History Main / WistfulAmnesia

** At the start of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', Kairi still has a very vague recollection of Sora during the prologue, even though she isn't supposed to remember him yet due to Naminé's memory tampering.
** Sora doesn't retain any of the memories of his Nobody, Roxas, yet he feels like he has met Hayner, Pence, and Olette before when he wakes up. He even cries when he leaves Twilight Town at the beginning of the game, even though he has no idea why. This bit gets played up again in ''Dream Drop Distance'', where he has a tearful reaction when confronted by Xion's illusion in ''Dream Drop Distance''. This is more amazing than the situation with the above three because Roxas is ''also'' supposed to not know who Xion is. In ''III'', despite having the least memory of her, Sora is the one who recognizes her first, enabling the others to remember her.
** Xemnas is supposedly unable to remember anything from before 10 years ago, yet a cutscene added in the ''Final Mix'' version shows him talking to Aqua's discarded Keyblade and armor as if he remembers his time as Terra/Master Xehanort. Later games reveal that it's actually a subversion - he regained Xehanort's memories before he was divided into Heartless and Nobody, and his conversation with Aqua's armor is his 'zen' while he tries to use Terra's connection to Aqua and ask about where Ventus is hidden.
** Axel and Roxas both experience this after their friend Xion is retconned out of existence in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''. Roxas doesn't quite forget her until his personality gets rewritten prior to ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', and Lea (Axel's Somebody) is shown to recognize Kairi as Xion's likeness in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', but neither fully remembers her until she is remade and revealed in ''III''.
** In general, the main theme of the series is that while the conscious memories of your friends can be wiped out, your heart will still subconsciously remember them. The only time this trope is completely averted is when Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy get their old memories restored by Naminé at the end of ''Chain of Memories''. Despite their best wishes, the four really do forget all of their memories in Castle Oblivion, including those of Naminé, Axel, Larxene, Vexen, Marluxia, and the Riku Replica.

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* The True Ending of ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi 3'' has the warriors finally being returned back to their respective timelines, with their memories in the dimensional world mostly erased. Liu Bei vaguely recalls Tokugawa Ieyasu while walking together with Zhuge Liang, and Sun Jian briefly imagines Hojo Ujiyasu joining him for a drink.

* The True Ending of ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi 3'' has the warriors finally being returned back to their respective timelines, with their memories in the dimensional world mostly erased. Liu Bei vaguely recalls Tokugawa Ieyasu while walking together with Zhuge Liang, and Sun Jian briefly imagines Ujiyasu Hojo joining him for a drink.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', Vanellope Von Schweetz knows [[spoiler:she is a racer. It's in her programming.]] Given TheReveal, this may also be a case of LaserGuidedAmnesia.

** In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', [[spoiler:The Ice King]] is under the effect of an ArtifactOfDoom, giving him superpowers but robbing him of all sanity and memory. While he doesn't even remember that he's lost anything, he still knows at some very deep level that he misses his beloved fiancé, Betty, and the identity/existence of his adopted daughter. Unfortunately, without the memory, he reacts to the forgotten longing by kidnapping any girl that subconsciously reminds him of his fiancé and bugging (and trying to romance) his adopted daughter whenever he can on the basis that he's always romancing girls and he knows she's important ''somehow''.

* In ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'', characters who used to be heroes are now mundane and struggle with a sense of loss. Comicbook/DoctorStrange, now a psychologist, spends time counseling Robert Reynolds, aka ComicBook/TheSentry, who doesn't know what he's lost but he's certain he used to be more...
* ''Comicbook/SpiderMan'': This is why Mephisto agrees to swap Aunt May's life for Peter and MJ's marriage in ''ComicBook/OneMoreDay''. His payment is the mourning of the small part of their souls that remember what was.
** Fallout from this comes up again years later in ''ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderMan2018'', where it's revealed that part of the reason why [[ComicBook/BlackCatMarvelComics Black Cat]] has been more antagonistic in recent years: she's aware of the hole in her memory where Spidey's identity and a large chunk of her experiences with him used to be, but not aware of exactly what she's missing, which is distressing for her. Peter remedies this and repairs their friendship by [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments re-revealing his secret identity to her]].

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* ''VisualNovel/{{CLANNAD}}'': Both subverted and played straight in the anime after Fūko disappears.

* In ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2'' ''[[UpdatedRerelease Record Breaker]]'' gives this to Daichi and Io, if the player opts to follow the ''Triangulum Arc's'' route where [[spoiler: the protagonist decides to [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence become the world's Administrator]] and removes the memories of him from his friends]]. Daichi has a moment of leaving high school with Io and feels like he forgot something important.

** ''Eternal Punishment'' in a nutshell. This time '''the whole city''' suffers of this.
* The entire main cast of ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' (barring Aigis, who is a robot and can't be magically mind-wiped) lose all their Dark Hour-related memories in both endings -- which include basically most events of the game, including lots of CharacterDevelopment, the true nature of the deaths of several significant ones and the cast's memories of each other as TrueCompanions. In the 'good' ending, it even [[spoiler:extends to the entirety of the Earth's population to erase [[ThatsNoMoon the rather overt appearance of Nyx]]]], but the main characters recover their memories on graduation day... [[spoiler: Just in time to find out that the PlayerCharacter has died from over-exertion from the fight with Nyx.]] In the bad ending... They don't. And at that point it wouldn't matter to them even if they did.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* The bad ending for attempting to access the Unlimited Blade Works route too early in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' is like this, with Rin forcibly erasing all of Shirou's memories that magic exists and breaking his contract with Saber. The ending features Shirou going about his daily life as usual but with the occasional feeling that there should be more people living with him; the only person close to him that knows the truth gently convinces him that he's just imagining things in order to protect him.
** Happens somewhat often in ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'' as well. ''Kagetsu Tohya'' is ''based'' on it.
* Several examples in ''VisualNovel/PrincessWaltz''. But the biggest is when Riko, Chris and Liliana all magically disappear from the class and are essentially forgotten. Nodoka stresses a little bit about this as she can't remember them, but knows the class is smaller than it should be and has a small remembrance of the people who are gone. [[spoiler: Two are competing Princesses who were defeated. Chris [[FridgeLogic really ought to be Princess of Soldia]] but is instead the Prince. Kinda. The true end is the same, only Arata is gone as well, but people remember him and Nodoka seems to remember Riko, at least. She ends up sneaking into Eldhiland after that.]]
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* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', [[spoiler:The Ice King]] is under the effect of an ArtifactOfDoom, giving him superpowers but robbing him of all sanity and memory. While he doesn't even remember that he's lost anything, he still knows at some very deep level that he misses his beloved fiancé, Betty, and the identity/existence of his adopted daughter. Unfortunately, without the memory, he reacts to the forgotten longing by kidnapping any girl that subconsciously reminds him of his fiancé and bugging (and trying to romance) his adopted daughter whenever he can on the basis that he's always romancing girls and he knows she's important ''somehow''.