knowledge of her existence after going into hiding.
* DC's Moon Maiden and Triumph, and Marvel's Comicbook/TheSentry. All three are modern characters retconned as heroes from UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} who happened to save the world in a way that [[LaserGuidedAmnesia erases everyone's memories of them]]. Leading up to the series that introduced the Sentry, Marvel got comic news sources in on the joke; they ran stories about how he really '''was''' a Silver Age hero who was created back then but never used and promptly forgotten. Nor was this the first time Marvel had tried this tactic. 3D-Man was made in the Seventies but his story had him as active since the Fifties. There was even a ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' story where he was present as a founding member of a 50's version of ComicBook/TheAvengers[[note]]this story would later inspire ''ComicBook/AgentsOfAtlas'', which consisted of the same team minus 3D-Man[[/note]].

* ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians''
** In the series, the [[WeirdnessCensor Mist]] can be manipulated to create FakeMemories of a person. For example, after Mrs. Dodds (Percy's teacher and a servant of Hades) attacks Percy and is killed, a new teacher named Mrs. Kerr mysteriously appears to take her place, and nobody but Percy remembers that Mrs. Kerr hasn't always been their teacher.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': Parodied in "Red Man's Greed," when a random kid with "ALEX" written on his shirt appears in multiple scenes, each time giving a generic line any other character could have said. It takes until the very end of the episode for anyone to comment on it:

* "The Lateness of the Hour", an episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone''. A wealthy, reclusive couple's android servants have implanted "memories" and are programmed to believe that they have been in their positions for years. All hell breaks loose when the couple's grown daughter figures out that this applies to her too.

* ''Anime/{{Scryed}}'' pulls an interesting version of this in regards to Ryuhou in the second half, after he's lost his memories and his former organization tracks him down. While he was implicitly already familiar with Kigetsuki's Alters, a trio of [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots almost-entirely-human beings]] called the Tokonatsu sisters, Unkei forces this trope on him by using ''his'' Alter, Mad Sprict, to implant false memories within Ryuhou and make him believe the Tokonatsu sisters were all his fiancées since childhood - complete with revisiting earlier flashbacks to Ryuhou's childhood when he first met Mimori, but with one of the three Tokonatsu sisters taking Mimori's place in the different flashbacks. Ryuhou is definitely ''not'' pleased when his memories actually return.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', the episode "Total Rickall" has the family become infested by alien parasites that breeds via fake memories and take the form of wacky characters. This starts off with parodies of typical sitcom characters such as Uncle Steve and Cousin Nicky and eventually spirals into the house being filled with all sorts of fantastical characters. Most prominent is Mr. Poopy Butthole, who is not only there from the start, but is also edited into the intro. Eventually they realize that the parasites can only create happy memories and that the real ones are the people they have horrible memories of. However, Mr. Poopy Butthole turns out to be real.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': Mr. Tsukishima has this as a power. He did a Remember The New Guy on near everyone Ichigo knows, as part of a gambit to confuse Ichigo into handing over his life. By adding details, he can do things such as change the environment, learn about others, or make them collapse from the stress of conflicting info.

[[folder:Fan Works]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

** In the series, the [[WeirdnessCensor Mist]] can be manipulated to create FakeMemories of a person. For example, after Mrs. Dodds (Percy's teacher and a servant of Hades) attacks Percy and is killed, a new teacher named Mrs. Kerr mysteriously appears to take her place, and nobody but Percy remembers that Mrs. Kerr hadn't always been their teacher.
** This is also used in the SequelSeries, ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' to get Jason's classmates to think that he had always been in their class. Leo Valdez believes that Jason was his best friend, and Piper [=McLean=] even has memories of dating Jason.

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' based its episode "Adam" on this. Gwen enters the Hub one-day to find a New Guy working like he's been there all along. She's never seen him bef- Oh, wait, of ''course'' she has. The New Guy is actually an extra-dimensional entity that implanted himself into everyone's memories because he has to be remembered to exist. They even did a SpecialEditionTitle sequence that implanted the mysterious new guy.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Rolo Lamperouge from ''Anime/CodeGeass'' manages to insert himself into the main cast between seasons 1 and 2.
Specifically, he is supposedly the main character Lelouch's little brother (replacing the sister he had previously, Nunnally). He's really an assassin who has been appointed with the mission of keeping watch over Lelouch, after the Ashford students are given FakeMemories and an amnesiac Lelouch is sent there as well, to keep him out of the way of TheEmperor's plans. [[BodyguardCrush It]] [[{{Yandere}} doesn't]] [[BecomingTheMask work]].

