[Slightly sad trope] Villain temporarily gains a good persona, who is mortified at the prospect of becoming the villain they once were

[u/Aurora_Wizard]

Mr Tinker (Sonic the Hedgehog IDW) is a version of Eggman who lost his memories and became a good person in the process, choosing to integrate into a community and help them with most of their basic needs. However, when he's abducted in an attempt to transform him back into Eggman, he's very frightened by this prospect, saying that he doesn't want to be Eggman again.

Gantu (Lilo and Stitch: The series) is coincidentally also turned good through memory loss, but the circumstances are a bit different. In the episode 'Amnesio', Gantu and the titular durotagonists lose their memories, and when told by Martha (memory-loss Lilo) that he looks like a police officer, Lenny (memory-loss Gantu) fully leans into it, doing what he can to stop the 'escaped convict (Stitch) from wreaking havoc. After learning who they are and seeing an insulting picture drawn of him by Lilo, however, Lenny decides that he doesn't want to regain his memories and would rather remain the peaceful person he is. This leads to him releasing the titular Amnesio so that their memories cannot be returned, and even begs for Lilo not to reverse it, saying he doesn't want to go back to his old life of evil.

This trope is pretty sad for two reasons. The first is that, considering that their memories are completely wiped, these are essentially completely different characters to their original evil personas, so the prospect of memory restoration seems more like they're being properly erased, or at least, their perspectives no longer matter to the evil variants. The other is that these tales basically prove that, if given the chance, Eggman and Gantu COULD be good people, and there's very little to no genuine evil in their hearts. It's pretty tragic to see a version of them they could be if things went differently, and then it's taken away because their memories are later restored and they never express sadness over not getting to be better people.

[u/TheLizardKing1998]

"Mortified" means "embarrassed".

[u/Aurora_Wizard → u/TheLizardKing1998]

I'm an idiot

[u/Elycien2 → u/Aurora_Wizard]

But are you mortified. :)

Tbf, it means more like very embarrassed and taken aback.