History Main / ProtagonistWithoutAPast

* Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way of MyImmortal pops up out of absolutely nowhere. She is never given a past, although a lot off other characters do (even if said past...lacks something), and for all we know, she could be a telepathic alien from Pluto, just ''called'' a vampire.

* "V" from ''Film/VForVendetta'' can't so much as remember his name, let alone where he came from before Larkhill

* The first time the Player in ''SaintsRow'' is seen, he nearly is run over, and then nearly shot. We learn nothing else about him, except that he doesn't talk much ([[SilentBob but when he does...]])

* Deconstructed (what else?) in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2''. Raiden initially seems to have no past, and no life aside from the military. [[spoiler: Turns out he's an [[ShellShockedSenior emotionally scarred former]] [[ChildSoldiers child soldier]] who doesn't want to remember his past.]]

May overlap with {{AFGNCAAP}}. Occasionally, can be created in-game by player actions with SchrodingersGun.

* Jeudi [[spoiler: alias Alicia Brandel]] from HonooNoAlpenRose, who as a little girl was found in the Swiss countryside alone and without any memories of her past. As a teenager she's forced to run away from a StalkerWithACrush, and then she starts to search for her past and family with her boyfriend Lundi.

* By the [[JhonenVasquez creator's]] own admission, JohnnyTheHomicidalManiac, specifically to avoid a terrible FreudianExcuse. He then proceeded to parody the generic past for people like Nny, involving lots of bullying at school and a horrible childhood in a hypothetical scenario... "YAAAARGH!! I have been pantsed!! I kill like the damned now!!!"

* In the CRPG ''[[ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura]]'' it is possible to give the character one creates the special trait "Child of a Hero", one of the effects of which is that the PC becomes twice as unpopular as normal if he/she commits evil deeds. The justification for this is that people know you are the offspring of a hero, and therefore expect you to be goody-goody. In spite of this, the fact that your father is famous is never brought up in conversation. Additionally, the player will (obviously) never encounter anyone they knew before the game started.

* Averted in ''VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines''. The player character, as a newly sired vampire, has nothing to do with his/her former life out of own will. But at one point in the game one does run into a friend from before the siring, who wonders what happened to the character and offers to help. As, without interference, this friend will indeed call for help, the goal here is to keep up the {{Masquerade}}. You're given the option of killing her, talking her out of it or (if possible) using your vampire powers to brainwash her into not doing so.

* Manny Calavera of ''GrimFandango''. The fact that he's stuck working for the Department of Death indicates that he did something bad in his life to warrant being there, but he claims not to know what it was.

* Played with interestingly in ''DigitalDevilSaga'' - the fact ''no one'' has a real past turns out to be major plot point, and an easily missable one.

* [[RaidouKuzunohaVsTheSoullessArmy Raidou Kuzunoha the Fourteenth]] is given no past before [[JustifiedTutorial the completion of his training]].
* Ryu from ''BreathOfFireIII'' is - he was pretty much born / awoken when the player first manages to take control of the game, so he doesn't really have a past prior to what the player sees.
** Similarly, Ryu from ''BreathOfFireIV'' was half of a botched god-summoning. Everyone knew about the other half.

* Deconstructed (what else?) in ''MetalGearSolid2''. Raiden initially seems to have no past, and no life aside from the military. [[spoiler: Turns out he's an [[ShellShockedSenior emotionally scarred former]] [[ChildSoldiers child soldier]] who doesn't want to remember his past.]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' plays with the trope; Cloud's last memory of his hometown, Nibelheim, is of the entire town being destroyed in a fire started by the BigBad. When the party travels there, however, the town is perfectly intact and none of its citizens recognize him. This is later resolved when it's revealed that [[spoiler: The Shinra Corporation rebuilt the town and populated it with actors to cover up the failure of the Jenova Project.]]

* The fourth ''{{Geneforge}}'' game gives a variant. You're an AmnesiacHero who clearly has some important past, but all anyone can tell you about it is that you were raving mad and throwing power around in messy displays of violence. No one recognizes you, although you might not look the same as you did. You may be a protagonist from a previous installment in the series. You may be an antagonist. You may be a nobody.

