History Main / MemoryGambit

** And used again in homage in Randall Garrett's ''Lord Darcy'' stories, in the form of The King's Messengers, who receive their messages orally, then have the memory of the message locked away by magic so that even they themselves are not aware of what the message is. Only the proper triggering situation restores the memory. Trying to extract the message in any other way results in the messenger's immediate death.
* ''PandorasStar'' has a character who wipes his memory in an attempt to get away with murder. It doesn't work.

* ''[[Literature/TheCulture Look to Windward]]'' by [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]] is built around a MemoryGambit. The character Quilan's memory returns to him in stages during a [[spoiler:genocidal and suicidal]] undercover mission, alternate chapters take us through the past events he has forgotten, slowly revealing both what the mission is and what kind of a man would agree to do it.

* In Anime/YuGiOh this is Yugi's strategy when he goes against Pegasus. Pegasus can read minds, but Yugi is possessed by the spirit of the Pharaoh, giving them two minds to work with. They come up with a "mind-shuffle" strategy, whereby any time one of them draws or plays a card they immediately switch minds. The other mind doesn't know what card the other one saw, so whenever Pegasus tries to read their mind all he gets is blank cards.
* In ''{{Devilman}}'', it turns out that [[spoiler: Ryo Asuka]] is in fact the avatar of [[spoiler: Satan]], who had his memories suppressed and turned into a human in order to infiltrate mankind and learn their weaknesses. This goes to plan, except that [[spoiler: Ryo/Satan]] falls in love with [[spoiler: Akira/Devilman]], who until then were allies against the demons.

* The Kleptomancer in ''FrancesHardinge/A Face Like Glass'' does this, regaining various memories at different stages of his elaborate plan to control Caverna.

* In ''CaptainSNES'', Proto Man has locked away a portion of his memories regarding the Great Chano [[ReverseMole infiltrate able of defeating the Sovereign of Sorrow appears. Alex gets annoyed with him when he realizes that Proto Man doesn't consider him capable enough to unlock them.

** One of main uses for [[TransferableMemory Thought Bottle]] item, including at least once in a novel (see above).

* The ''Franchise/EmilyTheStrange'' novel "The Lost Days" features Emily waking up to find herself in the middle of one of these: She's in a strange town called Blackrock, she has no idea how she got there, and she doesn't remember anything about herself. [[spoiler: Near the end of the novel, it's revealed she received a posthumous letter from her great-aunt Emma, asking her to come to Blackrock to collect her inheritance. The letter also warned her about a young psychic in the employ of Attikol, her rival for the inheritance. In order to keep the psychic from learning what she knew, she temporarily erased all of her memories, but not before making sure that she'd have backup in place in the form of an android named Raven.]] She later has to repeat the process when her accomplice in the plan uses a Trigger Phrase to restore her memories before it's time. Finally, she does a variant of this by erasing the memories of the ''accomplice'' (with her permission) and causing her to assume the identity of "Earwig" (Emily's amnesiac persona) for a short time because she was about to make a bet that would result in her having to join her enemy's traveling show, but she couldn't actually go herself.

* The ''Franchise/EmilyTheStrange'' novel "The Lost Days" features Emily waking up to find herself in the middle of one of these: She's in a strange town called Blackrock, she has no idea how she got there, and she doesn't remember anything about herself. [[spoiler: Near the end of the novel, it's revealed she received a posthumous letter from her great-aunt Emma, asking her to come to Blackrock to collect her inheritance. The letter also warned her about a young psychic in the employ of Attikol, her rival for the inheritance. In order to keep the psychic from learning what she knew, she temporarily erased all of her memories, but not before making sure that she'd have backup in place in the form of an android named Raven.]]

* The ''Franchise/EmilyTheStrange'' novel "The Lost Days" features Emily waking up to find herself in the middle of one of these: She's in a strange town called Blackrock, she has no idea how she got there, and she doesn't remember anything about herself. [[spoiler: Near the end of the novel, it's revealed she received a posthumous letter from her great-aunt Emma, asking her to come to Blackrock to collect her inheritance. The letter also warned her about a young psychic in the employ of Attikol, her rival for the inheritance. In order to keep the psychic from learning what she knew, she completely erased all of her memories, but not before making sure that she'd have backup in place in the form of an android named Raven.]]

* ''[[{{Accelerando}} Glasshouse]]'' by CharlesStross begins with the protagonist waking up after having wiped his own memory, [[spoiler: so that he would be allowed to infiltrate the eponymous experiment]].
* ''[[TheCulture Look to Windward]]'' by IainMBanks is built around a MemoryGambit. The character Quilan's memory returns to him in stages during a [[spoiler:genocidal and suicidal]] undercover mission, alternate chapters take us through the past events he has forgotten, slowly revealing both what the mission is and what kind of a man would agree to do it.
* The [[spoiler:second]] book of the ''TheStarsAreColdToys'' SpaceOpera duology by Sergei Lukyanenko [[spoiler:seemingly opens with a new protagonist, until about half-way through the reader learns that it is actually the protagonist from the first book who has been brainwashed to think he is a alien pilot and [[TheInfiltration infiltrate the enemy planet. His memories return when triggered by TheSymbiote hiding within his body]]. And the story is narrated from first person perspective.]]

