History Main / CriminalAmnesiac

* The fact that Momo is reincarnated as a criminal mob boss on Remnant in ''Fanfic/OneToFindAll'' with her memories as a Hero-in-training on Earth buried deep in her subconscious counts as this.

* The fact that Momo is reincarnated as a criminal mob boss on Remnant in Fanfic/OneToFindAll with her memories as a Hero-in-training on Earth buried deep in her subconscious counts as this.

* A unique example occurs in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' where Valmont convinces the amnesiac Tohru that he was a criminal working for him. What makes this unique is that, before his HeelFaceTurn, Tohru ''did'' work for Valmont (indeed, Tohru's old criminal records are part of what Valmont uses to convince him).

* Ultimately subverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' when a well-meaning alien, convinced that her gargoyle companions are agents of an enemy species he has been fighting, erases Elisa's memory and tells her that the gargoyles are her enemies. Elisa is of course uncertain whom to trust, but ultimately refuses to cooperate with the alien considering that the gargoyles evidently have not done anything to deserve being treated like that ("that" being that he was going to execute them in a rather ''messy'' fashion). At that, the alien stands down since any beings who can inspire that kind of personal loyalty under such circumstances are likely not his enemies either, and the memory wipe would have removed any brainwashing the gargoyles had done to Elisa if they really had been working for the Space-Spawn.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'' had Princess Jasmine getting amnesia, and HarmlessVillain Abis Mal convinces her that she's in fact his evil daughter, a desert bandit. She upgrades to a [[EvilCostumeSwitch eyebrow-raising black costume]] (complete with whip) and [[HypercompetentSidekick helps Abis take over the country]], but then betrays him and decides to promote herself to main villain after realizing he's an imbecile (until Aladdin is able to help her remember her true past).

* Narrowly averted in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E14Conundrum Conundrum]]", when the crew's memories are erased so that they can be manipulated into ending a conflict by destroying one of the two feuding species. The villains of the episode make sure that the Enterprise's "mission" involves complete radio silence to keep them from talking to anyone who's either not on the ship or not a spy. Ultimately, the crew become suspicious when they realize the ship's advanced weaponry can reduce their foe's military equipment to scrap within a few seconds -- a foe they've supposedly been fighting for several decades.

* An amusing semi-subversion pops up on the 1990's ''[[Series/Zorro1990 Zorro]]'' series remake, when HarmlessVillain Sgt. Mendoza is conked and convinced he's a ''seriously'' ruthless bandit leader, and it's up to Zorro to rescue him without getting captured...

* Semi-example: In ''{{Transformers}}: WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', the upright, chivalrous Silverbolt was initially on the evil Predacon side. He was a newborn "blank" mechanoid, who had a personality but no memories. He had no clue Megatron was really the bad guy, but he figured it out soon enough.

* As far as the original [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]] (and first [[Anime/SailorMoon anime]]) are concerned, Mamoru is dead when Queen Beryl infuses his corpse with evil in ''Franchise/SailorMoon''. In the Creator/DiC dub, however, they make it clear Darien's still alive as Beryl erases his memories and creates a powerful lackey.
* In the ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesRubyAndSapphire'' episode "[[Recap/PokemonS7E49AScareToRemember A Scare to Remember]]", the Team Rocket trio manage to finally capture Ash's Pikachu after seven seasons via this method... until Pikachu regains his memory and the ResetButton is pushed at the end of the episode.

* The ''Anime/SaberMarionetteJ'' manga inverts this when the Saber Dolls (the BigBad's TerribleTrio of BodyguardBabes, and the PsychoRangers for the heroic harem of superpowered robot girls) get amnesia when struck by lightning, and fall in LoveAtFirstSight with the male hero, Otaru, after he [[ChronicHeroSyndrome repairs them]]. AmnesiacDissonance kicks in once their memories start coming back.

* ''ComicBook/{{Thorgal}}'': When the title hero is stripped of his memory by the gods, Kriss of Valnor convinces him that he is a pirate lord.
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' has ComicBook/DoctorOctopus attempting this with Spidey during the original Creator/StanLee run (Octavius's attempt to use a stolen invention that was intended to 'nullify' nuclear warheads to shut down Spider-Man's web-shooters resulted in the device's energy mixing with Spider-Man's radioactive blood to erase his memory). Quite possibly the TropeCodifier. Spidey [[SpottingTheThread realises something's not right]] when Ock wants to find out his secret identity -- if they were partners, he'd already know.
* ''ComicBook/TheInhumans'': Queen Medusa was given amnesia by her [[EvilChancellor evil brother-in-law]] Maximus, and was found hiding in a cave by the criminal mastermind called the Wizard, who made her Susan Storm's counterpart in his Frightful Four.

