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alt title(s): Moral Amnesia
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"Lying is wrong! I'd know that if only I'd paid attention to anything that's ever happened to me before!"
Ron: You know, some of us learn and grow from our little adventures!
Some character has a particular trait or mannerism that's come to be viewed as an overall part of their character. Maybe they're stingy, or abrasive, or just like using a lot of profanity. Along comes an episode with An Aesop, and the character learns how good it is to be generous, or friendly, or that they don't need cursewords to make themselves known.
Then, by two episodes later at the most, they're back to hoarding their money, snapping at people, or cursing like a sailor. They've just run into Aesop Amnesia.
Aesop Amnesia is a sort of Snap Back that assures that Status Quo Is God from a character development point of view. After all, if you change something about the character that fans find enjoyable or defining about them, they're not going to be happy; and if that character trait provided a valuable foil for other characters, neither will the writers that come after. (Thus, you're much more likely to run into it on a series where writing duties are handled by a rotating set of writers and guest writers.)
And, of course, it allows the character to learn the same lesson all over again later!
In more recent series, this may eventually be Lampshaded, especially if the show has a strong comedy element. In dramatic series, not so much.
A secondary sort is where the same series keeps trying to teach the same moral over and over again. This is slightly different than when the show has a certain theme or aesop as their underlying premise, but rather where a show with a broad premise just keeps hammering home that one particular one until the viewer wants to shout "I get it already!"
A standard of cartoons, especially those aimed at fairly young children (or where the writers think anyone under thirty is a dope).
Needless to say, this is Truth In Television to some extent. People do not always overcome their flaws as quickly as fiction sometimes would like them to. Contrast Epiphany Therapy, where characters resolve long-standing issues and flaws too quickly. Compare Ignored Epiphany.
Examples
Anime
- In what's probably a record for "fastest personality reset", after seeing a job well done, the members of the Student Council in Seitokai No Ichizon promise to stop being lazy and actually do the jobs they were elected for. One scene later, everything is back to the status quo.
- In Slayers Revolution, Rezo the Red Priest is resurrected and basically the same crap with the Dark Lord Shabranigdo unfolds due to his obsession with gaining sight, which he was supposed to have gotten over in his Death Equals Redemption of the first series.
- In Detective Conan, during the episodes in which Ran suspects Conan is secretly Shinichi, she treats him with more respect, runs interference for him to investigate, and just generally pays more attention to what he has to say. But let him convince her the resemblance was all in her imagination, and she is back to scolding him for "interfering" in Kogoro's investigations again.
- That is partly due to Ran already treated Shinichi as a legitimate detective, while she still considered Conan as a Snooping Little Kid.
- At one point Kogoro is told by the doctor to stop drinking so much—and for a few episodes he actually does. But not long afterward, he is back to boozing as heavily as usual.
Comic Books
- Gotham City Sirens manages to impressively forget an aesop on the same page! Harley Quinn has finally decided to stop pining after the Joker, since her experiences with another former sidekick has taught her that the Joker really does not care about those people he works with, and she has seen first-hand how pathetic and depressing such obsessions truly are. She knows he will never change, and for her own good and the good of her friends she should just move on...of course, he still might change...
- Batman has learned to be more open and caring to his children (especially Nightwing) so often that this might as well be called A Batman Family Aesop. Of course, that will happen with seventy-odd years of having been published.
- Likewise, Nightwing and Robin take turns learning not to be Batman when it comes to their friends and teammates, although Nightwing tends to be better at it: at least he has a few people he can respect.
- It seems every new author wants to write the story where Iceman finally stops being immature. The Human Torch also gets similar treatment.
- Spider-Man repeatedly wants to ditch superheroics to be a normal guy with a normal family, only to have it drilled into him again that "Great power equals great responsibility". (Of course, a fair portion of his family's now been retconned out of existence and it's illegal for him to have his power, so it's unclear what the point of his existing is.)
- In Green Lantern the Guardians of the Universe once created the Manhunters, a robotic army built to maintain order in the universe. These then went crazy and started slaughtering people, necessitating the creation of the Green Lanterns to replace them. Then, they created the Alpha Lanterns, implanting Greeen Lanterns with Manhunter programming, and gave them infallible authority over the other Lanterns. Thus far they're shown major Knight Templar tendencies and one of them was possessed by an evil New God, demonstrating they were totally wrong about the whole "incorruptible police force" idea. So...nothing that bad has happened yet, but it's generally considered only a matter of time.
