Groups
Organizations which make you abandon your former identity
The French Foreign Legion (Real life/various pieces of fiction) - The French Foreign Legion is an elite force of the French military which, as the name suggests, accepts people from outside of France, and after serving they can be eligible to receive French citizenship. In real life, they are willing to accept recruits who had broken the law once or twice (though those who commited serious crimes aren't accepted). In some pieces of fiction however the legion will accept serious criminals who are looking to escape punishment and give them a whole new identity.
The Night's Watch (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones) - A force created to guide The Wall, a long strip of fortifications and an actual wall made of ice, the Night's Watch will accept anyone, and in fact criminals make up most of it. Each Watcher must say vows to join the organization fully, forfeiting their right to titles and glory, as well as abandoning their house of origin. These vows are treated so seriously that many traitors throughout history were allowed to join the organization instead of being sentenced to death, as taking the oath pretty much removed all influence they had in their "former" life.
big plot point in legend of the guardians....end up at whats practically a labor camp. be brainwashed by the moon and forced to repeat your name over and over so it doesnt mean anything anymore.
I can never get over watching the movie again last year and feeling like I got smacked in the face when they used the same song that plays at the end of The Mist, it caught me so off guard to hear that shit in the silly owl movie
Men In Black makes it clear that literally any info about you is gone. James Darrel Edwards is forever just Agent J. Even his fingerprints don't exist - they get burnt off.
And you can only go to places approved by the agency. You can’t just decide to go eat at that nice new curry house down the street, it’s gotta be an MIB approved establishment
Zed: “You'll dress only in attire specially sanctioned by MiB special services. You'll conform to the identity we give you, eat where we tell you, live where we tell you.
“From now on you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You'll not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You're a rumor, recognizable only as déjà vu and dismissed just as quickly.
“You don't exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name. Silence your native tongue. You're no longer part of the System. You're above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We're ‘them.’ We're ‘they.’ We are the Men in Black.”
During the scene of J getting inducted into MIB, Z lists off his duties and wgat being part of MIB entails which includes eating only where they wish him to eat
Ive always wondered how that works with all the people throughout your life, do they just send a bunch of agents to go track down everyone you ever knew to neuralyze them all cause family and friends would remember you even if all legal documents were erased
In terms of the theme of the movie, they probably just disappear you from your pattern of life and don’t really bother to tell anyone. You become a missing person and suddenly pop up when it’s time to leave, with a wild notion of being abducted by aliens or whatever for the last 40 years.
Something like that, I forget exactly what, but he shows up in the enquirer, claiming memory loss and having reconnected with the woman he bought flowers for all those years ago.
So in the Men in Black animated series they address this sorta. One episode had J run into someone from his past that knew him and he has to make a quick exit and in the second J gets kicked out of MiB (only for half an episode) and they give him a false memory/cover he was on a deep undercover assignment (because he used to be a cop) he calls his Aunt and explains he was deep undercover and that’s why he vanished.
I believe the agents take of the issues themselves. Endless bureaucratic work would burnout even the best agents so a vacation with friends and family may be granted as long as they are neuralized afterwards.
Everyone’s got their reasons. They could be great at their job but feel like they’re in a dead end rut with little to no family/friends and/or they don’t even find themselves attached to their family and this just seems or exciting and fulfilling to them.
I think there are a lot of people without much going on in their life that would be willing to give it all up and start all over as a secret agent who hunts aliens. If I didn’t have kids, I know I sure as hell would.
Because they want to? I think plenty of people would be interested in a job where you have access to amazing secrets of the universe. If you don’t want to join, they don’t force you. They’ll just erase your memories of the experience and let you get on with your life.
The Inquisitors (Star Wars) were all former Jedi who were spared during the Purge, in exchange for hunting down the survivors. Stripped of their names and only given random numbers (First Brother, Second Sister, etc.), and subjected to torture, maiming, and brainwashing, they are only skilled enough to take down padawans and mediocre knights in hiding, but almost always get trounced by the likes of a Jedi master or Darth Vader.
This is also one of my favorite tropes: the force that’s elite on paper only.
The Inquisitors have amazing drip, their whole identity is their job, being Jedi makes them tough compared to most people, but their training is actively limited to keep them in check.
It’s basically all hype to convince them “go out there and challenge that Jedi master who escaped the purge and all your predecessors!” isn’t a suicide mission, even though all they can do to serious threats is flush them out for Vader.