* Reverted in a ''WesternAnimation/TheThreeLittlePigs''' ''Big Bad Wolf'' comic: BBW has a nasty fall when chasing the Three Little Pigs, gets EasyAmnesia, and Practical Pig convinces him he is a pig and got hurt when chased by a wolf. Cue Zeke Wolf becoming horribly scared of his own son...

* In ''ComicBook/{{Tomahawk}}'' #110, Tomahawk loses his memory when his skull is creased by a rifle. Captured by the British, Lady Shilling (secretly the Hood) is able to persuade him that he is a Loyalist officer and her fiancée. This leads to the Rangers believing that Tomahawk has turned traitor and attempting to kill him.

* An early issue of ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' has Robotnik manipulate an amnesiac Sonic into joining him and turning against the rest of the Freedom Fighters.
* One issue of ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'' had Lisa get amnesia after suffering a blow to the head. Bart takes advantage of this by convincing her that she's just as much of a troublemaking hellion as him, [[GoneHorriblyRight only for her to become even worse than him.]]

* Empath becomes one in the ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' story "Empath The Bandit Smurf", which is an adaptation of "The Jewel Smurfer" with Empath substituting for Jokey in the original.

* In ''Killerman'', Creator/LiamHemsworth's character Moe is an undercover cop who was posing as a money launderer but loses his memory in a car crash early on in the film and thus has no idea he was undercover. It moves from AmnesiacLiar to this trope when Skunk, his partner in money laundering, learns Moe's true identity by the climax but chooses not to tell him. The film ends with them fleeing NYC together and Moe still under the impression that he's actually a gangster.

* In ''Film/TheAddamsFamily''. A loan shark Abigail Craven and her son Gordon, along with crooked lawyer Tully Alford, concoct a scheme to rob the Addamses by having Gordon pose as [[spoiler:Gomez's long-lost brother Fester]]. Turns out, Gordon really is [[spoiler:Fester]], having lost his memory twenty-five years ago, with Craven having found him and decided to use him as her muscle.

* ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'': This happens after Artemis's [[LaserGuidedAmnesia mind-wipe]], although to be fair he just reverted to his self before he met the fairies, which was a criminal mastermind.

* ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'': Tommy is given amnesia by Prince Gasket, then convinced that the other rangers are evil.
* Inverted in the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode [[Recap/StargateSG1S3E11PastAndPresent "Past and Present"]], in which the amnesiac is discovered to be the evil MadScientist (known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Destroyer of Worlds]]) responsible for infecting an entire planet with an amnesia virus. She cured herself of the amnesia, then tried to kill herself when her old, murderous personality conflicted with her new, peaceful one. Eventually, she re-amnesiaed herself so she could live a peaceful life on the planet where these wacky adventures took place.
** Subverted again in another episode, [[Recap/StargateSG1S9E12CollateralDamage "Collateral Damage"]], where a man on another planet who murdered his ex-wife used a device to erase his own memories of the murder and transfer them to SG-1's current leader, whom his ex-wife had spent the night with. However, since the real murderer had been in love with the murder victim, he then helped solve the murder, and then had his memory of the fact he killed her erased again instead of being put in jail, because his government considered his research too important.

* There was an episode of ''Series/{{Monk}}'' where Monk gets bonked on the head, and a woman unscrupulously convinces him that he's her husband. This doesn't stop Monk from attempting to solve the mystery of the week, although it causes his OCD to become significantly less serious.
* In an episode of ''Series/MacGyver1985'', the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Villain of the Week]] takes advantage of [=MacGyver's=] amnesia to convince him that Peter Thornton is actually a terrorist to be apprehended, and even supplies him with a [[EvilCostumeSwitch gun]] to do the job. Since Mac's memory has started to come back, though, and since he and Pete are [[ThePowerOfFriendship such good friends]], it doesn't take long for Pete to [[IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight talk him out of it]].
** In another Mac-Gets-Amnesia episode, the writers play around a bit. Since all the flashes of memory (played by clips from other episodes) he gets are of explosions or other violent acts with him in the middle, Mac almost convinces himself that's he's really a Criminal Amnesiac.