- Turns out they're being controlled by Hank Henshaw. Good job Guardians.
- The comic continuation of Angel has one hell a forgotten lesson. Illyria, God-King of the Primordium, an ancient Eldritch Abomination trapped in human form, enters her breeding cycle. She decides that Connor should be the father of her children. Connor, who fathered Jasmine, who tried to brainwash the entire world into worshiping her and then tried to destroy it, forcing Connor to kill her and driving him to the brink of madness. He gives in after about five minutes. The only thing that stops this from being a total Wallbanger is that Connor had his memories completely erased and never fully recovered them. He might have actually literally forgotten "Oh yeah, I've been in the exact situation before, with the exception that this time I know that it's a world domination plan and the other party is wearing the corpse of someone I knew".
Film
- High School Musical is a repeat offender. After every film, all the lessons learned, all of the character growth are completely forgotten and the characters go on to make similar, if not the same, mistakes.
- Disney is often an offender in their Made For TV Movie department when said movies have sequels.
- National Treasure 2, in regards to the Character Development and romance between Ben and Abigail. Especially in regards to Abigail, who turned into a much worse person than she was in even the beginning of the first movie. Are we supposed to be happy that they got back together at the end?
- Of course, they were also Strangled By The Red String in the first movie. So basically they arbitrarily got together, arbitrarily broke up and arbitrarily got back together again.
- Brilliantly avoided by Woody in Toy Story 2. John Lasseter even states that Pixar specifically did not want to just give them amnesia and relearn the same lesson twice, but needed to grow in a different way. Also, the idea of a Buzz Lightyear who thinks he's real is used in the same movie, but instead of the first Buzz forgetting everything he learned in the first one, it's used with a different Buzz toy who is found in a toy store.
- At the end of Robocop, Alex Murphy's persona reasserts itself and he talks and acts more like a human than a robot. In Robocop 2, however, he's back to a more stilted robot-like personality for no real reason. Moreover in Robocop 2 the prime directives that guide his behaviour are completely erased from his system. This piece of development is again entirely erased in the 3rd movie with the 3 directives back in place.
Literature
- Mackenzie of Tales Of MU never learns her lesson about... well... anything.
- Steff is worse, though.
- Actually, none of the main characters (except Two) really develop in a meaningful fashion.
- Keep in mind we're still not through the first two months of the first semester at MU. Two, being Raised By Wolves, would have the most social catching-up to do, and could possibly catch up quickly enough to balance out within the first five weeks of class.
- Doesn't excuse Steffs worse moments. After stabbing herself with a knife she knew nothing about until it tore out half her soul, she spent several days resting and scared everyone close to her and almost died. Immediately after she was handed another magic item by Dee, a character who herself needs to learn to stop handing out magic no one but her is familiar with. She was told not to use it without lots of physical and mental preparation, and only then carefully. Her decision? Chug the whole thing the moment she's alone. Tales Of Mu could probably fill up it's own wall banger page rather quickly.
- Same for Solange of the Whateley Universe, who still thinks her money can buy her out of anything.
- Probably because she's not been a focus character since Jade beat her, badly. She DID learn not to screw with Team Kimba directly, however. She was given an option on learning that she wasn't a good Queen, but thanks to incidents with Ayla, Murphy, and Loophole, she's now out of the Alphas. Her current Aesop is probably closer to 'how to be sneaky and cruel'. Averted with the Don, who HAS learned said lesson, as well as Hekate. Whateley villains in general get most dangerous the more they get beaten.
- Chou, however, definitely qualifies. How many times has she learned to accept being a girl, accept that the Tao is always right, accept that she has to kill sometimes, accept...She HAS learned how to handle romance, though. Except Molly has some summons that might not be nice...
- Wheel of Time features this repeatedly. The characters spent hundreds of pages not talking or working together towards a common goal. Two (or rarely more) finally pound out a plan utilizing both of their strengths, score a resounding blow against the Enemy of the Moment, then, a few chapters later, go back to their usual Poor Communication Kills standpoint.
- We could have cut out a half-dozen books if someone had just gathered up all the main characters in one place, smack 'em with a bit of Compulsion to force them to be honest (none of this pansy Oath Rod double-talk), and had them talk for a few days.
