History WMG / Memento

* The scientific consensus seems to be that psychological trauma might induce blocking out of certain events in the past (psychogenic retrograde amnesia), but not anterograde amnesia when you can form no long-term memories at all. It just doesn't seem to be possible at all without severe physical brain damage. That being said, it's practically canon that psychological trauma was at play in how exactly Leonard's mind went about certain events.

* The climax will show him and Leonard having a MexicanStandoff - with the added complication that neither of them can at all remember ''why''!

While working on the case, Leonard had though occasionally about how he would handle such a situation, and came up with the Polaroid and tattoo placement ideas during this time. This gave him something to build on when he actually got the condition himself.

* 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,

* The climax will show him and Leonard having a MexicanStandoff - with the added complication that none of them can at all remember ''why''!

** The climax will show him and Leonard having a MexicanStandoff - with the added complication that none of them can at all remember ''why''!

The guy in Room #9 gets retrograde amnesia from the door attack, and seeks out Leonard for revenge!

Given the level of Teddy's trustworthiness as seen in the film, there's no good reason to believe he's being honest that the first "John G" they killed was the real killer of Lenny's wife, or that Teddy even bothered to try. It's just as likely that he was scheming Lenny from the start, using him to tie the loose ends of his failed cases.

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.

* 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,

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.

[[WMG: Teddy was the ''real'' "John G."]]
Lenny's wife really ''was'' murdered that night, and Teddy was the one who did it. Fearing that Lenny might eventually find out, Teddy concocted a scheme to get him to think Jimmy Grants was the man he was looking for. Since Teddy, a dirty cop, was already looking for a way to kill Grants and take his money, it would be a win-win for him. But when Lenny finally succeeds in killing Grants, he realizes that he's killed the wrong guy and becomes suspicious of Teddy as a result. So Teddy tries to throw him off by telling him a fake story about how they'd already caught the real John G. over a year ago, and that Lenny has been deluding himself about the events surrounding his wife's death. However, Lenny knows that he can't trust Teddy anymore, so he writes down a reminder for himself to not believe any of Teddy's lies. In the end, Lenny, with the help of Natalie, figures out Teddy's identity and finally manages to kill him. There are ''definitely'' some holes in this theory (a FreezeFrameBonus earlier in the movie [during the Sammy Jankis story] suggests that Teddy was telling the truth), but it's still an interesting alternative.

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.

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.
[[WMG: Lenny followed his own tracks and ended up killing a real police officer]]
I wrote out the timeline for the black and white sequence and the color sequence. They meet at the "beginning" (movie's end) of the color portion and the end of the black and white portion, which are in fact the same. This is why there's a fade from black and white to color. The end of the black and white sequences is Lenny killing Jimmy. (I think his name is Jimmy, but he's the one with the porn star mustache and 70s gangster suit LOL) Then Lenny writes down Teddy's liscense plate number to later tattoo on himself; a tattoo that was shown on him during the color sequences. At the end of the film Lenny is headed to the tat parlor and I believe that is right before the rest of the color scenes begin. So Lenny basically is a little nuts, but it's out of LOVE! so it's OK

* Yeah, that's not a Guess. That's exactly what happened. Lenny made Teddy, the cop who had been manipulating him, his next target and killed him.

I wrote out the timeline for the black and white sequence and the color sequence. They meet at the "beginning" (movie's end) of the color portion and the end of the black and white portion, which are in fact the same. This is why there's a fade from black and white to color. The end of the black and white sequences is Lenny killing Jimmy. (I think his name is Jimmy, but he's the one with the porn star mustache and 70s gangster suit LOL) Then Lenny writes down Teddy's liscense plate number to later tattoo on himself; a tattoo that was shown on him during the color sequences. At the end of the film Lenny is headed to the tat parlor and I believe that is right before the rest of the color scenes begin. So Lenny basically is a little nuts, but it's out of LOVE! so it's OK

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.

