Playing With / Aesop Amnesia

Basic Trope: A character learns a valuable life lesson ... then forgets it easily because Status Quo Is God.

• Straight: Bob learns that it's wrong to bully others. A couple of episodes later, he's back to bullying.
• Exaggerated: Alice learns that it's wrong to litter. In the very next scene, she's pouring paint down a storm drain.
• Downplayed:
  • Bob learns a lesson about bullying. He sticks with it a few episodes before eventually relapsing.
  • Bob has to learn the same lesson multiple times before it actually sticks.
• Justified:
  • Status Quo Is God
  • Ingrained bad habits are hard to break; it takes sustained effort to remember to do better.
  • Some sort of disorder (Short Term Memory Loss, for example).
  • Alice and Bob go out of their way to not learn lessons.
  • Bob got conked on the head after learning his lesson, literally causing him to have amnesia and forget the lesson.
  • The amnesia asserts itself after timeline changes meant Alice and Bob would have never learned it in the first place!
  • Memories fade over time.
  • The character is in the process of undergoing a Face–Heel Turn.
  • Bob chooses to forget because he enjoys bullying people too much to willingly stop.
• Inverted:
  • Alice and Bob remember every Aesop forever, and even when they break them, acknowledge that they shouldn't or explain why they need to do so now.
  • Bob, a bully, and Alice, a careless litterer, suddenly become more considerate and remain that way for the rest of the series without any explanation.
• Subverted: Bob remembers not to bully others (in a series where this is not normally the case).
• Double Subverted: But it's a setup for a We Want Our Jerk Back! episode, with even his former victims asking him to return to bully behavior.
• Parodied: Alice and Bob's inability to retain information extends to all other forms of learning. Which is why after eight seasons they're still in fourth grade. Miss Aesop, their teacher, has taken to drink.
• Zig-Zagged:
  • Alice and Bob remember some Aesops, forget some Aesops, and outright reject a few.
  • Bob sticks with the Aesop in the next few episodes, goes back to bullying again for several episodes, and sticks with the aesop for a another few episodes.
• Averted: Characters in the series learn life lessons normally, without having to have them spelled out. Character development happens in a realistic fashion and at a plausible pace.
• Enforced: "Bullying is Bob's one defining character trait. We can't have him lose it; besides, Viewers Are Goldfish, they won't notice that we've used this life lesson before."
• Lampshaded: "No matter how many times Alice learns that littering is wrong, she still does it. You think there's maybe something wrong with her?"
• Invoked: "Dammit, us litter pickers need to get Alice back into littering before we're out of a job! Get some chloroform."
• Exploited: Alice and Bob's littering and bullying play right into the villain's evil plan. Then the villain gives them a few days to forget learning their lesson and reuses the plan.
• Defied: Alice keeps a checklist of things she's learned and consults it frequently to help correct her bad habits.
• Discussed:
  Bob: Aw, all right, you have a point; bullying is bad.
  Carol: You better not forget that tomorrow!
  Bob: Hey, what do you think I am, a TV character?
• Conversed: "I'm smarter than Alice on Generic Sitcom, 'cause I remember not to litter!"
• Implied: In the background, Bob and Alice are being dressed down for some infraction even though they've supposedly just learned not to perform their respective socially unacceptable behaviours.
• Deconstructed:
  • Bob never learns his lesson about bullying because just repeating that it's wrong doesn't change his personality flaws. He eventually goes to prison for assault and battery.
  • Bob never learns his lesson, and his former friends eventually give up on him for a crippling failure to learn his lesson.
  • Bob's failure to learn his lesson means he gets no Character Development and doesn't Take a Level in Badass or develop any survival skills like the rest of the cast. Thus, he dies pointlessly when he picks a fight with an organism stronger than himself.
  • Bob is aware that he was told an important Aesop at some point but despite his best efforts he fails to remember the Aesop when it is applicable. When he does try to remember the correct Aesop, he misremembers it which leads to the whole thing backfiring.
• Reconstructed:
  • Bob rehabilitates in prison.
    • Alternatively: Bob still suffers aesop amnesia in prison.
  • Bob finally remembers the Aesop after some time to reflect even though the time to have used the Aesop has passed.
• Played for Laughs: Bob learns a valuable lesson after doing something that almost had apocalyptic consequences ... daily, completely forgetting all past lessons each day.
• Played for Drama: Alice keeps littering even after she's carelessly disposed of large and/or dangerous things and materials, which cause people to die.
• Played For Horror: Alice's actions trigger a Disaster Dominoes that get many people killed, both as direct collateral damage, as a result of the actions of the people coming for Alice's blood, and as a result of Alice being so militant about not wanting to learn her lesson that she kills anybody who tries to talk to her about it.

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And so we've learned ... learned ... I'm sure it was a very valuable lesson about life. Now, back to Aesop Amnesia!

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