- Really though that'd go against the characterization of most of the actual characters doing this. You've got to remember Rand was a Shepard spending most of his time alone with family or people he's known since he could walk, and didn't have much time to practice his people skills out with the sheep. The Aes Sedai do the double talk because it's the only way they've been able to get anything done and it worked for centuries until very recently(to a degree), and most other characters are pseudo European nobles playing political games that mean if they don't use double talk every other sentence until it becomes habit assassination is assured. Mat's really only better because he was raised by a horse trader, the kind of profession that relies heavily on charisma and people skills.
Live Action TV
- In Roseanne, Jackie and her mother Bev have a strained, broken relationship throughout most of the show, Bev having driven Jackie into therapy with her constant criticisms and insults. But in an episode in one of the later seasons, the two share a teary heart-to-heart and seem to finally resolve their differences and repair their relationship as a mother and daughter. But of course, by their next appearance together, they go back to butting heads.
- Home Improvement, Tim Taylor learns that constantly being a male chauvinist is going to cost him. Of course he doesn't learn, that's the premise of the show. Honestly, why does Wilson even bother?
- Jill also learned several times that Tim's feelings weren't meaningless or baseless just because they were based in masculine behavior, and that she should try to be more understanding. Semi-separate of Tim, she also learned (repeatedly) not to try and psychoanalyze people with her still-amateur psychiatric abilities because she didn't have the experience and complete knowledge necessary to do so (and that she probably shouldn't analyze people she hadn't met yet). Or that she shouldn't meddle in peoples' relationships because she was as likely to cause a breakup as heal any difficulties. None of these stuck.
- After a spine-tingling moral epiphany at the end of the The West Wing episode "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet", neither the President not anyone else keeps the staff revved up with the their collective pledges after the end of the season. They're great human beings already, so this doesn't actually ruin anything — it's just a really huge missed opportunity.
- Seeing how Supernatural is the king of It Got Worse, this tends to happen a lot. Dean's unwillingness to talk about his problems is a good example. Despite all the emotional trauma Dean has experienced and all the "Chick Flick Moments" he's instigated, by the season 3 finale he still brushes off Sam's attempt at a heartfelt goodbye.
- The two finally seem to be getting better at this in season 4. They've learned not to keep things from each other, and Dean has become more lenient in regards to Sam using his powers in desperate situations, as well as trying hard to accept Ruby after learning what she did for Sam.
- And even that went to hell. Obviously.
- Although as of the 100th episode, they have made the decision to actively try not to fall into these destructive habits.
- M* A* S* H was king of this trope. Margaret learned at least three times to be kinder and more respectful to her nurses. Charles learned the value of the common man several times. Same for Hawkeye and his womanizing, his drinking, and his disrespect for authority. Though perhaps the crowning moment was when BJ went on a long rant about how it was so easy for him and Hawkeye to sit around, relatively far from the real fighting, considering themselves so high and mighty as they snarked and sneered at the war and complained about how bad they had it, while soldiers were actually fighting and dying on the front lines. By the next episode, they were back to snarking and sneering as usual.
- The rant in question is one of the only times anyone questions Hawkeye's position that he is morally superior to the Army, which was vital to the status quo. Hawkeye doesn't even get the Aesop in the first place, and seems to chalk the rant up to BJ being hysterical with guilt. Apparently the writers did too.
- Will And Grace used this a lot with all the characters, but mostly Karen and Jack. Karen would often learn that being shallow and nasty to everyone wasn't quite as fun as she usually thought it was, or Jack would learn something similar. The show would occasionally actually have an episode of the characters still having learned their lesson as a We Want Our Jerk Back episode.
- The title character of House seems to inflict Aesop Amnesia on himself. Not only does he avoid learning a lesson, even if he does he announces he doesn't give a crap and continues to be the same Jerk Ass as ever. Though some of his supporting cast seem to have difficulty learning from experience, let alone keeping hold of the episode's message.
- Of course, he learned to visit patients rather quickly.
- At Black Hole High, the science club seems incapable of remembering that it's a good idea to talk about your issues with each other instead of just assuming the worst and keeping it bottled up, even after talking out your problems turns out to be the cure for: molecular friction; taking on the characteristics of various elements in periodic-table order; attack by anthropomorphic venus flytrap; and abnormal sponge growth.
- Also, they seem unable to learn the aesop "Don't use the bits of weird Pearadyne hlebotinum stored in the school basement in your various get-rich-quick schemes" even after sticking their chips into various things caused: Instant AI Just Add Water; a cellphone to gain the power to enforce emoticons on its owner; a radio to receive messages from the future; the common cold to jump species from human to computer to building.