* Rolo Lamperouge from ''Anime/CodeGeass'' manages to insert himself into the main cast between seasons 1 and 2. In fact, he is supposedly the main character Lelouch's little brother (replacing the sister he had previously, Nunnally). He's really an assassin who has been appointed with the mission of keeping watch over Lelouch, after the Ashford students are given FakeMemories and an amnesiac Lelouch is sent there as well, to keep him out of the way of TheEmperor's plans. [[BodyguardCrush It]] [[{{Yandere}} doesn't]] [[BecomingTheMask work]].

* In the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' issue of the IDW comics crossover ''Infestation'', Galvatron has his loyal crew of Cyclonus, Scourge and... Bayonet, a female helicopter transformer we've never seen before and is part of the crew. She is the BigBad Britt, disguised as a transformer who used her powers to mess with everyone's memories to make them all believe that she was there all along. Kup, who's going crazy by this point, is the first to notice, and when trying to write it off as paranoia fails, she [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impales him]].

* In the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' IDW comics crossover, Infestation, Galvatron has his loyal crew of Cyclonus, Scourge and... Bayonet, a female helicopter transformer we've never seen before and is part of the crew. She is the BigBad Britt, disguised as a transformer who used her powers to mess with everyone's memories to make them all believe that she was there all along. Kup, who's going crazy by this point, is the first to notice, and when trying to write it off as paranoia fails, she [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impales him]].

The reason is some-kind of in-universe SF or fantasy phenomenon. Common examples are FakeMemories, where the characters' memories have been altered without actually changing the past, or outright RealityWarping, where the timeline has been forcibly altered to insert the new character. At times this may be a particularly visible effect of a larger-scale CosmicRetcon.

Not to be confused with RememberTheNewGuy, where a new character is introduced as if they have always been around somehow in the background or just off-screen, and the audience is expected to simply accept it, because the writers couldn't be bothered to write a proper character introduction for them. Compare the difference between TheNthDoctor and TheOtherDarrin. A type of RevealingContinuityLapse.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', the episode "Total Rickall" has the family become infested by alien parasites that breeds via fake memories and take the form of wacky characters. This starts off with parodies of typical sitcom characters such as Uncle Steve and Cousin Nicky and eventually spirals into the house being filled with all sorts of fantastical characters. Most prominent is Mr. Poopy Butthole, who is not only there from the start, but is also edited into the intro similar to Larry as pictured above. Eventually they realize that the parasites can only create happy memories and that the real ones are the people they have horrible memories of. However, Mr. Poopy Butthole turns out to be real.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'': Season 4, where the characters are shown instantly treating the previously unknown Yusuke Fujiwara like he's one of the TrueCompanions all along -- because he's hypnotized them into thinking so. Too bad his magic doesn't work on Judai. It doesn't work on Fubuki, too, because Fubuki knew Fujiwara before hand.

* ''Anime/TenchiInTokyo'': Sakuya Kumashiro was created by the BigBad Yugi and inserted into the school Tenchi goes to in Tokyo, with all her classmates getting false memories of her. Since Tenchi was new in town to begin with he never had the opportunity to even suspect anything was different. Ultimately, once Yugi decided that Sakuya had [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived her usefulness]], Sakuya was reabsorbed back into her and all the other students besides Tenchi forgot she'd ever existed- she even disappeared from photographs.

* One of the ''ComicBook/FearItself'' tie-ins to ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' introduced Leonard Gary, a friend of Beast's with Omega-level RealityWarper abilities. Leonard is shown to be so powerful that he literally brings Washington D.C. to life to repel Red Skull's Neo-Nazi invasion, and yet we've never heard of him before. It is however justified since Beast implies that Leonard deliberately used his powers to hide himself from people like the Comicbook/XMen.