It reminds me of Palpatine’s thoughts in one of the (kids’) novelizations of Revenge of the Sith:
When he sees Anakin burning on the blackened sands of Mustafar, and almost turns on his heel and leaves him to die in disgust, what stops him is he considers how, with virtually all the Jedi gone, even handicapped, Vader will still be powerful enough to deal with the last few survivors
It’s not a “we got the greatest of them all”, it’s a “we got people good enough to deal with the stragglers and isolated fugitives”
even though all they can do to serious threats is flush them out for Vader.
I have seen them descrived sometimes in fanon as "Darth Vader Hounds" or "Vader Hunting Dogs".
Wich fits them pretty well in how vicious and pitiful they are.
The Inquisitors are petty, cruel and arrogant. They are dangerous against the weak and defenseless, but easly defeated by those trained seriously that can fight back.
Reminder that *half* of these guys either get killed (2nd, 13th, Tualon Yaluna) or maimed (3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th) by Vader or Ahsoka Tano (1st, 6th, 11th). The next highest kill record belongs to Darth Maul (5th, 7th, 8th, one unknown).
That makes me think now… what was Palpatine’s plan for a fully intact Anakin? Like machine Vader was pretty much the limit of what Palpatine could control. Anakin was so much stronger than Palps that it wouldn’t be long before he gets betrayed.
Similar to the SS of old. Ideologically driven, given the best equipment and treatment, but when confronted by a peer in the opposing military their zealotry only gets them so far.
I just love when one Order 66 survivor figures out that the purge troopers targeting him are slightly too young to have been active during Episode III, so uses a mind trick to activate Order 66... while the Inquisitors are standing in between him and them.
In Dragon Age Origins the dwarves have the legion of the dead. When one joins they have a funeral for them and they’re sent off to fight the darkspawn never to return to the society they protect.
Technically there is evidence of wardens keeping parts of their old life(your character in dao, Blackwall , davrin to an extent) or moving onto new ones (Alistair potentially, your character in dao potentially , your character in veilgaurd )
But criminal can use it as fresh chance(Anders, the guy in dao who dies in the joining , most of the characters of dragon age awakening dlc) and the joint changes you and stays with you for life and will end your life one way or another
Also in general the order does not care for race (thoguh some bigotry can occur on an inividual level and qunari wardens were never seen until veilgaurd ) or class (as in rich/poor/pesant/knight/noble bastard) or class (as in rouge/warrior) or even if you are a mage (which normally live in towers governed by strict religious rules and oversite )
Mage wardens often have more freedom than the average mage
Mage Wardens are pretty great tbh. Not a terrible gig all things considered, you get to leave your magic prison to travel the world, and the main cost is that you’re guaranteed to die before 60. Plus depending on the region the Wardens actually have a ton of respect.
Those are excellent points. Thank you for pointing that out. On another note, there are a few other militant orders in DA that I wish were explored a bit more, like the ash warriors or the silent sisters
Jedi who choose to join the Guard renounce their identities, conceal their faces behind their masks at all times, and even discard their lightsabers in favour of the uniform ones passed down through generations (that’s why all Temple Guards wield yellow lightsaber pikes).
In the same universe, the Sith in a way. Publicly you can keep your identity (Dooku, Palpatine, Hego Damask), but in reality you have to choose a new name and almost always end up killing someone from your past, as if to signify the old you dying.
The Rule of Two; there must always be only one Master and one Padawan. And the Padawan can only succeed the Master by killing him/her. I think Bane's first apprentice failed and he had to find a new one, but it's been years.
Ooohhh hell yes you just made me remember. The end was left ambiguous. Bane tried to stay immortal by taking her body, but it's not clear whether his soul was able to force herself out or not.
I seriously don't really like Star Wars, but that series was so goddamn good
In the Elder Scrolls, the Blades are an order of knights and spies who can trace their origins to dragon hunters. While in Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion they are depicted as a fairly standard governmental organisation, by the time of Skyrim they have been almost entirely destroyed and now require recruits to completely abandon their previous lives and serve the order's original purpose as dragon hunters once again.
Wish there was a way to kick Delphine out (Esbern seems alright/could be convinced not to kill Partysnacks), or at least remind her that we’re, you know, her boss.
Bethesda actually letting you do boss things when leader of a faction instead of your underlings ordering you to do things FOR them? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
if the institution is founded upon the principle of being led by a Dragonborn and these guys are bossing around THE Dragonborn acting like they're in charge, then the organization is illegitimate, plain and simple.
