Strip 7: Request Denied

I typically dislike "amnesia" as a plot point, but that's usually because writers don't really understand how amnesia works and they only use it to call in a free twist at the end. Memento does a fantastic job of providing a new take on memory loss (or it did, back when that movie was considered new), and I wanted to see what I could do with the cliche as well. For one thing, Dy-Gar is a robot, so the typical sources of amnesia - not to mention the term amnesia itself - don't actually apply to him. For another, he hasn't lost his memories so much as he's had them scrambled. The information is still there, but like a computer in desperate need of a defragging, it's mostly a useless jumble of data. Because of this, he still has enough information to retain his identity, which is something most amnesia sufferers in fiction lack, usually to aggravating results.

I like this dynamic, because it means I get to approach the amnesia story from the opposite direction. Dy-Gar thinks he knows who he is, and he thinks he understands what's happened to the world. He's had a thousand years to reconstruct his life in the wreckage of Maka based on fragments of memory, assumptions, and a little wishful thinking. He's had no one around to contradict him, aside from the Goddess. This will prove to be a recurring issue as his assumptions are challenged and his reconstructed life begins to fall apart. And once he discovers the reason for his memory loss, it may cause more problems than it solves. I should probably stop before I spoil the mystery any further. Yeah, that might be good.

- J.S. Conner

May 17th 2013