* A major plot point in the ''Comicbook/AvengersNoSurrender'' crossover involves the return of Voyager, a former Silver Age Avenger who was supposedly lost in time after a battle with Squadron Sinister. It's eventually revealed that Voyager is really the Grandmaster's daughter, and that she used her powers to infiltrate the team by worming her way into everyone's memories, thus making them all believe she was a founding Avenger. She eventually does a HeelFaceTurn and restores everyone's memories voluntarily.
* ''Comicbook/Batgirl2011'' introduced Babs's old schoolfriend Greg, who turns out to be a memory-warping villain called Fugue, who Babs had never met before.

* Late in ''Fanfic/PerfectionIsOverrated'', Bachiko is introduced as a supposed childhood friend of [[Anime/MaiHime Mai]], and it's claimed that Mai has also known Bachiko's best friend Meiko when she first arrived at Fuuka, in a manner similar to the MarySue examples listed above. Natsuki is confused when Mai and the others assume she knows the two when she knows she doesn't. It turns out that Meiko, using her powers, altered everyone's memories so that they would remember herself and Bachiko as their friends, as part of an EvilPlan to manipulate everyone's relationships as they see fit with Bachiko's personality altering abilities, and they posed as Mai's friends in order to monitor their progress. Natsuki happened to be outside of Fuuka's campus at the time, and so was not affected by Meiko's power.
* Done InUniverse in ''Literature/TheVampireDiaries'' story "Return to Mystic Falls" by Elena who is really Katherine. She had a witch make people think she had been there all along to fool people, [[EspeciallyZoidberg especially Stefan.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fan works:

* In ''[[Fanfic/TheAlarmaverse Den Fjerde Vaeg]]'', some force from another universe is altering the past to insert new characters, and altering everypony's memories to match. Only the ponies with [[FourthWallObserver fourth wall awareness]] retain RippleEffectProofMemory. When Maud Pie pops into existence, Pinkie is a bit disturbed at suddenly gaining an older sister. When [[BrokenMasquerade Twilight Sparkle learns of the fourth wall]], she abruptly regains memories of being an only child, from before her older brother Shining Armor was retconned in.

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' based its episode "Adam" on this. Gwen enters the Hub one-day to find a New Guy working like he's been there all along. She's never seen him bef- Oh, wait, of ''course'' she has. The New Guy is actually an extra-dimensional entity that implanted himself into everyone's memories because he has to be remembered to exist. They even did a SpecialEditionTitle sequence that implanted the mysterious new guy.

* Parodied in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''. New character Kim Brigs is introduced as a new character, only for Turk to explain to JD that she's been at the hospital literally as long as they have. A montage ensues of Kim composited into scenes from earlier seasons where she wasn't actually there. The excuse for this? Women wearing wedding rings are literally invisible to JD.

* Invoked and lampshaded in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates''. ''Hidden Truths'' reveals that Anankos's good side had actually given false backstories to Inigo, Severa, and Owain when he took them to his world. Since their backstories involve them having earned enough of a reputation in the world to serve the royal family, it's implied that Anankos possibly warped peoples' memories around to account for their presence in the world. Xander, however, points out in his C support with Laslow that he does find it odd that he has never even heard of Laslow before he was appointed as his retainer, but he will not [[PragmaticHero question the results]].
** Niles provides an additional lampshade in his supports with Selena, pointing out that they may as well have appeared out of thin air before they started serving the Nohrian royal family.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', the episode "Total Rickall" has the family become infested by alien parasites that breeds via fake memories and take the form of wacky characters. This starts off with parodies of typical sitcom characters such as Uncle Steve and Cousin Nicky and eventually spirals into the house being filled with all sorts of fantastical characters. Most prominent is Mr. Poopy Butthole, who is not only there from the start, but is also edited into the intro similar to Larry as pictured above. Eventually they realize that the parasites can only create happy memories and that the real ones are the people they have horrible memories of. However, Mr. Poopy Butthole turns out to be real.
* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', Kevin's father, Devin, was retroactively added in as a postmortem character from Grandpa Max's past. But ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' retconned this again by revealing Devin never existed and was a fake memory implanted in Max's mind during the year before Alien Force occurred.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' introduces a few new characters this way in the season 4 episode [[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS4E4TheOthers The Others]]. Since Gumball is so self-centered that he believes the entire world revolves around him, he (and thus, the audience) only ever saw the students of his own class. After [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHknXuwuWJU&t=45 opening his mind]], he realises that there are dozens of students and several faculty members he never noticed before.