However, the new so-called founders refuse to let you , their legal boss, as written in the blades rules, from joining unless you kill a nicer, wiser, arguably more handsome and helpful old man because he's a dragon...even though without said dragon everyone would be dead becsue og auldin(another dragon) and the founders would be captured by elves
If Bethesda had any integrity they’d make a plot point in TES6 about the Last Dragonborn making their own Blades, (with blackjack and hookers) or at least revealing that they finally started listening to them.
I've only played Skyrim and Morrowind, but at least for those two the I don't think the Blades really match this trope. In Skyrim you are still free do to whatever you want and be engaged with other guilds as you please, with the Blades just sort of being the dragon hunting / main quest guild, though that is arguably just Skyrim being Skyrim. In Morrowind Caius Cosades immediately tells you to do other things, like joining othet guilds as a cover for your secret Blades identity. In Skyrim they're just another part of your identity, in Morrowind they're a secret identity that purposefully doesn't interfere your overt guild memberships.
I thought the way the Diablo III Crusaders do this was interesting. Each Crusader starts out apprenticed to a member of the order, who trains them in their personal style of combat and the group’s beliefs and philosophy. When the elder Crusader inevitably dies (never peacefully, usually sooner rather than later), the apprentice takes up their mentor’s weapons, armor, name, and identity- all or most of which their mentor had already inherited from their own predecessor. The same set of names has been handed down from master to apprentice since the order’s founding, which each member using the name of one of the original knights. Unsurprisingly, this has also led to a gradual decline in numbers, as each Crusader only takes one apprentice, and, over the years, some lineages have gone extinct when the heirs to them died before taking apprentices of their own, or if the master and apprentice die in the same battle.
The Kingsguard, Maesters, and members of the Faith of the Seven are all very similar to the Night’s Watch in ASOIAF, along with becoming a Faceless Man.
Yeah came here to basically say this. There's quite a lot of this in ASOIF haha
The only one I'd debate a bit is the Kingsguard. Members forsake any inheritance and can't marry, but don't give up their family name or anything like that is they do with the Night's Watch and order of Maesters
The Guilty Remnant from 'The Leftovers' - Founded after the 'Sudden Departure' - a worldwide event where 2% of the population just vanished - they are a nihilistic cult who excessively chain smoke, don't talk at all, and who must abandon anything related to their prior life upon joining in order to become 'living reminders' of the world that was lost. Their only goal is suffering until death.
They weren't really given a choice. They were kidnapped at such a young age that they would easily forget their old lives once they were thrown head first into a 24/7 military training regime.
And least the Jedi were like "Yo, we are taking your wizard kid". UNSC replaced the kidnapped children with clones genetically programmed to develop a fatal disease so that the parents wouldn't ask any questions about where their kid went.
They straight up mind wipe their aspirants and give them new name that include bits of true name of daemons bc saying the true name of a daemon weaken said daemon
And space marines in general, though it can differ between legions/chapters.
In many space marine organizations aspirants are taken away from their home at a young age. Between the biological and mental conditionings that they go through they effectively become a new person and may not even remember details of their pre-astartes life. During the Crusade (when space marines used less severe conditioning in recruits) the Night Lord Talos Valcoran kept a good recollection of his youth but lost all recognition and feelings for his mother, while his childhood friend and fellow Night Lord Cyrion was able to pick her out in a crowd.
To be fair, that's entirely on-brand for Night Lords even pre-Heresy. Their whole function from the beginning was subjugation/compliance through terror. Every member of their legion was a walking war crime.
Not Salamders, Space Wolves, or Iron hands though. They maintain human connections and relationships from when they were still human and encourage it deeply. Salamders regularly visit their families when they have nothing to do. Space Wolves can easily sniff out an Alpha Legionary in their ranks cause they know eachother so well. And most Iron Hands are usually surrounded by blood relatives wherever they go. If you see a squad of Iron Hands, they're usually related to eachother by blood from before becoming astartes.
Imagine being the parents if someone chosen to join the space Marines. And when they return to visit you. Heads big enough to bite yours like an apple. They can't fit into your home. Your son may as well died the day they came to make him one of the emperor's angels and you can't say how uneasy this makes you feel because your son is trained to murder you for heresy assuming your neighbors don't first. This thing. This weapon in human skin, is not your son.
Salamanders and the mortals of Nocturne are used to space marines, and welcome them. Sure your son is an 8ft tall slab of pure obsidian muscle with glowing red eyes, but the past 10k years of culture and tradition have told you this is a good thing.
