The Moon Landing.

Area 51.

None of these conspiracies have anything on...

DORY: Keep swimming, swimming , swimming...

*Theme Song*

Hello Internet!

Welcome to Film Theory,

The show that swears it won't subject you to a bunch of fish puns in this episode.

I mean, were I to to do that, it would be a "TURTLE" Disaster

Ha, Sorry

Didn't mean to do that on "PORPOISE"

Arghh, POOP, I need to "CLAM" down

Shrrrrggghhh, I can't, I can't keep "FLOUNDER"ing

Someone call a "STURGEON"

Ugh! *BEEP*

Okay... No more.

It's out of my system.

No more fish puns EVER.

I mean, it's not like anyone's ever gonna want a Film Theory on "Shark Tale" anyway...

Ahh, Finding Nemo.

Everybody loves Finding Nemo!

And why shouldn't they?

It's got everything you could want in an animated children's film.

That happens to be about neglected sons,

kidnapping,

imprisonment,

mental illness, and the dangers of the outside world.

MARLIN: One thing we have to remember about the Ocean.

NEMO: It's not safe.

MARLIN: That's my boy!

But in all seriousness,

that's the beauty of Pixar.

Sure, Finding Nemo has cute animated fish talking and making jokes,

but beneath the surface there's some serious adult themes.

And what if I were to tell you that there's a Pixar secret so hidden, so subversive, and so shocking,

that no one has yet to pick up on it?

Would you believe me?

Let's take it a step further.

What if I were to tell you that one fish, Dory, has been lying to us the whole time?

DORY: Huh?

HO HO

I am on to you, Ellen Degeneres.

"Finding Dory"?

More like "Exposing Dory".

The truth is comin' out!

Throughout "Finding Nemo", small fish, against all odds, outsmart bigger predators.

Nemo is constantly told that he simply isn't strong enough to swim in the ocean.

MARLIN: You know you can't swim well!

Yet, in the end, it was Nemo's ability to swim that saves him from being caught by the humans.

Marlin, a small clown fish no one takes seriously,

becomes a legend amongst aquatic life after surviving encounters with sharks, jellyfish, and whales.

It's such an important theme to this movie, that it even appears in the closing credits.

The tiniest, most nervous fish of them all, Blenny, turns the tables on the sharp-fanged Anglerfish, devouring him in one swift bite.

The film boils down to one central idea:

Don't judge people, or in this case, fish, on appearance alone.

And if there's one fish that stands out from the pack,

the most vulnerable of all,

it's Dory. At first glance it's easy to dismiss her.

She suffers from short-term memory loss,

and as such she has no concept of where she is at any given point in time.

She just... wanders around haphazardly from place to place.

Sorta like the animated fish version of Mister Bean.

Dory: Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!

Dory is constantly making silly and dangerous decisions.

Whether it's approaching sharks for directions,

pretending to know whale talk by "slowing down her speech,"

or bouncing up and down on a jellyfish like a trampoline!

Dory even thinks that naval mines are-

DORY: Balloons! Look, it is a party!

Who would ever take this fish seriously?

Yet, the results tell a completely different story.

If you look just at what Dory accomplishes,

she's actually the most competent and knowledgeable fish in the film!

Dory successfully barters with a shark,

controlling them via vegetarian support group!

She may not know what naval mines are,

but she sure knows how to shoot a missile out of a downed submarine!

She's the only fish that can read English,

and the only fish that speaks Whale!

Because... Yeah, slowing down her speech was actually the correct way to do it.

She's the fish that knows to-

DORY: Duck!

-when she sees a seagull,

And, most importantly of all,

the fish that actually finds Nemo and reunites him with his father!

So how do you reconcile Dory's naive personality,

with her shrewd résumé?

The answer lies far in the past,

Ancient Rome, in fact.

No! No, hear me out. That sounds weird, but hear me out.

Claudius was the Roman emperor from 41 to 54 A.D.

As a child, he was afflicted with a limp and slight deafness.

As such, he was ostracized by his wealthy family and considered a disgrace to the name.

Basically, he was Tyrion Lannister.

These handicaps, though, saved Claudius during the tumultuous rule

of Tiberius and Caligula,

who killed ALL noblemen and potential heirs to the throne.

Claudius, though, was spared, because he wasn't perceived as a threat.

And despite Claudius's physical limitations, he was an expert political thinker,

just... like... Tyrion Lannister.

After Caligula was assassinated, Claudius became the emperor,

and under his rule, Rome returned to the prosperity of Augustus's reign.

Aqueducts, new roads, canals. They were all built.

And the empire was once again connected.

So... What does any of this have to do with a fictional animated fish?

Well, just like Claudius, Dory is using a physical limitation

to ward off potential threats.

Except, unlike Claudius, she actually doesn't have those physical limitations.

You heard me right!

I'm saying, right here and right now,

Dory doesn't suffer from short-term memory loss.

In the entirety of Finding Nemo,

she's faking it.

*thunder*

Don't let that wide-eyed, freckled face fool you.

By applying our knowledge of the normal symptoms for short-term memory loss to Dory,

we can find cracks in her so-called "story."

It's time that Dory flops like a fish.

There are actually two main forms of Amnesia:

Retrograde and Anterograde.

In Retrograde Amnesia, a person forgets everything that's happened

before an injury or accident.

Someone suffering from Retrograde Amnesia can still form new memories.

