Aesop Amnesia / Video Games

• Baldur's Gate III: One potential outcome for Gale at the end of the game involves him developing an obsession with the Crown of Karsus and planning to use it to ascend to godhood, having learned nothing about his past hubris being a Fatal Flaw, to say nothing of Karsus' own failure as an example.
• Played for Laughs in Batman: The Telltale Series Season 2 in the 'Vigilante Joker' version of the final episode. Batman tries to teach John that heroes do not kill. A few scenes later, John nearly kills a mook, and Batman grouses about him doing this. A pop-up appears at the top of the screen saying John forgot to remember that. Then it's Played for Drama, as John's inability to comprehend why he shouldn't use lethal force drives a wedge between them.
• Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code: Justified between the prologue and main game. In the prologue, Tovit warns Joshwa not to succumb to hatred and the latter considers his words, but in the main game, Joshwa often makes mistakes because of his hatred and rage, such as killing Balaam without pressing him for more intel and being racist against Ruthia for being half-Cainite. This is because even if he's aware of his vices, he can't overcome them overnight due to the trauma of losing his father.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Amy Rose seems finally ready to give up her Sonic-chasing days and become her own person at the end of Sonic Adventure. By Sonic Adventure 2, not only was she back in full Sonic-chasing mode, she had in fact gotten worse about it. However, it should also be noted that she had decided she should be more independent and not rely on Sonic to rescue her as much anymore, and became a full-on heroic Action Girl at the end of her story. In this area of her Character Development, this trope is averted; she retains her Action Girl qualities and rarely - if ever - plays the damsel in distress again after Sonic Adventure. Granted, the Sonic-chasing thing is still an issue, but at least she kept some of her growth intact.
  • Tails himself gets hit pretty hard with the trope. He learns to become independent and more confident in himself during Sonic Adventure and is able to take on Dr. Eggman by himself in the final level, thus proving to Sonic that he can kick ass without having to rely on him all the time. As the series went on, Tails slid right back to his pre character development where he is content to being Sonic's sidekick and letting him do all the work while Tails himself provides support. Tails hits his lowest in Sonic Forces where he cowers in fear as some enemies approach him and calls out to Sonic for help, despite the fact that Tails should have the experience and know how to fight by this point.
  • Doctor Eggman is more or less completely incapable of retaining knowledge of the fact that Evil Is Not a Toy, despite having unleashed Sealed Evil in a Can only for it to turn on him and require his turning to Sonic for help about a half dozen times by now. He seems to have learned this by Sonic Colors... only to backslide into it by the time of Sonic Lost World (though in that instance, the issue was more or less kick-started by Sonic knocking the conch controlling them out of Eggman's hand; before that, he actually had the situation under control and ended up staying as the Big Bad anyway, at the end).
• Laharl's subsequent appearances in Disgaea put him back to his Tsundere Noble Demon phase of character development, despite the good ending of the first game implying that he's matured past that into a straight, yet stubborn, hero. In Disgaea Infinite, it's incredibly difficult for him to admit that he really cares about his subordinates, despite it being quite clear that he does.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Namine in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories spent a lot of time as a Shrinking Violet due to the abuse given to her by her "caretakers", Marluxia and Larxene. However, after meeting Sora, she learns to stand up for herself, and this confidence is reflected in Kingdom Hearts II. In the midquel Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days she is just as soft-spoken and submissive as ever when it comes to dealing with the less-than-kind (but ultimately good) DiZ, and it takes a meeting with Xion to influence her to change once more.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II, Jack Skellington is trying to win over Santa Claus to obtain permission to run Christmas. This contradicts the events of The Nightmare Before Christmas (which is all but stated to already have taken place in the Kingdom Hearts universe), where he realizes that he wasn't cut out for the job and running Halloween was what he was meant to do.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II, Ariel seeks help from Ursula despite knowing how untrustworthy she is from the events of Kingdom Hearts.