- The radio that received the broadcasts from the future actually ended up saving the day though didn't it?
- Entourage spent the first two seasons using Johnny 'Drama' Chase (presented as a Hollywood has-been) as a running gag machine on this trope. Drama would haughtily 'advise' Vince on Hollywood lifestyle, only to have E or Turtle point out how short-lived, illusionary, feeble or otherwise pathetic his acting career was in the 90's. It happened about once an episode. You'd think Drama would learn to keep his trap shut, but....
- Similarly, the course of the show has shown that anytime it's Eric vs. Vince in a difference of professional opinion E's almost always proven right. Vince makes few-to-no good decisions on his own. He could make a wrong turn in a cul-de-sac. You'd think that if Vince hadn't learned this by now, at least Drama, Turtle and Ari would remind him that E was right about Matterhorn, QB, Aquaman, Mandy More, Dom, Amanda, and Medellian, where Vince's instincts were way off (except for QB). Let E do your thinking for you Vince, it's his skill, not yours.
- Leave It To Beaver is one of the archetypical examples here. Of particular note is the last episode, which has themes of how fast the children are growing up, counterpointed by hints that they're still as childish as ever, with what may be a clever subversion of the whole deal: It's a Clip Show, allowing them to run through the events of about half a dozen episodes in a row, touching on several morals at once and then ending the series before anybody can forget them again.
- Scrubs, Scrubs, Scrubs, Scrubs, Scrubs, Scrubs. It's safe to say that thanks to a combination of this and Flanderisation, not one character in Scrubs has any significant or meaningful character development. The most blatant examples:
- Turk learns to see his patients as people instead of emotionally detaching himself. He learns the same lesson twice in two different, unconnected episodes. And still says that, "I work best when I'm emotionally detached".
- Carla's "best moment in medicine" is when the doctors actually listen to her. She spends every other episode pushing her advice on everyone and everything. In one episode, it leads to disaster and she "learns" that in the hospital, the doctors are in charge because they are ultimately responsible for the lives of their patients.
- JD learns that he needs to "grow up" (despite the fact that his frustration is caused by stress over how utterly crappy his life has become due to a combination of bad circumstances and no-one giving a damn about him) in one episode. This is the guy who acts like a joking, immature fool in every single episode. In another episode, Turk "teaches" him that trying to become more serious and mature is bad; you should instead never forget your "inner child" and continue to goof off.
- The Turk scene was actually a mere episode or two after JD got the whole "be mature" lesson. Turk basically explains that being mature is knowing when you don't have to be mature.
- As well as JD needing to learn to stop being so emotionally needy, grow a backbone, and realize that people would respect him more as a doctor if he let his ability speak for itself. This was taken to insane levels in the Med School Spin Off.
- Dr. Cox learns to be gracious and accept help from other people in order to advance professionally. He learns this three times, in three unconnected episodes. And still continues to act like an ass to his boss and make all the wrong moves.
- He's now Chief of Medicine. I guess those lessons helped a bit.
- He actually did loosen up after a while. He's just hard to teach, as any man with a big ego.
- Got lampshaded with The Todd, who was learnt how to behave to women by a shrink. The Shrink then explains to Carla that without long-term professional help, The Todd will chainge back to his old self within a week or so.
- Also lampshaded with Carla having to teach Elliot the same lesson twice within a few episodes, and the latter episode actually flashing back to the former.
- An episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun involved Dick grappling with his overblown ego. Of course, that's one of his primary character traits. At the end of the episode, he stated what he'd learned thus: "There are times for a little humility. Fortunately, that time is now over."
- Played with in the episode where Dick dealt with his insensitivity. He went to Sensitivity Training and it successfully changed him into an ultra-sensitive guy. Only it turned out he was even worse that way and it all backfired, causing him to revert to his old ways before the end of the episode.
- Family Matters. Most episodes would have at least one character learning to be nicer to Steve Urkel, then promptly forget it the very next episode.
- This could be pretty bad in the episodes where Urkel would save their lives.
- In later seasons, Steve Urkel changed from embodying Be Yourself to learning that lesson once per season.
- Eddie tired of living by Carl's rules in Carl's house, so he moved out. Twice. And he got in trouble gambling. Thrice.
- Smallville. The best example of this was the relationship between Jonathan Kent and Lex Luthor. Despite all of Lex's attempts to show that he wasn't his father, and despite the fact that Jonathan acknowledged this almost every time that he was proven wrong, he was back to blaming Lex for everything that went wrong automatically by the next episode.