** And then you can play one of these in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' (which seems to Reton the original Final Fantasy's plot into having only one Warrior), and this time, he gets talking cutscenes. In which you discover even he himself doesn't know where he came from (due to the nature of the endless cycle, every time he was resurrected, he would lose more of his memory, and he's been in the conflict since the very beginning). ''Dissidia 012'' reveals that [[spoiler: he doesn't have a past, as he was a Manikin infused with memory and personality.]]

* ''SonicTheHedgehog''. Other than a mention of his birthplace [[note]]Christmas Island[[/note]] in the Japanese manual for [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog the original game]], his past isn't elaborated upon at all. Tails also comes close, with slight elaboration. It's not clear how he was born on an island that he was the only inhabitant of, though.

* The four protagonists in the original ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' do not have past at all, nor any dialogue, you can choose their names and jobs at the start, and at the end [[spoiler:they {{Retcon}} the world so they're (and the BigBad's actions) are erased and never happened that particular way.]]
** And then you can play one of these in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' (which seems to Reton ''that'' games plot into having only one Warrior), and this time, he gets talking cutscenes. In which you discover even himself doesn't know where he came from (due to the nature of the endless cycle, every time he was resurrected, he would lose more of his memory, and he's been in the conflict since the very beginning). ''Dissidia 012'' reveals that [[spoiler: he doesn't have a past, as he was a manikin infused with memory and personality.]]

* The four protagonists in the original ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' do not have past at all, nor any dialogue, you can choose their names and jobs at the start, and at the end [[spoiler:they {{Retcon}} the world so they're (and the BigBad's actions) are erased and never happened that way.]]

* The four protagonists in the original ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' do not have past at all, nor any dialogue, you can choose their names and jobs at the start, and at the end [[spoiler:they {{Retcon}} the world so they (and the BigBad) never existed at all.]] THAT is a protagonist without past [[spoiler:or future. Or present, technically.]]
** And then you can play one of these in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'', and this time, he gets talking cutscenes. In which you discover even himself doesn't know where he came from (due to the nature of the endless cycle, every time he was resurrected, he would lose more of his memory, and he's been in the conflict since the very beginning). ''Dissidia 012'' reveals that [[spoiler: he doesn't have a past, as he was a manikin infused with memory and personality.]]

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' continues the tradition with the only aspect of your past being known is that you were crossing the border into Skyrim when you got caught up in an Imperial ambush meant for Ulfric Stormcloak.

* Averted in ''VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines''. The player character, as a newly sired vampire, has nothing to do with his/her former life out of own will. But at one point in the game one does run into a friend from before the siring, who wonders what happened to the character and offers to help. As, without interference, this friend will indeed call for help, the goal here is to keep up the {{Masquerade}}. This editor was especially fond of convincing her that the player character is, in fact, her pet turtle.

* ''DivineDivinity'' plays this trope rather blatantly. Your character was just walking in a forest, started fighting an orc, got hit by some magic thing from nowhere, then woke up in some guy's house in a random village. They don't even claim your character has amnesia or anything like that.

* In ''DungeonLords,'' the protagonist begins the came having just stumbled upon someone else's campsite. No inquiry into his/her past is mentioned.

* The player character of ''VideoGame/Minecraft''. Wakes up in the middle of nowhere and starts punching trees.

* ''SonicTheHedgehog''. Other than a mention of his [[hottip:birthplace:Christmas Island]] in the Japanese manual for [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog the original game]], his past isn't elaborated upon at all. Tails also comes close, with slight elaboration. It's not clear how he was born on an island that he was the only inhabitant of, though.

* In TomStoppard's play ''RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead'', it is implied that the title characters are Protagonists Without A Past because they were minor characters in the [[{{Hamlet}} original play]], and therefore not important enough to merit a {{backstory}}.

* ''TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' starts simply with the hero washing up on a beach with nothing but a silly name and a burning desire to become a pirate.
** In ''MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge'', his parents are mentioned several times although it is left ambiguous what they actually do. It's further left ambiguous whether Guybrush is a real 17th century adult or just an imaginative kid lost in a "Pirates of the Caribbean"-type ride.