• Metal Gear has a very repetitive structure, which naturally leads to a lot of characters learning lessons over and over again.
  • Solid Snake's entire character arc is him repeatedly learning the same lesson about his freedom from the battlefield at the end of every game, only to end up back on the battlefield because otherwise you couldn't have a sequel. This was a factor in Hideo Kojima's desire to retire Snake as a character by tying off his ending in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. To wit: Snake decided at the end of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake that he was free from the battlefield and could live whatever life he chose. Metal Gear Solid showed him returning to the battlefield (declaring several times that battle was the only thing that made him feel alive) then deciding at the end that he was free of the battlefield and could live whatever life he chose with the person he loved, as he was now liable to drop dead of a heart attack at any time. Metal Gear Solid 2 showed him returning to the battlefield (this time completely willingly, alongside one of the people he loved), and had him say Raiden was now free of the battlefield and could live whatever life he chose with the person he loved. The eventual end of his story in Metal Gear Solid 4 is for him to declare to Otacon that he was now free of the battlefield and could live whatever life he chose, because he is now seriously terminally ill - although when he says he wants to do this alone, Otacon says he should instead do it with the people he loves.
  • Big Boss has had three games so far about killing The Boss, realising killing The Boss was a bad decision, getting over it, building a unit and accepting his title of Big Boss. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has him kill The Boss, deeply regret it and implies him taking his new title and building a unit in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops still has him calling himself "Snake" because he isn't comfortable being Big Boss yet, has him build a unit, kill The Boss's "Successor", and telling Campbell that he only feels truly alive when he's in battle and from now on to call him Big Boss, no longer wearing his bandanna. Then Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker has him calling himself "Snake" still, killing a version of The Boss that Came Back Wrong, building a different unit, announcing that she betrayed him, abandoning his bandanna and saying that from now on he is Big Boss.
  • Raiden has a little of this, but significantly diminished compared to Snake. Raiden's backstory has him as a soldier trained on VR, whose viewing "war as a video game" is remarked on by Snake as being disturbing. At the end of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, he discovers that he has been manipulated into adopting a stereotypical video game character persona as a scheme to control his mind (the Colonel even compares it to "a type of role-playing game"), with his Meaningful Name showing how long this plan has been brewing. After getting out alive he declares that he will "choose [his] own name - and [his] own life" and decides to rise up to the responsibility of raising his child. He then returns in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots in the series' recurring "Cyborg Ninja" archetype, having abandoned his family, now answering only to his hated codename "Raiden", and losing most of his personality in the process, focusing only on an obsessive and robotic desire to protect Snake which the previous Cyborg Ninjas also had - once again, reprising an empty video game character role, just as a side character this time. (Snake is at least shown to be distressed and disappointed by the new Raiden, and repeatedly tries to talk him into returning to his more human personality.) In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Raiden's personality goes back to being a more confident and mature version of his original character, and he seems to have accepted the responsibility of looking after his family, though he now seems to be a lot more comfortable with the idea of "war as a video game" and, though in denial about it for about half of the game, is unapologetic about enjoying killing regardless of whether his victims had it coming.
  • Gray Fox gets this in reverse. At the end of Metal Gear Solid he comes to terms with the fact that he's not a machine, but a person, and always fights for what he believes in. At the end of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, his younger self, who was raised as a machine, has to learn that he is a person. Not to mention, in Portable Ops's backstory, it's stated to be the second time Big Boss had to teach him this...
• Punch-Out!! has Super Macho Man, an egocentric Eaglelander who is blatantly based on Hollywood celebrities. He gets his fame and fortune stolen after his initial defeat by Little Mac, and in Title Defense, he gets greeted to jeers and boos from the fickle audience, with even the spotlight wanting to get away from him. If he wins, he comes to the realization that Celebrity Is Overrated as the crowd suddenly "loves" him again, only to promptly ignore that and go back to posing.
