Line #25 PlayingWith/Unperson


1	'''Basic Trope''': All records of a person's existence are completely erased.
2	* '''Straight''': After Alice gets on the wrong side of a repressive regime, she is executed. The government then deletes or doctors all visual, audial, and written record of her presence, to remove any evidence that she ever existed.
3	* '''Exaggerated''':
4	** They [[LaserGuidedAmnesia erase all memories]] of Alice from everyone she's ever met.
5	** Her family and friends were also erased from existence, in addition to Alice herself.
6	** Everyone named Alice were erased from existence.
7	** Many, many people are 'deleted' this way.
8	** An entire city is destroyed and then 'deleted' this way along with all its inhabitants.
9	** Alice is '''literally''' [[RetGone erased from existence]].
10	* '''Downplayed''':
11	** Alice's 'deletion' is purely ceremonial. [[OpenSecret Everyone knows that she existed, but nobody speaks of her in polite company.]]
12	** Alice is not executed but imprisoned. (They still erase all records of her existence.)
13	** They simply edit the records so no one will know that Alice was a criminal. If she was executed, the records will say that she died in an accident or mysteriously disappeared.
14	** The fact of Alice's existence remains known, but [[TheScottishTrope her]] ''[[TheScottishTrope name]]'' [[YouKnowTheOne may no longer be spoken or recorded]].
15	** Alice was a decorated official in the oppressive regime before she was caught committing 'treason'. She's stripped of all her awards before her execution, and official records merely list her as an unremarkable traitor.
16	** PersonaNonGrata
17	** WeHardlyKnewYe
18	* '''Justified''':
19	** The chance exists that Alice's deeds, even if she died from them, would make her a martyr in some people's eyes and inspire rebellion if word got out, and the government in power wants to forestall that possibility.
20	** Alice was a heinous criminal. The government wants to prevent her from going down in infamy and inspiring copycat crimes.
21	** Alice is a police informant and the mob is looking for her. [[IWasNeverHere She wants to disappear even more than the government wants her to disappear.]]
22	** Step one of the [[WitnessProtection Witness Protection Program]] to make it harder to connect her new identity to her old one.
23	* '''Inverted''':
24	** [[TheSpook Alice erases all government records of her existence]], either to hide from them or as a way to scare the crap out of them further when she attacks them as a [[OneManArmy one-woman army]] and no one in power even knows who the hell she is (or both). It has the added benefit of [[ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies protecting people she loves]] -- the authorities don't know whom they should harass or threaten, and openly threatening everyone tends to be counterproductive.
25	** The government [[InventedIndividual invents a nonexistent person]] and gives them all kinds of records to make a plausible background.
26	** Alice's records are specifically preserved by her government so that she can be known as having worked through her line of duty as best as she could.
27	** Alice somehow erases every record of the ''government's'' existence, resulting in the regime devolving into chaos.
28	** Alice's records are specifically preserved by TheGovernment so it can use her as a [[TheScapegoat symbol]] for everything it hates.
29	* '''Subverted''':
30	** Alice is captured, and all records of her are deleted ... but they forgot about [[ChekhovsGunman her janitor-friend]] from high school.
31	** All records of Alice are deleted, but the ''memories'' of her loved ones aren't. Ultimately, they spread the word of Alice's existence, and she ends up being impossible to forget.
32	* '''Double Subverted''': ...however, the government gets to them, too, so that [[DownerEnding at the end of the story there really is no evidence that Alice existed]].
33	* '''Parodied''':
34	** The police hand weapon is a big black pen. When someone robs a bank, policemen bring their pen: "Hands up or we erase you!"
35	** A government desk jockey accidentally deletes Alice's profile (she hasn't necessarily gotten on the wrong side of them), and the next time she comes in, nobody remembers her.
36	** The government tries to erase all evidence of Alice's existence, but [[BleepDammit their censorship is so inept that it ends up hiding nothing]], or at least [[RevealingCoverUp makes it glaringly obvious that something was hidden]].
37	** Erasing evidence of Alice's existence makes ''her'' forget who she is.
38	* '''Zig-Zagged''':
39	** All records of Alice are obliterated, and her family is {{brainwashed}} into believing that she never lived in the first place. Then Alice escapes, and everyone thinks she is a crazy person. She gets put into a mental hospital that is at least as bad as the prison.
40	** (Followed from Double Subverted) It turns out that the janitor managed to leave behind some subtle clues to Alice's existence. It's left ambiguous whether anyone ever figured them out.
41	* '''Averted''': No records are altered or deleted.
42	* '''Enforced''':
43	** The story is a 1970s paranoid conspiracy film about government oppressiveness, so the executives made the writers include this trope to pander to the audience's paranoia.
44	** The story takes place in a real-life oppressive regime, contemporary or historical, that is known to have erased all evidence of people's existence.
45	* '''Lampshaded''': "You might as well take the photo albums while you're arresting me."
46	* '''Invoked''': [[TheSpook Hoping to disappear from public view]], Alice tries to get the regime to hate her, knowing that they will destroy all evidence of her existence.
47	* '''Exploited''': Alice escapes and starts in a new place with a new identity so she can do what she's always wanted to do: open a bakery.
48	* '''Defied''':
49	** Alice makes sure that she has extra copies of pictures and records because she joins LaResistance.
50	** The public figures out that the government is trying to hide Alice's existence from them, so [[StreisandEffect they get curious and eagerly share information about her]].
51	* '''Discussed''': "All this danger might make you a little paranoid, but everyone will remember you if you escape."
52	* '''Conversed''': "Ever notice how whenever a member of LaResistance gets captured, they always delete all memory of him?"
53	* '''Implied''': Alice escapes from prison, and her own friends and siblings have completely forgotten about her.
54	* '''Deconstructed''': "They erase all evidence of enemies of the state. However, they can't dispose of them physically so well. Every so often, a man with nothing to lose jumps off a prison train and vanishes in the woods, or runs for the hills some hours before the midnight knock, or [[PlayingPossum crawls out]] of a pile of shot bodies and scampers off into the night, wounded but alive. They all resurface here, in LaResistance. Right now, we've got a cadre of untraceable avengers, about whom the police know nothing at all: no addresses, no fingerprints, no [[IHaveYourWife vulnerable loved ones]]. They are invisible, they are lethal, and they have no other place to go, and soon we'll have enough manpower to shoot the Dictator's {{mooks}} from behind every corner."
55	* '''Reconstructed''': Government {{Mooks}} and [[TheSpook Spooks]] have no need to rely on a paper trail to [[DeadlyEuphemism finish the job]].
56	* '''Played for Laughs''': Alice fights to bring back proof of her existence -- and succeeds -- but all her pictures and records make her look very goofy.
57	* '''Played for Drama''': Alice's former LoveInterest Bob had forgotten about her after evidence of her was erased. They might never see each other again, but even if they do, he'll never believe it.
58	* '''Played for Horror''': Alice just woke up one morning to discover that she no longer existed. She does not even know what happened to cause this - either she somehow pissed off the government for all that she tried to keep her head down and be loyal, she is collateral damage of a paperwork fubar out of Kafka's worst nightmares, or she is a victim of a spectacularly vicious identity thief.
59	%%* '''Plotted a Good Waste''': ???
60	----
61	We deleted all evidence that the entry for {{Unperson}} ever existed.

Context PlayingWith / Unperson