However, memories created prior to the injury are lost.

This is typically caused by head trauma to the brain.

In particular, the Hippocampus, which encodes new memories.

Think of Retrograde as the "Bourne Identity" of Amnesia.

After Jason Bourne is shot and left for dead,

he has no recollection of who he is or what happened.

People suffering for Retrograde Amnesia can recall general knowledge,

but not specifics.

So in the case of Jason Bourne, he can still remember how to kill a man with a hand towel,

but he can't remember the name of the man who taught him how to kill a man with a hand towel.

The second type of Amnesia, Anterograde,

is commonly referred to as "short term memory loss,"

and this is the form of Amnesia that Dory supposedly suffers from.

In Anterograde Amnesia, a person is unable to create new memories following a traumatic event.

Long term memories before that event, however, remain intact.

A person with Anterograde Amnesia may be able to remember their high school mascot,

but they'll be unable to tell you what they just had for lunch twenty minutes ago.

Think of Anterograde as the Memento of Amnsesia.

Y'know, the indie, lesser seen version of Retrograde's more common blockbuster.

In anterograde amnesia, people lose declarative memory:

The recollection of facts, but they retain non-declarative memory,

otherwise known as their procedural memory.

Probably the best way to explain this difference to you is to take you through

the most famous documented case of anterograde amnesia ever recorded

A patient simply known by the code name H.M

1953, Henry Gustav Molaison had a lobectomy to cure his epilepsy.

Basically, had a big chunk of his brain removed

Unfortunately, the procedure while successfully curing the epilepsy resulted in anterograde amnesia.

Leaving Henry unable to form new memories

Per records, Henry loved to do crossword puzzles

He could fill in all the answers pertaining to events, before his surgery

but struggled with any events that happened after words.

And yet, despite the setback, Henry was still able to retain information through procedural memory

Scientists would give Henry the same maze to complete everyday,

And when he was asked whether he remembered doing the maze before,

he had no memory of have ever seeing it in his life

And yet he could instinctually remember how to finish the maze in a reduced amount of time each trial.

He was getting faster at the maze, without ever realizing he had done the maze in the past

Dory, on the surface shows many of the symptoms associated with anterograde amnesia.

When she leads Marlin to the boat that took Nemo she keeps forgetting who he is

DORY: Stop following me, ok?!

A person's name would fall under Declarative Memory, so it makes sense that Dory keeps forgetting Marlin.

In fact, Dory consistently has trouble with names

Calling Nemo, "Fabio," "Chico," "Bingo," "Harpo," and "Elmo"

But never his actual name.

Dory also struggles to remember events that had just occured

While they're being chased by sharks, mid-way through their escape, she forgets that she's being chased at all!

When Dory and Marlin lose the scuba mask, Dory can't remember what they lost!

All these instances are consisted with short-term memory loss.

Just like patient H.M.

That being said, Dory does show a strange knack for remembering particular phrases

Especially her personal motto:

DORY: Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming!

Later, Dory can even remember the address that Nemo's being kept at!

DORY: P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Syndey.

DORY: *gasps*

Those would also classify as Declarative Memory, so...

Is that the proof I'm talking about of her faking?

Well, actually, no!

According to Scientific American™

One of the most common suggestions for better short term memory is to use mnemonic devices!

Dory's mantra of "Always Keep Swimming" fits as a simple mnemonic device

Reminding her of her primary survival tactic

Through simple repeated phrases, people suffering from short term memory loss can actually start to learn and to remember!

And as for that address, Dory's repetition of the numbers is consisted with procedural memory!

But then how can Dory read English words, like she does with the exit sign and the scuba mask

Without having any knowledge of that ability?

By this logic, shouldn't Dory be unable to read as well?

Shouldn't she have forgotten how to?

Well, no!

Believe it or not, there are actually multiple instances of anterograde amnesiacs

Learning to play an instrument

In these cases, the amnesiac has no recollection of learning the instrument

But when asked to play, they can do so extremely well!

This is because instruments are learned through repeated practice.

Procedural memory.

Think about how H.M. can't remember finishing the maze every day,

but when they ask him to do it again, he can complete it much quicker than the day before!

Thus, there's a scientific precedent for Dory being able to read while still not remembering that she can in the first place.

MARLIN: You can read?!

DORY: I can read? That's right! I can read!

Pretty much every single one of Dory's accomplishments can be attributed to Procedural Memory.

She knows how to speak whale, avoids seagulls, read

All because she's done so before!

Dory wouldn't remember that she has these abilities

But, instinctually, she would still know how to do them.

So then what am I doing calling Dory a liar?

Who am I kidding?

I just spent an entire episode arguing against myself!

Maybe Dory DOES suffer from Interograde Amnesia

Everything seems to check out

I guess, sometimes, a children's film about talking animated fish is simply just a children's film about talking animated fish.

Dory!

You're free to swim away.

DORY: Hi. I'm Dory.

DORY: I-I-I suffer from short term memory loss

DORY: Okay, true! I forget things almost instantly! It runs in my family.

DORY: Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming!

DORY: A boat? Hey, I've seen a boat!

DORY: Hey, I've seen a boat! (repeated)

How could Dory remember the boat...

...but then forget meeting Marlin?

The boat wouldn't fall under Procedural Memory...

Dory seeing a boat would be a fact. A Declarative Memory.