You bring up solid points, and the question you posed at the end is quite sound; however, 22 clearly remembered being in the Great Before during the time she was in Joe's body; granted, that wasn't exactly a legitimate 'life' per se (due to the accidental nature of her ending up in Joe's body), but if this sort of exception occurred there, who says it couldn't also occur after 22 ends up in her "true" body?
Edited by JacktheMovieFanatic
I feel like this goes back to the Counselor's mention of forgetting your own childbirth. Joe is already a grown adult so there wasn’t a childbirth to forget.
On top of that, 22 initially went to Earth using a thin spot between the spiritual and material planes created by Moonwind, as opposed to the Earth Portal provided by the Counselors. As we see in the movie, this thin spot doesn’t seem to follow the same rules as the Earth Portal since it had a body-switching effect and Terry explicitly mentioned that Joe cheated the system by using it to avoid death.
Meanwhile, the Earth Portal ensures that every soul will have their own body (or return to their body in Joe’s case) instead of accidentally stealing it from someone else. Assuming the Counselors aren’t the ones who decided unborn souls shouldn’t remember being in the Great Before, the Earth Portal probably has Laser-Guided Karma as a natural side effect.
This could beg the question of why Joe remembered being the Great Before, but as I mentioned before, he was already a grown adult at that point in time. Unlike 22, who never had a body of her own and would have to go through the whole birthing process that'll be immediately forgotten.
Ryoko.
To answer the question in the edit reason, it’s explicitly stated by one of the Soul Counselors that born souls don't remember being in the Great Before. "Forgetting the trauma of childbirth is one of the great gifts of the universe" in their words.
So unless an exception can be made for souls who technically weren't "born" yet when they first experienced life, it stands to reason they just wouldn’t remember anything that happened prior to their birth. The movie never hints at such an exception and Word of God hasn’t stated that to be the case either.
Joe recognizing vocal cues is a reasonable assumption to make, but why would 22 remember something that happened prior to her "true" life on Earth if one of the rules established was "you don't remember being in the Great Before"?
Ryoko. Hide / Show Replies