Quotes / Laser-Guided Amnesia

"... though details remain sketchy due to amnesia inflicted on the hostages, apparently via some sort of hypnosis."

— Epilogue-giving reporter, The Batman vs. Dracula

"What happened?"

— Just about every single important character, Smallville, Once per Episode

K: This is called a "neuralyzer". It's a gift from some friends from out of town. The red eye here will isolate the electronic impulses in your brain. More specifically, the ones for memory. [to other MIB agents] That's good, fellas, give me a splay burn around the perimeter with holes on the perimeter, please; holes at 40, 60, and 80 meters. Right here! That's good. Thank you!
INS Agent #2: What the hell is going on?
K: Excellent question, and the answer you're looking for lies right here.
INS Agent Janus: Who are you? Really?
K: Really? [puts on sunglasses] I am just a figment of your imagination.
[activates the neuralyzer]
K: [to self] Damn, what a gullible breed...

— Men in Black

K: Searching for a handle on the moment? I can't help you. The only comfort I can offer... is my promise that tomorrow morning you won't remember a thing.
James (the future J): That's not exactly some shit you just forget...
K: Ever seen one of those? [cue literal Laser-Guided Amnesia]

— Men in Black

"Wait a minute. You just flash that thing, it erases her memory, and you just make up a new one?"

—Agent J, Men in Black

"I've lost my memory, I'm not an idiot."

— Peter, Heroes

"I may have amnesia, but I'm not stupid!"

— Jackie Chan, Who Am I? (1998)

"There are no amnesias that work conveniently like that!"

— Yuuichi, Kanon (Chiho Saito)

"You don’t remember anyone or anything, except when you do, of course. You can’t operate the TARDIS any more, except when you can. You don’t know what happens in the future, except when you do. Drop the act, it got old years ago."

— Fitz Kreiner, Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures

Burns: Smithers, use the Amnesia Ray!
Smithers: You mean the revolver, sir?
Burns: Yes, that's the one.

— The Simpsons, "Lisa the Skeptic"

"Please tell me the amnesia was just a sick joke? Boy, this is some cliche."

— Braig to Xehanort, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

"I never built an Amnesia-Inator! I think I'd remember building something like that."

— Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension

Joel: But couldn't this cause brain damage?
Doctor: Well, technically, the procedure is brain damage.

— Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Serena: You forgot me? AGAIN? Do you have some sort of memory problem?''
Darian: Well, yeah.

— Sailor Moon Abridged

How to Use: XXII
The individuals who lose the ownership of the Death Note will also lose their memory of the usage of the Death Note. This does not mean that he will lose all the memory from the day he owned it to the day he loses possession, but means he will only lose the memory involving the Death Note.

— Death Note

"Something must have happened to us in the stasis pods, right? Except it couldn't be a total mind-wipe. If it were we wouldn't know what a pod was, or what space was, even the concept of language itself would be totally alien to us."

— One, Dark Matter (2015)

"Yes, that's part of the same damn debriefing I keep hearing. Incidentally, isn't there some way to give me laser guided amnesia instead of just wiping out the past three months when we're done here?"

— Shinji, Thousand Shinji

"It's a very specific sort of amnesia where you forget Jesus but intimately recall Halloween catalogs."

— Alt Text on this The Non-Adventures of Wonderella comic

Crichton: Don't get too comfortable. I'm gonna get that chip out of my head.
Harvey: There's no chip in your head, John.
Crichton: Yeah there is. You... told... me... [struggling to articulate] there's a um.... Mmmmmm...
Harvey: You were saying?
Crichton: [barely coherent] Mmmmmmental chip! Mmm...
Harvey: You were saying?
Crichton: ...What am I saying? I'm...
Harvey: As it should be.

— Farscape, "Won't Get Fooled Again"

Marluxia: Hello.
Donald: Quack! (Special Move: Super Mega Ultra Donald Thunder Blast; it fails)
Marluxia: You idiot poop face. In this castle, you forget stuff really quickly. Also, you can only attack with your cards.
Sora: Come forth, Blue-Eyes White Dragon!
Marluxia: You stinky. That is not how it works.
Sora: Understood. Come forth, Blue-Eyes White Dr—
Marluxia: Please stop deleting his memories of what I said.
Naminé: Sorry about that.
Sora: At least I will never forget about Karrie (Kairi).
5 seconds later
Sora: Who the hell is Karrie? I only care about Naminé.

— Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories in a nutshell

I thought I knew what you wanted done. A former lover, a political rival, an inconvenience on the way up; the client has the clout to make someone disappear for a day and return as though nothing as changed, except it has. A habit of reverse-alphabetizing personal correspondence, a preference for Kir Jaengmi's poetry over An Puna's, a subversive fascination with foreign politics, excised or altered by my work. Sometimes only a favorite catchphrase or a preference for ginseng over green tea is changed, and the reprogramming serves as a warning once the patient encounters dissonance from family and acquaintances. Sometimes the person who returns is no longer recognizable. The setup can take months, depending on the compatibility of available data with preset models, but the reprogramming itself only takes hours.

— Between Two Dragons, by Yoon Ha Lee

Judy: You're the guy with the paper man.
Chester: Paper gnome. The guy with the paper gnome.
Judy: I'd forgotten all about that. How could that happen?
Chester: It's the haze. Most human minds cannot process magic into their conscious long-term memory. It has to do with a nerve cluster at the base of the—
Monster: It doesn't really matter. There's no point explaining it because you'll just forget it all once we're gone.

— Monster

Peridot: [looks at Spinel's rejuvenator] Whoa, was there, like, a laser or...?
Bismuth: [takes it from her] Be careful with that! It's a rejuvenator! Homeworld used to use these things on Gems that started stepping out of line. One hit with this... you're back to how they made you.
Peridot: Oh my stars, I touched it! I could've lost all my character development!

— Steven Universe: The Movie

Kari: I just wish I could forget the whole thing.
Agent Dicker: You will, kid. You will.

— Jack-Jack Attack

Strange: The runes of Cafkal.
Peter: The runes of Cafkal?
Strange: Oh, it's just a standard spell of forgetting. Won't turn back time, but at least people will forget that you were ever Spider-Man.

— Spider-Man: No Way Home

"I recommend we remove all magic, even memories of magic, to be safe. But don't worry, I'll leave the fun."

— Grand Pabbie, Frozen (2013)

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