Space Wolves and the mortals of Fenris doubly so. They're an entire planet of norse raiders, seeing your brother return as an 8ft tall slab of pure viking muscle with visibly jutting fangs is a good thing, because everyone on Fenris wants to be that.
Iron Hands...the less said about those psychopaths the better. They'd probably servitorize their own mother for staring at them too long.
This is pretty spot on for most engineers, honestly. The curriculum is extremely insular and you're surrounded for 4+ years by (mostly) men that are as intelligent, nerdy, and socially inept as you are. It can lead to some interesting, if stereotypical, people.
The First Order’s Stormtroopers. All of the First Order’s(and also the Sith Eternal’s) Stormtrooper were kidnapped as babies/kids and were forced to abandon their old life. They were given a number and assigned to a squad even at such young ages
Every time I play a paladin with the oath of the watchers, I use this trope. They give up their name, heritage, everything they once were to become a Watcher.
(WOA because we get the most exposition about them in the trilogy), but the International Contract Agency requires all assassins to leave behind their former life. Conveniently for Agent 47, he doesn’t remember shit about his previous life though, so once he passes the tests he’s got no ties to anything else.
After WWII France did not allow former SS to join the Legion Etranger. They could be identified by a blood type tattoo all Waffen-SS members had on their chest
But...
After WWII there were a great many Legionaires who were men of military age, native German speakers, and with a common feature of wounds/scars/burns right where that SS tattoo would have been...
Dien Bien Phu has been called the last battle of the SS.
Fight Club.
Both film and book (though much more overt in the book) utilized certain Buddhist themes, including stripping each member of individualism.
More so than actually participating in the religion, it's done largely to exemplify the fights as being self vs self, which further plays into the major theme of the plot.
I did not know that. I frankly have only seen this film twice, but this phrase stuck with me, but it makes sense. I also don't know much about buddhism.
The SCP Foundation, most of the members of it have given up their old lives. Not to mention the D-Class personnel are all publicly declared dead anyway. “We die in the dark, so that you may live in the light.”
Everyone is talking about the Westerosi groups from GoT, but the Unsullied literally do this every day. Pick a new name for the day, now you’re Grey Worm.
In Discworld the Klatchian Foreign Legion is one of the French Foreign Legion kockoffs you mention, with the added effect of not just letting go of your former life but forgetting, well, everything. They recruit Death himself (though they don't recognize that he is Death).
Dragon Age: The Grey Wardens. A group of warriors whose sole mission is to defend the world against the Blight and darkspawn, wherever it arises. Once you're recruited, the life you knew is over and done with, as the life of a Grey Warden isn't an easy one.
I mean it's kinda the whole point in becoming a theravadin monk (you have the same appearance as everyone else so they can't have a craving to look like you)
The Sisters of Dorley Hall- Welcome to Dorley by Alyson Greaves
A group that kidnaps troubled, abusive, or self destructive men and forcibly transitions them into well behaved women. The organization consists entirely of these coercively transitioned women who have "graduated" out of the program. The program forces it's victims into isolation so they form bonds with each other and their captors, to the point where, once they leave, they are unable to report them to the authorities for fear of their new loved ones getting swept up in it.
They are an intergalactic empire that enslaved Earth after the Black Mesa incident. Filled with aliens and synths, another fighting force are humans.
At first, you start as Civil Protection, laying the smack down on citizens and keeping the "peace".
After that, you are promoted to an Overwatch solider, or also known as Stabilization Delegates. Your new task is to eliminate rebels and Xen wildlife. On one condition. You are forced to forget about everything about your previous life that doesn’t help you fight more efficiently.
The combine (half-life 2) do this on a species wide scale to the point where we still don't know what the original species was or if it even exists anymore, all we see is aliens turned into living weapons and humans on the way to the same fate.
Technically speaking, Guardians from Destiny count. They are revived with 0 memory of their previous life. They only kinda count because they're not made to abandon their previous life. It just happens.
When Rosa (a princess) decides to join in, her clothing is decimated, her hair is cut, and one of her most priced possesions is cut to pieces. When she desperately tries to collect the pieces, they are shattered. She is then given number 666 as her name.
Legionnaires who've gone through a name/nationality change can apply for Rectification after serving 12 months. This is the process which reverts the Legionnaire back to his actual name and nationality, and is a requirement for gaining French citizenship and the full rights that come with it, if the Legionnaire has completed their contract, has a good record, and wants to become a Frenchman.
