Basic Trope: The protagonist of the story suffers from retrograde amnesia.
- Straight: The story opens with its protagonist Jack chased by The Mafia and not remembering anything about his life up that point.
- Exaggerated:
- None of the characters in the story can remember anything from before the plot started.
- Jack is an Amnesiac God.
- Downplayed: Jack remembers most of his life, just not how he got involved with the mob.
- Justified:
- Jack just woke up in the hospital after being shot in the head.
- Jack’s amnesia is because he has an incredibly troubled past and thus gave himself amnesia to forget it.
- Inverted:
- Jack remembers killing Bob The Don but nobody else seems to remember this event or even that Don Bob existed at all.
- The villain is amnesiac and is a villain due to assuming this was how they were like before getting amnesia.
- Subverted:
- As soon as Jack escapes from the hospital, his memories of killing Bob come back.
- Jack is lying about having amnesia because he wants his past to remain hidden.
- Jack remembers everything about his life with the mafia.
- Jack is revealed at the end of the story to have been a Villain Protagonist with amnesia. See Amnesiac Villain Joins the Heroes.
- Jack is revealed to actually be an AI inhabiting a human body who was created around the start of the story, and thus has no past to remember.
- Double Subverted:
- All Jack's memories come back... except the ones that explain why the mafia is after him.
- What Jack doesn't remember is his Past-Life Memories of a previous Reincarnation that had history with the mafia and continues to affect him in the present.
- Jack decides he likes his new life too much and pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
- Parodied: Jack and Charlie the Hitman accidentally knock heads and get their roles confused after coming to, with Jack henceforth pursuing Charlie.
- Zig Zagged:
- Jack is an Amnesiac Hero who occasionally has moments of lucidity.
- Jack begins to recover memories only to discover they're not real memories.
- Averted: Jack is shot in the head but wakes up perfectly aware of his situation.
- Enforced: The plot is about Jack finding out about his past.
- Lampshaded: "Oh, I know! The mafia shot you in the head and now you have to take on them to find out what happened to you, just like in the movies!"
- Invoked: Jack has a healing factor, so Charlie shoots him in the head specifically to wipe his memory.
- Exploited:
- Jack pretends to be amnesiac in a attempt to fool the mob into leaving him alone.
- Or, Jack has a really dark past that he wants to keep buried.
- Criminal Amnesiac
- Defied: While unconscious, Jack fights a Battle in the Center of the Mind to preserve his memories.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Jack's amnesia is so severe that he basically reverts back to being a baby and has to be taught to speak, eat, and use the bathroom all over again.
- Reconstructed: Through his sheer willpower, Jack makes a full recovery quickly and takes the fight back to the mob.
- Played For Laughs: Jack's friend lies about who he is as a prank.
- Played For Drama: Jack's "friend" lies about who he is in order to manipulate him.
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