Is Amnesia Murder?

I have this character, and I decided to erase his memory and his entire personality, and thus a new personality took his place and basically became his own character.

Much later, after the second personality became more developed and established as his own person, he and everybody discovers who he was originally and has the option to bring the original personality back, but erasing the second personality altogether.

This scenario seems very morally troublesome to me. If they decide to bring the original personality back, they essentially kill the second personality. However, if they leave the second personality the way he is, the original personality stays gone, thus making him dead in a sense.

The characters making the decision are supposed to be very heroic and able to make good moral choices, so what choice should they make here? Either decision leads to one of the two characters being non existent. Does the original personality take priority on the basis of being there first? Or does the second personality get to live simply because he cares about living more. (The original personality basically gave up on life prior to receiving amnesia and decided to live the remainder of his life as a hermit in the woods away from all people.)

Also, how would the readers react to either choice being made? Would it really matter to them? Is mind murder the same as body murder? Would the readers accept a third option, such as cloning the body and letting the two bodies live independently from each other? Or would that seem like a cop out?

Don't worry - as long as he's breathing, he is alive. Personality is learned - see Regarding Henry. Why don't they try integrating the best of both personalities?

edited 9th Jun '11 7:38:03 AM by QQQQQ

A third option would seem like a cop out to me if there was no foreshadowing or something. But if a third option would be logically available and is not taken, then... you know.

I'd say no personality gets priority, and the choice for me would be purely practical. Which one would be better for the world to exist? The second? Then the second it is.

That's like Dog and God from Fallout New Vegas Dead Money.

There's an Ursula K Le Guin story with a premise like that: A culture has the main tenet of never killing anyone, but they will erase people's entire memories. But can they really claim the moral high ground for doing that instead of just killing people?

It depends on how you define "death".

That does seem to be the major question. Could you still be considered alive if all of your memories and personality traits are gone?

Also, I forgot to mention that this isn't a typical amnesia after being hit on the head. It's an artificial amnesia initiated by chemicals and all sorts of sciency stuff. So it's not like his original personality can come back naturally. It has to be brought back the same way it was taken away.

What sort of foreshadowing would be required? Would I need to have some cloning machine sitting in a lab somewhere? The story does take place in a future world with a ton of advanced technology, so I suppose it's doable.

Did I mention that the man who has to make the decision is the father of the guy with amnesia? Should the man still make the practical decision, even if the most practical decision is to sacrifice the son that he's raised his entire life?

I'm not sure if that's even possible, even using fake science. But even if they could, should they? Let's put it this way, would you like for a bunch of guys to take everything that makes you you, chop it up, throw away all they consider to be the bad stuff, and then meshing it with all the best parts of some other guy, meshing you both together into a new identity? Cause I don't think I would like that very much myself.

edited 9th Jun '11 11:47:09 AM by WackyMeetsPractical

Well, that's what the man should do, from my moral standpoint. It doesn't mean its the most logical thing for him to do.

I have a feeling that a majority of readers might disagree though, although I'm not sure. I, personally, would root for the father to favor his own son over the alternate personality who took his place, even if the second personality would do more good for the world, and even that is still yet to be determined.

Right now, I'm comparing this choice to that scene at the end of The Good Son. A woman has two kids dangling off a cliff and she wants to save them both. One is her son and the other is her nephew. The son is evil and she just recently found out that he killed his younger brother, and feels no guilt for it. Also the son had just tried to kill her just moments before. The nephew is a very good kid who tried to warn them all about the evil son, but no one would listen. She could only save one, so she chooses the nephew.

I know it's the most logical choice, since the son was pure evil and didn't deserve to live, yet it still upset me. I guess it's because I don't think it's really possible for a mom to make the decision to let her own flesh and blood fall down a cliff to his death in front of her very eyes. I doubt many people would agree with me, though. Most people in my family said she made the right decision.

Some more information about the two personalities. Personality A was once a great hero, but became bored of it after a while and decided to hide from the world, including his family. Although he's been found and contacted many times to return to being a hero, he has refused. Personality B was created after an evil genius kidnapped Personality A and wiped his identity clean. Personality B was molded to be an evil soldier to do everything the evil genius commanded. Personality B became known as a villain causing lots of mayhem. The evil genius decided to send Personality B into the past to kill off Personality A while he still had his memory, just to see what would happen. Personality B was unaware that he was sent to kill his past self, and was very upset at the revelation. At this point in the story, the evil genius is captured, Personality B no longer wants to be a villain, after realizing that his villainous ways nearly caused him to destroy himself, literally, and decides to become a hero. Although, by this point, it may not matter, because that's when everyone finds out that he can be returned to being Personality A. Personality B is naturally not happy with that idea.