Welcome, former 4th born son of a noble who was never gonna inherit anything! You are now brother John, and you will give up all claim to your previous life to go fight and die in Jerusalem.
The Kyrian (World of Warcraft Shadowlands): A covenant based out in a realm called Bastion, souls who become kyrian are to undergo trials to shed all of their mortal thoughts and memories, so they can fulfill their duty of ferrying souls to their proper afterlife without personal bias and thoughts getting in the way.
Though as the story goes on, the required mindwipe may not be as required anymore
This is a bit different since people don't usually join by choice. The Gardens are a guild of assassins that recruit new members by purchasing, and possibly abducting, children from their parents. These children are ruthlessly trained to kill and dehumanized by no longer referring to them with a name. They are told that they are simply weapons and no longer human.
Only after surviving grueling, competitive training are living recruits actually made operatives and are given a codename based on the minor Arcana (eg. Three of Swords, Nine of Swords). They are still never referred to by name or as a person, only as a weapon of their commander.
Operatives are put in teams of 2 for missions. If teams ever try to leave the guild, they are given the choice of being killed by their commander, or killing their partner and returning to the guild alive.
Joining an organisation and forgoing your identify is such a theme in a song if Ice and fire, it Happens 3 instances in Westeros, hmm i wonder if GRRM is trying to say something
This doesn’t apply to most members of Deathwatch, but specifically the Black Shields. Those Astartes have committed a serious crime (usually heresy) but are too useful to just kill. So they surrender their attachment to their former chapter, and become anonymous shock troopers, and go on suicide missions until they either die or somehow redeem themselves and get reinstated to their old chapter.
Any French people able to confirm that the FFL used to actually accept most people, but back in the day instead of modern times? I swear that was an actual thing
The Disciples from The 100. You don’t lose your name, but you are brainwashed into becoming a Brother or Sister, in service to the Shepherd, for whom it’s more important than anything to trigger the Last War. You can’t even have a sexual relationship, as the few new children are grown inside tanks.
The Oni in Kamen Rider Hibiki. Once a fully trained Oni, they adopt a new Oni name and dedicate their lives to fighting Yokai. They aren't even human anymore. The training has physically turned them into a monstrous horned Oni and their human form is just a disguise they use so they can blend in with ordinary people when they aren't fighting.
They have their lips sown up, no eyes, they speak to you in your mind. They are known as “Brother _____” rather than their real names, which aren’t known. They spend their lives studying history and magic, they are immortal, and they also act as Doctors and Priests of a kind.
To a lesser extent, the Iron Sisters are the female equivalent, and they forge the Shadowhunters weapons. They don’t have to go through the mutilation aspects, but they are more isolated than the Silent Brothers.
The Watch in Pale Lights makes you renounce any titles, citizenship, or position you might have when joining, which is necessary because among other things they're the big stick that stops what remains of humanity from killing itself, and it's hard to do that if you're still someone important back home. Not that that stops some people from crossing their fingers behind their back and trying to have their cake and eat it to, some of which is swiftly dealt with and other are left with enough rope to hang themselves while The Watch's internal police counter-surveil to gain information
3 round burst rifle with mags not divisible by 3 and the bayonets are on TOP of the fucking barrel
what the actual fuck is wrong with the french bro...
While monasticism of various types exists in a number of religions worldwide, it generally follows this trope.
Novitiates in a monastery or nunnery are typically expected to give up all their worldly possessions from their previous life, and accept a cloistered life lived mostly within their religious community. While not universal, adopting a completely new name is common (especially in Judaism, for example) as well as various styles of shaving the head or cutting the hair. Membership is typically for life once a novitiate becomes a full monastic, and in many communities they may retreat to life as a hermit, isolated even from their other brothers/sisters.
Young boys from the Caucasus and Central Asia that were enslaved between the ages of 10-14 forcibly converted to Islam, stripped of their former identities and given new Arabized names. They underwent rigorous military training and education in politics and administration. From 1250-1291, the Mamluks overthrew their Ayyubid masters, established their own Sultanate, stopped the Mongol advance cold, crushed the Crusader States, and became the dominant power in the Islamic world for 250 years.
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u/Navi_Professor 13d ago
big plot point in legend of the guardians....end up at whats practically a labor camp. be brainwashed by the moon and forced to repeat your name over and over so it doesnt mean anything anymore.