Teddy says too much in the climax (either confident that Lenny likes the arrangement, or that he won't write it down in time), explaining they've killed multiple John Gs and that "we can go town-to-town killing John Gs forever". He also tells the story about how Lenny is Jankis; whether the story is true or not, Teddy is using it to distract Lenny into thinking he's totally crazy long enough that he'll forget about Teddy's involvement (Teddy's only there in the first place to make sure Lenny gets back to the hotel without wandering around, and also to ensure Jimmy is dead).

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?!), but it does make for a relatively happy ending, with the protagonist killing the serial killer.

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=], but it does make for a relatively happy ending, with the protagonist killing the serial killer.

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 Jenkins stopped grabbing the object that shocks him).

Teddy says too much in the climax (either confident that Lenny likes the arrangement, or that he won't write it down in time), explaining they've killed multiple John Gs and that "we can go town-to-town killing John Gs forever". He also tells the story about how Lenny is Jenkins; whether the story is true or not, Teddy is using it to distract Lenny into thinking he's totally crazy long enough that he'll forget about Teddy's involvement (Teddy's only there in the first place to make sure Lenny gets back to the hotel without wandering around, and also to ensure Jimmy is dead).

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 "this page is irrelevant now 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 Jenkins stopped grabbing the object that shocks him).

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 "this page is irrelevant now 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 Jenkins stopped grabbing the object that shocks him).

Teddy is a crooked cop \ serial killer who is using Leonard to kill criminals. 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 Jenkins stopped grabbing the object that shocks him).

When his mind sees a logical way to sidestep this issue -- such as the motel clerk's clumsy attempt to double-room him -- it grasps that opportunity and reinforces Lenny's belief that he's smart enough to compensate for the "amnesia". It also explains how he developed the note-and-tattoo solution -- he actually ''has'' new memories, he just ''forgets'' that he can form new ones, recasting everything back as being about Sammy Jankis. (Hence, the Sammy Jankis tattoo's implication, that his subconscious wrote that as one of the first symptoms of his elaborate delusion, becomes even sadder.) Every now and then, though -- little pieces of things come through, such as his musing that he must have burned his wife's stuff again and again. This is his subconscious achievement -- taking revenge for his wife's rape and 'murder', because he cannot accept that he killed her with insulin due to his memory issues.

[[WMG: Leonard's memory problem is psychological, not neurological.]]

Trauma can induce amnesia, and more to the point, his "memory of actual past events is unreliable", suggesting he's subconsciously rewriting events in his life to make himself not only his wife's avenger, but her "eternal" avenger. Teddy's mistake is giving Leonard's subconscious a good reason to eliminate him (to maintain his internal fantasies of being his wife's avenger) and a little bit of information to work with (that he fits the profile name, effectively). When his memory is "challenged", he genuinely loses track of the memory -- because his subconscious mind is keeping things consistent, because otherwise he "killed his wife to maintain his psychologically based amnesia". When his mind sees a logical way to sidestep this issue -- such as the motel clerk's clumsy attempt to double-room him -- it grasps that opportunity and reinforces Lenny's belief that he's smart enough to compensate for the "amnesia". It also explains how he developed the note-and-tattoo solution -- he actually "has" new memories, he just "forgets" that he can form new ones, recasting everything back as being about Sammy Jankis. (Hence, the Sammy Jankis tattoo's implication, that his subconscious wrote that as one of the first symptoms of his elaborate delusion, becomes even sadder.) Every now and then, though -- little pieces of things come through, such as his musing that he must have done certain things again and again. This is his subconscious achievement -- taking revenge for his wife's rape and 'murder', because he cannot accept that he killed her with insulin due to his memory issues.

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

While working on the case, Leonard had though occasionally about how he would handle such a situation, and came up with the Polaroid and tattoo placement ideas during this time. This gave him something to build on when he actually got the condition himself.