The Heroes Forget in The Dark is Rising Series: How Tedious

One common variation on the "it was all a dream" trope is when the protagonists forget the fantasy/dangerous world they inhabited. The Narnia books sort of do this (but not entirely). The children revert to childhood and are not sure what they experienced. However, by the final book, if they choose to remember Narnia, they do. (As has been stated elsewhere, there is no reason to suppose that Susan won't come back to remembering Narnia.) 

In my fantasy Olympus series, gods and humans who leave Olympus forget--but only in their short-term memory. Their habits and skills remain. They are still drawn to Olympian matters. And they retain a kind of memory of the place in their dreams. 

However, if I ever figure out a way not to do the above (without taking the books off-topic), I will drop the idea.  

Because the forgetting trope in fantasy fiction strikes me as rather pointless. 

I read The Dark is Rising and Over Sea, Under Stone when I was growing up. I recently finished the remaining books in the series.And I was somewhat disappointed. 

*Spoilers* 

Unlike the Narnia books and my Olympus series, the fantasy action of The Dark is Rising takes place in our world. It slides back and forth between other planes of existences and other times. Otherwise, the action is based in the world of Will, the last of the Old Ones. 

He has helpers. But at the end, everyone else leaves or forgets. 

On the one hand, though I didn't find the last two books all that interesting, they are beautifully written with haunting scenes full of mythical motifs. The individual hero left alone to carry the burden of knowledge is in line with those motifs. 

On the other...I think human beings are fully capable of adjusting to new information. In truth, I don't bother to have people remember in my Olympus series because most of the action takes place on Olympus (the main characters all retain their acquired knowledge). And, too, I wanted citizens and gods to pay some price for leaving. 

However, I have Alima from His in Herland (related world) remember because, again, I think human beings are surprisingly, alarmingly, ready to adapt. Take AI: once something supposedly Terminator-like arrived, people simply shrugged and started new businesses. 

Barney and a bad guy

I suppose an "okay, we had a grand adventure--let's have a reunion!" reaction would be too prosaic for a grand saga (though C.S. Lewis pulled it off). But the "we are having you forget for your own good, so you will have no regrets" explanation is incredibly condescending, especially when aimed at main characters. And I don't buy it. 

I wrote a short story years ago ("Untainted") in which a character who chose to forget a particular event digs it back up again out of sheer (to borrow from the Brits) bloody-mindedness. 

In my fan-fiction for The Dark is Rising, I have Barney, the most insouciant of the characters, figure out who Will must have been. He tracks him down to become his boon companion because, hey, the guy needs someone!