M. Bison: I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it.
Chun-Li: You don't remember?!
Bison: For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.
A critical event that started The Protagonist on their journey was an action by The Antagonist. The antagonist, however, has long forgotten this event, because to them, it's just another horrible thing they've done. It can go hand in hand with Unknown Rival.
This is often used to show just how evil the villain is. If The Hero is upset over their murdered father, and the Big Bad barely remembers killing the guy, then clearly the villain has murdered a lot of people in their life, and they have a pretty callous attitude about it. It can be done in a casually hurtful manner, but a Card-Carrying Villain may even mock the hero as being nothing special, just to be a bit more of a Jerkass. Very frequently associated with The Sociopath with a Lack of Empathy; to such a person, whatever reprehensible act they just did is just like any other mundane activity to a normal person in terms of emotional impact. Sometimes the act is not even especially reprehensible (the deceased party was killed in a relatively routine war or invasion) but it is still treated like this for the hero.
A heroic variation exists where a hero is unable to remember foiling some villain's scheme or putting them in jail simply due to how many bad guys they've defeated/put away, which can really tick off the villain. This is especially true if the forgotten enemy was a mook in their previous appearance(s). Alternatively, the hero may have saved someone who is now a devoted fan of the hero as a result, but when the rescuee later shows up to thank the hero, they could be hurt by their idol failing to recognize them.
Another variation exists where a character is so used to strange or dangerous situations being a part of their everyday life that they're unable to remember a particular event which greatly affected someone. This can even be seen as a form of narcissism coming from the victim, who will automatically assume that the one responsible would specifically remember the event because of how important it is to them.
If a character only thinks this is happening but the apparent perpetrator really didn't do it, it may be Not Me This Time.
Even among This Very Wiki, this happens: superfans see tropes of their show (that they have a great knowledge of) on a regular occurrence, but people new to that same show would find the tropes applying rather fascinating (and thus would be mystified if the images do not make sense to them).
Compare Forgotten First Meeting. Contrast Reminiscing About Your Victims and Would You Like to Hear How They Died?. Not the First Victim is an unusual case that can fall under this or Would You Like to Hear How They Died?.
See also A Million is a Statistic.
Example subpages:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Religion & Mythology
- Theatre
- Video Games
- Web Animation
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
Other examples:
- A heroic example in one arc of The Phantom, after the titular hero comes across a sniper who he'd previously skull-marked. Prior to the confrontation, the sniper had been reminiscing about how, in their last encounter, he'd shot the Phantom, only for the hero to get back up when by all rights he shouldn't have, and that incident left the sniper in absolute terror of the Ghost Who Walks ever since...but when they come face-to-face, Phantom admits to himself that he doesn't remember the guy at all
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