History Main / FakingAmnesia

* Bobby Pendragon, from ThePendragonAdventure, feigns amnesia to get the Tribunal of Rayne to trust him. [[spoiler: He fails to trick them. It's later revealed that they played along for completely different reasons.]]

* In ''Literature/MassEffectRetribution'', when a rescue squad recovers a kidnapped character and asks for his name, he is unable to answer and claims that amnesia is the cause. [[spoiler:As it turns out, he has been implanted with alien tech by Cerberus, allowing his body to be remote-controlled by the [[CosmicHorror Reapers]]. The claim of amnesia was used by the Reapers to avoid the question as they were at that time unable to learn his name by reading his mind. It works horrifyingly well.]]

* In the ''{{Alien}}''-esque {{hentai}} ''AlienFromTheDarkness'', the lone survivor of a derelict ship pretends to have amnesia, and is thus unable to tell her rescuers what happened to the rest of her crew-mates. This is all to hide the fact that she is in fact the host to the alien being that killed them all.

* In ''[[MassEffect/{{Retribution}} Mass Effect: Retribution]]'', when a rescue squad recovers a kidnapped character and asks for his name, he is unable to answer and claims that amnesia is the cause. [[spoiler:As it turns out, he has been implanted with alien tech by Cerberus, allowing his body to be remote-controlled by the [[CosmicHorror Reapers]]. The claim of amnesia was used by the Reapers to avoid the question as they were at that time unable to learn his name by reading his mind. It works horrifyingly well.]]

* In episode 26 of HayateTheCombatButler, after a fight with some baddies, Hayate ends up with a blow to the head, rendering him unconscious. Ayumu, being there when it happened helped Hayate tend to his wounds. When Hayate woke up, Ayumu then asks whether he likes her or not. Hayate then ends up faking amnesia in order to avoid answering the question. HilarityEnsues.

* In an episode of {{Ookami-san}}, Ryoko suffers from [[EasyAmnesia actual amnesia]], where she thinks she's thirteen. When she later [[IGotBetter get's better]], she pretends not to remember the entire day due to being embarrassed. [[DeliberatelyCuteChild Ringo]] catches her when she remembers eating.

* ''{{Supernatural}}'': Dean fakes a case of DeathAmnesia after being pulled out of hell by Castiel.

* The water fairy Athena Glory in ''{{ARIA}}'' does this as a prank to her student, Alice.

* Used by Mrs. Slocomb in a later episode of ''AreYouBeingServed'' when she pretended to have forgotten everything since early childhood and spent the majority of the episode acting like a schoolgirl. The ordeal was a ploy to scare the management with a possible lawsuit.

* The Titular character from RobinMcKinley's {{Sunshine}} pretends she has PTSD that made her forget or block her memories after escaping from being held captive by vampires. Mostly she ''does'' have PTSD but she hadn't forgotten anything, she just didn't want to talk about it or explain A) why she saved a vampire and B) ''how'' she saved a vampire. That is to say by using her magic that she hadn't used since childhood to make it so a certain vampire could walk under sunlight which everyone agrees is impossible

* CalvinAndHobbes: Calvin once tried this as an excuse for his terrible grades. His dad wasn't fooled.

* [[CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]] once tried this as an excuse for his terrible grades. His dad wasn't fooled.

* ''DragonAge:Origins'': According to [[BoisterousBruiser Oghren]], [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Shale]] actually does remember the death of the mage who was experimenting on it, and just doesn't want to bring it up.

* The Titular character from RobinMcKinley's ''Sunshine'' pretends she has PTSD that made her forget or block her memories after escaping from being held captive by vampires. Mostly she ''does'' have PTSD but she hadn't forgotten anything, she just didn't want to talk about it or explain A) why she saved a vampire and B) ''how'' she saved a vampire. That is to say by using her magic that she hadn't used since childhood to make it so a certain vampire could walk under sunlight which everyone agrees is impossible

* In ''[[MassEffect/{{Retribution}} MassEffect: Retribution]]'', when a rescue squad recovers a kidnapped character and asks for his name, he is unable to answer and claims that amnesia is the cause. [[spoiler:As it turns out, he has been implanted with alien tech by Cerberus, allowing his body to be remote-controlled by the [[CosmicHorror Reapers]]. The claim of amnesia was used by the Reapers to avoid the question as they were at that time unable to learn his name by reading his mind. It works horrifyingly well.]]

* According to [[BoisterousBruiser Oghren]], [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Shale]] in ''DragonAge:Origins'' actually does remember the death of the mage who was experimenting on it, and just doesn't want to bring it up.

* According to [[BoistrousBruiser Oghren]], [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Shale]] in ''DragonAge:Origins'' actually does remember the death of the mage who was experimenting on it, and just doesn't want to bring it up.

* According to [[BoistrousBruiser Oghren]], [[Golem Shale]] in ''DragonAge:Origins'' actually does remember the death of the mage who was experimenting on it, and just doesn't want to bring it up.

* Lelouch adds this to part of his masquerade early on in the second series of ''CodeGeass'' in order to throw off suspicion that he has regained his memories.

* ''WhileYouWereSleeping'' inverts it. Peter Gallagher's character, upon waking up from a coma, doesn't remember his fiancée (because they really aren't engaged, his family just thinks they are), so his family assumes that he's amnesiac. He figures out there's been some sort of mix-up, but he continues playing along with the amnesia story to avoid upsetting the family too much.

* In ''MassEffect: Retribution'', when a rescue squad recovers a kidnapped character and asks for his name, he is unable to answer and claims that amnesia is the cause. [[spoiler:As it turns out, he has been implanted with alien tech by Cerberus, allowing his body to be remote-controlled by the [[CosmicHorror Reapers]]. The claim of amnesia was used by the Reapers to avoid the question as they were at that time unable to learn his name by reading his mind. It works horrifyingly well.]]