  "Oh now you love me. Now you love Macho Man. Well, it's too late... MAYBE NOT! GRAAAAGH!! (flexes his muscles under the spotlight)
• In Pajama Sam's Lost & Found, Sam's room is very messy, and the game ends with him realizing that he should keep his room clean. Since Atari forgot this after their buy-out from Humongous, their attempt at recreating the franchise ended with him learning the exact same lesson.
• Minecraft. Admit it. How many times did you flood your cave/underground base before you learned to just leave that wall alone? Alternately, how many times did you nuke your own establishment for the same reason (replace 'water' with 'creepers')?
• Bowser in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Since his attempt to rule the universe in the first Super Mario Galaxy game resulted in the entire universe being destroyed and recreated, this actually also caused Bowser to attempt to rule the universe again, but this time as a giant.
• Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: Anniversary lets her obsession with the Scion get her into lots of dangerous situations where her life is at stake several times by people trying to stop her. The Big Bad eventually steals the artifacts from her and now the world's in danger. Lara realizes her obsession caused the whole mess and she sets things right by destroying the Scion. Fast forward to Tomb Raider: Underworld, Lara is back to searching endlessly for another artifact and winds up releasing the Big Bad from the previous game from her prison just so Lara can gain access to another world where her mother disappeared to. Predictably, the world is in danger yet again from Lara's actions.
• Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation has Werner von Croy attempting to steal the Iris while brushing off the warnings about the artifact from the inscription that Lara reads. Werner causes the chamber around him to seal up, trapping him and nearly gets Lara buried in a cave in as she escapes. Later on, the two of them meet again and despite Lara telling him that Set will ruin the world unless she gets the armor pieces of Horus, Werner once again dismisses the warnings as "hocus pocus" and sics his guards on her while he runs off to find the armor pieces for his own greedy ends. Werner then gets possessed by Set.
• Puyo Puyo: in Puyo Puyo Fever, we're introduced to Klug, who carries a book that has a suspicious red ghost-thing that often comes out.◊ Apparently he can't see this, so this would be fine. In Fever 2, he's possessed by the demon in the book, who plans on using this freedom to regain his lost body. The heroes^note Sig, Raffina, and Amitie save the day. Klug apparently learns his lesson that his demon is ridiculously pure evil and will return the book to the person who gave it to him. Cut to the next game, 15th, where he... still has the demon infested book. And in 7, he has the book still and his Deka Transformation is his demon-possessed side. So, by now he should've gotten rid of the demon or book, right? 20th Anniversary; still has the book, it still has the demon sealed in it. ...There has to be a word for this kind of stupid.
• Played for drama by Dragon Age II with two major characters, Sebastian and Isabela. If Hawke has high enough Friendship or Rivalry, Isabela will realize that running off with the Tome of Koslun to save her own skin while the Qunari destroy Kirkwall is wrong; she returns with the sacred book, saves the day, and by Act III seems to have grown a conscience and responsibility...until it becomes clear that she's willing to deal with a slaver and let him go free to enslave more people so that she can have a ship. Sebastian seems to have overcome his lust for vengeance in Acts II and III...but when Anders blows up the Chantry at the end of Act III, killing his beloved mentor Grand Cleric Elthina, he will vow to raise an army and burn all of Kirkwall to the ground if Hawke doesn't kill Anders (never mind that it's Hawke and Anders he actually has a problem with). Rather than simply showing that Status Quo Is God, however, these failures to change are part of the game's overall plot as a tragedy (and certainly highlight its place on the cynical end of the scale).
• Final Fantasy:
  • Tellah in Final Fantasy IV laments how he let himself be taken over by a desire for revenge and then asks Cecil to please avenge him and Anna.
  • Almost certainly a mistake, but in Final Fantasy VII, Cloud discards his fake ex-SOLDIER identity and announces to the party that he's going to live his life without pretending. If you talk to Yuffie in the immediate next room he'll use the phrase "When I was in SOLDIER"...