* In BackwardsWithPurpose, a Harry Potter PeggySue fic, the characters become aware of ''another'' time-traveller, nick-named "Merlin", who seems to be orchestrating one of these, though they have no idea how or why. [[spoiler: Its Harry's son.]]

* In ''Chasm City'' by Creator/AlastairReynolds, the main character believes he is bounty hunter Tanner Mirabel, when in fact he's not. He suffers from severe AmnesiacDissonance.

* ''{{Dollhouse}}'', Dollhouse, Doll-freakin'-house! The entire show is built on this premise.
* In one episode of ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'', Vala's memories are altered so that she can get close to Adria in order to make her drop her guard.

* In ''{{Exalted}}'' there is a Sidereal of the Maiden of Secrets known as The Green Lady. In various guises, genders and names she serves Heaven, both Sidereal factions and 4 Deathlords. The reason she has not been found out is because she has hidden her true allegiance from even herself. For the curious, her true allegiance is to [[spoiler: Heaven, according to the Underworld book. Her ultimate goal is to learn some singular weakness that will lead to the defeat of the Deathlords once and for all. Making any attempt to pull this off intentionally, though, is going to tip somebody off who will in turn tip everyone else off and completely screw the plan. Making herself mostly crazy and hoping to stumble onto it more or less by accident is the best she can do. However, there's a chance she may unintentionally help the Deathlords destroy Creation before she succeeds.]]
* In ''MageTheAwakening'' there is a rote which allows you to set up one of these by literally removing the memory from your mind until a later time. There is a Legacy which can grant this same benefit as a magical ability with the addition that when it expires, you can use it again to suppress the same memory without actually remembering the memory you want to hide.

A scheme involving allowing your own memories to be [[LaserGuidedAmnesia erased]] or [[FakeMemories altered]] in order to fool others or even yourself, with a trigger set up to [[EasyAmnesia restore them]]. This can be used to trick the enemy into believing you're on their side, because [[ManchurianAgent even YOU think you are]]. Also an effective technique against overconfident mind-readers. If a MagnificentBastard or [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] has the power to manipulate memories, he will almost certainly attempt one of these. This can very easily turn into a XanatosRoulette, especially if the trigger is set to restore the memories at exactly the right moment (see NeuroVault).

* Light Yagami in ''Manga/DeathNote'' allays suspicion by exploiting the rule that anyone who relinquishes the ownership of a Death Note also loses all memory of owning it unless the person later touches the same Death Note to, even counting on his amnesiac self to genuinely join the side of good in tracking down the new owner of the Death Note as part of a massive XanatosRoulette. This leads to [[MemeticMutation the popular phrase]] "Just as planned," '''eight episodes''' after putting his plan in motion.

* In ''[[{{Foundation}} Second Foundation]]'' by Isaac Asimov, the telepathic villain known as the Mule is hunting the Second Foundation. As several of his mentally dominated servants have lost their minds the Mule chooses Bail Channis, someone he knows is a Second Foundation spy, to help him find them. He doesn't dominate Channis because he's afraid Channis will lose his mind. Channis is tricked into leading the Mule to the Second Foundation, and everything falls apart. This is one of the most complicated memory gambits ever.
** Indeed - the climactic scene consists almost entirely of repeated "but I ''[[GambitPileup planned]]'' that" banter. Asimov was fond of Xanatos Gambits.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has Homer, of all people pulling one off, in an intentionally [[XanatosRoulette impossibly convoluted plan]] [[spoiler:to make his own surprise party a surprise by taking a drink called a "Forget Me Shot". It involves such things as planning exactly what he would do, when and what he would remember, how he was going to interpret it, and that he was going to commit suicide from it (so he told them to get a Moon Bounce and move the boat under the exact place on the bridge he went off)]].
** Which sounds like a homage to the Michael Douglas movie ''Film/TheGame'', which did not involve amnesia at all.

* In ''Chasm City'' by AlastairReynolds, the main character believes he is bounty hunter Tanner Mirabel, when in fact he's not. He suffers from severe AmnesiacDissonance.

* Rumplestiltskin in Series/OnceUponATime.
* In ''TokusouExceedraft'', Hayato is told that he is a spy for an evil syndicate who has his memories erased, and actually "regains" his memory with the help of a sinister machine. Subverted in that the memory is [[FakeMemories fake]].

* A minor but still valid example in 'Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix' is Snape bottling key memories in the pensieve to keep Harry from seeing them during Occlumency lessons, though this backfires. And though Dumbledore claims to use the pensieve to organize his thoughts and free up space in his head, he may have been misdirecting, with hiding dangerous memories being a greater motivation.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime episode "The Real You", Finn did it in using some magical glasses that make him smarter. He makes a bulleted list of what will happen for the rest of the episode, and the last few things happen after Princess Bubblegum takes off the glasses (which he also predicted).