* On ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'', Bo Duke got amnesia and Boss Hogg convinced Bo that he was Hogg's son.
* Narrowly averted in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E14Conundrum Conundrum]]", when the crew's memories are erased so that they can be manipulated into ending a conflict by destroying one of the two feuding species. The villains of the episode make sure that the Enterprise's "mission" involves complete radio silence to keep them from talking to anyone who's either not on the ship or not a spy. Ultimately, the crew become suspicious when they realize the ship's advanced weaponry can reduce their foe's military equipment to scrap within a few seconds -- a foe they've supposedly been fighting for several decades.
* An amusing semi-subversion pops up on the 1990's ''Franchise/{{Zorro}}'' series remake, when HarmlessVillain Sgt. Mendoza is conked and convinced he's a ''seriously'' ruthless bandit leader, and it's up to Zorro to rescue him without getting captured...

* You could say this happens to Olivia in the third season of ''Series/{{Fringe}}''. Olivia [[spoiler:gets captured by Walternate and through some technical mambo-jumbo that has to do with serums and the blood-brain barrier, manages to give her all of Alternate-Olivia's memories, skills, and emotions convincing her she is from that reality fighting against her own reality]].
* A particularly gut-wrenching example happens on ''{{Series/Chuck}}'' in the fifth season's final arc. [[spoiler: As Sarah suffers amnesia as a [[MySkullRunnethOver result of a faulty Intersect]], she's convinced by Nicholas Quinn that Chuck and his allies are evil, and is promptly ordered to kill Chuck.]]
* In the second season of ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', immortal psychopath Adam Monroe convinced an amnesiac Peter to work with him. Somewhat justified in that he lied to Peter, who is something of an IdiotHero.
** And in season 5, Sylar's memories were suppressed and replaced by Nathan's! Sylar is nominally a villain, but these false memories interfered with Sullivan's attempts to control him.

* Played with in ''Series/DarkMatter2015'' with One and Six. The six main crew members are all amnesiacs [[YouAreNumberSix using numbers as names]] who learn from their wanted files [[FirstEpisodeTwist at the end of the pilot episode]] that their original selves were ruthless criminals (except Five, the MysteriousWaif, who has no profile). In truth, [[spoiler:One and Six are not really Jace Corso and Griffin Jones, respectively; One is a philanthropist CEO named Derrick Moss who impersonated [[EvilTwin Corso]] through [[SurgicalImpersonation plastic surgery]] to get close to the murderer of his wife (Marcus Boone/Three, or so [[FrameUp Moss believed]]) and Six is an undercover cop named Kal Varrick tasked with bringing them all in, whose criminal identity is fake]]. But now without their original memories to go on, [[AmnesiacLiar they believe they really are]] part of the ''Raza'' crew like the others. However, both of them remain among the more moral members of the cast and are a big part of why the crew as a whole, while still participating in illegal activity and mercenary work to make their living (One and Six included), now shies away from the more brutal sort of jobs they used to take on pre-mindwipe (like wiping out entire planetary populations so that the [[MegaCorp corporate overlords]] could take over their land).
** [[spoiler:Six is told of his original mission offscreen during "Episode 8" and [[ConflictingLoyalty reluctantly]] fulfills it at the end of the first season, but changes his mind at the beginning of Season 2 [[DefectorFromDecadence after seeing how corrupt the Galactic Authority can be]] and helps the others escape prison]], [[BecomingTheMask becoming a wanted outlaw for real]]. [[spoiler:This originally would have been true of One, too, if he hadn't been killed off by ExecutiveMeddling]].

* In ''VideoGame/FusionFall'' Buttercup gets hit by Mojo Jojo during a fight and ends up with amnesia. Separated from her sisters and deemed missing, she meets up with Ace of the Gangreen Gang. The two begin dating and Buttercup becomes a delinquent. We never do find out how she got her memory back, however in the future she's back to normal. [[spoiler:Unfortunately she's the SoleSurvivor out of her sisters]].

* A unique example occurs in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' where Valmont convinces the amnesiac Tohru that he was a criminal working for him. What makes this unique is that, before his HeelFaceTurn, Tohru ''did'' work for Valmont (indeed, Tohru's old criminal records are part of what Valmont uses to convince him).
* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness'': Taotie discovers that the Furious Five have lost their memory after being exposed to Po's memory-erasing move. While Po and Master Shifu are away, Taotie took the opportunity to use this to his advantage by having them attack Master Shifu and Po upon their return. When the Furious Five regain their memory, they attacked Taotie causing him to get away.
** In another episode, Po is the one to lose his memory, and is convinced by Fung that he is the leader of the Croc Bandits. Po embraces the role, becoming so villainous that [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone even Fung is disturbed by him]].
* The ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'' episode "Public Enemy Number One" had Baron Greenback convince an amnesiac Danger Mouse he was really a super-thief known as "The White Shadow". It backfired spectacularly on Greenback when Danger Mouse proved to be a better criminal than he was.