- To a lesser extent (and only lesser because he was on the show for less time) this happened with Pete Ross as well, although he was sometimes justified. But then again, Lex never saved Jonathan's life only to have Bo Kent come back and accuse him of random crap.
- The Lex/Jonathan thing was justified sometimes. There were several episodes where Lex actually had done something horrible, it just wasn't the exact horrible thing Jonathan suspected him of. For example, one episode of Season 1 had Lex suspected of murder before the start of the series. It turned out that he was innocent; Lex deliberately took the blame to cover for a friend, knowing that his father would buy a clean slate for him, but wouldn't bother to do the same for just some friend. That speaks well of Lex's generosity, sure, but (a) he was still rich and cold-blooded enough to cover up a murder, and (b) if he had been open about that with Clark, the hostage situation in the episode could have been prevented. By the end of the episode, you're left feeling sorry for Lex, but he's really no more trustworthy than before.
- Another example of Aesop Amnesia is that all the way up to Season 8, Clark has to repeatedly learn that not everything is his fault, his powers aren't a curse and that he should accept his destiny.
- David on Six Feet Under seems to spend an awful lot of episodes learning that it's okay to be gay. This may be justified somewhat by the realism of the show; you can know something intellectually but it takes some repetition to learn it on an emotional level.
- Everybody Loves Raymond was infested with this. Debra would confront Marie about her hostile behaviour, Robert would confront Frank and Marie about their preferential treatment of Ray, Ray and/or Debra would confront Robert about his victim complex, Deborah would confront Ray about his selfish behaviour, and other variations. Each time, it was treated as though these issues were finally being brought into the open after decades of repression, and now people were learning their lessons and would finally treat each other right. And each time the characters reverted to their same old neurotic selves straight away, and the audience groaned at the thought that the same issues would be "resolved" next year, and the year after that...
- of course, nobody seems to listen or care about Robert, so it's somewhat understandable for him to keep griping.
- Sabrina The Teenage Witch was built on this trope. Nearly every episode ended with Sabrina learning not to use her magic carelessly, or selfishly, or to do morally questionable things. Which never stopped her from immediately resorting to elaborate and usually disastrous magical solutions to every tiny problem she encountered in her life. For seven seasons.
- Frasier and his brother Niles would constantly forget not to be so competitive, to stay out of other people's business, not to be so snooty etc etc etc. Occasionally the two would come to an epiphany about their behaviour, only to change their minds about it in the same conversation.
- It's implied (and outright stated in the episode where they attend relationship counselling) that their character flaws are so deeply rooted in their psyches that they will never be able to overcome them.
- Niles also got better about learning his lessons in the later seasons, once he and Daphne were together with the nastiness of their last breakups behind them. Like in real life, it's apparently easier to learn from your experiences if your life doesn't suck.
- Boy Meets World lampshades this in an episode when Eric lands a role on the very similar "Kid Gets Acquainted with Universe," and during rehearsal the Cory/Ben Savage analogue stops when he realizes it's another Rory-learns-a-lesson episode, and starts shouting, "How can I learn so much and still be so stupid?!"
- Seems like Jenny on Gossip Girl has learned the "don't let the queen and her posse change who you are" lesson about five times by now, but it never sticks for more than a few episodes at a time.
- Subverted in Seinfeld, as none of the characters ever learned anything in the first place, despite the fact that the plots often gave the viewers implied Aesops based on logic (e.g., don't let the security guard do his job sitting down). In fact, the Finale implies that all four of them have remained exactly the same since the Pilot, nine years earlier.
- Well, three of them, anyway ... there was no Elaine Benes in the pilot episode.
- Cleverly averted in a Friends episode. Once, Ross and Rachel were bitching at each other in Monica's living room, and the rest were locked in Monica's bedroom at the time. When a script called for a second fallout between R&R in the living room and the rest once again found themselves in Monica's bedroom without daring to go outside, Joey apparently had thought of this possible situation after the last occasion, and had put a box of food, comics and condoms (it's Joey after all), to pass the time if they ever got stuck in there again.
- Malcolm in the Middle has this sometimes, usually having the kids and Lois work things out and prefer getting along with each other before screwing it up on-screen in favor of Status Quo Is God by the end of the episode. There is at least one circumstance where Malcolm's amnesia takes longer to set in, though: he learns in season six that no, he doesn't get music like Dewey does but that's okay because he's good at other things. Several episodes later, he is upset that he doesn't understand music like Dewey does. Interestingly subverted in that in the latter example he doesn't actually seem to learn a lesson by the end of the episode.
