History WMG / Memento

* Although whether the story is real, [[spoiler:a substitute for Leonard's own story]], or something else, as long as he worked on a case related to short term memory loss, he would have been given some knowledge of the condition, and a reason to think to himself (even just as random thoughts) about how someone might handle it.

[[WMG: Leonard's cycle of killing is over, after the killing of Teddy.]]

** An interesting idea, but ultimately it wouldn't really add up. It's heavily hinted at that the Sammy Jankis story is just Leonard's own story, therefore Leonard killed his own wife accidentally. Shown even more with the final explanation from Teddy, who says that it was Leonard's wife who had diabetes and that Sammy didn't have a wife (implied visually with the flashback to Leonard injecting his wife's leg and that brief moment where we see Leonard in Sammy's place in that mental institution). Also it would be hard to justify why Leonard chooses to put himself in this false revenge cycle if his wife is still alive, even with his condition.

[[WMG: Sammy WASN'T faking his memory condition.]]

[[WMG: Leonard's Polaroids and tattoo system was developed during the Sammy Jankis case.]]

[[WMG: Leonard's memory problem is psychological, not neurological, and started after the trauma of his wife's rape.]]

[[WMG: Leonard is mostly "with it", and deluded himself in the climax because he knew it would be best to kill Teddy]]
Teddy is a crooked cop \ serial killer who is using Leonard to kill criminals. Most of Lenny's clues (including tattoos) were fed to him by Teddy (for example, over the phone Teddy pointed out evidence that John G is a drug dealer). Teddy will sometimes call Lenny and tell him "because of [convincing argument], this page is irrelevant now, so throw it out" when the next guy he wants killed doesn't fit with it (hence the missing pages). When Leonard killed Jimmy G, it didn't feel right to him. Through instinct, he either knew the guy wasn't John G, or through instinct he suspected that Teddy has been using him (this would be like if Jankis stopped grabbing the object that shocks him).

Lenny understands "I'm no killer", and he knows he wouldn't want to serial kill people for some strange form of vengeance ("you think I just want another puzzle to solve"). He concludes that Teddy is a crooked cop who has using him to kill criminals since his accident (might be the cop that was sent to investigate the accident in the first place). Knowing this, he has two options. One is to leave a note for himself explaining that Teddy is a serial killer; problem there is he would have a very hard time convincing people of this with his condition, plus, being a crooked cop, Teddy would easily get him killed or have him put away for his murders. Two is to burn the picture of him killing Jimmy G, give himself a clue that Teddy (conveniently a John G) is the killer. He feels it's best for Teddy to die (for his own survival, and to prevent further killings), and knows he'll never be able to pull the trigger unless motivated by this. There may be some holes in this [=WMG=] (Did Teddy feed the name John G? If so, was he that keen to kill drug dealing John Gs that he doesn't worry that he has the same name?! He probably didn't expect his licence-plate # to be looked up, but still), but it does make for a relatively happy ending, with the protagonist killing the serial killer.

Think about it. First, Leonard makes sure to get a tattoo of Teddy's license plate number. Second, we clearly see him taking a picture of the dead Teddy in the end. Thus, we can infer that--rather than being "no longer held in check" by Teddy (as the main page claims)...he can at last have the mental satisfaction that his wife is avenged.

[[WMG: They never found the real John G]]

[[WMG: The Sequel]]

[[WMG: Leonard's wife isn't dead.]]

** An interesting idea, but ultimately it wouldn't really add up. It's heavily hinted at that the Sammy Jankis story is just Leonard's own story, therefore Leonard killed his own wife accidentally. Shown even more with the final explanation from Teddy, who says that it was Leonard's wife who had diabetes and that Sammy didn't have a wife (implied visually with the flashback to Leonard injecting his wife's leg and that brief moment where we see Leonard in Sammy's place in that mental institution). Also it would be hard to justify why Leonard chooses to put himself in this false revenge cycle if his wife is still alive, even with his condition.

There's no proof that Leonard's wife isn't still alive. Leonard remembers seeing her lying on the floor, and assumes she died. What if Teddy, the officer investigating the incident, manipulated Leonard into being his thug by telling Leonard wife was killed.