* Semi-example: In ''{{Transformers}}: WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', the upright, chivalrous Silverbolt was initially on the evil Predacon side. He was a newborn "blank" mechanoid, who had a personality but no memories. He had no clue Megatron was really the bad guy, but he figured it out soon enough.
* An episode of the ''WesternAnimation/DonkeyKongCountry'' cartoon had Donkey Kong getting amnesia. Both Kaptain Skurvy and then King K. Rool convince him he's on their side.

%% * Snively did this to Sonic once in ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM''.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'' had Princess Jasmine getting amnesia, and HarmlessVillain Abis Mal convinces her that she's in fact his evil daughter, a desert bandit. She upgrades to a [[EvilCostumeSwitch eyebrow-raising black costume]] (complete with whip) and [[HypercompetentSidekick helps Abis take over the country]], but then betrays him and decides to promote herself to main villain after realizing he's an imbecile (until Aladdin is able to help her remember her true past).
* Happens in the ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Make a Wish", based on the comic above with Doc Ock erasing Spider-Man's memory and pretending that they're partners and that Spidey lost his memory in an accident. This is helped thanks to some video of J. Jonah Jameson bad-mouthing him as usual. In this version, Spidey is reminded of who he really is by a young girl who's his biggest fan. Here, the device is an actual "neural neutralizer" and Ock uses it on Spider-Man on purpose, rather than it being an interaction between a nuclear nullifier and his radioactive blood.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'', [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} Simon Belmont]] got amnesia and spent much of the episode trying to remember who he was, eventually deciding that he was Franchise/DonkeyKong Jr..
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'' has Franchise/{{Superman}} getting knocked out by a comet and landing on the Myth/ArthurianLegend [[RecycledINSPACE IN SPACE]] [[PlanetOfHats planet]]. When some local revolutionaries try to beat him up and fail miserably, they ask him to become their leader to TakeOverTheWorld. Superman quickly decides that this priority is way more interesting than figuring out who he is, and [[{{Superdickery}} topples the government]] to pave way for the revolution's primary objective- raising taxes. Naturally, it falls to the other Superfriends to stop him.
** And yes, that episode is every bit as [[SoBadItsGood ridiculous]] as those {{pot hole}}s imply.
* In the GrandFinale of ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', "[[Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS3E12E13Legacy Legacy]]", Superman has his memory wiped after being abducted by Darkseid, and he is led to believe he is Darkseid's adopted son.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', "The Mask of Matches Malone!", has Franchise/{{Batman}} getting amnesia while in his "Matches Malone" gangster persona and believing he is an actual crime boss.

* In the season 1 finale of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', [[spoiler:Optimus Prime sacrifices the Matrix of Leadership to stop Unicron, along with all of his memories as Optimus Prime. Megatron immediately takes advantage of this opportunity to welcome his old friend Orion Pax into the ranks of the Decepticons.]]

* Ultimately subverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' when a well-meaning alien, convinced that her gargoyle companions are agents of an enemy species he has been fighting, erases Elisa's memory and tells her that the gargoyles are her enemies. Elisa is of course uncertain whom to trust, but ultimately refuses to cooperate with the alien considering that the gargoyles evidently have not done anything to deserve being treated like that ("that" being that he was going to execute them in a rather ''messy'' fashion). At that, the alien stands down since any beings who can inspire that kind of personal loyalty under such circumstances are likely not his enemies either, and the memory wipe would have removed any brainwashing the gargoyles had done to Elisa if they really had been working for the Space-Spawn.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Lolirock}}'': Praxina and Mephisto used a spell to erase Iris' memories and convinced her that she worked with them and that Talia and Auriana were her enemies.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}}'': [[spoiler:"[[Recap/NinjagoS11E125Corruption Corruption]]" reveals that the Ice Emperor is really the memory-wiped [[AnIcePerson ice ninja]] Zane, who was manipulated by the exiled formling [[MeaningfulName Vex]] into thinking he was a disgraced ruler so that Vex could [[TyrantTakesTheHelm take control]] of the Never-Realm.]]