- Glee. Although the characters go through impressive development, some characters often miss one important point of their hardships: popularity does not equal happiness. And Puck, despite his growing likability, is still Puck.
- How many times has Will learned to give solos out equally? He never seems to learn that part of Rachel is such a drama queen is because he keeps giving her solos!
- A particularly disappointing one in Robin Hood. Episode six of series three marks the first time since the season premiere that Robin displays pangs of grief over the death of Marian. This leads to Robin breaking up with Isabella, basing it on a) his duty to the King and England, b) his acknowledgment that he's never going to get the chance to have a normal life, c) the danger that Isabella is in if she's known to be in league with Robin, and d) the fact that he still misses Marian too much. The episode ends with him looking wistfully at a happy family, knowing that it's a future he can never have...only for him to turn around and stare at team-mate Kate with a "oh yeah, she's got a crush on me too!" expression on his face, assisted by an uplifting musical cue as Kate smiles at him. It's direct foreshadowing for their hook-up two episodes later, a development that completely undermines all the poignancy of Robin's earlier epiphany. So Robin's Aesop doesn't even last to the end of the episode in which he learns it.
- C.C., Maxwell's business partner on The Nanny suffered this towards the end. Throughout the show's run, she was insanely envious of Maxwell's attraction towards Fran, and in "The Wedding", when Fran and Maxwell finally got hitched, she made one last attempt at cutting between them in the aisle, until Maxwell took her aside and assured her that even though he loves Fran, he'll always appreciate C.C.'s friendship. C.C. finally relented, but in the next episode, "Honeymoon's Overboard", when Fran and Maxwell get lost on their honeymoon, she was utterly indifferent to the fact that Fran had disappeared too:
C.C.: I have stuck by Maxwell through sixteen girlfriends and two dead wives. (Everyone looks at her) One dead wife. I will find Maxwell Sheffield!
Sylvia Fine (Fran's mother): And?...
C.C.: I'll bring him home.
Newspaper Comics
Video Games
Western Animation
- As with all Negative Continuity tropes, The Simpsons uses this one a lot. Often they'll just go ahead and lampshade, and at least one episode ends with Lisa concluding there was no moral to learn "Just some things that happened". With the supporting characters, it's even more pronounced; Barney goes from "clean and sober" to "hopeless alcoholic" depending on the mood of the writer, Mr. Burns has learned to love his fellow man dozens of times, and even though he's learned to stand up for himself in every episode he's a featured player in Principal Skinner never manages to move out of his mother's house.
- Lampshaded at least once in Mr. Burns' case:
Burns: For me? Bobo? Smithers, I'm so happy. Something amazing has happened, I'm actually happy. Take a note! From now on, I'm only going to be good and kind to everyone.
Smithers: I'm sorry sir, I don't have a pencil.
Burns: Ehh, don't worry, I'm sure I'll remember it.
- Also lampshaded in an episode where Homer came to genuinely like Ned Flanders. At the end of the episode Bart asks Lisa where the expected last-minute Face Heel Turn event is that would reset the situation back to status quo. Lisa is stumped. Then comes one last scene with "one week later" caption where Homer suddenly loathes Flanders again, and Bart and Lisa give a content "things are back the way they should be" smile.
- The episode "Bart's Girlfriend" ends with a scene in which Bart falls back into the exact same behavior he just learned to avoid, seconds after making a speech about how much he's learned. Word of God says the writers wanted to do an episode specifically about Bart having an experience which he utterly fails to learn anything from.
- In one episode, he also repeatedly failed to learn the lesson "the cupcake is wired up to electricity, and if you touch it you will get a shock". Thereby proving that yes, he was dumber than a hamster.
- Similarly, Family Guy once ended an episode with this exchange:
Lois: Have you learned anything from all of this?
Peter: Nope!
- Contrary to what he says in the page quote, in many areas Stan of American Dad doesn't forget certain aesops (accepting his gay neighbours, or his ethnic Iranian ones), but like the Peter Griffin example above they have lampshaded his inability to do so in other areas.
Stan: There's something you should know about me by now, Roger. I don't learn lessons.