  • From the same game and its spin-off Advent Children, Cloud learns by the end of the first game to give up the straitlaced, tough-guy act and finally rely on his friends, and that he's not alone. Come the time of the film, Cloud seems to have forgotten all of this and swan-dived back into his previous role of serious, brooding hero who works alone. He then proceeds to learn the same lesson all over again in the movie. A lot of the complaints and jokes about Cloud being "emo" is due to this. Granted, the creator did later make a statement attempting to explain this away as being part of the Geostigma, a disease Cloud has in the film, one of the side effects of which is depression.
• One of the quests for the Companions in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is to take Farkas to help you kill a dragon so he can see for himself that they are real. Farkas reacts with gratitude and amazement. However, this is one of the game's handful of repeatable quests and Farkas can be used as a follower during almost any part of the game, so Farkas may already have killed dozens of dragons with you. Doesn't matter. He's still just as amazed that dragons are real the seventeenth time you repeat the quest as he was the first time you did it.
• In Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus, Miyabi gets so insecure about her masculine appearance that she fights with anybody who comments on it. By the time Shinovi's sequel rolls around, she has learned that it's pointless to worry about what people think of her...and promptly becomes so desperate to prove/show off her newfound "confidence" that she gets into fights with people.
• Lamar in Grand Theft Auto V always gets himself into trouble with the Ballas or some other gang and no matter how many times Franklin saves him and points out how Stretch is setting him up, Lamar brushes it off and thinks people are just hating on him. It isn't until near the end of the game where Lamar finally starts listening to Franklin and starts considering that perhaps people really are out to get him and truly want him dead.
• Ever since Warcraft III, the Horde and Alliance have been shown that the only way to safeguard Azeroth is by working together. Every expansion in World of Warcraft starts with the two factions at war with each other, usually despite knowing about a much greater threat (The Scourge, the Burning Legion, the Old Gods, etc), and ends with the factions reconciling to an extent after coming together to defeat the current Big Bad. The Devs Hand Wave it as "Keeping the War in Warcraft".
• In Resident Evil 5, Chris Redfield wonders if it's even worth fighting bioterrorism due how terrorists are always getting their hands on biological weapons no matter how hard the forces of good work against them. At the end of the game, Chris feels the effort is worth it. By Resident Evil 6, Chris completely ignores his motivation from the previous game and basically gives up when he witnessed his squad get completely decimated by Carla. Chris spent his days being drunk to the point of forgetting the event until new recruit Piers forces him to acknowledge what happened and to keep fighting the good fight.
• Highway Blossoms One of the main conflicts in Next Exit(DLC that takes place a month after the first game) is how Amber apparently forgot the Character Development she learned in the main game and continues to treat Marina more like a child she has to look after rather than a lover, which resulted in her being Innocently Insensitive to Marina again and again during their entire trip to the alien-themed convention in Las Vegas, which isn't helped by how she treated Cassi more like an equal than she does with Marina herself. It takes Marina giving Amber a blunt and tearful piece of her mind, even mentioning that "this isn't even the first time we've had a fight like this" for Amber to finally realize her mistake, and even then she notes that it's going to take some time for her to get rid of her old habits, but she'll keep trying for Marina's sake.
• Fire Emblem games, post-Fire Emblem: Awakening, are known to do this fairly often with supports. A lot of supports for a given character can end up featuring the same moral, leading to a character, for instance, learning that they need to stand up for themselves multiple times, going back to square one each time they start a new support chain.
• Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey: The new neutral route in Redux shows that Humakind didn't a thing about the Schwarzwelt crisis causing the threat to manifest again in the near future, only this time it did cause The End of the World as We Know It. To really twist the knife the new Neutral Ending shows the main character became an immortal guardian of Mankind, quietly watching over the planet from the Moon. Then Arthur mentions the manifestation of a seventh Schwarzwelt that the protagonist sets to destroy once more, showing that humanity is doomed to commit the same mistakes over and over again with no ending in sight.