I hope that wasn't too complicated for anyone.

Hmmm.... I would root for the second personality to survive in that case, but that's just me. I think he has the right to live a life without being controlled by the EG. The first personality lived, in any case. This one hadn't had that chance so far.

From a storytelling perspective, it would be a lot better for the second personality to sacrifice in favor of the first one, you said he was heroic and stuff so he would be like "I'm glad first allowed me to use his body" or something like that, maybe even write a letter for his other self.

Also, the first personality would have to deal with the fact that a person who was "better than him" gave his "life" up for him.

On the other hand, allowing the second personality to not give up his "life" would make him less heroic in the eyes of the reader.

This is purely from a storytelling perspective, on morality I have nothing.

edit: Why does the father hold the final word? I'd say the second is the only one who's opinion really matters.

edited 9th Jun '11 1:19:00 PM by redpyro

I'm having flashbacks to the start of The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, where Zaphod, who had discovered by that point that he had erased his own memory as part of a ridiculously complicated scheme, claimed that his old self basically committed suicide.

It's a thorny issue. Personality is a product of memory and experience - change them or take them away, and you have another person entirely. This was a Big Thing in both Inception and Death Note, where memory tweaking resulted in a drastically different individual afterwards.

I suppose it depends on the context. Is our Self #2 okay with the idea of being erased to allow his "true" identity to return?

Real-life amnesia doesn't work that way, either.

I would advise you to stick with the either-or option. I like the semi-darkness of it. Don't go for a "best of both worlds" solution. That sounds like a cop-out. And yes, essentially, one person IS dying. It's a choice the character must make. To me, as a reader, that actually sounds quite intriguing.

Even "heroic" characters often come to wildly different conclusions on what's moral and what's not. I can picture this argument appearing in the story itself, and potentially driving a rift between characters who come to different conclusions.

Ethically, he should be allowed to remain the way he is. Narratively, it would be nice for him to start reverting to the way he was, even choosing the treatment in the end. This would result in character A without the ennui.

This pretty much sums it up.

...To put it cynically, the only way it's not murder is if it's suicide. ^_^;

Heh, I was curious if I was the only person who thought of mind-wiping this way. It's kinda creepy.

I would choose for the second to live, but having some time to think before a teary-eyed "I'm glad I was here but this life isn't mine" speech before suicide is probably the better option.

"Personality Death" is a recurring controversy in the various transformation fetish story communities I've been involved with over the years.

In this particular case, I'd argue that the villain did, in fact, murder Personality A, who is for all practical purposes dead. Personality A can be returned from the dead, but not without killing Personality B. Whether this Equivalent Exchange is acceptable to the father or other person making the decisions is the crux of the matter.

If you really want the story to stick with the reader, have the character shot immediately after a decision is reached, but never let the audience find out what the decision was. Maybe even set things up so that it's ambiguous which personality is in place at the time, if you can. Then make the rest of the story short and about going after the shooter, who either gets away or is caught after a very quick chase.

I think that's what I'd do, anyway.

edited 13th Jun '11 6:35:59 PM by Haven

I don't suppose the two people could share the body, leaving him with a split personality? Or the original somehow 'living inside' the second personality?

Leaving aside third options... I would say, yeah, it would sort of be murder to force the new personality to give up the body. Kind of like, you have two people who need an organ. Do you take the organ forcibly away from the healthy person to give it to the dying one?

^ Or in this instance, would you take a vital organ from a living person if that could revive a dead one?

Plus of course there is the 'but it belonged to him originally' angle. So... the living person is an organ donor program recipient, but now it's discovered that they can resurrect the donor if they take the organ back.

See, this is why I shouldn't be allowed to comment on other people's analogies. Some metaphors are not meant to be stretched.

On a completely different note, I like Haven's suggestion a lot, but at the same time, I can imagine I'd kinda hate the author for it while still not being able to stop reading.

edited 13th Jun '11 6:48:06 PM by BobbyG