- Another interesting example and partial Lampshade Hanging comes with Roger. A recent episode ended with him revealing that he didn't really feel like a part of the Smith family, which is why he got insulted when they threw a comedy roast for his birthday (at his request). The others actually get indignant because not only has this issue been dealt with before, but in that episode and others they had repeatedly gone out of their way to please his ever-insane needs and desires. As Hayley pointed out, if he didn't think they cared about him by that point, it was his problem, not theirs. Roger seems to get it then, though who knows if it will stick this time.
- A disproportionate number of episodes in Transformers Animated feature the plot device of Bumblebee being a cocky showoff, going off on his own, and messing the whole thing up in order to learn the value of teamwork and actually telling your leader what's going on. At least once, this has happened two episodes in a row.
- The sheer number of times Ben has learned lessons about being nicer to Gwen, using the Omnitrix smarter not harder, and respecting other people and promptly discarded them by the next episode is truly staggering.
- The 2nd Lucky Girl episode has Gwen also guilty of this, as the episode opens with her telling Ben, "You should be grateful for what you've got; I only got to be Lucky Girl for a few hours." And later, while they're talking about a new charm she found, we get a flashback to Gwen destroying the other charms of her own volition, while ignoring why she did this: to Be Herself. Granted, the Aesop gets broken to hell and back with future plot developments, but yeah.
- Beast Boy of Teen Titans learned several times not to be such a goof-off. It never quite took, at least completely. Same for Cyborg learning to accept not being human anymore.
- Oddly enough, the rest of the team seemed pretty good about avoiding Aesop Amnesia. When Raven and Starfire learned to respect one another's differences, it stuck with them through the rest of the series.
- Even more oddly, the last time the series dealt with Cyborg's humanity this trope was actually inverted. Cyborg goes Ave Machina too hard and has a Superpower Meltdown, requiring him to learn the opposite lesson. Poor guy just can't win.
- Robin still struggled with not being a jerkass throughout the series.
- Come on, he was trained by Batman. Of * course* he's going to default to jerkass.
- Robin finally ended up throwing away the Jerkass Ball (mostly) for good after the episode 'Haunted'. Compare his much more intimate relationship with Cyborg and Raven after that episode to what happens earlier in the series. It's an enormous improvement.
- The Powerpuff Girls have it pretty bad, but then, they are portrayed as being in kindergarten, so it might be understandable that they don't always remember the lessons they've learned very well.
- How many times did Darkwing Duck learn to put aside his pride and get serious/ask for help/play well with others/etc.? Probably about once an episode.
- Similarly, Fenton Crackshell kept learning that it wasn't his mechanized battle suit that truly made him a hero, but his determination, brains, and spirit. He still put that sucker on at the earliest opportunity every episode, though. (Well, wouldn't you if you had one?)
- And Huey, Dewey, and Louie never quite got the message "playing pranks on your [parent equivalent] to get something out of them will only backfire in the worst way, and isn't very nice besides".
- It was done a bit better with Uncle Scrooge, however. While he remained very cheap throughout the series, he was willing to at least put the safety of his family ahead of money (although not always their comfort). (He did still have a number of episodes in each of which he learned anew not to be so stingy, however.)
- The members of the Sushi Pack frequently have to relearn aesops about being a team. Like every other episode frequently.
- Kuzco on The Emperors New School has "learned" again and again (and again) that it's not all about him.
- In Thomas and Friends, after the 5th season, Thomas and Duncan become especially prone to this. In fact, Thomas's character up to the 5th season was built on Aesops from past experiences in the earlier seasons. Suddenly when season 6 debuted, he was a perfect schoolboy type. With the debut of season 8, he seemingly forgetting every lesson he ever learned. It's even worse when he forgets the Aesop of patience by the very episode after her learned it. James is quite bad for this too, but it may be justified considering his personality.
- Any episode of Spongebob Squarepants that focuses on Mr. Krab's incredible greed. I guess that love (of money in this case) conquers all.
- On The Magic School Bus, Janet seems to have relearned to not be such a snotty brat in just about every episode she appeared in.
- Kim Possible's Chained Heat episode "Bonding" showed Kim and Bonnie getting handcuffed together and learning more about one another in the process. Kim learns about Bonnie's family life, specifically her two sisters who belittle her at every opportunity. By the end of the episode, the two are getting along somewhat better, though by Bonnie's next appearance, she's just as shallow and mean as ever.
- Not to mention the many, many times that Ron learned the lesson about being yourself, and then promptly forgot about it. Actually lampshaded one time by Kim in Ron Millionaire where she mentions that he has a tendency towards this. It doesn't help.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Bloo swings around between extreme Jerk Ass and Jerk With A Heart Of Gold and virtually everytime he finally realizes how life is much more fun if you're not consumed by childish egoism, he is reset back by the beginning of the next episode, or, worse, flanderizised into an even greater jerk then before.
