Trope Shark: The Many Forms Of Amnesia

Let’s see, what was tonight’s topic…oh, right.

Amnesia is one of those things writers have never understood, like computers or the hueh-mans. I’m pretty sure any doctor will tell you that the solution for losing your memory after being bonked on the head is not to do a second time, accidental or otherwise. I don’t know a lot about actual amnesia so I don’t know what causes it or how you actually cure it, if ever. In Hollywood, that’s the typical cure. I decided to look up “amnesia” on Tropopedia, Fandom’s wiki for tropes. It led me to a collection of “memory tropes“, which listed among all the tropes over twenty types of amnesia types, not counting faking it.

So what I’m going to is just list all of these types of tropes with a short summary and link to their full articles on the subject, then go over some examples of how this can and can’t work. I may end up grouping things together so this isn’t a superlong list, but I’m writing this before going in blind just to see what I get out of this. I didn’t think there were that many types of uses for amnesia in stories, but I bet the cure in stories is not the right cure. It can be an amnesia episode of a story, or the plot of the movie/game/series concept. I’ve seen it done to explore the inner goodness or evil of a character, to cause a trip down memory lane for clip shows and the like, to flip the good/evil switch, and even meeting the character as an amnesiac either to set-up a mystery or to forget they set-up a mystery and just make it part of their personality.

Since “Trope Shark” is about simplifying the pile o’ trope names I’ll group things together where I can. The goal is not to overwhelm but give a basic overview of how amnesia is used in fiction. Basically, I looked it up so you don’t have to and bring you the cliff notes on this one. Even then, you can scroll to the divider if you get bored and just want to get to the point. I fell down this rabbit hole and while you get the jetpack, you’re still coming on this ride. At least this short-ish version will be easier to absorb. This is one trope with a lot of divisions.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Adrift #1

“How am I going to get a taxi out here?”

Adrift #1

Image Comics/Top Cow Productions (July, 2015)

WRITER: Matt Hawkins

ARTIST: Luca Casalanguida

COLORIST: Andrew Elder

LETTERER: Troy Peteri

EDITOR: Betsy Gonia

SERIES CREATOR: Adam Orth

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BW’s Daily Video> The Original Transformers’ Original Bios

Catch more from TJ Omega on YouTube

 

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Sonic The Hedgehog #79

Amy Rose is aflush with magic from a Chaos Emerald as Sally and Sonic look on.

“I think you broke it, Amy.”

Sonic The Hedgehog #79

Archie Comic Publications (February, 2000)

COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo

EDITOR/STORY OUTLINE: J.F. Gabrie

“Discovery”

WRITER: Karl Bollers

PENCILER: Fry

INKER: Andrew Pepoy

LETTERER: Jeff Powell

Knuckles: “The Chaos Factor”

WRITER: Ken Penders

PENCILER: Steve Butler

INKER: Pam Eklund

LETTERER: Vickie Williams

Tales Of The Great War: “Life Under-Ground”

WRITER: Ken Penders

PENCILER: Chris Allan

INKER: Jim Amash

LETTERER: Jeff Powell

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BW’s Daily Video> Diversifying Diversity

Catch more from The Mysterious Mr. Enter on YouTube

 

Fantastic Four: First Steps Teaser Drops

Look, I don’t have a proper image of the Fantastic Four in my image library. I forget why this one is here, unless I once posted their review of the Roger Corman-produced one that got buried. In fact, I think we need to get a few things clear before we go into this just released teaser for The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

  • I am not a fan of the Fantastic Four. I’ve tried to get interested in Marvel’s first family, even seen parts if not full versions of all four cartoon series I’m aware of and the movies and of course the comics. I just can’t get into it and I wish I could figure out why. I’m just not into them.
  • I know this is a teaser, not even a full trailer. Before the usual suspects get on my or anyone’s case, any of us who reviews this reviews it as “this is what the marketing people think will get us excited for the movie”, not “this tells us what the movie is about”. The teaser that dropped today only tells us a bit about the look of this series.
  • This isn’t set in the regular Marvel Cinematic Universe because of reasons. I don’t know what those reason are so I can’t fully judge them, and my theories are a bit wild as to why they’ve decided to play games with the multiverse, which many MCU fans are sick of because so far Marvel Studios have shown they don’t understand what makes a good use of the multiverse. That hasn’t stopped them on going full in on it with Loki and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.
  • We will be taking the current actions of Marvel Studios and the MCU in find when it comes to whether or not this has promise. While the movies were doing amazing when Paramount and Universal (who still had the Hulk license but was more willing to play nicely than Sony has been with Spider-Man) were the distributors, things have slowly decayed under Disney, which has gone further and further away from Walt Disney’s dream and is now a brand that bears little to no resemblance to its origins even when it isn’t outright hostile to them. As for the FF’s movie history…it already isn’t very good, but I think we know that it can always be worse. They have a mountain to climb.
  • Like any review, these are my opinions. They may not be yours but if you wanted your opinions you’d be reading your site…which would be odd because you should know your opinions. I’m not going with any group here. I have a vague idea of what anyone else thinks because I haven’t watched an actual review by anyone else before seeing this. What you’re getting is all me factoring in all the biases I just listed.

Now that the disclaimer fest is out of the way, let’s look at this “retro-futuristic” teaser. This isn’t the usual not-616 Marvel movieverse. What will happen here?

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Judomaster #93

cover introducing Judomaster's teen sidekick, Tiger, in a picture with a large tiger head in the background

It’s not a World War II superhero without a teenage sidekick.

Judomaster #93

Charlton Comic Group (February, 1967)

“Meet The Tiger”

WRITER/ARTIST: Frank McLaughlin

EDITOR: Dick Giordano

Sarge Steel> Case File 111: “Case Of The Devil’s Wife”

no credits, but probably the same as the main story

[Read along with me here]

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