History Main / LossofIdentity

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* [[{{Supertramp}} The Logical Song]]

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* The 1996 movie adaptation of ''Casper'' expanded Casper's backstory, which involved him slowly losing his memories of his former life when he became a ghost. He does have recollections when he finds his old toy room, but it might just be a matter of time until he forgets who he is again. The idea of ghosts losing the identities of their living selves also becomes a tearjerker when Kat's father turns into a ghost and cannot remember who his own daughter was before he was resurrected in the Lazarus machine.

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* Happens in the sci-fi novel ''The Lord Of The World'' by Russian author Alexander Belyaev. Ludwig Stirner, after realising that he cannot go on with his plans, [[spoiler:releases Elza from the thoughts and feelings he programmed in her mind and apologizes to her]]. Finally, he decides the best way to deal with himself is [[spoiler:to use his own machine against his mind to create a new identity, locking his true self deep within his subconsciousness, thus "ending Stirner's life" as he put it]].

* FullmetalAlchemist: As Envy said, the tortured souls that compose his body perished a long time ago in mind and body. This may be true for all other souls that make up the Philospher's Stone - http://www.onemanga.com/Full_Metal_Alchemist/53/24/.

* A main theme in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, where Kairi's nobody, Namine, was used by Organization XIII to rearrange and implant new memories into Sora's heart to make him a controllable pawn. Also happens to Sora's nobody, Roxas, who's memories are wiped by Ansem the Wise and placed in a simulated world with a completely new identity.

* ''[[SuperMarioBros Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]: Mario gets his identity and body stolen in the middle of a boss-fight by a Duplight-Ghost called "Doopliss". It seems that this even rendered him unable of pronouncing the word "Mario", since Vivian can't understand his answer when she asks him for his name.

* This is one of the driving forces of BlueDrop: Tenshi no Bokura. The protagonist's male best friend had his brain downloaded by aliens and copied into the body of a female alien, and his real body was cremated. Over the course of the series the copy- and thus the human and masculine identity- slowly fade away, leaving behind the [[BlueAndOrangeMorality most definitely not human]] original inhabitant of the body. Worst of all, the human identity doesn't fade away entirely, and by the end, the creature that is left has pretty much lost both its newly added human identity ''and'' its original alien identity.

* The Doctor's ability to [[TheNthDoctor regenerate]] (''DoctorWho'') is an interesting twist on this: the many incarnations of the Doctor have entirely different looks and personalities, yet they somehow remain fundamentally the same character.

Not to be confused with an AssimilationPlot, in which your identity is subsumed into a HiveMind. Compare SplitPersonalityMerge, where two personalities become one, and MentalFusion, where separate minds briefly become one. GrandTheftMe can happen if said identity was stolen. Living in a society where you can't have a real identity is IndividualityIsIllegal. See also QuestForIdentity.

[[ChangelingTheLost http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Changeling.jpeg]]
[-[[caption-width:300:You can't go home again if ''[[EvilTwin "you"]]'' never left.]]-]

* I'm very surprised no one mentioned the 1996 movie adaptation of Casper yet. The movie expanded Casper's backstory which involved him slowly losing his memories of his former life when he became a ghost. He does have recollections when he finds his old toy room, but it might just be a matter of time until he forgets who he is again. The idea of ghosts losing the identities of their living selves also becomes a tearjerker when Kat's father turns into a ghost and cannot remember who his own daughter was before he was resurrected in the Lazarus machine.

* In the XWingSeries, there is a DeepCoverAgent named Gara Petothel who was trained from an early age to create a personality and a life, fully immerse herself in it, complete objectives including betraying the closest of connections, and shed it without a qualm. At some point the handler who saw her between missions died before came back into a splinter of Imperial service. There Gara became disgusted with her commanding officer's [[WeHaveReserves handling of his crew]] and arranged for his escape craft to be spotted by New Republic forces, then assumed a new identity and waited to be contacted, getting put into a fighter squadron. But something was different this time - she was affected by the PowerOfTrust and genuinely [[ReverseMole defected.]] She tried to throw away who she'd been and just be Lara Notsil, pilot, but [[YouCanNeverLeave she couldn't]], and eventually her past came crashing in on her.

--> "You say you don't have any objectives? That's tragic, you know, but you are still confused. The fact that you are empty means that you can fill that emptiness with as much as you want. You happy person, where's a better future than that?"

* In the XWingSeries, there is a DeepCoverAgent named Gara Petothel who was trained from an early age to create a personality and a life, fully immerse herself in it, complete objectives including betraying the closest of connections, and shed it without a qualm. At some point the handler who saw her between missions died before came back into a splinter of Imperial service. There Gara became disgusted with her commanding officer's [[WeHaveReserves handling of his crew]] and arranged for his escape craft to be spotted by New Republic forces, then assumed a new identity and waited to be contacted, getting put into a fighter squadron. But something was different this time - she was affected by the PowerOfTrust and genuinely [[ReverseMole defected. She tried to throw away who she'd been and just be Lara Notsil, pilot, but [[YouCanNeverLeave she couldn't]], and eventually her past came crashing in on her.

Not to be confused with an AssimilationPlot, in which your identity is subsumed into a HiveMind. Compare SplitPersonalityMerge, where two personalities become one, and MentalFusion, where separate minds briefly become one. See also QuestForIdentity.