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories'', Sora is subject to Castle Oblivion's memory-altering shenanigans, and as he slowly loses some memories, others that he had forgotten come back to him. Through this, he's reminded of his one-time friend Namine, and as time goes on, he speaks of Namine more and more, even though she did not appear in his hometown in the first ''VideoGame/{{Kingdom Hearts|I}}'' and was never mentioned previously. Eventually, he manages to ''completely forget'' about his actual childhood friend Kairi, whom Namine seems to have supplanted in his memories... and there's actually good excuse for all this! He didn't really know Namine when he was younger, and the Castle's supposed powers were a ruse; Namine was being coerced by Organization XIII into using her unique ability to tamper with Sora's memories in order to serve their own interests. Also [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that Namine practically ''is'' Kairi.

[[AC:Anime & Manga]]

* ''Anime/SCryEd'' pulls an interesting version of this in regards to Ryuhou in the second half, after he's lost his memories and his former organization tracks him down. While he was implicitly already familiar with Kigetsuki's Alters, a trio of [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots almost-entirely-human beings]] called the Tokonatsu sisters, Unkei forces this trope on him by using ''his'' Alter, Mad Sprict, to implant false memories within Ryuhou and make him believe the Tokonatsu sisters were all his fiancées since childhood - complete with revisiting earlier flashbacks to Ryuhou's childhood when he first met Mimori, but with one of the three Tokonatsu sisters taking Mimori's place in the different flashbacks. Ryuhou is definitely ''not'' pleased when his memories actually return.

[[AC:Comic Books]]

* In the short-lived ''Comicbook/{{Rogue}}'' solo series, Blindspot was retconned into being a friend of Rogue and a member of the Brotherhood, but since she has the power to manipulate memories, she was able to erase all knowledge of her existence after going into hiding.
* One of the ''Comicbook/FearItself'' tie-ins to ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' introduced Leonard Gary, a friend of Beast's with Omega-level RealityWarper abilities. Leonard is shown to be so powerful that he literally brings Washington D.C. to life to repel Red Skull's Neo-Nazi invasion, and yet we've never heard of him before. It is however justified since Beast implies that Leonard deliberately used his powers to hide himself from people like the Comicbook/XMen.

[[AC:Fan Works]]

-->"What did you do?" Relkin asked in a hushed voice.
-->"I remembered each and every one of them as a treasured friend or relative from my backstory," Milo said quietly. "One who would never, ever raise a hand against me or impede the cause of Justice or the furthering of Good. And who gets +2 and a reroll against magical orders against their nature."

[[AC:Film]]

[[AC:Literature]]

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]

--->'''Barry:''' How have I been working with [[{{Jerkass}} this guy]] for a year?
--->'''Joe:''' You say that all the time.
--->'''Barry:''' I'm sure I do!

[[AC:Video Games]]

[[AC:Web Comics]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]

-->'''Stan:''' Dude, who the hell are you?!
-->'''Alex:''' Alex. Alex Glick. [[ContestWinnerCameo I got to come on and do the guest voice thingy]].
-->'''Kyle:''' What?! Get the hell out of here!
-->'''Alex:''' (''exiting'') [[HiMom Hi Mom! Hi Dad! Hi Jill!]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', Kevin's father, Devin, was retroactively added in as a postmortem character from Grandpa Max's past. But ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' retconned this again by revealing Devin never existed and was a fake memory implanted in Max's mind during the year before Alien Force occurred.

* One of the ''Comicbook/FearItself'' tie-ins to ''ComicBook/SecretAvengers'' introduced Leonard Gary, a friend of Beast's with Omega-level RealityWarper abilities. Leonard is shown to be so powerful that he [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome literally brings Washington D.C. to life to repel Red Skull's Neo-Nazi invasion]], and yet we've never heard of him before. It is however justified since Beast implies that Leonard deliberately used his powers to hide himself from people like the Comicbook/XMen.

(NB: This is split from RememberTheNewGuy, the initial example list is taken from the in-universe examples section on that page)

'''Joe:''' You say that all the time.
'''Barry:''' I'm sure I do!

"I remembered each and every one of them as a treasured friend or relative from my backstory," Milo said quietly. "One who would never, ever raise a hand against me or impede the cause of Justice or the furthering of Good. And who gets +2 and a reroll against magical orders against their nature."

AC:Film