Basic Trope: A character has a really bad memory that shapes them in some way.
- Straight: Bob is a swordsman who accidentally killed his friend while messing around, and now focuses deeply on being careful and never acting reckless.
- Exaggerated: Bob was a former swordsman who killed all of his friends and family, burned down his hometown, and lost the respect of everyone around him, and now is in solitude, as well as quitting swordsmanship.
- Downplayed: Bob merely injured his friend with the sword. The friend survived, and even though Bob promises to be less reckless, he still is reckless occasionally.
- Justified: Bob feels guilty for what he did.
- Inverted: Bob is a swordsman who saved his friend and protected his town, causing him to get a resolve to keep up this image and be a great swordsman.
- Subverted: Even though Bob killed his friend, Bob isn't really affected.
- Double Subverted: However, it turns out that he was repressing the memory, and when the memory surfaces again, Bob is traumatized and he promises not to be reckless.
- Parodied: Bob promises not to be reckless and is traumatized… because he spilled ice cream on the ground as a kid.
- Zig-Zagged: ?
- Averted: Bob never kills or injures his friend.
- Enforced: The writer wants a reason as to why Bob focuses so much on being focused and is never distracted.
- Lampshaded: "Poor Bob… it must hurt having to remember that every day."
- Invoked: ?
- Exploited: Alice, a villain, decides to blackmail Bob into not doing things that would harm her by convincing him that if he did those things, he would be reckless.
- Defied: Bob's master spots him about to hurt his friend, and proceeds to stop him, telling him that he could have killed his friend and that he would always regret it if he did. Bob uses it as a learning experience, and now the memory hardly bothers him.
- Discussed: "Maybe we should leave Bob alone for now… he is having a PTSD attack from that one time he killed his own friend."
- Conversed: "What if something really traumatic happens to us on our adventures? It would really be painful, not just in that moment, but after that, remembering it over and over…"
- Deconstructed:
- The memory haunts Bob so much that he decides to commit suicide.
- Bob ends up having a mental breakdown because of the bad memory.
- Reconstructed: After the mental breakdown, he seeks treatment, and after some therapy, although the memory is still there and has an effect on him, it doesn't haunt him as much as it did then.
Reflect upon Your Worst Memory at the main page.