- King of the Hill: Unless you're an actual calculator, you've probably lost count of the number of times Hank has learned to accept Bobby's athletic limitations and appreciate his other skills.
- More quintessential to the trope is perhaps Buck Strickland, who consistently fails to learn that his illegal schemes will always put his business at risk. Strangely, however, Hank for some reason doesn't even get an Aesop that his boss is an amoral bastard and that he'll always get in trouble for trying to clean up after Buck's mess.
- Xiaolin Showdown had a couple of stock aesops, all of which were repeatedly learned and forgotten. A sampling includes "Don't futz around with the Shen Gong Wu for frivolous reasons", "Don't screw over your teammates", "Stop being jerks to each other". And while not really an aesop, it was still rather glaring how they never learned that yes, even Jack Spicer can come up with a winning plan every so often, so don't just automatically shrug off what he's doing because he's a loser.
- In a first-season episode of The Spectacular Spider-man, the Chameleon begins a crime spree dressed as the eponymous hero. J. Jonah Jameson, being who he is, immediately prints a story in the Bugle declaring him a criminal; of course, by the end of the episode, the Chameleon is revealed to be the criminal and Jameson is forced to print a retraction, something he had apparently never had to do before. In the second season, Venom also begins committing crimes and general violence while impersonating Spidey. Jameson soon ends up at the police station, demanding to know why Captain Stacy hasn't begun efforts to arrest Spiderman yet. When calmly explaining his evidence saying that Spidey was not responsible doesn't work, Stacy simply calls him out on this:
Captain Stacy: This isn't the first time the Bugle got it wrong when a copycat dressed up as the webslinger. Now do you really want to embarrass yourself and your paper... again?
- The Fairly Oddparents: Timmy's had to learn not to act like a Jerk Ass ("A Wish Too Far!", "Power Pals", "Fairy Idol", "The Jerkinators"), his parents rules are for the best ("Ruled Out", "Channel Chasers") and there are worse alternatives to Vicky ("Totally Spaced Out", "Vicky Gets Fired") several times. If you count episodes with a Fantastic Aesop, add "time travel is bad" ("Father Time", "Twistory") and "make sure magic gadgets only work for you" ("Deja Vu").
- No matter how many times Harold from Total Drama Island manages to save the day at the last minute with some special skill that only he has, future episodes will always have the other characters, especially Duncan, proclaiming that he's useless and should not be listened to/trusted to do any sort of task.
- Brandy from Brandy And Mr Whiskers was probably the epitome of this trope. If I recall correctly, almost all of the episodes were about her either learning to care about others for a change or just care about Mr. Whiskers.
- South Park: While lessons the boys learn tend to stick ("Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride," for example), the same does not apply to the adults. No matter how many times Randy or Sheila learn lessons about actually listening to their children and respecting their wishes ("Bloody Mary" and The Movie, for example), they're back to publicly humiliating Stan and Kyle by the next episode.
- Silly Symphonies that followed up Three Little Pigs showed that Fiddler and Fiefer still played while Pratical worked, and they generally blew off the Big Bad Wolf as a Harmless Villain.
Real Life
- It's not uncommon in bad debates to encounter people who repeat the same arguments after they've already been soundly disproven.
- This can lead to hilarity on online forums. An argument will be made and refuted soundly on one page, only for it to be made again, often by the same person, a page or two later. Of course, whether this is hilarious or depressing varies.
- Little kids often have to be taught the same lessons over again.
- The beginnings of the war on drugs were laid with the prohibition of marijuana not two years after Prohibition was repealed.
- Anyone who attends any twelve-step recovery program for any significant length of time (six months or more) will hear dozens of life stories about people falling for the same addictions and abusive relationships over and over again, and will hear about people Falling Off The Wagon repeatedly.
- In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton won the presidential election by a modest lead, but his popularity waned, especially after a healthcare reform debate, to the point that the Republicans took control of the House and the Senate. After their victory, they preceded to oppose the White House vigorously, including countless subpoenas and a government shutdown in 1995. This backfires on them spectacularly, and they get curb stomped in the 1996 presidential election, despite making gains in the Senate and holding onto their majority in the House. So, would anyone care to guess what their plan of action is if they take control of Congress during the 2010 elections?
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